Mack Maloney
UFOs in Wartime: What They Didn't Want You To Know
For my best friend
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Warren Thompson, Erik Simonsen, Mike Machat, Larry Blumenthal and Walter Boyne for help with the photos. For their guidance, Keith Chester and Jerome Clark. Also Amanda Ng, Tom Colgan, Dominick Abel and Erica Varela. Music by Sky Club. Special thanks to Margaret MacDonald and Mike Dominic, www.paladinfreelance.blogspot.com.
Go to www.UFOsinWartime.com for more information
FOREWORD
I was happy to oblige when Mack Maloney asked me to write the foreword to his new book, UFOs in Wartime. Having written Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in WWII, I was more than familiar with the subject. Covering the years 1933 through 1945, Strange Company is an effort focused on UFO sightings made in both the European and Pacific theaters during the Second World War. Mack’s book, on the other hand, provides a much broader view of a phenomenon that’s been reported during every major military conflict since the First World War.
These conflicts have filled the skies with man’s aeronautical wonders, an ever-expanding array of airplanes, jets, rockets, drones, flares, and balloons. Natural and celestial phenomena also made appearances among this aerial war material. But something else has been reported in war-torn skies around the world as well — unconventional objects that defy all explanation. Some of these baffling objects seem to come straight from the annals of science fiction. What makes these observations so important is that in many cases they’ve been reported by highly trained military aviation personnel — people with great observational skills — during a time when their lives depended on accurate identification.
UFOs in Wartime provides a valuable work for both the casual reader and the student of unidentified flying objects. You’ll revisit a number of important UFO cases that still remain perplexing as well as many being reported here at length for the first time. In this accounting of mysterious observations, you’ll learn that while our aeronautical progress has advanced through the decades, unknown aerial objects were, and still are, being reported.
I applaud Mack’s curiosity and willingness to explore such a controversial topic. While Mack does not claim to know what these sightings represent, one thing is for sure: UFOs in Wartime will ignite many questions and provide much fuel for thought.
Keith Chester
May 11, 2011
PART ONE
Early Sightings
1
In the Beginning
On October 28, 312, Roman emperor Constantine I and his army were advancing toward Rome to do battle with his archrival, Maxentius.
At stake was nothing less than control of the Roman Empire. Scribes traveling with Constantine reported that shortly before the momentous battle, a mysterious object appeared in the sky and hovered over the army. Glowing and shaped like a cross, it was seen by all, including Constantine. The emperor came to believe the object’s appearance was a message that his men should paint the sign of the cross on their shields before they went into combat against Maxentius. Constantine so ordered his troops, and they went on to win the historic Battle of Milvian Bridge. As a result, Constantine not only became sole ruler of Rome, but he made Christianity, which previously had been outlawed, the official religion of the Roman Empire.
It’s almost too overwhelming to contemplate, but what would our world look like today had it not been for that mysterious object in the sky?
UFOs exist — we just don’t know what they are yet.
Those wise words have been written other places before, but they are very true nonetheless.
What some believe to be UFOs are mentioned throughout the Bible. They can be found on ancient coins and in cave dwellers’ art. Chinese history tells of soldiers soaring through the skies in fantastic airships, using fire-breathing dragons as their wingmen. The ancient scripts of India describe in detail incredible aerial machines big enough to be flying cities. Likenesses of UFOs can be found on stone carvings from Egypt to Mesopotamia to the great Mayan civilizations of Central America.
UFOs have always been with us — and they’re still with us today. We make movies and TV shows about them. They appear in modern literature, comic books and video games. Museums and monuments are built in their honor. And they are mysterious. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know a few things about them.
They frequently appear at night, sometimes in groups, but mostly just as one or two. They can fly faster and maneuver unlike any man-made aerial machine. They are generally benign, though they may or may not abduct humans in order to see what makes us tick. And they seem to be able to come and go at will, anytime, anywhere.
But UFOs have also displayed another intriguing tendency: They have revealed themselves with alarming frequency during times of war and human conflict. Incredibly, there were reports of a UFO flying over Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. There are numerous accounts of UFOs, dubbed “foo fighters,” being spotted by Allied and Axis pilots throughout World War II. World War I also had its share of UFO sightings and aerial visions. The Korean War produced a number of particularly bizarre episodes. During the 1950s and ’60s, in the midst of the Cold War, America’s skies seemed to be virtually raining UFOs. There are even outlandish stories of UFOs aiding George Washington in winning the American Revolution.
The numbers seem to show that UFO sightings spike in times of war, or what could be called imminent war, especially from the mid-twentieth century on. But what does this mean? Is it because there are more aircraft flying during modern-era wartime — bombers, fighter planes, transports — so there are more opportunities for people to see strange flying things?
Or is someone looking in on us? Watching us as we go to such great lengths to kill each other?
This book is a collection of exactly that: incidents in which UFOs have made their presence known at some of the most unusual times of conflict, frightening some, confusing and puzzling many more — but rarely if ever interfering, which might be the most tantalizing clue of all.
For the most part, the stories here are a recounting of episodes uncovered and researched by other people, many of whom have dedicated their lives to documenting and studying the mind-bending riddle of UFOs. This esteemed list includes Jerome Clark, Dr. Richard Haines, the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Bruce Maccabee, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt (a military man caught in the middle), Jacques Vallee, Stan Gordon, Timothy Good, Robert Hastings and Keith Chester, who literally wrote the book on foo fighters and dragged the start of the UFO era back to the early 1940s, where it belonged.
When this great mystery is finally solved, people will look back on these visionaries and say: We couldn’t have done it without them.
Constantine may not have been the only famous warrior to have strange flying objects affect the outcome of his military campaign.
The renowned radio commentator and UFO author Frank Edwards once related what some might consider a fanciful story about Alexander the Great having an unearthly encounter during his bid to conquer the known world in the fourth century B.C. *(See the accompanying reading list at the back of this book.)
Alexander’s huge army had come to a strategic river crossing. The Macedonian mastermind had to swiftly move his forces across the waterway in order to continue his campaign. But just as he was about to ford the river, two strange craft suddenly appeared in the sky.