In ufology, conspiracy theory, science fiction, and comic book stories, claims or stories have circulated linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. The German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, further asserting the post-war survival of these craft in secret underground bases in Antarctica, South America, or the United States, along with their creators. During the Second World War, unusual sightings in the skies above Europe were often interpreted as novel Nazi technology. In the first years of the Cold War, Western nations speculated that unusual sightings might stem from Soviet deployment of captured or reverse-engineered Nazi technology. In World War II, the so-called “foo fighters”, a variety of unusual and anomalous aerial phenomena, were witnessed by both Axis and Allied personnel. While some foo fighter reports were dismissed as the misperceptions of troops in the heat of combat, others were taken seriously, and leading scientists such as Luis Alvarez began to investigate them. In at least some cases, Allied intelligence and commanders suspected that foo fighters reported in the European theater represented advanced German aircraft or weapons, particularly given that Germans had already developed such technological innovations as V-1 and V-2 rockets and the first operational jet-powered Me 262 fighter planes. A minority of foo fighters seemed to have inflicted damage to allied aircraft. Ghost rockets were rocket- or missile-shaped unidentified flying objects sighted in 1946, mostly in Sweden and nearby countries like Finland. Similar sentiments regarding German technology resurfaced during the 1947 flying disc craze after Kenneth Arnold’s widely reported close encounter with nine crescent-shaped objects moving at a high velocity. Personnel of Project Sign, the first U.S. Air Force UFO investigation group, noted that the advanced flying wing aeronautical designs of the German Horten brothers were similar to some UFO reports. In 1959, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of Project Blue Book (Project Sign’s follow-up investigation) wrote: “When WWII ended, the Germans had several radical types of aircraft and guided missiles under development. The majority were in the most preliminary stages, but they were the only known craft that could even approach the performance of objects reported by UFO observers.” While these early speculations and reports were limited primarily to military personnel, the earliest assertion of German flying saucers in the mass media appears to have been an article which appeared in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale d’Italia in early 1950. Written by Professor Giuseppe Belluzzo, an Italian scientist and a former Italian Minister of National Economy under the Mussolini regime, it claimed that “types of flying discs were designed and studied in Germany and Italy as early as 1942”. Belluzzo also expressed the opinion that “some great power is launching discs to study them”. By the 1960s, fringe authors began spreading tales of Nazi UFOs that were tied to the occult or aliens. According to these theories and fictional stories, various potential code-names or sub-classifications of Nazi UFO craft such as Rundflugzeug, Feuerball, Diskus, Haunebu, Hauneburg-Gerät, Glocke, V7, Vril, Kugelblitz (not related to the self-propelled anti-aircraft gun of the same name), Andromeda-Gerät, Flugkreisel, Kugelwaffe, Jenseitsflugmaschine, and Reichsflugscheibe have all been referenced.
Appearance List Article: “I dischi volanti furona ideati nel 1942 in Italias e in Germania” (“Flying saucers were invented in 1942 in Italy and Germany”) in Il Giornale d’Italia by Professor Giuseppe Belluzzo (early 1950). Literature: The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1871, also titled “Vril, the Power of the Coming Race”), Le Matin des Magiciens (“The Morning of the Magicians”, 1960). Pulp: “Pseudoscience in Naziland” Astounding Science Fiction (May 1947). Website: German Disc Aircrafts 1922–1945 and Beyond, Biblioteca Pleyades. Podcast: Astonishing Legends: Episode 62-63 The Nazi Bell.
Sample Read Astonishing Legends: Episode 062 The Nazi Bell Part 1 [YT]
Description In ufology, conspiracy theory, science fiction, and comic book stories, claims or stories have circulated linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. The German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, further asserting the post-war survival of these craft in secret underground bases in Antarctica, South America, or the United States, along with their creators. During the Second World War, unusual sightings in the skies above Europe were often interpreted as novel Nazi technology. In the first years of the Cold War, Western nations speculated that unusual sightings might stem from Soviet deployment of captured or reverse-engineered Nazi technology. In World War II, the so-called “foo fighters”, a variety of unusual and anomalous aerial phenomena, were witnessed by both Axis and Allied personnel. While some foo fighter reports were dismissed as the misperceptions of troops in the heat of combat, others were taken seriously, and leading scientists such as Luis Alvarez began to investigate them. In at least some cases, Allied intelligence and commanders suspected that foo fighters reported in the European theater represented advanced German aircraft or weapons, particularly given that Germans had already developed such technological innovations as V-1 and V-2 rockets and the first operational jet-powered Me 262 fighter planes. A minority of foo fighters seemed to have inflicted damage to allied aircraft. Ghost rockets were rocket- or missile-shaped unidentified flying objects sighted in 1946, mostly in Sweden and nearby countries like Finland. Similar sentiments regarding German technology resurfaced during the 1947 flying disc craze after Kenneth Arnold’s widely reported close encounter with nine crescent-shaped objects moving at a high velocity. Personnel of Project Sign, the first U.S. Air Force UFO investigation group, noted that the advanced flying wing aeronautical designs of the German Horten brothers were similar to some UFO reports. In 1959, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of Project Blue Book (Project Sign’s follow-up investigation) wrote: “When WWII ended, the Germans had several radical types of aircraft and guided missiles under development. The majority were in the most preliminary stages, but they were the only known craft that could even approach the performance of objects reported by UFO observers.” While these early speculations and reports were limited primarily to military personnel, the earliest assertion of German flying saucers in the mass media appears to have been an article which appeared in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale d’Italia in early 1950. Written by Professor Giuseppe Belluzzo, an Italian scientist and a former Italian Minister of National Economy under the Mussolini regime, it claimed that “types of flying discs were designed and studied in Germany and Italy as early as 1942”. Belluzzo also expressed the opinion that “some great power is launching discs to study them”. By the 1960s, fringe authors began spreading tales of Nazi UFOs that were tied to the occult or aliens. According to these theories and fictional stories, various potential code-names or sub-classifications of Nazi UFO craft such as Rundflugzeug, Feuerball, Diskus, Haunebu, Hauneburg-Gerät, Glocke, V7, Vril, Kugelblitz (not related to the self-propelled anti-aircraft gun of the same name), Andromeda-Gerät, Flugkreisel, Kugelwaffe, Jenseitsflugmaschine, and Reichsflugscheibe have all been referenced.
