09 September, 2014

Why The US Army Hunted for UFOs After WWII

In the U.S. Army’s cache of declassified documents released via FOIA in 1994, you will find a 339 page collection of documents available on the U.S. Army website.The bulk of those documents consisted of the U.S. Army’s investigation into the origins of “flying saucer” research in Germany, originating with the research of the “Horten Brothers” – Walter and Reimar Horton who developed advanced “flying wings” for Germany during the 1940s. The interesting fact about those investigations was that the timeline has a direct link to that of the Roswell crash in July of 1947.



On July 8, 1947, the public information office of the Roswell Air Field made the now-famous announcement that they’d recovered a “flying disc”. This announcement was, just as famously, recanted. Everything that followed is shrouded in mystery, allegations of cover-up, and fabrications, lies and baseless conclusions on the part of both skeptics and believers.

However, the Army CIC documents provide some interesting clues as to what was really going on inside the military immediately following the event. The reality is that the UFO sightings throughout 1947 and 1948 triggered a massive investigation into the work of German scientists during WWII on secret flying saucers.

German Scientists Open Up

After a couple of letters in July from German scientists claiming that they had a part to play in the “invention” of the flying saucer as a weapon, one of the first very intriguing letters arrived on August 5th of 1947 at Frankfurt. The letter was signed by a “Guida Bernardy” (some references state Guido Bernardy).
horten-flying-disc
Documents like these are not cited often by many Ufologists, because they don’t support the party line that aliens crash-landed in Roswell. Bernardy’s letter tells another tale, but no less eerie or strange. He opened the letter as follows:
“During the war, as I was attached to the 2nd A.d.N., I heard of a Professor Maurer who conducted atom experiments for the OKM at the Krim Peninsula.”
He went on to explain that the tests were to find a way to use atomic power as a propellant, first to achieve greater distance with missiles, but also later to create a “combat-ready weapon” – discs that were equipped to deliver a nuclear payload to “New York, California, Texas, Wisconsin, and nine more states at a determined point in time”.
According to Bernardy:
“The secret work file ran under the name of ‘SCHITORIT’. This was developed by IG Farben [a German company] and manufactured. Six of these bombs were found by the USA in Germany. They were built by Krupp and partly by Blohm and Voss [German Companies].”
Bernardy came across with some crazy claims, but he proved the weight of his words by telling the Army something that was supposed to be a closely guarded secret by the U.S. government at the time – the development of the nuclear bomb.
“The bomb, called by the USA, the ‘great A-Bomb’, is now being manufactured in two plants located in Ohio and New York State. It is the size of an apple and used as a throwbomb. It’s effective range is 600 km.”
How close to reality was this? Well, in 1947, the U.S. Government established the Mound Plant in Ohio for the development of the explosive components inside of nuclear weapons.
In fact, he described exactly how much plutonium was used inside of nuclear weapons – approximately an amount the size of an apple.
flying saucers document

The Hunt for UFOs

It isn’t entirely clear whether the sudden interest in UFOs by the Army was sparked by the volume of letters from German scientists mentioning the development of Flying Disc technology in Germany during the war, or some other reason. What is clear is that interest was sparked.
In fact, one memo dated October 28th, 1947 from the 970th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment, European Command, represents one of the very few official U.S. Army documents that confirms not only the overwhelming presence of sightings of flying discs in the U.S., but also the fact that such flying saucers were known to have existed in Germany.
The memo reads:
“The Air Materiel Command is of the opinion that some sort of object, such as the flying saucer, did exist. At present time, construction models are being built for wind tunnel tests.”
This, by the way, is a clear admission that flying saucers were housed at Wright Field, Ohio — meaning that the claims out there by some former USAF veterans that they had seen such a craft housed at Wright Patterson could very well be true. What isn’t true, is that they were extra-terrestrial. They were made by humans — proved by this document.
An AIR INTELLIGENCE report makes it clear that the Army was aware of the sightings throughout the U.S. of these craft — but the lack of information and the presence of the investigation itself implies that the Army never had possession of any such craft. Instead, the investigation shows that the Army was actively seeking to discover where the sighted discs originated from.
An alleged “Flying saucer” type aircraft or object in flight approximately the shape of a disc has been reported by many observers from widely [indecipherable] places, such as the United States, Alaska, Canada, Hungary, the Island of Guam, Japan, etc. This object has been reported by many competent observers. Sightings have been made from the ground as well as from the air.”
The document then detailed common characteristics from sightings of the unknown craft. Namely, flat bottomed and highly light-reflective, absence of sound, ability to quickly maneuver and hover, the ability to completely disappear or disintegrate or appear without warning from high-altitude.
1947-newspaper
The document described the first U.S. sightings of the discs as occurring in the middle of June, and most notably, the document describes the time period known as the Roswell Crash.
The greatest activity in the U.S. was during the last week of June and the first week of July.
What appeared to unnerve investigators was the fact that the known German technology – developed originally by the Horton Brothers, had fallen into the hands of the Russians, while the Americans had obtained the bulk of the V-2 missile technology and scientists.
A Horten design known as the IX, which was designated as the Go-8-222 and Go-F-60 (night fighter) was to be manufactured by the Gotha Plant. [...] This plant is now in the hands of the Russians.”
The search for anyone associated with the Horten Brothers eventually turned up some interesting information.

The Flying Saucer Did Exist

For years, Ufologists have been petitioning the government to “come clean” on the existence of flying saucers. Yet, here are over 300 pages of declassified documents, where the Army openly admitted that flying saucers were real.
flying-saucer
One SECRET document from Colonel Wentworth, Chief of the Operations Branch, states with no uncertainty that flying saucers were real. In this document, the Colonel admitted that Wright Field, Ohio was actively trying to generate models of the sighted crafts – an apparent effort to reverse-engineer the craft.
As a guide in constructing the [WRIGHT FIELD] models, descriptions from various persons who claimed to have sighted these objects were used. The Air Materiel Command is of the opinion that some soft of object, such as the flying saucer, did exist.”
It has been misreported elsewhere that the Army was trying to locate the Horten brothers. The truth was that the Army was trying to locate any and all information about flying saucer designs, regardless who invented them. The Horten Brothers designs were the strongest lead at the time, but investigators were clearly interested in identifying the source of the flying saucers being sighted all around the United States during 1947.
In November of 1947, all field offices in Germany advised agents to “canvass your area for possible identity of aircraft specialists or test pilots known in your area with such knowledge. This canvass is to be made discreetly and to conceal our interest in the subject.”
The result of that massive canvassing by field agents turned up a mix of results – from some sources saying that such craft and experiments never expanded beyond the glider stage, while other sources insisted the Germans had evolved the design to use jets. Agents even obtained rough sketches of those craft.
horton
Eventually, the descriptions of the crafts under development in Germany became very clear once many sources throughout Germany were interrogated.
- The pilot laid down on his stomach to fly the plane.
- The cabin was pressurized due to the high altitudes the plane was intended for.
- To escape, the pilot would launch the spring loaded, plexiglass canopy, and would be thrown clear of the plane.
- One auxiliary turbine driven by “the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide”.
- Exhaust from the auxiliary turbines fed oxygen to the rockets behind them.
- The plane was not meant for bombing, it was an “interceptor”.
- Under normal cruising conditions, the rockets provided a total thrust of 1500 pounds. Maximum total thrust was 8000 pounds.
According to Egwin Leiber, a former chief engineer at the Gotha Plant where the Horton planes were under development, the end of the war came before the planes could enter into regular production. According to one SECRET summary report from January 22, 1948:
It is very possible that a copy of the plans got into the hands of the Soviet[s], but the original plans were taken by the Americans.”
Another interrogation of Fritz Wendel in March of 1948 revealed the sort of characteristics that Army investigators were looking for when interrogating Germans in hunt of the elusive Flying Saucer.
The report noted the following “observations” by Army investigators:
- “He [Wendel] did not know of any light reflecting ability to this aircraft [the Horton planes].”
- “He did not know of any soundless or near soundless engines.”
- “He did not know of any hovering or near-hovering ability.”
- “Subject started that colorless exhaust-trails would be possible with an aircraft using two (2) jet engines.”
- “There was no theory advanced regarding sudden deceleration of speed to give the idea of sudden appearance.”
- “Wendel had no knowledge of the HORTEN Bros. aircraft having the ability to group together…”
- “Experiments were being conducted for the radio control of said aircraft by Siemens & Halske, electrical factory of Berlin.”
roswell daily record

The Truth About Roswell

In the 1995 Air Force report titled “The Roswell Report – Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert”, it is stated that there was in fact a “UFO Wave of 1947″, but that at the time, the Roswell event was not even considered one of those events until 1980.
What was later characterized as “the UFO Wave of 1947″ began with 16 alleged sightings that occurred between May 17 and July 12, 1947. [...] Interestingly, the “Roswell Incident” was not considered one of these 1947 events until the 1978-1980 time frame. There is no dispute however, that something happened near Roswell in July, 1947, since it was reported in a number of contemporary newspaper articles.”
Major Jesse Marcel, who claimed to have recovered a “flying disc” from range land in July of 1947, was stationed at Roswell Army Air Field. One would expect that if the recovered object was in fact an alien spacecraft, subsequent declassified Army documents released years later that mentioned the 1947 Flying Discs would finally reveal what the Army knew about the discs at the time. Clearly, Army documents throughout 1948 through 1950 would reveal documents referencing the Roswell crashed disc.
Yet, none of these do. Instead, the documents all reveal investigators throughout the U.S. Army scrambling throughout Germany to try and uncover where those flying discs appearing in the sky were actually coming from.
flying-saucer2
A good example is the memo from October of 1948, three months after the Roswell incident, where the author writes about “…An alleged ‘Flying saucer’ type aircraft or object” being sighted throughout the country. The author clearly still did not know the origin of the discs, what they were, or where they came from. If the Roswell crash was that of a flying disc, these documents wouldn’t refer to them as such a mystery.
In fact, the claim that the military is trying to “cover up” the existence of flying saucers is silly. I repeat, from the November 1947 memo from the Headquarters of the 970th Counter Intelligence Corps to the Army Commanding Officer of the CIC Region, which clearly stated:
“However, higher headquarters have notified this headquarters that the Air Material Command is of the opinion that some sort of object, such as the flying saucer, did exist.”
The mystery that remains, after reviewing the 300+ pages in this FOIA release, is not actually whether the U.S. Army knew what these flying saucer sightings were in 1947 (they clearly didn’t), but whether they ever discovered whether some foreign government, like the Soviet Union, was actively sending supersonic aircraft into American airspace throughout 1947.

References & Image Credits:
(1) Horton Flying Disc

Originally published on TopSecretWriters.com

link:  http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2014/09/us-army-hunted-ufos-wwii/?utm_content=buffer033f4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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