Photo of an alleged foo fighter

The term foo fighter was used by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II to describe various UFOs or mysterious aerial phenomena seen in the skies over Europe and the Pacific theatre. Contemporary witnesses often assumed that the foo fighters were secret weapons employed by the enemy, and it was not until after the war that it was discovered neither side had anything to do with them. Despite these fears, foo fighters (whatever they might have been) were apparently never reported to have harmed or tried to harm anyone. To this day the case remains unexplained. This article is about the band. ... Image File history File links Foo_Fighter. ... Image File history File links Foo_Fighter. ... Look up ally in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... An unidentified flying object, or UFO, is any real or apparent flying object which cannot be identified by the observer and which remains unidentified after investigation. ... In warfare, a theater or theatre is normally used to define a specific geographic area within which armed conflict occurs. ...

Though usually thought of as blobs of light or fire, several different types of reported phenomena were classified as "foo fighters".

Etymology

"Foo fighter" was supposedly used initially as a semi-derogatory reference to Japanese fighter pilots (known for erratic flying and extreme maneuvering), but it became a catch-all term for fast moving, erratically flying objects. There were several other terms used to describe these objects, such as "Kraut fireballs", but "foo fighter" seems to have been the most popular. The German word Kraut is a generic term that is often used in compound nouns for cabbage, cabbage products and many herbs: Sauerkraut = pickled sour cabbage Weißkraut = green cabbage Blaukraut or Rotkraut = red cabbage (also called Rotkohl) Rübenkraut = thick sugar beet syrup Bohnenkraut = Savory Unkraut = Weed The word...

The term is generally thought to have been borrowed from the often surrealist comic strip Smokey Stover. Smokey, a firefighter, was fond of saying, "Where there's foo there's fire." (This "foo" may have come from feu, the French word for "fire", or Feuer the German word for "fire", or from Smokey's pronunciation of the word "fuel".) A Big Little Book titled Smokey Stover the Foo Fighter was published in 1938. Foo may also come from a slang term for fool, in reference to the enemies. Foo may alternatively have come from either of the French words "faux" meaning "fake", or "fou," "mad." Max Ernst. ... This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... Smokey Stover was a comic strip written and drawn by Bill Holman from March 10, 1935 until he retired in 1973. ... A Canadian firefighter A firefighter or fireman or Nathaniel is trained and equipped to extinguish fires. ... A forest fire Fire is a rapid oxidation process that creates light, heat, smoke, and releases energy in varying intensities. ... A forest fire Fire is a rapid oxidation process that creates light, heat, smoke, and releases energy in varying intensities. ... Big Little Books began in 1932, published by the Whitman Publishing Company in Racine, Wisconsin. ... “Joker” redirects here. ...

Some have thought that the term refers to Kung fu ("kong foo") fighting, because of the reported wild, erratic movements of these aerial objects. The term Kung fu was, however, little known in the English language until the late 1960s when it became popular because of the Hong Kong films and the later Kung Fu TV series; before that it was referred to primarily as "Chinese boxing". Alternative meaning: Kung Fu (TV series) Kung fu or gongfu (功夫, Pinyin: gōngfu) is a well-known Chinese term used in the West to designate Chinese martial arts. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Martial arts film is a film genre that originated in the Pacific Rim. ... Master Po (left) and Kwai Chang Caine (right) in a flashback from the episode Dark Angel, written by Herman Miller Kung Fu (1972-1975) was an award-winning American television series which starred David Carradine. ...

History

Foo fighters were reported on many occasions from around the world; a few examples are noted below.

• A nighttime sighting from September, 1941 in the Indian Ocean was similar to some later Foo Fighter reports. From the deck of the S.S. Pułaski, (a Polish merchant vessel transporting British troops), two sailors reported a "strange globe glowing with greenish light, about half the size of the full moon as it appears to us." (Clark, 230) They alerted a British officer, who watched the object's movements with them for over an hour.

• On February 28, 1942, just prior to its participation in the Battle of the Java Sea, the USS Houston reportedly saw a large number of strange, unexplained yellow flares and lights which illuminated the sea for miles around.

• A report was made from the Solomon Islands in 1942 by United States Marine Stephen J. Brickner. Following an air raid alarm, Brickner and others witnessed about 150 objects grouped in lines of 10 or 12 objects each. Seeming to "wobble" as they moved, Brickner reported that the objects resembled polished silver and seemed to move a little faster than common Japanese aircraft. He described the sighting, saying "All in all, it was the most awe-inspiring and yet frightening spectacle I have seen in my life."[1]

• Foo fighter reports were mentioned in the mass media. A 1945 Time story stated "If it was not a hoax or an optical illusion, it was certainly the most puzzling secret weapon that Allied fighters have yet encountered. Last week U.S. night fighter pilots based in France told a strange story of balls of fire which for more than a month have been following their planes at night over Germany. No one seemed to know what, if anything, the fireballs were supposed to accomplish. Pilots, guessing it was a new psychological weapon, named it the 'foo-fighter' ... Their descriptions of the apparition varied, but they agree that the mysterious flares stuck close to their planes and appeared to follow them at high speed for miles. One pilot said that a foo-fighter, appearing as red balls off his wing tips, stuck with him until he dove at 360 miles an hour [580 km/h]; then the balls zoomed up into the sky."[2]

• The Robertson Panel cited foo fighter reports, noting that their behavior did not appear to be threatening. Interestingly, the Robertson Panel's report noted that many Foo Fighters were described as metallic and disc shaped, and suggested that "If the term "flying saucers" had been popular in 1943-1945, these objects would have been so labeled." [3]

February 28 is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Combatants United States Netherlands United Kingdom Australia Japan Commanders Karel Doorman† Takeo Takagi Strength 2 heavy cruisers 3 light cruisers 12 destroyers 2 heavy cruisers 2 light cruisers 14 destroyers 10 transports Casualties 5 cruisers sunk 5 destroyers sunk 2,300 sailors killed 4 loaded troop transports sunk The Battle... The second USS Houston (CA-30) (originally designated CL-30), nicknamed the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast, was a Northampton-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. ... United States Marine Corps Emblem The United States Marine Corps (USMC) is the second smallest of the five branches of the United States armed forces, with 170,000 active and 40,000 reserve Marines as of 2002. ... Strategic bombing is a military strategem used in a total war style campaign that attempts to destroy the economic ability of a nation-state to wage war. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Time (whose trademark is capitalized TIME) is a weekly American newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. ... A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with illusion. ... The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in response to widespread Unidentified Flying Object reports, especially in the Washington DC area. ... UFO redirects here. ...

Explanations and theories

• The phenomenon could be based on the misinterpretation of the Luftwaffe's standard operating procedure of having selected anti-aircraft batteries near German airfields fire colored flare patterns at regular intervals to aid their night fighters with visual navigation. However, this would not explain sightings at locations where German forces were not deployed or based, such as the Pacific theatre.

• Some suggest that some sightings of foo fighters may have been night-sightings of the German Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet rocket-plane. However, the Me 163 was completely unsuitable for nocturnal operations since it had only a few minutes of fuel, totally insufficient to make contact with an enemy at night, carried no airborne interception radar, and lacked all night-flying equipment which would have been vital to make its characteristic engine-out glider-style deadstick landing at night.

• Proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (commonly shortened to ETH) have suggested that foo fighters are evidence of extraterrestrials visiting Earth.

• A type of electrical discharge from airplanes' wings (see St. Elmo's Fire) has been suggested as an explanation.

• Another theory suggests that pilots may have seen ball lightning.

• Reports of strange lights in the night are common throughout history, with explanations ranging from elves and Wild Hunt to UFO. It seems to be another example of the common, although still not fully explained, phenomenon.

• Multiple internal reflections of bright ground objects from the curved plastic canopy of an aircraft can be perceived as images above the horizon, a phenomenon that has been identified with some UFO sightings from aircraft.

• See also ghost lights; unusual visual phenomena that appear in specific areas around the world.

Standard Operating Procedure(s) or SOPs (pronounced letter by letter, ie ESS OH PEE(s) ) is a military term used to describe a procedure or set of procedures to perform a given operation or evolutions or in reaction to a given event. ... The Me 163 Komet, designed by Alexander Martin Lippisch, was the only operational rocket-powered fighter aircraft during the Second World War. ... A photograph taken in Passoria, New Jersey, on July 31 1952 The Extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is the hypothesis that UFOs are best explained as being creatures from other planets occupying physical spacecraft visiting Earth. ... Extraterrestrial life refers to forms of life that may exist and originate outside of the planet Earth. ... This article is about Earth as a planet. ... St. ... Ball lightning repeatedly takes the form of a glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball sized or smaller. ... A small forest elf (älva) rescuing an egg, from Solägget (1932), by Elsa Beskow An elf is a creature of Germanic mythology which still survives in northern European folklore. ... The wild hunt: Åsgårdsreien (1872) by Peter Nicolai Arbo The Wild Hunt was a folk myth prevalent in former times across Northern Scandinavia, Germany and Britain. ... UFO can mean: Unidentified flying object United Future Organization, a Japanese-Brazilian electronic jazz band UFO, the rock band that previously featured Michael Schenker UFO, the Gerry Anderson TV series United Farmers of Ontario, a political party that formed the government in Ontario from 1919 to 1923 U.F.O... UFO can mean: Unidentified flying object United Future Organization, a Japanese-Brazilian electronic jazz band UFO, the rock band that previously featured Michael Schenker UFO, the Gerry Anderson TV series United Farmers of Ontario, a political party that formed the government in Ontario from 1919 to 1923 U.F.O... For the Doctor Who serial, see Ghost Light A ghost light is any one of many unusual visual phenomena that appear in specific areas around the world. ...

References

External links

• Foo Fighter Documents
• FOO FIGHTERS
• [4] NORTHERN LIGHTS-compilation of other reports of strange lights - for comparison.
• The Foo Fighter Mystery (pdf, 2004), explaining the phenomenon as the result of setting up an electric field directed radially to or from a central axis; previous physics paper describing the 'thunderball' (foo fighter) electrostatic phenomenon:

• The Thunderball - an Electrostatic Phenomenon' (1983), Inst. Phys. Conf. Ser. No. 66: Session VI, Electrostatics 1983, Oxford, pp. 179-184.

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