Sweden, on February 8, 1947:
ACUFO-1947-02-08-SWEDEN-1
An US Navy Intelligence Report, written in Stockholm, Sweden on July 31, 1947, was about suspected detection of possible Russian guided missiles guidance radio signals.
It said that Lieutenant Commander Eric Pollard, of the US navy, pilot of a US Navy Privateer plane from his home base at Port Lyautey, Africa, to Gothenburg and Stockholm, arrived in Sweden. His aircraft made similar flights on three previous occasions, equipped with electronic equipment capable of receiving radar impulses and determining their direction and frequencies.
Pollard stated that in the various radar search flights he has made over Scandinavia, he has received and identified electronic signals which could be attributed to guided missile control from only one location: Russian-occupied Germany in the vicinity of Rügen. These signals had a frequency of about 41.5 megacycles, and the duration was as long as 14 minutes.
Pollard stated that all the other signals which he had received and identified were radar signals of the anti-aircraft search type, of 500-odd megacycles, with identified locations.
From the long duration of the signals received (14 minutes), the Navy Intelligence report estimated probable that it came from experiments involving radio-controlled Russian-built devices of the V-1 type.
| Date: | February 8, 1947 |
|---|---|
| Time: | ? |
| Duration: | 14 minutes. |
| First known report date: | July 31, 1947 |
| Reporting delay: | Hours, 5 months. |
| Country: | Sweden - Germany |
|---|---|
| State/Department: | |
| City or place: | Rügen. |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | 1 or more. |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 1 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 1 |
| Reporting channel: | US Navy Intelligence Report. |
|---|---|
| Visibility conditions: | N/A. |
| UFO observed: | Yes. |
| UFO arrival observed: | ? |
| UFO departure observed: | Yes. |
| UFO action: | Emits radio signal. |
| Witnesses action: | Observed. |
| Photographs: | N/A. |
| Sketch(s) by witness(es): | N/A. |
| Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): | N/A. |
| Witness(es) feelings: | ? |
| Witnesses interpretation: | ? |
| Sensors: |
[ ] Visual:
[ ] Airborne radar: [ ] Directional ground radar: [ ] Height finder ground radar: [ ] Photo: [ ] Film/video: [X] EM Effects: 14 minutes radio signal at 41.5 megacycles. [ ] Failures: [ ] Damages: |
|---|---|
| Hynek: | ? |
| Armed / unarmed: | Armed. |
| Reliability 1-3: | 3 |
| Strangeness 1-3: | 2 |
| ACUFO: | Unexplained, probably not UFO-related. |
[Ref. usn1:] U.S. NAVY INTELLIGENCE REPORT:
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OPNAV-N LOG-1942 (Rev.)
ISSUED BY THE INTELLIGENCE DIVISION
OFFICE OF CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
NAVY DEPARTMENT
(The refence to the is report must specify Serial No., Place and Date.)
CLASSIFICATION
S E C R E T
Serial 33-S-47 at Stockholm, Sweden Date 31 July 1947
From: U.S. Naval attache
Monograph Index Guide No. 804-360
Reference
a) U.S. Naval Officer
and b) Swedish Air Force Officers
Evaluation a) A-1; b) F-3
Subject SWEDEN / RUSSIA Guided Missiles Radio Control Systems
BRIEF.
Swedish officers report having received, via long-wave radio, guided missile control signals. U.S. Navy radar search plane plots similar signals as emanating from the RUGEN area of Russian-occupied Germany, as long as 14 minutes duration, about 41.5 megacycles, indicating experimentation with radio-controlled aircraft or V-1 types rather than true rockers of the V-2 type.
1. During a recent visit in Stockholm at the request of Aluana Stockholm Commander E. R. Dare, USN, of the Joint Research Board, attempted to get Swedish Air Force officers to evaluate the reports of guided missiles over Sweden. Commander Dare's report is as follows:
"Discussion of guided missiles were fruitless in a general sens, inasmuch as the Swedes did not discuss in any detail their own problems or the results of any findings. The only fact of significance which I have heretofore run into was that, despite the pooh-pooh of the guided missiles, the Swedes have received, on long wave ratio, signals that can be attributed only to a system which probably is an electronic guidance system. Although they did not explain in detail the type of signal received, it is apparent that it was not a communication signal but could only be interpreted as a command signal. A logical deduction from this would be that, if the Swedes are correct in their interpretation of the reception of a command signal on a long wave radio, the recipient of such a signal must be flying at less than 40,000 feet, inasmuch as a greater altitude and the high altitude ionization effect would preclude reception of consistent radio signals.
"I would not classify the above information as 'A-1', because I feel the information tossed out to me might have been a return from my discussion of the problems of an early warning system. However, such information may be of interest, and should probably be included in a hearsay report."
[Copies information]
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S E C R E T
N. A. Stockholm Report No. 33-S-47
31 July 1947
2. On the day following Commander Dare's visit, Lt. Comdr. Eric Pollard, USN, pilot of a U.S. Navy Privateer from his home base at Port Lyautey, Africa, to Gothenburg and Stockholm, arrived here. This aircraft made similar flights on three previous occasions, equipped with electronic equipment capable of receiving radar impulses and determining their direction and frequencies.
3. Lt. Comdr. Pollard stated that in the various radar search flights he has made over Scandinavia he has received and identified electronic signals which could be attributed to guided missile control from only one location: Russian-occupied Germany in the vicinity of Rügen. These signals had a frequency of about 41.5 megacycles, and the duration was as long as 14 minutes.
4. Lt. Cmdr. Pollard stated that all the other signals which he had received and identified were radar signals of the anti-aircraft search type, of 500-odd megacycles. Locations of these radar stations were placed as follows: one in Denmark, just South of Copenhagen; and three in Sweden, one of the west coast below Göteborg, one north of Stockholm, and one on the northern tip of the big Swedish island GOTLAND. (The latter may have been farther east, due to the aircraft's position at the time it was received, possibly from OSEL or LATVIA.
5. When the above reports are compared, certain assumptions can be made:
(a) The Swedes are conducting radar searches for guided missiles with their own radar, and have identified certain signals as being connected with guided missiles.
(b) The Russians are experimenting with radio-controlled craft of some sort in the Rügen sector of Germany.
(c) From the long duration of the control signals received (14 minutes), it is probable that the experiments involve radio-controlled aircraft of V-1 types rather than true rockets of the V-2 type, so that the extreme limit of their range would be the southern tip of Sweden.
[Ref. jcr1:] JOEL CARPENTER:
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31 Jul 47 - (S) Naval Intelligence memo re recent USN ferret flights to Peenemünde where radar and guidance signals were detected.
[Photo caption:] PB4Y Privateers of USN Ferret squadron VP-26 Det 214. Note direction finder antenna above fuselage
"Swedish officers report having received, via long-wave radio, guided missile control signals. US Navy radar search plane plots similar signals as emanating from the RUGEN area of Russian-occupied Germany, as long as 14 minutes duration, about 41.5 megacycles, indicating experimentation with radio-controlled aircraft or V-1 types rather than true rockets of the V-2 type."
Ferret Squadron VP-26 Det 214 PB4Y Privateers - in Operation PASSIONATE
(See 5 Apr 50)
[Ref. get1:] GEORGE M. EBERHART:
February 8 [, 1947] - A US Navy Privateer bomber flying over Sweden picks up signals that might be directing rockets. (Letter from US Naval Forces Europe, London, to Chief of Naval Operations; Jan Aldrich)
The aircraft is indicated to be a "US Navy Privateer"; this was a four-engine PB-4YW “Privateer”.
The Consolidated Aircraft PB4Y “Privateer” (photo below) was a WWII patrol bomber used by the US Navy, directly derived from the B-24 “Liberator”.
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Unlike the original B-24, it had a single vertical tail instead of a double tail, and bubble-shaped side gunner canopies of the same appearance as those of the PBY “Catalina” maritime patrol seaplane of Consolidated Aircraft.
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In 1946 and earlier, the so-called "ghost rockets" sightings over Northern Europe and then other countries were suspected, among other explanations attempts, to be V-1 or V-2 captured and testes by the Soviets, or maybe some other, new, Soviet cruise missiles, because they were observed maneuvering in a part of the sighting reports.
It is true that the Russians captured some V-1s when they reached the Blizna test range in Poland, and the Mittelwerk Dora, at the end of WWII. They built the "10Kh", their copy of the V-1, later called "Izdeliye 10". The initial tests began in March 1945 in Tashkent, with further launches from ground sites and from aircraft of improved versions continuing into the late 1940s. But the obsolescence of the guidance system when compared with new methods such as beam-riding and TV guidance saw development end in the early 1950s.
But the theory of the Russian origin is rejected by the Swedish, British and USA investigator because despite crashes report, no identifiable fragment is found, because the objects generally produced no exhaust trail, because some reports showed the objects being too slow, or maneuvering too fast, or maneuvering in formation, and often in total silence.
In August 1946, the US Intelligence nevertheless estimated that the "ghost rockets" were Russian development of the V-1 tested and launched from Peenemünde.
But War and aviation historians all indicate that after the end of WWII, no rockets or missiles tests were conducted in Peenemünde and no trace exists of any such device being sent by the Russians over Scandinavia. The Soviets, when they arrived at the Peenemünde base, took all the electrical cables away and blew most of the remaining buildings up. The place was later used as a normal air base, as it had a long landing strip. But it was not used a missile or rocket test base. It now has a Peenemünde Historical Technical Museum.
The Soviets planned to use Mittelwerk Dora to built copies of the V-2 rocket, but in October 1946, they closed the plant and moved their entire V-2 program to a new facility near Moscow, so that this place too was an unlikely origin for the "ghost rockets", specially in 1947. In fact, Russia never launched even one V-2 rocket.
A November 4, 1948, United States Air Force in Europe memo declassified in 1997 linked the "ghost rockets" and the "flying discs" reports that came up in 1947, and indicates that some of their investigators thought they were extraterrestrial craft.
In this case, the Privateer detected the origin of the radio signal: Rügen, a German peninsula in the Baltic Sea. In 2005, a German historian, Rainer Karlsch, claimed the place had been used in 1944 by the Nazis to test a a radiological weapon - a "dirty bomb", not a real atomic bomb - or a "hybrid-nuclear fusion weapon". But since publication, physicists and nuclear historians have refuted many of Karlsch's claims and noted that no traces of significant radioactivity have been found at the claimed test sites.
Historical data indicate that no test facility existed in Rügen nor German during WWII neither Russian after WWII. So, the detected rafio signal in this case has no obvious explanation; of course there is no particular reason either to claim it was produced by a UFO.
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Unexplained, probably not UFO-related.
* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.
| Main author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | June 30, 2026 | Creation, [usn1], [jcr1], [get1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | June 30, 2026 | First published. |
