WWII airmen saw mysterious UFOs trailing their planes, and the sightings are still unexplained

The Pentagon’s newly released UFO files add to the mystery of whether we are truly alone. However, these files are far from the first reports of unexplained encounters. In late 1944, airmen of the 415th Night Fighter Squadron unit of the United States Army Air Forces were flying missions over the Rhine Valley. 

During their flight, the crew started seeing strange lights in the sky that no one could explain. Here’s what really happened.

In late November 1944, Lt. Fred Ringwald took to the skies aboard a night fighter flown by Lt. Ed Schlueter, with Lt. Donald J. Meiers monitoring radar. They were roaming the Rhine Valley, just north of Strasbourg. According to a 1945 American Legion Magazine story, Ringwald said, “I wonder what those lights are, over there in the hills.

The crew spotted roughly eight to 10 orange lights in a straight line. Despite the sighting, ground radar detected nothing. And the lights also disappeared before anyone could act. 

But the story doesn’t just end there. A few months later, on December 17, 1944, near Breisach, Germany, a pilot saw “5 or 6 flashing red and green lights in a T-shape.” They seemed to follow him before vanishing. A similar sighting also occurred near Hagenau on December 22. The aircrew shared that they spotted two lights within a broad orange glow. 

The lights went as high as 10,000 feet from the ground, and followed the fighter for roughly two minutes. According to author Keith Chester’s book titled “Strange Company: Military Encounters with UFOs in World War II”, the lights would “peel off and turn away, fly along level for a few minutes and then go out. They appear to be under perfect control at all times.”

After the story broke on January 1, 1945, explanations for the same included flares, weather balloons, and St. Elmo’s Fire. However, the 415th Night Fighter Squadron unit disagreed. Flares and balloons can’t track planes, and, according to them, crews knew what St. Elmo’s Fire looked like.

Some also blamed combat fatigue and suggested that the stress of war was taking a serious toll on the airmen. 

The timing and location of the sightings led some to suspect that there was a German connection. Reports came from Nazi-occupied Europe, and the sightings stopped once the war was over. The V-2 missile is one possible explanation. This is because it gave off a long-burning plume, which could account for the glow.

But aviation historian Nicholas Veronico disagrees. “The V-2 rocket doesn’t have the maneuverability,” he told The History. “It couldn’t turn on a dime and change its acceleration pattern.” Was it a UFO or something else? We still don’t know for sure.