1944

The Foo Fighters of WWII: The Glowing Lights That Paced the Bombers

by
A Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter in flight — the type of aircraft flown by the 415th Night Fighter Squadron, whose crews first reported the foo fighters in November 1944

About 6 min readIn the last winter of the Second World War, Allied aircrews began reporting small glowing orbs that paced their aircraft, matched their manoeuvres, and vanished. The pilots named them foo fighters — and eighty years later, no single explanation covers all the reports.