THE NAZI UFO LIE
(originally published May 2009)
A very disturbing theme recurs from time to time in the UFO literature. Some maintain that Nazi scientists had perfected advanced aerial craft including "flying saucers" – both in Germany during WWII and as captured "Paperclip" scientists in the US. This supposed Nazi technology is seen by these "researchers" as the genesis of early man-made UFOs. Even now it is seen by some as the reason for today's state-of-the-art "Dreamland" flying machines – or even as the true cause of the Roswell crash!
This lie has been repeated in many books and magazines from the very beginning of the UFO phenomenon. It continues even now with the publication of material from authors such as Martin Cannon, Nick Redfern, Nick Cook, William Lyne, Michael Heiser, Mark Ian Birdsall, Joseph Farrell and David Hatcher Childress.
The belief that secret Nazi UFO technologies existed during WWII – and that the US took these technologies to develop further – is as unsettling as it is untrue. "Nazi UFOs" have been proposed by some on numerous websites and in books such as The Facade, Pentagon Space Aliens, The Hunt for Zero Point, Man-Made UFOs, and Hitler's Flying Saucers. They elevate Nazi scientific know-how to a level that it does not deserve.
DISCOVERED – THE FIRST MENTION OF "NAZI UFOS"
I believe that I have found the "original impetus" for such nonsense...
Incredibly, in 1947 (the very year of the beginning of the modern UFO era) a fictional book entitled Rocket Ship Galileo authored by German-American Robert A. Heinlein, unquestionably "set the stage" for all future books and theories about Nazi saucers.
In this sci-fi novel, three teenagers work with their uncle, a "Dr. Cargraves," to construct a spaceship to go to the moon. The boys land on the Moon only to discover that the Nazis have already arrived! When the teens locate a secret Nazi lunar base, they discover wondrous technology. The boys and their uncle somehow overcome the Nazis and pilot the Nazi spaceship (which of course is more advanced than the one developed by the American teens and their uncle) back to Earth. Every element of Nazi and Operation Paperclip saucer myth is set forth in this book. The idea that the Nazis had perfected advanced craft – and that we retrieved this technology – is a featured theme in the novel. It is one that is repeated to this very day.
The first known mention of the Nazi-UFO connection presented as non-fiction appeared in a March 30, 1950 article in the German tabloid, Der Spiegel. It continued with a series of 1950s Police Gazette neo-Nazi stories. In the 1960s, strange books by authors such as Renato Vesco and "Michael X. Barton" – with titles like The German Saucer Story – made their way onto bookstore shelves. The idea that somewhere, someone is continuing the line of secret black projects initiated by the Nazis, is at the crux of these books and
theories. Some of these theories are frightening in that they point to the supposed "reality" of a surviving "Third Power" of former Nazis.
Frauds such as "contactee" George Adamski put forth the concept of aliens of distinctly "Aryan" stock. Idealized as tall, blonde and blue-eyed, these aliens were human and possessed advanced technological wonders. The obvious connection between the idea of German-like superiority and flying saucers was again emblazoned upon the public psyche. In his book Messengers of Deception, author Jacques Vallee noted the connections between early contactees (such as George Hunt Williamson) and American Nazism. Such "German influence" is seen even today with reports of interactions with "Nordic" aliens.
Less troubling (but finding its origin from the same cesspool) is the notion that captured German scientists collaborated with US scientists to test-fly advanced or novel "gliders" and "balloon craft" at our bases in New Mexico. It is said that such aerial black experiments – designed by Germans and using captured Japanese or even deformed children – accounts for the crash at Roswell. Books such as Nick Redfern's Body Snatchers in the Desert promote this idea.
World War II is an historical period that has received more attention than any other. The focus of what happened has always been on the Germans – their reprehensible experiments and their inhumane ways. But the history of Nazi Saucers just does not exist in mainstream history. Rather, such ideas rely on claims without proof, extreme right-wingers and on the profit motives of unscrupulous writers and publishers of the sensational.
From the beginning, people speculated about the origin of the unidentified objects flying in our skies. In 1950, it perhaps made sense to consider that the technological achievements of the Nazis may have included the development of such saucers – but it makes no sense in 2009.
When carefully examined, we find that "Nazi UFOs" simply never existed. Every photograph presented on websites and books of such craft are faked with models, Photoshop, or artistic renderings. Others are misidentified, prosaic objects. And in every case where a German "saucer scientist" is identified, we find that the "scientist" did not exist, or was a false claimant.
REASONS FOR NAZI UFO BELIEFS
When we look at the people who promote such theories, we find that their beliefs are rooted in one of two reasons:
1) Anti-semitism or pro-Nazi sympathies; or just the opposite –
2) A continued hatred and fear of the evil experiments conducted by Nazis in remote locations
Those who are motivated by the first reason promote fantasies such as an "escaped Hitler" residing in Antartica and building Flying Saucers – or even that ET itself teamed with the Reich on how to construct such craft. Other, more occult fantasies (relating often to the "Thule Society" or the "Black Sun" group) associate Nazis with rituals and rites that led them to contact with mysterious "dark powers" that directed them in how to construct advanced aerials.
Those motivated by the second reason promote the fantasies of continued flight experiments on US soil by captured Nazi scientists of unusual or advanced aircraft using unwitting or unwilling passengers. In both cases though, there is a certain "elevation" of Nazi achievement over our own capabilities. But it is an advantage that simply never existed. Fake photos, fraudulent science, and lying or misguided witnesses and authors are at the heart of such beliefs.
FAKE PHOTOS
Above: famous rendition of a Nazi UFO is the "Schauberger" UFO. It is in reality a Water Turbine.
Above: "The Bell" or "Die Glocke" is promoted by British aviation writer Nick Cook as a test rig for Nazi anti-gravity saucers. It is actually the frame for a cooling tower! Wider shot photos reveal a conventional power plant nearby.
Above: one example of several (usually blurry) "artistic renderings" or Photoshop renditions depicting supposed Nazi saucers.
FRAUDULENT SCIENCE
German scientists who supposedly engineered such Nazi saucer craft (with names like Meithe, Schauberger, Schriever and Habermohl) fail utterly to check out. They either never existed or they were not the engineering technologists that they claimed to be, but simply theorist "wannabes."
Others who were real engineers, such as the German "Horten Brothers," are implicated by some as having developed strange "flying wings." In actuality, the US had possessed at the time far superior designs than the Hortens for all-wing, wingless, delta-wing and wedge-craft aerial vehicles.
One of the Horten brothers wrote to the president of Northrop Aircraft in the late 1940s asking if he could come to work for them. He was rebuffed because Horten had nothing to offer that we didn't already have. Historical documents show that both Northrop and the US military thought the Hortons "odd" and off-base when it came to things that fly. Even Russia ignored them.
ROSWELL AND THE NAZI-TERRESTRIAL CONNECTION MYTH
Author Nick Redfern carries this myth-torch today. Initially Mr. Redfern's thesis seems compelling – it even did to me. Closer examination though reveals huge flaws. In his book Body Snatchers in the Desert (and on his blogs), Mr. Redfern perpetuates the idea that German scientists (captured by the US after WWII during Operation Paperclip) continued their heinous human experiments. This time though, it is in the form of sickening, secret test flights under the direction of US government personnel at New Mexico bases and national labs. Mr. Redfern maintains that this is the likely cause of the Roswell crash.
In Mr. Redfern's world, even after the war – and on US soil – the evil Nazis continued to toil on strange craft and to conduct heinous human experimentation in remote locations. The "fear of Nazis" meme is continued, even after the Reich was conquered and the war criminals were captured. And this meme sounds suspiciously like others that tell of "continued Nazi activity," but instead in other remote locations like Antartica.
Mr. Redfern's book's subtitle is very telling: The Horrible Truth at the Heart of the Roswell Story. It reflects the continuing fear that our government experiments with its citizens. Of course, our government had indeed conducted – and now admitted to – horrible radiation tests, tests using LSD, tests on the mentally disabled, and worse.
But Mr. Redfern goes one further by adding a "captured Nazi engineers" twist. He cobbles together a speculative scenario that attempts to show an unholy collusion between Paperclip scientists and US scientists.
Like similar authors before him, Redfern has yet to produce even a single official document or genuine photo to make such a direct connection. Instead – like similar authors before him – he props up his thesis with information from
discredited researchers like Timothy Cooper, faked film like the Alien Autopsy, and anonymous testimony from people that he did not discover, but who approached him – people like "Mr. Levine, "The Colonel" and "The Black Widow."
He identifies by name only a couple of (third-hand) sources: William "Bill" Slater of the US Psychology Strategy Board in the early 1950s, and Alan "Al" Barker, formerly with the US Army Psychological Warfare Center, also during the early 1950s. We have yet to be offered proof of their existence and military station. Even years after the book's publication, they have curiously failed to come forward (or, to my knowledge, to be talked to by anyone at all other than Mr. Redfern). This itself is damning to his theory. Whenever I discover a potentially valuable "witness" to Roswell or the UFO phenomena, I almost always contact another researcher so that he or she can confirm my reporting.
Mr. Redfern believes that small, diseased or deformed Japanese from the notorius Unit 731 were brought to America by the US military to continue biological and flight experimentation on them. As an insightful Amazon reviewer wrote of Redfern's tome, Nick "reveals his confusion regarding the differences between Japanese people and alien bodies. Surely after five years of fighting the Japanese, any witness would know the difference between a physically handicapped Japanese person and an extraterrestrial."
Mr. Redfern does not seem to understand the history of flight. Well-conditioned, normal-sized adult men were used to test flight extremes. Using diseased or deformed midgets or those with otherwise compromised constitutions makes no sense – and would provide meaningless data. These are simply not the types of people that would be used because the results of their flights would not provide the kind of information relevant to healthy, real-world pilots or passengers.
Recently on his blog, Mr. Redfern has been reduced to citing the writings of one "Kathy Kasten" to support his thesis. Ms. Kasten maintains that she was literally "guided by voices in her head" to find proof that Roswell was a secret terrestrial experiment. Kathy also believes that she was "irradiated" by the CIA and her by own father. Though her writings today on the subject are less delusional, she continues to relate false histories on the subject in publications such as the appropriately named Paranoia magazine, which Mr. Redfern recommends reading.
Mr. Redfern's deformed version of the Paperclip program ignores that the operation's noble aim was to grab the best German researchers – like Werner von Braun – to use for what the Germans were really good at: Rocketry. This led to the Apollo programs and moon landings. These misleading "revisionist" assertions on aeronautics find their roots in good ole' rockets!
THE TRUTH
The Roswell crash – and the UFO phenomena – have nothing whatsoever to do with German innovation or experimentation. Instead, they represent a technology designed not by Nazis – or even by Mankind. The truth is that they speak to a science so advanced that it is altogether Unearthly.