The Possibility of Alien Life Forms and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Before Modern Pilots
Did the UFO phenomena exist before modern pilots? Allied aircraft pilots used the term “Foo-Fighter” in World War II to describe numerous UFOs or UAP seen in the skies over the European and Pacific theaters of operations (Krasney, 2016; Robertson, 2006). TIME Magazine published an article titled “Foo-Fighter” in its January 15, 1945 edition, where it reported that “balls of fire” had been following U.S. night fighters for more than a month; the pilots referred to them as “Foo-Fighters.”3 The color of the fire varied, but the witnesses concurred that their plane was closely followed by the strange lights at high speed. Generally, pilots have assumed that the Foo-Fighters were classified weapons used by enemy forces (NYT, 1945).
However, it was discovered that this was not the case; identical sightings were also observed by German and Japanese pilots (Rutledge, 1981; Haines, 1997). Similar anomalies were observed in the subsequent wars in Korea and Vietnam (UPI, 1973; Dong-A Ilbo, 1952; Haines, 1990). Originally, many researchers assumed the sightings were Soviet experiments built on German engineering and anti-gravity technology (Haines, 1997).
In the following years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of Soviet reports also revealed UFO sightings and discredited these assumptions (Edwards, 2013). UAPs were, however, not exclusively limited to post-World War II Periods. Historian Denis Winter (1982) writes in his book, The First of the Few: Fighter Pilots of the First World War, …
green glowing balls which twisted about like live things and seemed to chase an aeroplane, turning over end on end in a leisurely way yet, as Bishop observed, terrifying because moving just too fast for an aeroplane to take evasive action. Part of their terror was that no one knew what they were, or has found out even today.
In 1916, Flight Sub-Lieutenant J.E. Morgan reports firing at an airship “whereupon he says that ‘the lights alongside rose rapidly’ and disappeared” (Morris, 1969). Even before the advent of military airplanes in 1909, UFO sightings existed. One verifiable sighting comes from Lieutenant Frank Schofield, later to become Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Battle Fleet.
On February 28, 1904, the anomalous sighting was witnessed by three crew members on the USS Supply, 300 miles west of San Francisco (Richland Shield and Banner, 1904).
Schofield reported, “that at first their motion was rapid and the color a rather bright red. As they approached the ship, they appeared to soar above the clouds at an elevation of about forty-five degrees” (NYT, 1904).