Documents / Official release
This file from SHAEF Air Staff, dated between January and March 1945 and closing with an 18 March 1945 letter, collects wartime correspondence about "night phenomena" that 415th Night Fighter Squadron crews called foofighters. It includes the squadron's sortie extracts from December 1944 and January 1945 describing lights that followed aircraft near Strasbourg and elsewhere, plus a report of an aluminum-colored cylinder that pilots attacked. The Air Ministry suggested Me 262s and flak rockets as explanations but admitted the matter remained a mystery.
From the source:Release of 2026-05-08 Incident: 3/18/45, Germany. NARA Record Group 331, catalogue id 120752. This file contains SHAEF messages and memorandums related to "night phenomena (foofighters)," flak rockets, unidentified cylindrical objects, and blinking lights. The documents include multiple references to the observations of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron.
“Headquarters”7 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
AIR MINISTRY. USSTAF. (M)2nd T.A.F. (M)1ST TAC A.F. H.Q. IXTH TAC. AI.320 Date4 MARCH 1945 (Write horizontally)FOLLOWING RECEIVED FROM H.Q.NINTH5 TAC AIR COMMAND DATED 1 MARCH QUOTE PILOTS REPORT FOLLOWING AN ALUMINUM10 COLOURED CYLINDER SHAPED OBJECT COMMA ABOUT 12 FEET LONG15 AND 1 FOOT IN DIAMETER WAS OBSERVED FLOATING IN THE AIR AT20 9,000 FEET(.) IT APPEARED TO BE SUSPENDED VERTICALLY25 WITH SMALL FINS AND A MAST PROJECTING FROM THE LOWER30 END(.) THE OBJECT WAS ATTACKED AND PARTIALLY DEFLATED35 COMMA A RED FLAME RESULTED WITHOUT SMOKE (.) THE CYLINDER40 DID NOT DISINTEGRATE (.) PHOTO TAKEN BY 107 SQ.45 OF 67 TAC/R GROUP AT 011030 HOURS VIC F-5710 UNQUOTE(.)50 (*.Strike out methods which do not apply. Below this line is for Signals use only.) System in Time in Reader Sender System out Time out Reader Sender System out Time out Reader Sender T.O.R. 4347
Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 17 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.