AAF heavy bombers during World War II. (U.S. Air Force photo)
The 415th Night Fighter Squadron is widely credited with the naming of these phenomena. At the time, the word “foo” was regarded as a nonsense word used by American cartoonist Bill Holman in “Smokey Stover”–a cartoon strip centered on the misadventures of a firefighter. Not only was Smokey Stover actually painted on several military aircraft during WWII, but Lt. Meiers, the radar observer from the 415th, was a fan of the cartoon. Meiers is said to be the first person to coin the term, and it was quickly adopted by fellow airmen.
It really didn’t take long for word, and speculation, about these sightings to spread.
Robert Wilson, a war correspondent with the Associated Press, wrote an article titled “
Balls of Fire Stalk U.S. Fighters In Night Assaults Over Germany,” which ran on the front page of The New York Times, January 2nd, 1945. The article simultaneously posits the idea that this was something the German military was responsible for, while also sharing the first-hand accounts of U.S. airmen who have a lot more uncertainty that this was even a man-made object. Lt. Meiers is quoted in the article, saying:
“When I first saw the things off my wing tips, I had the horrible thought that a German on the ground was ready to press a button and explode them. But they don’t explode or attack us. They just seem to follow us like will-o’-the wisps.”
A lot of time and effort has gone into debunking these Foo Fighters. The idea that these were being used against any particular side or country was dispelled when investigations showed that both Japanese and German pilots had also reported similar sightings of their own. While the name Foo Fighter became a catch-all for any UFO sighting for a time, it originally served to describe these specific sightings that looked to many like glowing, orb-like entities or fireballs.
A United States Coast Guard photographer, Shell R. Alpert, took a photograph that allegedly shows unidentified flying objects flying in a “V” formation at the Salem, Massachusetts, air station at 9:35 a.m. on 16 July 1952, through a window screen. (U.S. Coast Guard photograph)
This description lent itself to the idea that these sightings could be a weather phenomenon known as St. Elmo’s fire (unrelated to the Emilio Estevez melodrama from the 80’s). St. Elmo’s fire, largely seen as a good omen by sailors, is plasma that produces a spark. It is independent of the clouds or the ground, which differentiates it from lightning. It’s not uncommon for this spark to occur on or near ships’ masts, as well as aircraft wings, and produce a violet or blue glow.While it was considered plausible by some that St. Elmo’s fire could explain these sightings, pilots who had first-hand accounts of both Foo Fighters and various weird weather occurrences quickly shut down the idea, due to the stark color differences and the observed maneuverability of these objects.
A look at St. Elmo’s fire from the cockpit of a Boeing 737 (fast forward to about 2:24)
Another go-to explanation was combat fatigue. While incredibly nuanced, and thankfully better understood today, we still know that the impacts of war and combat on service members can contribute to a multitude of physical and psychological issues. However, what they suggested then was
collective psychosis, which is not only exceedingly rare, but even more unlikely in these scenarios where reports of sightings were happening from all sides and independent of one another.
Then, of course, there was the idea that this was in fact a weapon developed by Nazi Germany. Some placed blame on the Nazis as a collective entity, but others had a specific name in mind: Wernher von Braun. The then-32-year-old aeronautics engineer led the development of the V-2 rocket, the first-ever long-range ballistic missile. Braun was regarded as a prodigy in the field and was thought by many to be capable of never-before-seen technology. His intelligence was so sought after, in fact, that he was one of 1,600 German scientists and engineers brought to the U.S. for government employment following WWII as part of Operation: Paperclip. Von Braun would go on to
lead the development of the Saturn V rocket that took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon. Wernher von Braun with Nazi military officials in 1941 (Wikimedia Commons)
While some still like this idea to this day, aviation experts and eyewitnesses both support the idea that the
Luftwaffe had nothing that could even compare to the Foo Fighters. Despite some close encounters, none of the Airmen had ever seen any mechanical parts in these objects, nor did they ever pick anything up on radar. Nothing ever convinced them unequivocally that these were man-made weapons, or that they were even out to harm them.
There have been a number of investigations into these sightings over the years. In 1953 (right around the time the U.S. and Canada actually decided to
try to build a flying saucer of their own) the CIA had even put together a group of scientists to give their insight and possible explanation. Unfortunately, this never yielded any official response. So realistically, we know just as much about these Foo Fighters now as they did back then. However, with time comes technological advancement and advantage. With sightings of these glowing light or fireball-type objects still occurring today, alongside so many other well-documented aerial phenomena, we may be well on our way to figuring out the nearly 80-year-old mystery. This article was originally published Dec. 2, 2021 on Sandboxx News. Follow Sandboxx News on Instagram. Read Next: Did UFOs Really Disable Nuclear-Armed American Missiles in 1967?