This object, photographed in 1 946, was just one ofmore than 1,000 "ghost rockets" seen in SCandinavian skies that year.
the other hand, provided more down-to
from as far afield as Portugal, North Africa,
earth explanations, such as static electricity,
Italy, Greece, and India. In northern Europe,
ball lightning, or reflections from ice crystals
suspicions turned immediately to the Sovi
that had formed in cockpit-window imper
ets, who just a year before had captured the
fections. The mystery has yet to be solved. By I 946 the world war had ended but
German V-2 rocket base at Peenemiinde on the Baltic Sea. The V-2 , which terrorized
the cold war was just beginning. Contribut
London and other Allied cities in the closing
ing to the mounting suspicion between the
year ofthe war, was an awesome supersonic
United States and the Soviet Union was a
weapon - essentially the first ballistic mis
wave of mysterious sightings over the Baltic
sile. Was it possible that the Russians had
Sea and Scandinavia. The peculiar activity
developed something similar and were test
started in late May, when residents of north
firing i t over the Baltic? The Kremlin denied
ern Sweden began to see strange rocketlike
this was the case, but the possibility made
shapes careening overhead. These curious
officials in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
reports came from remote areas and were
skittish enough to impose a news blackout
largely ignored until a few weeks later on
on all UFO sightings. Swedish military forces
June 9, when the citizens of Helsinki, Fin
went on the alert, and the United States sent
land, were flabbergasted by an object that
the retired air force general Jimmy Doolittle
cut across the pale night sky, trailing smoke
to assist them in their investigation. Ulti
and leaving a phantom afterglow in its wake.
mately, the Swedish Defense Ministry would
As additional sightings came in from
determine that 80 percent of the sightings
other parts of northern Europe, reports of
could be explained as conventional aircraft
the "ghost rockets" and "spook bombs"
or such natural events as meteors, stars,
dominated the newspapers. Accounts of the
planets, and clouds. Nevertheless, at least
unidentified objects' shape and behavior
200 of the reported sightings, the Swedes
vari e d . While most witnesses described
said, "cannot be the phenomena of nature or
what they had seen as missiles, others be
products of the imagination."
lieved they saw gray spheres or fireballs or
It would not be the last time that in
even pinwheel-like a ffairs spraying out
vestigators would reach a "tantalizing in
sparks. To some they looked like cigars or
conclusiveness" - the felicitous phrase used
footballs, and one witness described them as
in a United States government study twenty
" s e a g u l l s w i t h o u t h e a d s . " They fl e w
years later-as they probed the mystery of
straight, s o m e said; n o , claimed others
unidentified flying objects. At the same time,
they climbed, dived, even rolled and re
the scientific leaps resulting from World War
versed direction. Some flashed across the
II made the notion of extraterrestrial visitors,
sky like meteors. Others hardly moved.
once the fancy o f science-fiction writers,
Eventually, well over 1 ,000 sightings
seem more realistic. As investigators would
would be reported over seven months in
soon find out, foo fighters and ghost rockets
Sweden alone; similar reports flowed in
were just the beginning.