The Orbs Followed the Aircraft

 By downloading the pdf file version of the SCU Review 4.1 using this link, you can see (on page 10) the full January 2, 1945 New York Times cover page story reporting that US pilots had been reporting for more than a month "balls of fire" called "foo fighters" that flew along with the planes, appearing in colors of red, or in groups of three or fifteen.

The news story begins like this:

"The Germans have thrown something new into the night skies over Germany -- the weird, mysterious 'foo-fighter,' balls of fire that race alongside the wings of American Beaufighters flying intruder missions over the Reich. American pilots have been encountering the eerie 'foo-fighter' for more than a month in their night flights. No one apparently knows what this sky weapon is. The balls of fire appear suddenly and accompany the planes for miles."

We later hear a Lieutenant Donald Meirs of Chicago describe three types of these orbs: "One is red balls of fire which appear off our wing tips and fly along with us; the second is a vertical row of three balls of fire which fly in front of us, and the third is a group of about fifteen lights which appear off in the distance -- like a Christmas tree up in the air -- and flicker on and off." Meirs recalls being chased for twenty miles by one of these strange balls. A Lieutenant Gould said he had seen one of these objects follow his wing tips and says it then "in a few seconds, zoomed 20,000 feet into the air out of sight." Gould said, "We were very close to them, and none of us saw any structure on the fire balls." 

The news story speculates that the strange balls were some kind of German weapon, but they never caused any damage, and no one was ever able to explain them. The strange balls acted nothing like weapons. 

And speaking of major newspapers reporting aircraft followed by mysterious spherical objects, the Washington Post story here from 1987 is entitled "UFO SIGHTING CONFIRMED BY FAA, AIR FORCE RADAR." We read of the case of Japan Air Lines Cargo Flight 1628. We read this:

"The FAA confirmed on Tuesday that government radar picked up the object that Terauchi said followed his Boeing 747 cargo jet. Terauchi, a pilot for 29 years, said he briefly glimpsed the large unknown object in silhouette. 'It was a very big one -- two times bigger than an aircraft carrier,' he said. Terauchi made a drawing of how he thought the objects' looked. He drew a giant walnut-shaped object, with big bulges above and below a wide flattened brim. The captain, who is stationed in Anchorage with his family, was flying the jumbo jet from Iceland to Anchorage on a Europe-to-Japan flight when the crew encountered the object in clear weather over Alaska. Terauchi said the three unidentified objects followed his jet for 400 miles."