Foo Fighters: Then and Now

At the end of the Second World War, Allied pilots encounter strange light phenomena during their missions: glowing spheres appear to follow their aircraft and seem to play with them. Military leadership does not rule out the possibility that the phenomenon, which is also observed in other locations, could be a previously unknown Nazi weapon. The pilots give the unknown “adversary” the nickname “Foo Fighter.” Sightings of unidentified flying objects existed long before the term UFO was coined in the 1950s. The so-called Roswell incident in 1947 marks the starting point of a true UFO hysteria—especially in the United States. Newspapers repeatedly report on “flying saucers” and alleged contacts with extraterrestrials. Scientist David J. Hall and “ufologist” Anna Whitty investigate the most famous of these encounters, from the Foo Fighters of the Second World War to the present day: What happened? What evidence exists—and how credible is it?

When people hear the term Foo Fighters, most probably think first of the band of the same name. But it was also the name Allied pilots gave to unidentified flying objects during the Second World War. These UFOs—as we call them today—appear in a wide variety of forms: as unknown aircraft, mysterious luminous objects, or dazzling light phenomena. But are they really evidence of extraterrestrial visits to our planet? In this part of their investigation, David J. Hall and Anny Whitty go in search of clues. Which natural phenomena could explain the observations? What role do secret military projects for the development of new weapons technologies play? And are there perhaps even direct connections between the Cold War and the UFO hysteria of the 1940s and 1950s?