B00AY88OHE EBOK (26 page)

No better place to start exists than with Renato Vesco. Vesco’s insights for the reasons for German saucers were right on the money as were his descriptions of cultural conditions within wartime Germany with prompted this response. Vesco elucidated the foo fighter mystery as nobody else did. But he went on to describe another mystery craft which he called the “Kugleblitz” or “ball lightning” in English (1.) This craft is not the same as the Schriever, Habermohl, Miethe or any other saucer design so far disclosed. Indeed, Vesco seems to know nothing of these other projects. His only descriptions were of the Feuerball (foo fighter) and the Kugelblitz.

Vesco described Kugelblitz as the big brother of the Feuerball, meaning that it was a further development of the Feuerball or foo fighter. A central cupola or cabin was surrounded by a free-spinning body or saucer which was turbine driven. Further stabilization was probably provided by a small but rapidly spinning centrally positioned flywheel, a gyroscope, set at ninety degrees from the axis of the saucer. The Kugelblitz was able to take-off vertically. Its method of destroying enemy aircraft was probably that described by Vesco (2) and confirmed in new U.S. government documents which included the description of the “Phoo Bomb” (3) under item six, “Gases Applicable To Aircraft.” In this system the Kugelblitz approached an enemy bomber formation and ejected one of two types of gas ahead of that formation. The engines of the bombers inhaled the gas and were either destroy by pre-ignition or engine seizure caused by loss of motor oil viscosity. It is not know if one or both methods were used.

The Kugelblitz was guided to the bomber formation by a homing device whose name may have caused Vesco and later UFO researchers some confusion. This is because there existed a homing device whose name was “Kuglelblitz.” This may have caused Vesco to assume the entire project bore its name. This device was manufactured by the Patent Verwertungs Gesellschaft of Salzburg and we know quite a bit about it through a Freedom Of Information Act response (4.)

Curiously enough, and for a second time, the file comes to us from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a domestic spy agency which theoretically had no business investigating foreign technology in foreign lands.

The Kugelblitz homing device was a proximity fuse which measured radio frequency waves bounced back from the target, reconciling the Doppler shift with measurement of standing waves to find the exact distance to the target. This homing device was the best of any produced by the Germans, according to the report, as was to be used on all varieties of flak rockets including the Schmettlerling and the Rheintochter. Examples were built at the Patent Verwertungs Gesellschaft plant but it never reached full assembly line production.

There are two interesting asides to this story. The first is that on May 1, 1945, one day after Hitler shot himself in the bunker and six days before Germany surrendered, two officers of the Reichsministerium fuer Rustungs und Kriegsproduktion (Albert Speer’s ministry) arrived at the plant and took all existing examples of the Kugelbitz devices and the plans. Neither the two officers, the devices, nor the plans were ever seen again (5). Why was this done? Realistically, these officers must have had some post-war aspirations for this device. It must be added that at this point in the war, Speer’s ministry, the Reichs Ministry for Armament and War Production referred to above was in fact being administered and run by the SS.

The second aside is another device in the conceptual stages at the Patent Verwertungs Gesellschaft called “Phantoscope.” Phantoscope was to employ high frequency waves beamed to the ground then reflected and picked up on board a moving aircraft to image, in three dimensions, the contours of the earth’s surface using a glass case filled with gas and tiny vertical wires. This could be done in any weather, day or night (6). One wonders if the German officers plucked this jewel also? If so, was this to be used on a manned saucer?

Vesco says the Kugelblitz saucer was flown once against enemy aircraft (7). It was destroyed by technical detachments of the SS after “a single lucky wartime mission” (8) in late March or April of 1945 (9).

Another mystery is the post-war activities of Dr. Richard Miethe. Most all sources state that Dr. Miethe went to Canada after the war and worked on a joint CanadianAmerican saucer project at an aircraft facility near Toronto, Ontario. Unfortunately, all Freedom Of Information Act inquiries concerning Dr. Miethe run into the solid wall of “no record.” Only one researcher ever claimed to have a document naming Dr. Miethe in association with this Avro Aircraft, Limited project, (also known as A.V. Roe, Limited), and that one researcher later admitted to being “a government asset” which throws a cloud of doubt on all his work (10).

There is no doubt, however, that by early 1955, work was commenced by Avro to build a mach 3 flying saucer which is reminiscent of some of the designs attributed to Dr. Miethe. Two designs were proposed, the difference being the engine used to power the saucer. One proposal was to use several axial-flow jet engines. The second and preferred proposal was to use one large radial-flow jet engine. The axial type is the type most commonly used in jet aircraft today. The radial type was similar to the first jet engine flown by the Germans in 1937. In fact, the radial engine actually under study in Canada may have had some similarities with the Rene Leduc engine used by Dr. Miethe.

Work continued until the early 1960s under various names including Project Silver Bug and Project 1794. Finally, a small hover-craft was unveiled by Avro as the final outcome of their saucer experimentation. This “Avrocar” had nothing to do with either Dr. Miethe’s work or a mach three interceptor. The Avrocar was probably a cover project for something else. This “something else” was more advanced.

The Avro Aircraft, Limited experimentation with saucer-craft was always an open secret which was at times exploited by the government. Information regarding this project has been obtained via Freedom Of Information Act using their American partner, the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, by this researcher as well as other researchers.

There exists a sub-story to the Canadian involvement which should be mentioned. In an article in a British UFO magazine, writer Palmiro Campagna revealed a previously unknown connection between the Canadian government and the history of German saucers (11). It seems that an SS technical liaison officer, Count Rudolf von Meerscheidt-Huellessem, (erroneously spelled “Hullessem” in the article), contacted the Canadian government in March of 1952, offering technical information about a German saucer which could attain speeds “limited only by the strength of the metals used in the saucer’s construction.” According to the article, von Meerscheidt-Huellessem wanted a large sum of money as down payment, a monthly salary and Canadian citizenship and police protection in exchange. Support for this claim comes in the form of copies of Canadian government documents describing this offer. Mr. Campagna states in the article that the Canadian government ultimately declined the offer but that the American government may have taken over negotiations and accepted.

Contact was made by this researcher with a daughter of Count Rudolf von Meerscheidt-Huellessem’s who verified that her father was a technical liaison officer. She had little contact with her father since she was two years old since he had remarried and moved to Canada. She was able, however, to provide the address of another relative, Countess von Huellessem, who was Count Rudolf von Meerscheidt-Huellessem’s widow.

Avro Flying Saucer

This is a general diagram of the exterior of an Avro saucer. It is representative of how the Avro radial engine saucers worked. Within this outer hull an inner, flat radial-type engine of was situated. This is exactly the scheme designed by Dr. Richard Miethe it has been copied from his designs. Dr. Frost and his engine designs were overblown, heavy, complicated frauds.

Contact was made with Countess von Huellessem. Count von Meerscheidt-Huellessem died in 1988. But the Countess did know a little something about the story in question. Her late husband did discuss the flying saucer with her, but only once. He told her that the “drawings” had been given to a representative of the Canadian government in 1952. After review of the drawings, the only comment from the representative was that they were “outdated.” The drawings were never returned. The Canadians had succeeded in obtaining hard information concerning a real flying saucer and in paying for it with an insult. Count von Meerscheidt-Huellessem was somewhat despondent over the rejection. He never mentioned the subject to his wife again. At the time they were both making new lives for themselves in Canada and the subject never resurfaced.

In discussing these events with the Countess over the telephone, she told me that she herself had seen these drawings. She was asked if these were drawings or technical plans. She said they were technical drawings on rolls of paper. I said the word “blueprint” and she said “yes.” She stated again that these drawings were given only to the Canadians and not to the Americans.

Countess von Huellessem was sent a copy of the aforementioned article. Her only comment was that her husband would not have asked for a large sum of money in exchange for this information. They already had means. He might have asked for a position, she said, since her husband would have enjoyed working on this project.

Returning to the Avro Aircraft, Limited U. S. Air Force saucer project, we have to ask ourselves some questions. First, was this information, these plans, the real basis of the Avro saucer project? This would certainly explain the reason for the partnership between the two governments involved since the Americans would have needed the Canadians at that point and the Canadians would have insisted upon control of the project on their home soil. Second, did the technology brought to the Canadians by von Meerscheidt-Huellessem have anything to do with the jet technology obtained the under Freedom Of Information Act? It certainly had nothing to do with a hover-craft which was the outcome of this project according to the government. How could a floppy hover-craft barely capable of 300 miles per hour under the best of estimates have had anything to do with a saucer whose speed was “only limited by the strength of metals used in the saucer’s construction”? Could Project Silver Bug, Project 1794, and some of the other patents of John Frost attributed to this collaboration all be nothing more than an elaborate cover story?

Another point is that until recently, the only connection linking the German saucer projects to the Avro Project and to the Americans was the involvement of Dr. Richard Miethe. With the new evidence of the Peenemuende Project’s connection to the American saucer projects run out of Wright Field, Ohio and the Count von Meerscheidt-Huellessem connections to the Canadians, the weak linkage of Dr. Miethe to these projects is superfluous. There is now more than enough evidence to make these connections with or without Dr. Miethe. Further, considering the Count von Meerscheidt-Huellessem evidence, there is now a direct link between German saucer technology and the Canadian government’s saucer project at A.V., Roe Limited. That link turns out to be the SS in the form of an SS technical liaison officer.

There are differing opinions as to how known saucer-types were actually powered. Every researcher seems to have his own ideas about this subject. Could the answer to this dilemma be that there are more types of German saucers than we know about? For instance a device is depicted in a 1975 issue of Luftfahrt International, a well respected German aeronautical magazine, which shows a drawing of a “Flakmine” (12). Depicted are several rotor blades, some powered by ram-jets, making it essentially a jet-powered helicopter. This device may have been derived from design work done in Italy in which the propellant and the explosive were the same substance. This device was called the “Turboproietto” meaning in English, “turbine projectile” (13). It would have been able to carry large quantities of explosive to the altitude of a bomber formation. The device would have rotored up, vertically, to the level of a formation of bombers and then detonated, using the remaining fuel as a bomb, presumably inflicting heavy losses. Klaus-Peter Rothkugel refers to this very device as a “Drehfluegel” and will detail its development in his upcoming book.

In another instance of a possible saucer type, saucers shown to Bill Lyne in a movie clip while he was in Air Force Intelligence were described by him as “flying turtles” (14). This film was taken by B-17 flight personnel during World War Two as the two German saucers attacked a squadron of bombers. Other writers including Michael X. Barton and Norbert Juergen-Ratthofer used these same descriptive words. Vesco describes the “Feuerball,” the foo fighter, as “circular and armored, more or less resembling the shell of a tortoise.” This description also applies to his Kugelblitz (15). Turtle or tortoise is “Schildkroete” in German. Sometimes this device is referred to as a “flying turtle” in both languages. With so many writers using this term for flying craft which are apparently not all similar, there exists a certain amount of confusion about this name, “Schildkroete.” Therefore, this saucer does not seem to fit neatly into any previously described saucer type. Perhaps this flying turtle is only another name for the Fireball or foo-fighter which seems to be the consensus among German writers. Other writers seem to associate this word with a larger craft so perhaps this type of saucer is closer to what Vesco described as the Kugelblitz. “Schildkroete” seemed so nebulous that for many years this writer refused to accept the term at all.