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Balls of Fire Race Alongside Allied PlanesBAhiA US Night Fighter Base. France. ' gi Jan 2.—The Nazis have thrown nt something new into the skies over , si Germany the weird. mysterious nlt;I“foo-fighter. balls of fire which race alongside the wings of American Beaufighters flying intruder missions over the Reich.US pilots have been encountering the eerie “foo-fighter for more than a month in their night fights. No one apparently knows exactly what This sky weapon Is.The balls of fire appear suddenly and accompanying the planes for miles. They appear to be radio controlled from the ground and manage to keep up with planes flying 300 miles an hour, official intelligenceh*latt Vi fi w 11I r si d» tlUreports disclose“There are three kinds of these lights we call ’foo-flguters,’ said Lieut. Donald Meiers, of Chicago.“One is red balls of fire which ap- lc pear off our wing tips and tty along n with us. the second Is a vertical row tl of three balls of fire whicn fly in a rront of us and the third is a group a of about 15 lights wnicn appear o** j In the distance—like a Cnristmas ei tree up in the air—and flicker on ir and oft.”The pilots of this night fighter squadron—in operations since September. 1943—find these fiery bails tl the weirdest thing they have as yet tl encountered. They are convinced a that the foo-fighter” is designed to be a psychological weapon as well as military although it ie not tne nature of the fire balls to attack planes.A “foo-fighter’ picked me up recently at 700 feet and chased me 20 miles down the Rhine Valley. Lieut. Meiers said. I turned to starboard and two balls of fire turned with me. I turned to the port side and they turned with me. We were going 260 miles an hour and the ball3 were keeping right up with us.”On another occasion when a ’foo-fighter' picked us up. I dived at 360 miles an hour. It kept rignt on our wing tips for awhile and then zoomed up into the sky.When I first saw the things off my wing tips I had the horrible thought that a German on ths ground was ready to press a button and explode them. But they don't explode or attack us. They ju3t seem to follow us like will-o-the-wisps.”An Associated Press report from Paris Dec. 13 said the Germans had thrown shivery balls into the air against day raiders. Pilots then reported they had seen these oojects.I both individually and in clusters.during forays over the ReichFoo-Fighters That Dog Fliers In Europe Partly ExplainedNew York. Jan. 3.—The descriptions of the new German foo-fighters. or balls of fire, fit into several well-known electrical phenomena. j ti These are induction, ball lighting hand have some, though not all the | L aspects of St. Elmo's tiro. If they fi are electrical, they are something ! n created in the air close to the planes. ' • rather than anything shot like artil- 1 r. lery shells or anything floating in Induction 1lt; suggested by the re- h ports that the foo-fires keep up with j i , the air in wait for planes, the plane, at fixed distance/*, regard* I ■ less of plane speed, changes in speed j | i or change* in direction. ’ rEhntrical induction of some sort * would explain such marvelous svn- | lt;* ; chronization. Nothing else that is j q well known would explain mien per- n feet timing. Radio ccntrol from the I ground docs not explain the timing. ;i unless radio control is meant to de- ■ q scribe a beam which is part of the u automatic induction. 11Induction, however, fails completely to describe what happens f when h fire-ball zooms upward leav- q ing its plane. Apparently the balls g fly pfiths of thousands of feet away h from the planes.The common experience that resembles this trick is ball lightning How anybody could produce b»il lightning is unknown. Exactly what call ligutning may be is also unknown. But it is a quite harmless e thing, even a:* the German foo-bal.'a p are reported to be. a lighm.ng ball o can explode in your front yard. mak- e ing a loud bang but doing little or u no damage. hSc. w.-0 8 fire Is a brush discharge „ of static electricity, wnich strea.us e off some aolicj object with br.li.ant lt;t intensity. Aviators are familiar w.th k brush discharges and would recv.g- q nize them, so that the foo-balls a.e t probably not ordinary St. Elmo’s file bThe deep purple color of brush dis- o charge static would explain L.e re- v, ports that the foo-balls aie reu. The li shade of red has not been reported, i? Ball lightning has been reported in slt; slightly red shade.0. vA reason fcr the foo-balls. again vbaaed cn experience, is interfere-ice. ,with radar, radio or perhaps wi.h aplane’s ignition. Ignition interference would stop a plane in the air It was a real project in Italy tel rethe war. and how to do it was wellnfiknown in theory In the Unuod States. All you needed then, to! stop a plane five or-more miles away. 1was a power plant equal to Niagara Falls.I A guess can be made that the foo-! balls are evidence that German nat- *I ural scientists have found some wayFlto get around part of the fower wtroubles in intereference, the factthat they are using them, and so °disclosing thnr s**cretc to the Allies, j nwuiu .nuiLiiif ti.ac t.,e.» i j n-t hlt; pe . t'* attain t«» ignition tnt-rference Mpower. j4■ ■ cl
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Uralla Times
Uralla, New South Wales, AU
Thu, Mar 15, 1945
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