Possible "Foo Fighter" Documents Found For Australia?
Part 3
Recently, in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I have presented World War II records comprising of potentially unusual aerial sightings which were reported by Allied servicemen in the Asia-Pacific theatre, and routed through Brisbane, Australia. These were not Australian records though; they were American. Researcher Barry Greenwood is currently indexing nearly ten thousand pages of WW2 “Foo Fighter” records, the majority of which were donated to him by author Keith Chester, who wrote the book “Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II”. It is from this archive that I sourced the material I’ve offered so far.
Furthermore, I discussed the possibility of searching our own National Archives of Australia (NAA) for records created during WWII, starting with Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) files. Using the NAA’s powerful “RecordSearch” database, I searched for operational records of RAAF providence, specifically created between 1942 and 1945. I picked this period because it very much seems to be when the vast majority of unusual phenomenon reports were coming through, both in Europe and Asia. Dozens of files, already digitised, thus viewable online, came up from my search parameters. Simultaneously, researcher Keith Basterfield show interest in this endeavour, so, as we have done before, we divided some of the files up and have begun searching for aerial oddities. To our surprise, somewhat promising results have appeared already for both of us. Keith has presented some of his findings on here, and is continuing to search for more.
The two records I found contain what are probably references to aerial battle and flight activity, but one can’t be sure. The first file I went through relates to our RAAF’s heavy bombing contributions in Europe where we flew under the command of the British. It is titled “RAAF Squadron Narrative Reports – 466 Squadron” and has a contents date range of 1942 – 1944. The Series Number is A9652, Control Symbol is BOX 37 and the Barcode is 13057977. On Page 20, it is stated:
“…were not observed and there was no return fire. Aircraft HE150 saw a white flash on sea and red flash in sky. Position 53. 48 N. 03. 33 E. Aircraft HE411 saw at 53. 36 N. 03.27E. red star followed by white star. At 18.46 same aircraft saw a red flash in the sky followed by a white flash on the sea at 53.40 N. 03.00 E. Aircraft HE.53 saw on sea a small flickering yellow light at approximately 53. 37 N. 0414 E. Aircraft HE164 saw a shape on the sea at approximately 53.43 N. 04.37 E. The shape resembled an aircraft rather than a ship but it was not on fire and no light was seen.”
The reference to “red star followed by white star” is curious because, although one would normally assume that the narrative is discussing aerial ordnance and direct hits on an aircraft, there are many other reports from Europe like this that are anything but. The page is imaged below.
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Another possibly curious entry, though incredibly sparse on detail, comes from a 1943 file titled “RAAF Command Headquarters – [Number] 9 Operational Group - Reports on Operations”. The Series Number is A11093 and Control Symbol is listed as 370/2M3. The Barcode is 464186, and file is a mere 39 pages long. The file has lists of tabulated mission information, and contains many references to “U/I Aircraft”. The term “U/I” clearly means “Unidentified”, though no details are usually given. On page 29 though, there is an 16th December, 1943 entry that contains the following passage besides the “Results” section:
“Force not located. One u/i airplane sighted, position 0730 S. 15410 E. at 0956/L. but were unable to overtake.”
From this, we can’t be sure who was unable to overtake who. In fact we can’t be sure of anything. There is no more information. What this does, as I have said before, is shows us decent records do exist, and need to be checked. There may be quite shocking UFO cases in right there waiting. The above mentioned page is imaged below.
