Following reports of the Foo Fighters, and before sightings of flying disks, there were sightings of objects called the Ghost Rockets. Beginning with reports of sightings over Scandinavia early in 1946, the sightings later expanded to the European continent. In the end, there were a number of official investigations, a number of cases with recovered physical evidence, and an indirect request for assistance from the United States.
The report that seems to be the origin of the Ghost Rockets was made on February 26, 1946, when a radio station in Helsinki noted “numerous meteors” that had fallen in northern Finland. The objects, which glowed, blazed, and fell, acted like meteors and were considered to be meteors by many who saw or investigated them, but there was something unusual about them.
It is odd that these objects would be considered anything other than meteors, but Jerome Clark, in his UFO Encyclopedia (second edition), provides what could be the inspiration for either the reports in Finland or the explanation of them. He wrote:
At 11 P.M. on January 18, 1946, as an American C-54 transport plane was passing over rural France at 7000 feet, the pilot observed what he took to be a brilliant meteor at 35 degrees above the eastern horizon. The object fell and was lost to view—but only momentarily. To the witness’ astonishment the “meteor” ascended, then “described a tiny hyperbola of perhaps one degree altitude and fell again from sight.”
Whatever the phenomenon was, it clearly had not been a meteor. Soon Europeans and others would call such phenomena “ghost rockets” and ascribe them to secret Soviet experiments with captured V-2 missiles. Many of the “rockets” would be meteors, but none, so history attests, were missiles from Russia, which at the time, possessed only a primitive missile technology …
The next reported sighting in 1946 came on May 24, when two night watchmen saw a “wingless, cigar-shaped body of dimensions of a small airplane.” At regular intervals, sparks or fire spurted from the rear. It was at a very low altitude and moving at the speed of an airplane to the southwest, according to what they said.
Analysis of the sighting appeared two days later in Dagens Nyheter: Even if reports of a wingless aircraft spurting fire over Landskrona are to be treated with a certain reserve, it is very possible that what people saw were V-1 bombs fired by the Russians from some experimental station on the Baltic Coast. This statement was made by an air expert, to whom “Dagens Nyheter” submitted reports in yesterday’s telegram. The experts state that the whole of Germany has been fine-combed by the occupying powers for robot bomb material and experiments are being carried out zealously. Just as with the Germans, a number of projectiles went on courses not intended … bombs from the Continent can naturally now land in or make short-cuts over Sweden. The observations made by the inhabitants of Landskrona, namely that sparks from the tail come at intervals, agrees with the V-1 bomb’s manner of operation. It is true that the witnesses have given the length of the projectiles now seen as considerably less than the V-1 bomb’s 6-7 metres but it is easy to err on such points. Of all parties interested in robot bombs, the Americans appear to have come the farthest…. Finally, it remains to report that a chauffeur in Huddinge saw a shining projectile at 12 o’clock at night on Friday/Saturday and he considered that it could not have been either an aircraft or a meteor. When he spoke of the matter, he had not heard of what happened in Landskrona so he could not have been influenced by it.
On May 28, 1946, there were other reports of what were being described in some newspapers as fireballs. These came from Karlshkrona and Halsingborg, as well as many people in the Stockholm area, who said they had seen the same thing in Huddinge and Hagalund. According to the newspaper Morgon-Tidningen, many aviation experts were suggesting experiments with secret, long-range weapons.
The same thing was seen in Katrineholm on May 31. This time the object was said to be a glistening, silver rocket shaped like a giant cigar. There were no hints of wings, but there might have been a stabilizer on the rear. It moved quickly and interestingly, the newspaper reported that “many observers” said that it was faster than a fast airplane. It was at about 1,000 feet.
On January 18, 1946, an American C-54 transport plane was flying over France when it encountered what looked like a bright meteor, but then witnesses saw it change course.
On the same day, the Adronbladet reported “Mysterious objects, considered to be some kind of peculiar ‘meteors’ or some new V-bomb, have flown over Helsingfors [Helsinki]. The mysterious wingless projectiles, which fly on a northeast-southwest course, appear to have their ‘bases’ somewhere north of Lake Ladoga.”
It was on June 1 that the British Air Attaché in Stockholm sent a communiqué to the Assistant Chief of Staff (Intelligence) at the Air Ministry, that said, “Flying missiles observed over Sweden.… Both myself and members of my staff of the Swedish Air Force, who, although interested, are as yet unable to confirm the observations officially, but they have agreed to pass on to us any information that may be of interest.” It was signed by Group Captain Simpson, Air Attaché.
The UFO spotted over Katrineholm, Sweden, in 1946 was described as looking like a giant cigar.
The Ghost Rockets moved from Sweden to Denmark according to the Aftonbladet on June 4, 1946. Swedish government files seem to confirm that a farmer in the Ringsted area reported seeing a shining object early in the morning. He alerted his wife and both of them watched it for what they said was a long time. They said it moved too slowly to be a comet, but apparently meant that it was too slow to be a meteor. They saw a trail of sparks from it as well.
Helsinki was the scene of a number of sightings on June 9. Witnesses saw a huge light with a long, fiery tail fall toward the ground. Not long after, they heard an explosion. At 10:17 P.M. a “rocket-shaped” light flew over Helsinki at about a thousand feet. It was followed by a smoky trail and a rumbling noise. The afterglow brightened the sky for about ten minutes.
For the next few days there were continuing reports of lights in the sky. The Morgon-Tidningen reported that an engineer
who flies daily … [said,] ‘I had just put out the light and stood by my window when in the half-darkness I was able to see something come out of a cloud…. The bomb, if it really was such, passed west of the city in a northward direction. It seems as if it was on a descending course … and in such a case ought to have fallen down somewhere in the area…. It could not have been any of our new jet planes, which have a continuous exhaust and thereby look like true rockets. The later V-weapons did the same, but the first had intermittent exhaust.’
The Swedish Defense Staff entered the investigation officially on June 12. According to the Swedish government files, in a document dated December 23, 1946, the Commander in Chief of the Swedish Defense Staff set up a special committee to study the sightings. In that document it was reported, “Headquarters sent out an order on 12 June 1946, to all military units to report all observations which were made. Similar orders were sent to the military attachés in Norway and Denmark.”
The consensus seemed to be that there was something going on, the sightings were of something real, not just lights in the distance, and the best solution seemed to be that these were V-weapons created by the Nazis. As the war ended and Allied forces overran Peenemünde from the east and the west, German scientists who had been working on building the rockets were captured by the Allied forces. The sightings over Scandinavia led many to believe that the Soviets were testing their own version of the V-weapons created by the scientists captured in Germany.
On June 24, 1946, the question of who had captured what from the Germans became important. According to government files, Major James P. Hamill of U.S. Army Ordnance, received a confidential message from the Pentagon for Dr. Wernher von Braun. They wanted an evaluation of the rocket technicians captured by the Soviets or those who were left behind in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany. They wanted to know how long it might take these scientists to develop intercontinental missiles. Hamill produced an eleven page report about it.
Dr. Wernher von Braun was a German expatriate who led the U.S. program in rocket development. If the Americans were taking advantage of former Nazi scientists, was it possible that other countries were, too, as well as German technology?
Von Braun seemed to think that the Soviets had captured a number of very capable men. But von Braun also believed that the United States had the advantage because of the research facilities available to them. History would prove that the U.S. had the lead in the development of missiles, even after the Soviets launched the first satellite in 1957. It didn’t seem likely they would be testing their missiles over Scandinavia where, if one crashed, the technology would fall into the hands of scientists in Sweden and then, eventually, the United States.
In other words, the Ghost Rockets were not evidence of Soviet development of intercontinental and they were not being produced by someone in Germany testing the V-weapons. Although those who reported seeing an object often reported something that looked like the V-1 buzz bombs of World War II, there was no one who would have been launching them in 1946. It is also clear that there was not an explosive warhead. The solution would not be found in that direction.
On June 26, 1947, there was another report from Finland. It was given a fairly high evaluation and it suggested that a “V-bomb” had been seen over Helsinki. It was believed that the bomb was launched from the Porkkala area, about twenty miles southwest of Helsinki on the Baltic seacoast. Adding to the confusion about the origin of the Ghost Rockets, the area was claimed by the Soviets though it seemed to be part of the Finnish mainland.
It was in July that things changed in the Ghost Rocket investigations. On July 9, Eric Reuterswärd photographed one of the rockets about fifty miles west of Vasteras. Reuterswärd suspected that he had photographed a meteor, but the Swedish military wasn’t convinced.
Clas Svahn, a Swedish UFO researcher, told the story in depth in the fall 2002 issue of International UFO Reporter. In an interview conducted by Svahn in 1986, Reuterswärd explained that on a hot, Tuesday afternoon, he and his wife, Åsa had just finished a swim and climbed an old forest watchtower so they could look over the landscape. Reuterswärd said:
I remember the event very well…. We climbed the tower in order to photograph the view…. At the exact same moment as I pushed the shutter button, then right there it was something mysterious in the sky which both observed. I’m not able to remember exactly how it looked, but I know that it was a light which passed us.… We were both startled, and for a long time discussed what it could have been.
Having heard about the Ghost Rockets, and knowing the Ministry of Defense’s interest in them, Reuterswärd sent in a report. The government files, as reviewed by Svahn, said:
We observed a sharp, greenish-white (neon-colored) gleam of light in [a] northwestern direction and in a 45-degree angle, which emerged suddenly and swiftly moved downwards perhaps five moon diameters; after which it disappeared. The disappearance occurred—in my opinion—with an explosion like a burst of flames, and I also thought I heard a hissing sound. We got the impression that it was a meteorite, though we’ve never seen one in daylight. The whole incident was over in a moment.
We then went home, the vacation ended, and we sent the roll of film to be developed, and it then became clear that there was something on it. We had no idea that it had been caught on film until we got to see the copy.
Analysis of the photograph by others, including the Bertil Lindblad at the Stockholm Observatory, suggested, just as Reuterswärd thought, the photograph showed a meteor. He wrote, sometime later, “There is no doubt whatsoever that Mr. Reuterswärd’s picture shows a daylight fireball. What is remarkable, however, is that the trajectory is vertical and not horizontal as most fireballs show.”
UFO researcher Clas Svahn has published interviews with UFO witnesses for such publications as International UFO Reporter.
There were two reported crashes as well. At 2:35 P.M., near Ockelbo, Sweden, a “silvery cigar-shaped” craft flying at a very low altitude “tumbled against the ground and was gone in a few moments,” according to the Morgon-Tidningen on July 11.
On the same day, at Lake Barken, an object with alternating blue and green lights came from the northeast and fell into the lake about 350 feet from the witness.
Also on July 9, at Mockfjärd, a shiny “star” making a whistling sound fell. A 23-year-old man thought that the object crashed near the town. Just before impact, there was a blinding flash and the witness lost sight of the object. He heard what he thought was the impact, and for the next fifteen minutes he smelled a strong, burning odor.
The next day, at Björkön, Sweden, an object trailing glowing smoke crashed into a beach. The Svenska Dagbladet of July 11 reported:
The area is secluded, about 3 km from Björkövägen. One of the summer cabins … belongs to airline pilot Torvald Linden, who, when the ‘meteor’ came, had some visiting neighbors around a coffee table outside the cabin…. The projectile gave off a blinding light. It was indeed so bright that the sun’s rays happened to dim. The projectile was quite low, its highest speed at 50 meters per second. It descended at a 40-degree dive angle and fell into the sand, yet without any immediate report. At a distance of only 20 meters lay some young girls and bathers, and they saw how the sand spurted up. After some time we found the crater, which however was rather modest in size (couple of decimeters deep and a meter in diameter.) Spread all around was discovered thus a mass left by the mysterious sky-projectile. It mostly looked like porous slag of various colors—from burned yellow to black. Some small bits were in powdered form, and when they were taken in the hands, they began to smart as if from lye.…
Jerry Clark later wrote that the “military authorities produced ambiguous results, and in due course the witnesses were accused of imagining things.” However , it was also noted by Swedish newspapers that the material was “[s]ent to Defense Staff’s Air Defense Division. Sundsvall air base press officer Capt R Westlin said, ‘The projectile clearly produced a high temperature and the remains of the same were very hot when found. The slag produced by the projectile was burned black’.”
The Svenska Dagbladet continued on July 11, 1947:
Tests on the remnants of the projectile were referred on Wednesday to Dr. Birger Bäcklund…. At first he gathered a bit of gray-white loose material under the microscope from a piece of paper or film fragment, which appeared to be divided up into squares something like a checkers or chessboard. The paper or film coating was only a quarter-millimeter in surface. That the material in question was not of any celestial origin we can establish at once, said Dr. Bäcklund. It looked most nearly like carbon carbide which was exposed to weathering. It was somewhat more gray in color than other pieces of the find. When Dr. Bäcklund picked at the object a little piece of paper of about a quarter-millimeter in size came off and under a magnifying glass it appeared that the paper was checkered almost like a checkerboard with white squares with black bottoms. The squares were microscopic but very regular and it was all like a kind of screen which is used in electrotyping. Here it must be a question of an object which was not exposed to any exceptionally high temperature.
Reports of these sorts of events continued. On July 18, two missiles that were described as eight feet long with wings set back three feet from the nose, fell into the water at Lake Mjøsa, Norway, creating some turbulence. The witnesses said that the wings seemed to flutter, as if they were made of cloth and that the objects themselves gave off a whistling sound.
Lake Mjøsa in Norway, where in July 1947 two winged missiles were seen plunging into the water.
The next day, July 19, at noon, witnesses reported a gray, rocket-shaped object with wings crash into Lake Kölmjärv. Although the Swedish military searched for three weeks, the deep mud on the lake’s bottom hid anything that might have fallen into it. Lieutenant Karl-Gösta Bartoll led the search team at the lake. They scanned for radioactivity but apparently found nothing. The bottom of the lake was disturbed, but there was no other sign of an object. Bartoll said that “there are many indications that the Kolmjarv [Kömjärv] object disintegrated itself….”
On July 28, 1946, the Ghost Rockets returned to Norway. According to the London Daily Telegraph, two violent explosions were heard in Oslo, accompanied by an “intense white light.” A report noted that it was assumed that the noises were caused by the Ghost Rockets, but they had burst into such small pieces that they had, for all practical purposes, disappeared.
A five foot long, cigar-shaped craft, trailing smoke was seen over Southern Sweden on August 12. It flew out over the water until it seemed to land or crash on a small, uninhabited island. Although there were a few who went to search, the tangled undergrowth and thick bushes prevented them from finding anything.
Four days later, on August 16, a Ghost Rocket flying over Malmö, Sweden, exploded. The blast shattered windows and scattered some debris over the area.
This V-1 German bomb bears a strong resemblance to the Ghost Rockets, according to some investigators who examined the debris fround in Sweden.
The last of the reported crashes came in mid-October, when two people on the shore of a lake heard what sounded like a flock of birds taking flight. They looked up in time to see an object fly over the trees. It looked like a dart with small wings and had a ball-shaped tip. It exploded as it crashed into the water.
Small bits and pieces of the debris were recovered and analyzed. There was nothing extraordinary about it, and some of the descriptions of the craft did seem to mirror descriptions of the V-1 buzz bombs used by the Nazis during World War II. Various government agencies in Sweden, Europe, and in the United States were becoming interested in the Ghost Rockets, and classified reports, messages, and information began circulating at the highest levels.
It was around June 26, 1946, that communications among various governments, and communications inside those governments, began to heat up. In a secret document entitled, “Memorandum for Commanding General, Army Air Forces, Subject: Reports of ‘Rocket Sightings Over the Scandinavian Countries,” there was the suggestion that the Ghost Rockets were terrestrially based. Simply put, those who had reviewed the available information and who wrote the report believed that the rockets were of German design, launched by the Soviets.
On July 10, the RAF Air Attaché in Stockholm, sent to ACAS(I), Air Ministry, a memo on the “Subject: Flying Missiles Observed over Sweden”:
This may or may not be more “chaff for the wheat” but the following was obtained from a Finnish news correspondent working for Associated Press. This man has been very helpful in the past and spent much of the war in London. For the past few months he has been in Finland where he was following up the “Flying Missiles” reports from a news angle. He states that he considers the probable experimental base to be near Riga, in Latvia. He has sources recently arrived from Estonia and they all confirm that the general direction is from this part of the world. For what it is worth, I believe the above to be his genuine opinion after many enquiries. He will let me know if he obtains anything further.
He signed it, “Simpson Group Captain, Air Attaché.”
The next day, Christian M. Ravndal of the State Department, in a secret telegram from Stockholm wrote:
For some weeks there have been numerous reports of strange rocket like missiles being seen in Swedish and Finnish skies. During past few days reports of such subjects being seen have greatly increased. Member of Legation saw one Tuesday afternoon. One landed on beach near Stockholm same afternoon without causing any damage and according to press fragments are now being studied by military authorities. Local scientist on first inspection stated it contained organic substance resembling carbide. Defense staff last night issued a communique listing various places where missiles had been observed and urging public to report all mysterious sound and light phenomena. Press this afternoon announces one such missile fell in Stockholm suburb 2:30 this afternoon. Missile observed by member Legation made no sound and seemed to be falling rapidly to earth when observed. No sound of explosion followed however. Military Attaché is investigating through Swedish channels and has been promised results of Swedish observations. Swedes profess ignorance as to origin, character or purpose of missiles but state definitely they are not launched by Swedes. Eyewitness reports state missiles come in from southerly direction proceeding to northwest.… If missiles are of Soviet origin as generally believed (some reports say they are launched from Estonia), purpose might be political to intimidate Swedes in connection with Soviet pressure on Sweden being built up in connection with current loan negotiations or to offset supposed increase in our military prestige in Sweden resulting from the naval visit and recent Bikini tests or both. Soviet political pressure on Sweden in connection with Baltic refugees here has, as recently reported to Dept, been considerably stepped up.
Proving that the U.S. was quite interested in these reports of the Ghost Rockets, on July 16, the USMA (the military—that is to say the army attaché) in Stockholm sent a top secret message to the War Department in Washington, D.C., meaning the Pentagon. The Department of Defense, which combined the Departments of the Army and Navy, wouldn’t come into existence for another year. The message said:
Swedish Army Staff studying 300 to 400 rocket incidents Ref your WAR 94001 of 12 July. They advise: 50 points of impact observed. No evidence of radio control and Army Staff believes phenomena not radio controlled. Defense Research Institute studying fragments but key personnel on leave and report being delayed therefore. No large fragments yet found and small fragments appear to be nonferrous. Aftonbladet states Russians have established base with Staff of German scientists on Dago Island off Estonia. (Staff checking basis of this report) Staff has rather tenuous hypothesis to support this as follows:
Two circular rocket courses both with radius of approximately 300 kilometers and centres respectively in the 56-57 N latitude, and 19-20 E longitude quadrangle and the 61-62 N latitude, 21-22 E longitude quadrangle with rockets launched from Dago clockwise on both courses. This theory accounts for only portion of the incidents. Staff has not yet processed all reports. Some highly placed officials believe the phenomena are Russian rocket experiments either purely for research or for War of Nerves. Staff very nervous about release of info to United States and United Kingdom for fear Russians will cry “West Bloc.” This office urges greatest protection this information.
The army attaché indicated that a detailed report would be included in the next diplomatic pouch, with a follow-up on ultimate findings of the investigation. This was sent to General Stephen J. Chamberlin for action, meaning he was to deal with it in the context of intelligence analysis. Information, meaning the text, was passed to General Carl Spaatz and to General Norstad.
The analysis circulating at the highest levels was that the Ghost Rockets were Soviet experiments, and they were launched from Estonia or Latvia. The information also suggested there were no signs that the rockets were under radio control. Fragments recovered were of non-ferrous.
Among the high-ranking officers receiving the findings of the investigation was U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General Carl Spaatz.
The Swedish Defense Research Institute claimed that the Soviets might be engaged in a “war of nerves.” Given the history of the region and Soviet attempts at expansion after the end of World War II, the Swedes were reluctant to provide specific information to either Great Britain or the United States. They were concerned that the Soviets might see it as proof that Sweden had aligned with the Western Bloc, making them an enemy of the Soviets. In other words, in July 1946, the politics of the world influenced the research into these bizarre aerial phenomena.
In a top secret memo from Stockholm to the British Foreign office on July 22, 1946, it was reported:
Following is position on missiles over Sweden as seen by Heath and Malone after discussion at Swedish Air Ministry to-day. 1. Too many missiles have been observed and described to allow of explanation as meteorites. Full list of observations being sent separately. 2. Sole remains so far recovered in Sweden are pieces no longer than an egg of porous yellow combustible material, porous black carboniferous material, porous grey ash or slag material and black slate like material. Representative samples of each are being sent separately. 3. Meager remains so far recovered permit no definite conclusions by Swedes or ourselves. 4. All investigations now coordinated by Kjellson of Swedish Air Ministry. Both he and we believe that present evidence suggests athodyd propulsion with yellow and black materials being used as main fuel or to maintain combustion. Kjellson does not exclude electronic propulsion as outlined by Austrian deserter Peters during the war or even atomic propulsion. We see no reason for these latter suggestions. 5. Geiger counter was requested to ask the Swedes to test for radioactivity at point of incident. They will have portable Geiger counter weighing 12 kilogrammes so will only require one from us if ours is lighter and more easily handled.…
By the end of July, the situation, at least to the thinking of the Swedish military, had reached nearly crisis level. According to the New York Times of July 28, 1946, “A limited censorship has been imposed on information concerning unidentified flying missiles—believed to be flying bombs or rockets—that have been sighted over Swedish territory in recent weeks. The authorities have banned the publication of names of localities where the missiles have been sighted and newspapers have been required to use the dateline ‘Somewhere in Sweden’ when writing about the subject.”
Director of Central Intelligence General Hoyt S. Vandenberg surmised that the Ghost Rockets might have been launched by the Soviets as an intimidation tactic.
Two days later, Norway followed suit, ordering that the locations of sightings not be published, in what would become a wave of censorship. Two weeks later, on August 16, Denmark joined the ban, and two weeks after that, on August 31, Norway banned publication of any Ghost Rocket information, which they hoped would end the sightings.
Proving that interest in the Ghost Rockets was international, and proving that the American military was involved in gathering information, even if they did not provide any technical or military support, on August 1, 1946, a top secret “memorandum for the President,” was written. Colonel E. K. Wright, executive to Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, director of central intelligence [the Central Intelligence Group, forerunner of the CIA] at that time, wrote:
1. Since 15 May there have been occasional press reports of “ghost rockets” seen passing over points in Sweden. On 19 July two such “rockets” were reported to have fallen in Norway. The Swedish and Norwegian Governments have now imposed a news blackout with respect to the subject.
2. Official sources, principally the Military Attaché at Stockholm, have confirmed these reports and obtained additional, but inconclusive, information. Although ten such missiles have fallen within Sweden, the Swedish General Staff has as yet been unable to reach firm conclusions on the basis of the fragments recovered.
3. From the information presently available, the Director of Intelligence, WDG8, has concluded that:
a. The missiles are of the jet-propelled V-1 type (rather than rockets).
b. They contain only small demolition charges (for self-destruction) rather than a warhead.
c. They outrange the V-1. This result could be achieved by construction from light, non-ferrous materials, and by the substitution of additional fuel for the heavy warhead. It could also be achieved by the use of a turbo-jet engine such as the Germans were developing at the close of the war. German scientists in Soviet employ are capable of completing this development, and the characteristic noiselessness reported supports the supposition of its use.
d. Their course is apparently controlled, either by radio or pre-set controls. (Turns and circular courses have been indicated).
e. Their launching from some Soviet-controlled point in the vicinity of the Gulf of Finland is probable.
4. Since the interior of the U.S.S.R. affords areas suitable for extensive and undetected experimentation, the launching of these missiles over Scandinavia must be a deliberate demonstration for political effect. In this the Soviet objective might be:
a. Intimidation of Sweden and Norway, by a demonstration of their vulnerability to attack with such missiles.
b. Intimidation of Great Britain, by demonstration of vulnerability of the United Kingdom to such attack from continental areas which the Soviets now control or are capable of seizing.
c. Intimidation of the United States by a demonstration of Soviet capabilities for the scientific development of new weapons.
This memo demonstrates the mindset at the upper levels of the U.S. intelligence community at that time. No one was arguing that the Ghost Rockets were unreal or some sort of mass hallucination. The thinking was that they were real, based on German designs of the V-weapons, and they were being controlled by the Soviet Union. There was no real discussion about the possibility of an extraterrestrial component to the Ghost Rockets. The intelligence community, among all the various countries taking an interest in the Ghost Rockets, was almost unanimous in the opinion that this was some sort of Soviet operation.
Then, on August 16, 1946, in a top secret message from the U.S. Naval Attaché in Stockholm entitled “Reference: MA Stockholm’s Top Secret Report R334-46 of 13 August 1946 Subject: SWEDEN Guided Missiles Rocket Sightings Over Sweden, it was reported:
No tangible evidence to date as to nature or origin of rockets reported over Sweden, although Swedish Defense Staff insists that they are rockets. Swedish press and public aroused, but Swedish Air Force officers still on summer leave, aircraft warning not mobilized, and no attempts made to intercept missiles with jet fighters; improbable that rockets, if any, are Russian or British, but possible that they are Swedish. Swedish defense staff evasive and their communiques contradictory and confusing. Sweden may be experimenting with rockets, but is concealing the fact and encouraging belief that rockets of foreign origin are being launched over Sweden, with civilian observers reporting jet fighters, contrails and meteors as rockets.
1. This report is an attempt to correlate various reports on the recently reported sightings of light phenomena or rockets over Sweden and, in the absence of any tangible evidence, to formulate a hypothesis as to their nature and origin.
2. To date no U.S. military or naval personnel in Sweden have seen any fragments, photographs, radar tracks, points of impact, or other evidence of any kind to prove that guided missiles have actually been seen over Swedish territory.
3. On 12 August the reporting officer asked three Swedish Air Force officers what they thought of the reported sightings. They answered that they believed definitely that these were rockets. On 13 August the reporting officer and the Assistant U.S. Military Attaché were permitted to talk to three Swedish Air Force officers from the Defense Staff, who stated in answer to direct questions that while they had no definite evidence to back their belief, they believed that the reported phenomena were rockets. This may therefore be accepted as the official Swedish military expression as to the nature of the reported phenomena.
4. Although sightings of brilliant light phenomena over Stockholm on 11 August created a great furor in the Swedish press and considerable concern among the Swedish public, the Swedish Air Force has not called back its officers from their summer leave, and the Swedish aircraft warning net has not been mobilized to spot reported missiles. Considering the fact that hundreds of reports from all over the country have described cigar-shaped missiles with fiery tails at altitudes low enough for interception by Swedish jet-propelled aircraft, this apparently unconcern and lack of sustained energy on the part of the military organization is peculiar.
Case 1. Rockets of Russian Origin
5. The Russians might be launching rockets over Sweden in order to pressurize [sic] the Swedes in connection with the proposed Russian-Swedish trade agreement, or to frighten them away from any consideration of joining a Western Bloc. Another motive would be the demonstration of a new weapon to answer our atomic bomb demonstrations. A lesser consideration would be the testing of rockets over a neutral country, as Germany did with the V-2 rockets. Arguments against this theory are that the reported ranges (1000 km) are far in excess of those for any known rocket to date for the flat trajectories described (two or three hundred meters for a cigar-shaped rocket thirty feet long over central Sweden.) This would indicate a new propellant and a far more efficient control system than the best German rockets; it is therefore doubtful that Russia would risk giving away such a secret by launching it over Sweden at altitudes low enough for it to be shot down by Swedish jet fighters. The Swedish communist press ridiculed this idea, pointing out that no evidence of any kind had been found, and that Russia had all of Siberia to test her rockets. THE RUSSIAN MILITARY ATTACHÉ IN STOCKHOLM ALSO ASKED THE BRITISH ASSISTANT RAF ATTACHÉ FOR INFORMATION ON THE SUBJECT [emphasis added]. (Paragraph 5, Enclosure (A)). The main reason against the theory of Russian origin is the lack of any tangible evidence. However, the Swedes may be concealing any such evidence which they may have, even though they stated emphatically that they have no such evidence. The motive of such conduct would be to avoid trouble with Russia.
Case 2. Rockets of British Origin.
The British Assistant RAF Attaché stated that he believed the reported objects were rockets, and has made a financial wager that tangible evidence will be found. HE ALSO STATED THAT HE WOULD LIKE TO “PLANT” A FALSE CLUE TO WORRY THE RUSSIANS, GIVING A PURPORTED COURSE INDICATING THAT ROCKETS HAD BEEN LAUNCHED FROM DENMARK OR BRITISH-OCCUPIED TERRITORY. [emphasis added] The U.S. Military Attaché in Stockholm reported that the British are extremely worried about the European situation, and that after a recent visit to his former bomber base in England he found it fully operational, even to the fire-trucks. It is known that the British are worried about our demobilization and would like to keep us armed for the blowup which they expect to occur with the Russians. This would be one way to alert us. It would be possible for the British to launch airborne rockets over the Kattegat, set to cross over Sweden and fall into the Baltic. However, it is doubtful if the British would embark on such an undertaking because of the risk of disclosure either to us or to the Russians. Furthermore, a strong protest could be expected from Sweden. Again there is the fact that the Swedish Defense Staff is peculiarly inactive and unconcerned, while the British are reported by MA Stockholm to be extremely worried about the matter, and to have offered, or are offering, two of their best search radar sets to help the Swedes track down the rockets.
Karl-Gösta Bartoll investigates Lake Kölmjärv after a report of a rocket-UFO crash there, 19 July 1946.
At this point, public discussion of the Ghost Rockets faded away given the various governments’ embargo on releasing the information and the attempts to halt press reports of the sightings. It didn’t mean that the sightings ended, or that a solution had been found, only that the stories were no longer being published in Scandinavia.
But that didn’t stop the international interest in them. A British Air Ministry Intelligence Report in September 1946 said:
A large number of visual observations have been obtained from Scandinavia. Some of the best came from Norway. An analysis suggests the most notable characteristics of the projectiles to be: a) great speed; b) intense light frequently associated with a missile; c) lack of sound; d) approximate horizontal flight.… Thus, if the phenomena now observed are of natural origin, they are unusual; sufficiently unusual to make possible the alternative explanation that at least some are missiles. If this is so, they must be of Russian origin.
Although the Scandinavian newspaper had stopped reporting on Ghost Rockets, the international press continued. The number of sightings was not decreasing significantly, and the descriptions, while often slightly different, seemed to indicate that the Ghost Rockets were basically rocket shapers. It was also clear that these things were still flying over Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia.
On August 8, 1946, the Associated Press reported:
The Swedish Defense Staff is now firmly convinced that Sweden is being used as a shooting range for foreign rocket-driven projectiles something like the type of the German V1 and V2, said the Aftonbladet today.
Earlier reports were more or less reliable and last night an officer from the defence staff’s air defense division himself saw something ‘which could not be described as a meteor.’ The officer was located in central Sweden and saw a fireball with a luminous tail which tore along at a height of 500-1,000 meters.
The chief of the air defense division said that many projectile courses have been plotted on a map and their path over Sweden shows a great arc which ends out over the Gulf of Bothnia or the Eastern Sea.
On August 13, another Associated Press (AP) story reported, “Many persons said today that at least one V-bomb exploded over Stockholm last night.” There was also a discussion of some sort of a “luminous phenomenon” seen about an hour earlier.
The next day, on August 14, 1946, there was a sighting of such interest that it was detailed in an FBI memo on the “Flying Discs,” dated August 19, 1947:
On 14 August [1946] at 10 A.M. [a Swedish Air Force pilot] was flying at 650 feet over central Sweden when he saw a dark, cigar-shaped object about 50 feet above and approximately 6500 feet away from him traveling at an estimated 400 m.p.h. The missile had no visible wings, rudder or other projecting part, and there was no indication of any fuel exhaust as had been reported in the majority of other sightings.
The missile was maintaining a constant altitude over the ground and consequently, was following the large features of the terrain. This statement casts doubt on the reliability of the entire report because a missile, without wings, is unable to maintain a constant altitude over hilly terrain.
Four days later, on August 17, 1946, the AP was again reporting about the Ghost Rockets. The story said, “Again last night many places in western and southern Sweden observed luminous projectiles which moved with great speed from south to north. It is regarded now as certain that a new V-weapon is involved. It is also thought that it is radio-directed. Danish scouts who were on a visit in Goteborg discovered a rocket bomb on Monday which suddenly [digressed a good] 30 degrees from its course, then shortly after it resumed it again. The Swedish authorities are considering sending in a fighter plane against the rocket bombs, states the Aftonbladet.”
On August 24, a Norwegian student in Sweden reported in an article published on August 24 that he had seen one of the Ghost Rockets:
On a walking tour through Sweden in the first half of August I met with some acquaintances who took me with them on an evening tour in a motorboat up one of Sweden’s [beautiful] rivers. Suddenly [shooting] out of the evening stillness I saw a bright light which neared us from the southeast with colossal speed. As it came nearer it took the shape of a full moon, perhaps a little more elliptical, but in size like when seen on the horizon. The light was very bright and reminded me of the results when a magnesium bomb explodes. On the edges the light was more blue-green and the tail shimmered. As it came closer there could be seen a thick, almost glowing smoke tail.
As the phenomenon was right over us it lighted everything up strongly, so that you could see as on the brightest day. The fireball or “fiery mass” as the Swedes call it, had till then described a slight arc downward toward us. Now four stars broke off, which with a luminous stripe behind them sank down toward the ground, to be extinguished. The fireball was extinguished momentarily as these stars broke away, and then perhaps for a second, I having accustomed my eyes to the dark, I saw a black elongated projectile go forward through the air in a apparently horizontal course [about] 300 meters up. It was pointed in front, but astern it looked [broken off]. The length was something I only judge at around 3 meters. On the back third the whole tail glowed, and this faint glow was the last we saw of the projectile which disappeared in a direction toward a small village nearby. It did not look like it had either wings or guide fins. The course was directly northwest the whole time.
The owner of the motorboat, a Swedish engineer, looked at his watch when he first saw the phenomenon. It appeared at 20.45 and its whole [duration], he thinks, was only 6-8 seconds. Since he is experienced in tracking [?], moreover, he thinks he could estimate the projectile’s speed at between 1500 and 200 [sic] kilometers an hour.
Not a sound was heard from the ghost bomb, neither the object itself not the stars were separated.
The next morning the Swedish press broke a report from the defense staff that a “space ship” was observed over Middle Sweden, and then we each sent in our statements about what we had seen. Those who had sent up the ghost bomb, however, would not be able to read of the bomb’s descent through reports from the Swedish defense staff. But next evening when we stayed up in the Central Swedish villages local newspapers broke this report that a “space ship” had passed over the roof the previous day.
The sightings continued into October and the New York Times reported, “On October 11 Swedish military authorities announced that they had been unable to discover the origin or nature of the ‘ghost rockets’ after investigating for four months. Of the 1,000 reports handled, 80 per cent could have been ‘celestial phenomena,’ they said. The radar study, however, had detected some objects ‘which cannot be the phenomena of nature or products of imagination, nor be referred to as Swedish airplanes.’” They were not, the report added, V-type German bombs either.
This photo was taken on July 9, 1946, by Erik Reuterswärd in Guldsmedshyttan, Sweden. The image of the Ghost Rocket was later released by the Swedish military.
A top secret U.S. Air Force report published on November 29, 1946, entitled “Significant Developments of Scientific Warfare in Russia, (Air Intelligence Division Report #100136-24)” concluded that the Ghost Rockets were of the “V-5,” that is, a Swedish military development. Although they didn’t have access to the secret Swedish evaluations at the time, it is clear from the documentation in Swedish government files, and from aviation history, that the Ghost Rockets were not a Swedish research and development project.
And still, the sightings continued. For example, the Lethbridge Herald reported, “The Moscow radio reported today that a meteor which resembled ‘a white-hot flying cannon ball’ was sighted Nov. 12 by the Leningrad Arctic Institute’s polar station at Providence Bay, at the northeast tip of Siberia across Bering Strait from Alaska. The radio description, particularly as to velocity, coincided to some degree with that of meteor-like objects sighted above Scandinavian countries in recent months.”
This points to another problem. While the majority of the publicity about Ghost Rockets focused on Scandinavia, there were reports from other European countries. In Greece, according to newspaper reports, “Acting Foreign Minister Stefanos Stefanopoulos supported a statement in London by Premier Constantine Tsaldaris that flying rockets had been seen over Greece…. The rockets, estimated to be flying at a height of 5,000 to 10,000 yards, had been seen specifically at Drama, 130 miles northeast of Salonika and just below the Bulgarian border.”
The September 6, 1946 issue of the London Daily Telegraph reported, “The rocket passing over Salonika … fell into the sea … A total of four were seen … all on the night of September 1st. These were officially reported by military units and confirmed by many reports from civilians. One passed over Mt. Paikon, both in Macedonia.… Another passed over the town of Katharini….”
On September 7, “What is described as a ball of fire was seen traveling in a southwesterly direction…. It was first seen last night and was seen for a second time a few hours later …,” according to the London Sunday Express on September 8.
According to the London Daily Telegraph on September 19, “Officials at Lisbon [Portugal] observatory were unable yesterday to explain reports that strange lights had been seen moving across the sky.… The phenomena were described as bright, greenish balls of light, all traveling southwards.”
The investigations by the Swedish military continued, though with a lower profile. On December 23, 1946, they issued a classified report that remained hidden for nearly thirty years. Eventually, it was declassified.
From a December 23, 1946 letter to the Commander in Chief of the Swedish Defense Staff:
I. Development of the Investigation. At the end of May 1946, there was brought to the attention of the Defense staff, certain peculiar luminous phenomena over Sweden, partly through press reports, and partly by civilian observers, who reported their observations directly to the Military Authorities. Until the 8th of July, approximately 30 reports had been received, among these, one from the Military Attaché in Finland.
Headquarters sent out an order on 12 June 1946, to all military units to report all observations which were made. Similar orders were sent to the military attachés in Norway and Denmark.
A large number of observations were made the 9th of July (approximately 250). Thereafter the reports continued to come in during the period July-September with a “climax” on the 11th of August … During the period October-November the number of reports was considerably reduced. The total number of reports, up to 6 December 1946, was 987.
On the initiative of the Defense Staff and Aviation Administration, a committee was established 10 July consisting of members of the Defense Staff, Aviation staff, Naval Administration, the Defense Research Institution and the Defense Radio Institution to handle this matter. Col. Bengt Jacobsson was chairman, with Eng. Malmberg as his secretary. While Col. Jacobsson was in America, Maj. Cervell of the Defense Staff served as chairman. The committee met approximately 15 times up to 1 December
Through this committee, the investigation was intensified. Within the Defense Staff, all reports regarding this matter were summarized and forwarded to the Air Administration and Air Defense Sections. Personnel were sent out both from the Defense Staff and the Air Administration section to evaluate important reports. Liaison with the civilian authorities—including Customs authorities—and the lottakåren [women participating as volunteers performing military duties], as well as the Stockholm Observatory, was established. In connection with a communique of 10 July the population was requested to send reports of their observations to the Defense Staff.”
II. Source Material. Information has been received chiefly from four sources: (a) visual observations (reports, newspaper clippings, reports from military attaches; (b) radar trackings; (c) radio observations (direction finder and intercepts); (d) reports from special sources.
The largest number of reports were visual observations. Incidents were reported throughout the entire country with a concentration in the middle of Sweden.
On 9 July and 11 August, luminous phenomena were observed at the same time over almost all of Sweden. It is possible that these phenomena were of a celestial nature, and if they are excluded, approximately 450 reports remain. Of these, approximately 50% concern luminous phenomena and the rest concern observations of ‘real’ objects. These objects are mainly of two different types: (a) ‘spool-shaped’ without any wings or stabilizing surfaces (42%), (b) ‘spool-shaped and provided with wings (8%).
The reports have been sent in by various categories of observers, among these several trained observers, military persons, technicians, etc.
Approximately 100 impacts have been reported, together with fragments from 30 of these. All have been investigated by the Defense Research Institution. It has been impossible to make certain that any of the objects originated as parts of projectiles or rockets; they have generally been attributed to other sources. At Kölmjärv, located close to Överkalix, a positive impact was reported in July by two different observers. An intensive investigation gave no result.
There wasn’t much additional detail in the Swedish report. It outlined the seriousness of the sightings, which were treated with concern, but in the end, many of the reports were thought to be nothing more than misidentifications of natural phenomena or of human-created craft. Still, there remained the physical evidence recovered, which suggested that something real was going on, and that the answer did not lie with Swedish aviation experimentation. The sightings were of something else, and the most likely answer for the Swedes, and for others, was the Soviet Union.
Ludvig Lindbäck, brother to principle witness Knut, at Lake Kölmjärv, site of the 19 July 1946 rocket-UFO crash in Sweden.
This was a rather unsatisfying report because it provided no real answers to any of the important questions. Without a complete summary of the incidents, which might have provided some clues, without the details of the sightings, the observations and conclusions of the report have little real weight.
The report seems to suggest terrestrial explanations for the Ghost Rockets, but most sightings were regarded as nothing more than misidentifications, and a few, very few, might have been of Soviet design, or so the thinking went in 1946.
In 1947, American intelligence continued their investigation into the Ghost Rockets. Looking at the phenomenon from a terrestrial point of view, that the Ghost Rockets were real, that they were tangible, and that a source of them could be found, made sense. The Swedish military had suggested there were one hundred reports of impacts and in thirty of those cases, debris of some kind had been recovered. With something to analyze, even with small samples, there should have been some kind of conclusion. If the Ghost Rockets were some sort of Soviet experiment or an improvement on the German V-weapons, then it was in the interest of American national security to learn more about them.
According to the government documents, Colonel William E. Clingerman, in a letter for Colonel Howard McCoy, asked Lieutenant Colonel George Garrett for all the files on the Ghost Rockets, referred to as the “Swedish incidents.” These files would have been accumulated throughout 1946 and 1947 and should have been part of what was the first of the American UFO investigations known as Project Sign, which eventually evolved into Project Blue Book.
What is interesting here is that Clingerman, McCoy, and Garrett were all heavily involved in the UFO investigations in those early years. It might be suggested that much of what they did for the Army and the Air Force was learned as they attempted to determine the source of the Ghost Rockets.
Some of the Poject Blue Book staff. Standing, from left to right: Lieutenant William F. Marley, Jr; SSGT Harold T. Jones; Mrs. Hilma Lewis (a temporary typist); Mrs. Marilyn Stancombe (secretary). Seated: Major Hector Quintanilla, chief of Project Blue Book.
In fact, Dr. Donald H. Menzel, the director of the Harvard Observatory, thought that this long-time involvement was something of a problem. In 1968, he began a correspondence with Lieutenant Colonel Hector Quintanilla, the chief of Project Blue Book, Dr. Edward U. Condon, leader of the University of Colorado study of UFOs, Dr. Robert Low, who was attached to the Colorado project, and a Ph.D. candidate named Herbert Strentz. Menzel’s theory was that the Swedish Ghost Rockets had “conditioned” the Air Force into a mindset of acceptance of these strange things in the sky. Menzel wrote, “I think there must have been some briefing of top generals, by CIA or other cognizant authority….”
To Menzel, the theory was validated when Strentz found articles on Ghost Rockets that had been published in American newspapers. All this lead to the Air Force generals being “too accepting of flying saucers.” What Menzel didn’t know, of course, was that those who were conducting the investigations had been looking at these sorts of reports since the Second World War. But those officers, McCoy and Clingerman, had been gathering Ghost Rocket reports for many months.
The Project Blue Book files list a number of sightings from Scandinavia in early 1948. They came from a variety of sources and all were eventually “identified” as “Astro-meteor.” Typical of these is Incident #99, as reported in a government document, the Grudge Report, which came from the Military Attaché in Helsinki who happened to be in Vasa, Finland.
According to the government files, “Helsinki press 10th January reported observation of light phenomena vicinity of Vasa on 3rd January … brightly shining object with long tail moved west to east visible for 30 seconds.”
In a letter to the Director of Intelligence, GSUSA in Washington, D.C., dated January 13, 1948, the sightings are detailed again. It added another sighting from Pietarsaari, on January 5 that was “observed from north to south. Eyewitnesses state flames were objected [sic, ejected] and grey streaks left in the sky.”
Dr. Donald H. Menzel, the director of the Harvard Observatory, was an astronomer and astrophysicist who published several books debunking UFO theories.
In a “comment” on the letter, it said, “Finnish press now using term flying saucers reference light phenomena. Last report was 20th December in Utsjoki, Northern Finland near Norwegian border…. Evaluation press reports impossible however press claims many witnesses. May be revival another series of alleged flying phenomena.…”
In the government files, the summary listed for these, and other sightings said, “Information given here is too limited for any conclusions to be drawn. The stated heights, the occurrence at [the] same time each night, and their specific direction makes explanation of the objects as meteors unlikely. The green tails are also not characteristic of typical meteors, but would fit into a description of rockets or flares.”
What is interesting is that all of these sightings contained on the Blue Book master list are identified as meteors, yet the analysis from the field seems to suggest that meteors are not a viable solution in many of the cases. It seems that the cases listed in Blue Book were all solved in the same fashion. They were all considered meteors, even though the length of the sighting and other aspects suggested that a meteor was not the culprit.
There was additional information contained in the government files. The Grudge Report took note of the Ghost Rockets:
During the summer of 1946, there were reported to have been seen in Sweden a number of mysterious aerial objects. There were as many different descriptions for the “ghost rockets,” as the newspapers tagged them, as there were observers. It soon became quite common for newspapers in Sweden and in the U.S. to refer authoritatively to these objects as guided missiles with the inference that they were test flights from Russia or Russia-dominated areas. The “ghost rockets” were usually seen in hours of darkness, almost always traveling at extremely high speed; shaped like a ball or projectile; bright or incandescent blue, white, red, green or yellow; sometimes associated with noise; and were always seen at too great a distance to observe details…. The Swedish Defense Staff conducted a comprehensive study of the early incidents. Several thousand reports were thoroughly investigated and plotted, with resultant conclusions that all evidence obtained of sightings were explicable in terms of astronomical phenomena.
This report does supply an explanation, then, for writing off all the Swedish sightings as “astro.” The Swedish Defense Staff seemed to have suggested that solution themselves. Without further investigation, Project Blue Book and then Project Grudge officers accepted that explanation and applied it to all the sightings.
There is one other aspect to this that requires examination. According to the Grudge Report, “although the Swedes themselves show little concern, they attempt to play up their incidents to the United States, obviously to emphasize their request for radar.”
The Air Attaché, Colonel Donald Hardy, in a document dated December 30, 1948, and found in the government files, wrote, “The cooperation of the Defense Staff in securing this information was … given in an effort to emphasize their need for additional U.S. radar equipment…. The members of the Defense Staff, to whom I talked, were eager to point out the good use to which such equipment could be put for both ourselves and the Swedes as … by our mutual interest in unidentified flying objects.…”
The idea that the Swedes were more interested in gaining new radar equipment than in solving the riddle of the Ghost Rockets satisfied those investigating UFOs in the United States. Having found what they believed to be a rationale for suggesting that some of the Ghost Rockets were something other than astronomical phenomena, the American officers could move on.
While it seems that the majority of the reports took place in 1946, and that they were investigated by the Swedish military, that’s not exactly accurate. There were literally hundreds of reports throughout Scandinavia. Once the security curtain came down, once the press stopped reporting the sightings, it seemed that the Ghost Rockets stopped flying. This seems to suggest that many of the sightings were generated by the press. That is, people who would never have thought about mentioning the “light” in the sky prior to the publicity, did so once the press began covering these sightings. When the publicity ended, the sightings stopped.
At least that is the impression given in many places, including the government files. But other sources of information, including secret Swedish government files that were declassified in 1984, show that sightings continued. They were just not mentioned in the newspapers. There were more than 1,500 sightings recorded from early 1946 on. These sightings took place over much of Europe and even into North Africa.
And there is an interesting statement made by the military attaché in 1948 when he wrote, “Finnish press now using term flying saucers reference light phenomena.” The sightings of the Ghost Rockets didn’t stop flying; they were just called something else. Instead of Ghost Rockets they became flying saucers.
There were many theories about these objects, including the idea that they were meteors, Soviet missiles attempting to intimidate their European neighbors, a secret Swedish project (which is untrue based on government records available today), and hoaxes. Some of these theories were floated by the Swedish military as an excuse to build up their forces. What is interesting is that almost no one, at the time, looked at the extraterrestrial. Everyone, regardless of country and regardless of position in their various government organizations, was thinking in terms of the terrestrial.
Jerome Clark, in the second edition of his UFO Encyclopedia, brings up the extraterrestrial. He reports that on April 17, 1971, there was a letter published in the Sjaellands Tidende from Hans Sorensen, who wrote:
In the summer of 1946, I was cycling on the way from Jyderup toward Kalundborg. A couple of kilometers outside of Viskinge toward Kalundborg, I suddenly noticed something odd … so I stopped in a clear spot so as to see better. Then I saw three thingamajigs fitting the descriptions of UFOs. They flew vertically overhead.… They were like polished mirrors on top, and in profile almost like a flat and deep saucer. The underside was uneven and dull gray. That was in July, in calm weather. It was about 2 P.M., and the sun was behind me. As I stood there, several people came up, and we concurred that there were no sounds, such as a normal aircraft would make.
The same year, 1971, another report surfaced, first in a Swedish magazine Allers, and later recounted in Flying Saucer Review. The man who told the story was Eugen Semitjov, who said that he was relating a story told to him by a prominent industrialist, Gösta Carlsson. The year was 1946 and his tale makes the extraterrestrial crystal clear. Semitjov claimed Carlsson told him:
I saw that in the farthest end of the open ground there was a disc-shaped object with a cupola. The cupola seemed to be a cabin with oval windows. Above it there was a mast, almost like a periscope of a submarine. Beneath the disc there was a big oblong fin which stretched from the center to the edge of the underside. There were two metal landing legs. A small ladder reached to the ground from a door beside the fin.
The object was approximately 53 feet in diameter and 13 feet from top to bottom at the middle. I know this because I measured the marks on the following day.… On the ground … a man in white, closely-fitting overalls was standing. He seemed to be some sort of guard … Everything was silent. The only thing I heard was the sound from the guard when he walked on the grass. There were three men working at the window, and two more were standing alongside. There were three women as well, and one more came out of the object later.… In all I saw 11 persons.
They all wore short black boots and gloves, a black belt around the waist, and a transparent helmet. The women had ashen-colored hair, but I could not see the hair of the men as they wore black caps. There were all brown-colored, as if sunburned.
I went a few steps closer, but then the guard raised his hand again. After that I stood still. The guard had a black box on his chest which was suspended by a chain around his neck. It looked like an old black camera. He turned it toward me, and I thought he was going to take a picture of me, but nothing happened, except that I thought I heard a click from my forehead lamp. The lamp did not work after that, but that may have been purely coincidental. When I returned home I found that the battery had run out, although it was a new one.
It seemed as if the “cheese-dish cover” of light stood like a wall between us. I think it was created to isolate them from our world and atmosphere. One of the women came out of the cabin with an object in her hand. She went to the edge of the wall of light and threw it beyond the area of light. At the same time I heard her laugh.
I thought the disclike object could be some sort of military device. The whole scene seemed so strange.… I was aware of a smell like that from ozone following an electrical discharge.
Carlsson said that he picked up the thrown object, but when UFO researchers examined it in 1971, they found that it was nothing extraordinary. Carlsson had changed the shape so that it looked like a staff, which seems odd, given that he had an alleged alien artifact in his possession. It was made, partially of silicone.
There also seem to be some contradictions in Carlsson’s story. He talked as if he knew it was alien and that they had created a cone of light to separate themselves from the earth’s atmosphere, yet he thought it might be a military device.
These tales, and a few others that surfaced long after the initial wave all dated to 1946. If they are accepted at face value, they lead to the extraterrestrial. But they are single witness cases and the physical evidence that has been offered provides little in the way of corroboration. They add little to our knowledge.
Clas Svahn, who spent eight years investigating the Gösta Carlsson observation, said much later that in 1946, there was no real talk of the extraterrestrial. The thought was that the Ghost Rockets were something manufactured on Earth. He is also very skeptical about the Gösta Carlsson story.
Like the Foo Fighters, the Ghost Rockets preceded the flying saucers. The sightings, when broken down, match many of those that came later. The Ghost Rockets were described by the witnesses as best they could. When compared to the later sightings that began with Kenneth Arnold in the United States, they weren’t that different. Many of the sightings were of bright objects trailing sparks and could be thought of as meteors.
Clas Svahn, who had the opportunity in the 1980s to review most of the Swedish Defense Ministry’s Ghost Rocket files, wrote:
The military archives show that the main part of the reports filed were of meteors spotted at night or evenings. But that also leaves us with reports of cigar-shaped and missile-like objects, presumably made of metal, which cruised through the skies in the summer of 1946. Even if the ghost rockets were never identified, the Ministry of Defense never doubted that there really had been intrusions over the Swedish border. Later in 1946, a special ghost rocket committee drew the following conclusion: “There is no doubt that foreign experiments with jet-propelled or rocket weapons have been going on over Sweden.”
Svahn finished his report by writing, “It was suspected that these weapons belonged to a new generation of military systems: ‘The projectiles are steerable, either by autopilot, and then with a preset trajectory, or steered by radio impulses from a ground station, perhaps with television or by a pilot in the projectile,’ wrote the committee.”
In 1984, Svahn, found a number of the civilian witnesses and also interviewed Karl-Gösta Bartoll, a retired Swedish Air Force officer who lead the search and who said that there were indications that the object had disintegrated, crashing into a lake.
Bartoll told Svahn, “First of all, Knut Lindbäck saw a second cascade of water after the first impact and, secondly, an old lady living in a cottage near the crash site reported she had heard a muffled thunderclap. The object was probably manufactured in a light-weight material, possibly a kind of magnesium alloy that could disintegrate easily, and not give any indications on our instruments.”
In September 2012, Svahn organized an expedition to the lake to see if they could recover some of the material. He told the Huffington Post, “It was difficult for divers to photograph underwater as it was quite muddy. What was interesting was when they reached the spot where we think the craft sank, they found that the bottom was nearly bottomless. We don’t know how far the mud goes down. At this point, we have no means of continuing our expedition—we cannot go any deeper down in the mud.”
He also said that he planned to return when he had more funds and better equipment. What is interesting, and was apparently unknown in the late 1940s, was that a number of the sightings were of green-colored lights. Reuterswärd’s photograph, for example, was of a green object. The importance of this observation would not be understood for decades.
