Boston, Massachusetts, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 2 January 1945, page

Balls of Fire Race Alongside As Allied Planes Skim Reich

A U.S. NIGHT FIGHTER BASE, France, Jan. 2 (AP) - The Nazis have thrown something new into the night skies over Germany - the weird, mysterious "foo-fighter," balls of fire which race alongside the wings of American Beaufighters flying intruder missions over the Reich.

U.S. pilots have been encountering the eerie "foo-fighter" for more than a month in their night flights. No one apparently knows exactly what this sky weapon is.

The balls of fire appear suddenly and accompany the planes for miles. They appear to be radio-controlled from the ground and manage to keep up with planes flying 300 miles an hour, official intelligence reports disclose.

"There are three kinds of these lights we call 'foo-fighters,'" said Lieut. Donald Meiers, of Chicago. "One is red balls of fire which appear off our wing tips and fly along with us, the second is a vertical row of three balls of fire which fly in front of us and the third is a group of about 15 lights which appear off in the distance - like a Christmas tree up in the air - and flicker on and off."

The pilots of this night fighter squadron - in operation since September, 1943 - find these fiery balls the weirdest thing they have as yet encountered. They are convinced that the "foo-fighter" is designed to be a psychological weapon as well as military although it is not the nature of the fire balls to attack planes.

"A 'foo-fighter' picked me up recently at 700 feet and chased me 20 miles down the Rhine Valley," Lieutenant Meiers said. "I turned to starboard and two balls of fire turned with me. I turned to the port side and they turned with me. We were going 260 miles an hour and the balls were keeping right up with us."

"On another occasion when a 'foo-fighter' picked us up, I dived at 360 miles per hour. It kept right off our wing tips for awhile and then zoomed into the sky."

"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."

An Associated Press report from Paris Dec. 13 said the Germans had thrown silvery balls into the air against day raiders. Pilots then reported they had seen these objects, both individually and in clusters, during forays over the Reich.

Boston, Massachusetts, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 12 August 1946, page

Mystery Rockets Fly High and Low Across Sweden

STOCKHOLM, Aug. 12 (AP) - Mysterious spool-shaped rockets - speeding with fiery tails - have become a common sight in Sweden, and military officials no longer doubt that the country is in a target area for experimentation with remotely controlled missiles.

Since July 1, newspapers have published reports of the flying fireballs nearly every day.

In the beginning many believed excited eye-witnesses had seen nothing more ominous than meteors. However, between July 9 and July 12, military authorities received 300 reports of the missiles and since that time added reports have poured in daily. Fragments examined by scientists gave little in the way of clues, except to indicate the presence of coke and other common materials.

Authorities, promising a communique on the results of the investigation within a few days, have cautioned Swedish newspapers not to publish the names of places where the ghost rockets appear, so that the senders would not be provided with important data. Official quarters declined to speculate on the source of the missiles, but it was believed elsewhere that the rockets come from some place along the Baltic coast of Germany.

Only in a few cases is it known that the missiles actually landed in Sweden. Military personnel have been busily dredging a small lake in Lapland.

Military authorities said the missiles evidently passed over Sweden in a huge curve. Some reports indicated the objects carried a device for self-destruction, and military experts said some apparently had exploded in the air. The longest flight of any of the missiles, so far as military experts could determine, was about 600 miles, as compared with the range of 35 to 45 miles for the first German V-2 rocket bombs.

There is no comparison, however, with the rocket bombs. The mystery missiles are small, and at low altitudes seem almost square. The bottom of the object appeared to have been painted red, eyewitnesses said. Some observed these missiles flying extremely low.

These reports have been substantiated by a Swedish officer, a flier, who saw one of the rockets during a recent flight.

Boston, Massachusetts, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 15 August 1946, page 1

President to Sail Off N. E. Shores; Finns See Rockets
The World's Day

New England: Truman Plans Yachting Vacation

President Truman will spend an 18-day vacation in New England waters, leaving Washington tomorrow in the Presidential Yacht U.S.S. Williamsburg headed for Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, and a sail along the east coast to Maine.[Page 2]

In Europe: Projectiles Reported Over Finland

Projectiles, reportedly similar to these recently seen over Sweden, have been observed over Helsinki, a dispatch from the Finnish capital disclosed.