This third Cautionary Tale describes the crash of a wayward German V2 rocket in Sweden in 1944. Not only was I making an obvious comparison to all the subsequent stories of crashed UFOs, I was also trying to introduce ParaScope's readers to the less well known phenomenon of the 1946 "ghost rockets."
As usual, modern comments are in red.
In our third UFO Cautionary Tale, we will turn back the clock to 1944, when a strange fiery object crashed in rural Sweden. The Swedish Army came and investigated, and discovered their neutral country had acquired foreign technology far in advance of anything else on earth...
by Paul B. Thompson
Nebula Editor
[out of date email address deleted]
People have always seen strange things in the sky. The insubstantial air has always been thought of as the realm of heaven, the dwelling place of clouds, birds, and the gods. What people see in the sky is reflected by what they expect to find there, and as mankind filled the air with machines of his own making, a growing contrast began between our aerial devices and everything else seen aloft. By the end of the Second World War, jets and rockets were taking wing, promising to oust noisy, propeller-driven airplanes from their supremacy. Hardly had the guns cooled from hot combat to Cold War when new objects appeared overhead. Unidentified flying objects.
The first modern UFO wave broke over Sweden in May, 1946. In those early days the bright spindle-shaped objects seen zipping overhead were dubbed "ghost rockets." They were widely assumed to be variants of the late Third Reich's V-1 and V-2 weapons, which at that time were the cutting edge of aerospace technology. Sweden had been visited by German V-weapons before. On June 13, 1944, an experimental A4 rocket (the type later dubbed Vergeltungswaffe Zwei, Retaliation Weapon Two) was launched from the secret Peenemunde testing station, on the Baltic coast of Germany. The Germans were using the A4 to test a new form of radio guidance for the highly advanced Wasserfall anti-aircraft missile, but that day the guidance system malfunctioned and the rocket veered off course. At 4:08 p.m., the A4 exploded in the air over the Grasdals Garo, Sweden, two hundred miles from Peenemunde. The bulk of the wreckage landed two hundred meters from a placid farm. According to the newspaper Svenska Dagbladgt on June 14, the rocket's impact made a crater "five meters wide and two to three meters deep. Big rocks had been thrown more than ten meters, and tree tops had been broken like sticks."Grasdals Garo is the location mentioned in my primary source, the British book The Secret War, by Brian Johnson. In Sweden the location is known as Bäckebo, and the missile is called "the air torpedo."
Despite the news story, and some rather charming photos of Swedish farm folk posing with soldiers alongside the rocket wreckage, the Swedish military quickly recovered the remains of the German rocket and spread a veil of secrecy over the incident. The Germans knew what had happened to their wayward missile, and immediately began negotiating with the Swedes to get it back. Equally determined to get their hands on the wreck were the British.
For some time British Intelligence
had been receiving vague reports about a long-range missile Hitler planned to use against the British Isles. Spies reported the 12.7-ton rocket could fly up to 200 miles with a one-ton high explosive warhead, reaching an altitude of 100,000 feet and maximum speed of 3,600 miles per hour. Some top British scientists could not believe such claims, and firmly declared no rocket could fly so high or so far, yet the Swedes now had concrete evidence the V-2 was real and nearly operational. A strange bidding war ensued over the mangled rocket, a war the British won when they offered to trade some of their latest mobile radar sets for the smashed German missile. Off went the A4 to Britain. Within a month, the British issued a top secret report outlining the V-2's characteristics and possible operational parameters. The V-2 was no longer a secret weapon.
The objects seen over Sweden beginning in May 1946 were much like the German rockets, being described as cigar- or torpedo-shaped, sometimes with small tail fins. They flew noisily across the sky, trailing plumes of fire. By July 9, thirty reports had been logged with the authorities. That same day, at 2:30 p.m., a fiery object was seen all across the country. Two hundred fifty reports were generated by this object alone, which may have been an exceptionally bright meteor.
Whatever it was, Swedish officials were sufficiently worried by the public's alarmed reaction to begin censoring news reports, and created a special committee to study the ghost rocket sightings. This was perhaps the first UFO investigative group. Composed of military men, scientists, and government officials, the committee was headed by Colonel Bengt Jacobson, who was in charge of the Material Department of the Air Administration.
Drawing on their experience with the German A4 found at Grasdals Garo, the committee decided that the most important question about the ghost rockets was: Were they being launched by the Soviets? This question was commonly asked by Swedish newspapers as well. Though the war in Europe had been over scarcely a year, tensions between the western allies and the Soviet Union were already increasing. The Red Army had overrun the German research center at Peenemunde in 1945, and it was widely believed they had captured both scientists and prototypes of Hitler's wonder weapons. For this reason, the ghost rocket reports were taken very seriously.
In August it was learned that retired American Air Force Lt. General James H. Doolittle was going to Sweden, ostensibly on behalf of his new civilian employer, Shell Oil Company. It was reported in the papers that General Doolittle would inspect Swedish radar operations, but it quickly became clear he and electronics expert David Sarnoff would be asked to review the ghost rocket situation. Colonel C. R. S. Kempf of the Defense Ministry openly admitted he was eager to get the opinion of the world-renowned flier Jimmy Doolittle on the mysterious objects criss-crossing Sweden's airspace.
One of the best of the puzzling reports came from a meteorologist who observed an unknown object closely while he was outdoors watching cloud formations with a telescope. At first the meteorologist thought he was seeing an airplane on the horizon, brightly reflecting sunlight. The object's very high speed soon disproved this idea. In a few seconds, the observer got a clear view of the ghost rocket: It was, he judged, ninety feet long, torpedo-shaped, and had a shiny metal surface. He estimated the object was but 2,000 meters distant, but made no noticeable noise. Abruptly the ghost rocket exploded -- again without a sound (reported in the New York Times, August 13, 1946).
Not all the ghost rockets were so quiet, as many were said to be banging and crashing all over the countryside. Oddly enough, no legitimate fragments were ever found, in contrast to the case of the V-2 two years earlier. The lack of wreckage puzzled General Doolittle. Any missile, even one with a high explosive warhead, should leave debris on the ground somewhere. British radar experts, summoned to Sweden, studied readings taken on the ghost rockets in flight and returned home to issue a secret report of their findings to their own government. Just what they concluded was not revealed.
In early September the Soviet Union formally denied launching missiles over Scandinavia. Whether they were or not, what else would they say? After the U.S.S.R.'s denial the number of sightings declined, and the excitement of the summer faded with the season's heat. Denials replaced reports in the press. Swedish physicist Dr. Manne Siegbahn announced that no real evidence of foreign missiles had been found, implying the entire business was caused by rumor and supposition. The few metallic fragments offered as ghost rocket remnants proved to meteorites.
While the ghost rockets vanished, and the A4 crash at Grasdals Garo became merely a historical footnote of World War II, these events left an indelible mark on the public's imagination. The scenario established in Sweden was simple, but potent: A strange object falls blazing from the upper atmosphere. It crashes to earth in some remote spot, is found by the local inhabitants, and soon after is quickly spirited away by the military. This archetypal image would grow ever larger in the decades to come, especially once it was transplanted to the United States.
Despite the news story, and some rather charming photos of Swedish farm folk posing with soldiers alongside the rocket wreckage, the Swedish military quickly recovered the remains of the German rocket and spread a veil of secrecy over the incident. The Germans knew what had happened to their wayward missile, and immediately began negotiating with the Swedes to get it back. Equally determined to get their hands on the wreck were the British.
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For some time British Intelligence
had been receiving vague reports about a long-range missile Hitler planned to use against the British Isles. Spies reported the 12.7-ton rocket could fly up to 200 miles with a one-ton high explosive warhead, reaching an altitude of 100,000 feet and maximum speed of 3,600 miles per hour. Some top British scientists could not believe such claims, and firmly declared no rocket could fly so high or so far, yet the Swedes now had concrete evidence the V-2 was real and nearly operational. A strange bidding war ensued over the mangled rocket, a war the British won when they offered to trade some of their latest mobile radar sets for the smashed German missile. Off went the A4 to Britain. Within a month, the British issued a top secret report outlining the V-2's characteristics and possible operational parameters. The V-2 was no longer a secret weapon.
The objects seen over Sweden beginning in May 1946 were much like the German rockets, being described as cigar- or torpedo-shaped, sometimes with small tail fins. They flew noisily across the sky, trailing plumes of fire. By July 9, thirty reports had been logged with the authorities. That same day, at 2:30 p.m., a fiery object was seen all across the country. Two hundred fifty reports were generated by this object alone, which may have been an exceptionally bright meteor.
Whatever it was, Swedish officials were sufficiently worried by the public's alarmed reaction to begin censoring news reports, and created a special committee to study the ghost rocket sightings. This was perhaps the first UFO investigative group. Composed of military men, scientists, and government officials, the committee was headed by Colonel Bengt Jacobson, who was in charge of the Material Department of the Air Administration.
Drawing on their experience with the German A4 found at Grasdals Garo, the committee decided that the most important question about the ghost rockets was: Were they being launched by the Soviets? This question was commonly asked by Swedish newspapers as well. Though the war in Europe had been over scarcely a year, tensions between the western allies and the Soviet Union were already increasing. The Red Army had overrun the German research center at Peenemunde in 1945, and it was widely believed they had captured both scientists and prototypes of Hitler's wonder weapons. For this reason, the ghost rocket reports were taken very seriously.
In August it was learned that retired American Air Force Lt. General James H. Doolittle was going to Sweden, ostensibly on behalf of his new civilian employer, Shell Oil Company. It was reported in the papers that General Doolittle would inspect Swedish radar operations, but it quickly became clear he and electronics expert David Sarnoff would be asked to review the ghost rocket situation. Colonel C. R. S. Kempf of the Defense Ministry openly admitted he was eager to get the opinion of the world-renowned flier Jimmy Doolittle on the mysterious objects criss-crossing Sweden's airspace.
One of the best of the puzzling reports came from a meteorologist who observed an unknown object closely while he was outdoors watching cloud formations with a telescope. At first the meteorologist thought he was seeing an airplane on the horizon, brightly reflecting sunlight. The object's very high speed soon disproved this idea. In a few seconds, the observer got a clear view of the ghost rocket: It was, he judged, ninety feet long, torpedo-shaped, and had a shiny metal surface. He estimated the object was but 2,000 meters distant, but made no noticeable noise. Abruptly the ghost rocket exploded -- again without a sound (reported in the New York Times, August 13, 1946).
Not all the ghost rockets were so quiet, as many were said to be banging and crashing all over the countryside. Oddly enough, no legitimate fragments were ever found, in contrast to the case of the V-2 two years earlier. The lack of wreckage puzzled General Doolittle. Any missile, even one with a high explosive warhead, should leave debris on the ground somewhere. British radar experts, summoned to Sweden, studied readings taken on the ghost rockets in flight and returned home to issue a secret report of their findings to their own government. Just what they concluded was not revealed.
In early September the Soviet Union formally denied launching missiles over Scandinavia. Whether they were or not, what else would they say? After the U.S.S.R.'s denial the number of sightings declined, and the excitement of the summer faded with the season's heat. Denials replaced reports in the press. Swedish physicist Dr. Manne Siegbahn announced that no real evidence of foreign missiles had been found, implying the entire business was caused by rumor and supposition. The few metallic fragments offered as ghost rocket remnants proved to meteorites.
While the ghost rockets vanished, and the A4 crash at Grasdals Garo became merely a historical footnote of World War II, these events left an indelible mark on the public's imagination. The scenario established in Sweden was simple, but potent: A strange object falls blazing from the upper atmosphere. It crashes to earth in some remote spot, is found by the local inhabitants, and soon after is quickly spirited away by the military. This archetypal image would grow ever larger in the decades to come, especially once it was transplanted to the United States.
"Roswell! Roswell . . . !"
© Copyright 1997 ParaScope, Inc.
© Copyright 1997 ParaScope, Inc.
The crash site is still known and visited today, and the V2 incident has become part of local folklore. See "The Air Torpedo of Bäckebo."
Swedish boys sitting on the crashed V2 rocket motor!
More the 1946 Ghost Rocket flap be found here:
http://www.project1947.com/gr/grchron1.htm
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