There are a lot of theories about why UFOs are and where they come from. Some say they come from another galaxy. Others say another dimension. In this episode, we will dove into one theory that says UFOs came from Europe in Germany and were built by the Nazis. Is there any truth to this crazy theory? Let's find out. Welcome to the basement office. One of the urban legends, folklore, conspiracy theories that doesn't die is that UFOs flying saucers have an origin in Nazi Germany. Now, I'm hoping in this episode to compare the rumors with the facts of what we know so that we can dismiss some out, some of the outlandish stuff. We should start with World War 2 itself and the Foo Fighters. What were the Foo Fighters? The Foo Fighters were predominantly balls of light seen by pilots during the war. And one can say that perhaps the roots of the modern UFO phenomenon actually lie in the Foo Fighter mystery. They were seen, interestingly, by both sides. So Royal Air Force officers frequently reported these strange balls of light, small objects, and they said that they tracked the planes, flew alongside them. Extraordinary speeds and maneuvers. And the initial suspicion was this must be some sort of Nazi secret weapon. But then they showed no hostile action, which was kind of odd. And then off to the war, it transpired that German and Japanese pilots had seen the same thing and had made the opposite assumption. Well, it must be some sort of allied secret weapon. So everyone was seeing these things. And we we see I mean, there is a classic photograph of these Foo Fighters. And so everyone has the perception that they are balls of light. But I've seen some of the Ministry of Defense files on this from Bomber Command. And one of them in particular talks about an object. I mean, huge. Maybe 200 feet in diameter more. We're talking not about balls of light, but suddenly about structured metallic looking craft. So a war is being fought. Strange lights in craft are flying alongside our airplanes. Allied airplanes following them around unidentified. Not responding to radio there, picked up on radar. So rumors start. This must be the enemy. This could be the Nazis. What is this? Was there ever a determination in your experience in the Ministry of Defense as to the best determination of what these were? No, I've seen the files. It was a complete mystery. And that being the case, there was almost a conspiracy of silence. The senior Air Force officers took the view that we don't know what these things are, but we don't want to create rumor and panic. So best try and put a lid on the whole thing and just don't talk about it. And it was really only in later years when the U.S. and the U.K. government started their UFO programs that people looked back at the Foo Fighters and said, well, wait, this was the start of it, maybe. So now there's no evidence that these Foo Fighters, these balls of light specifically were Nazi technology. There is an abundance of evidence that Nazi Germany had technology. Technological advances that the United States wanted to get their hands on nearly immediately after World War 2. We have something called Operation Paperclip. Operation Paperclip was essentially the U.S. government reaching out to Nazi scientists, engineers, literal rocket scientists and saying instead of prosecuting you for war crimes and instead of prosecuting you for your involvement in the SS and the Nazi Party, we're gonna hire you and bring you to the United States secretly and the U.S. military. The government wanted something that these scientists in Nazi Germany had. What did they have? Well, they had a law. They had technology that in many ways was better than anything. We had the V1 V2 in particular, essentially the world's first ballistic missile. This was something that we had not developed. The Emmy to six to was the world's first operational jet fighter. So in many areas, not see technology, particularly in terms of aircraft and missiles, was way ahead of anything we had. And the only thing that stopped them really using this as a game changer and winning the war was the fact that much of this was developed too late to be built in any sufficient numbers. And by that time, the thousand bomber raids were flattening the production facilities. But they had that knowledge and they had that technological Know-How that we didn't have. So, of course, most famously, Vernon von Brown was brought over. And and literally, this isn't conspiracy, as you say, this is documented and proven. The V-2 rocket evolved essentially into the Apollo space missions. And it's the same technology. And if you understand, you know, Paperclip, the Russians also wanted in. They wanted those same scientists. There was like a tug of war when the Brits. Let's not forget the British. We had something called the T forces and the T stood for technology. These were units of scientists and engineers who traveled immediately behind the frontline. And as these various Nazi airfields and production facilities were captured, they would get their hands on the technology and ship it back to the UK. But yeah, everyone was at it. They were fighting both, you know, above ground and then also incognito behind the scenes, fighting over who gets the corner market on the tech that these German scientists had. So let's talk about the rumors. Now, the rumors that exist still to today are that what the United States and Russia really want to wear. These don't speak German and vrinda fine for Vinda. Miracle. Miracle weapons, right? So conspiracy theorists have created sketches and drawings about these rumors, these rumored rumors of these crazy, insane miracle weapons that Nazi Germany supposedly had. And this is a sketch that somebody has made and perhaps a science fiction fan. This is what people claim. Hitler was developing flying disc objects. This is another rumored unsubstantiated craft called the Bell the Nazi Bell, Dethklok Ziegler. But on top of that, there are actual toys. You would go on Amazon and buy a Glock toy if your kid wants one for Christmas. And in fact, that toy store got in trouble and made headlines, I think a year or two ago where they were selling Nazi UFOs on their toy shelves. And there were some complaints about what the heck is this that you're selling to our kids. So these are all rumors. Right. There's no photographic evidence of this. But to move on to what we do have, we have declassified CIA, postwar CIA, declassified postwar FBI documents, literally talking in CIA case, talking about, quote, flying saucers of Germany, German engineers talking about how they worked on flying saucers to men in East Germany, are seen in metallic clothing, jump into a flying saucer and fly away in East Germany. These are CIA. This is these are actual government intelligence documents. This is an intelligence report. German engineer says the Soviets have obtained the Nazi UFO plans after an FBI report postwar in the 50s. Prisoner of war talking about circular aircraft rising out of German facility during World War 2. So there are documents that exist that reference flying saucers, circular craft, flying craft without wings, traditional wings being engineered, built, operable, flying in Nazi Germany. I absolutely some of this is documented in another good example. I think if something that is real and verifiably so is the. The Horten brothers, the so-called flying wing. Right. The flying wing was a Nazi bomber that was unlike anything the world had ever seen at that point. It was this weird boomerang shaped aircraft powered by jet engines. It was designed for bombing runs. It was tested throughout World War Two, but it never became fully active. They never actually flew this thing during the war. But it was one of the top things that the Americans wanted to acquire through Operation Paperclip. And if you look at some of the pictures of that, it doesn't look too dissimilar from, say, a modern B-2 stealth bomber. So, again, the Nazis were definitely working on a lot of this. The real question is, where is the line between things that they were absolutely working on and trying to build and saying would this design be a game changer and thinks that they were actually able to build and not just build as a prototype, but become operational. But, you know, it's an interesting point about the Second World War. There's a school of thought from historians that says the reason the war went on so long as they did have faith in these so-called wonder weapons. And then, of course, when Hitler pulled out the V1 and V2, people said yes. And obviously felt that the. Was more to come and that would be a game changer. Now, whether that is something like the flying wing, the Horten brothers, whether it's something like Dick Locke, the Nazi Ba'al. I don't know. But then you have something like the Nazi Ballan just when you write that off as just another one of those urban myths and tall tales. Along comes something like textbook. Right. And it kind of flips the narrative and makes you think, well, wait a minute, maybe there is something to that. So Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, in 1960, December 1965, multiple witnesses observe a object crash out of the sky until a wooded area. The military shows up. Federal representatives show up. Army ropes off the area. I mean, they'd lock the town down. And I spoke with a firsthand witness to the crash. Kecksburg. Let's cut to that. You were a witness to the Kecksburg event. I was. What did you see? Well, we first heard it on the radio and TV, and then we seen this streak in the sky from where we was in Greensburg. Here's an orange streak in the sky. So whenever it came on the radio and they kept saying, well, town where it went down. So the wife and I went out to what is now Metier Road. And that's where we're seeing the military. Okay. So you see something streaked through the sky. What did it look like if you seen a jet rooster tail? If you ever see one or something like that, that's exactly. You know what it looked like. It wasn't as big, but it was Norge streak in the sky. So you see this streak in the sky. You hear over the radio it's crashed in this particular area. You drive there. And by the time you get there, the military is already there. That's correct. You know, you can make that trip in 14 or 15 minutes easy. And by the time we got there. You know, they had the roads blocked off and they wouldn't let us down in. What were they doing there? Well, they were walking through that area looking for something. Did anybody see any of the townsfolk? See the military? EXTRACT an object, leave with an object, anything like that? Yes, there was people that had cabins up on them up and they come down into Kecksburg after. Hear it on the radio. And when they got in town, they seemed to be military. Plus they seen this object coming down through Kecksburg on a flatbed covered up. It was tarped. Do you know of anyone who actually saw what crashed most to those people right now are deceased and most of them went to their deathbed stating that something did happen and something. Kundun in the woods. Kecksburg. What did they see? Well, they see the one guy claims that he he was there and he's seen a metallic object. It was shaped like an acorn. It was goldish color, brauns each color. And it was round like an acorn. They had a rumor on the board. What kind of size boasted of people had seen it said it looked like the size of a Volkswagen. Now. Tell me about the object. Well, it looked from the sketches that we have from eyewitnesses uncannily like the Nazi battle. It looks exactly like the Nazi regularly. And now there were essentially three theories doing the rounds. Theory number one is that this was a meteorite. This was kind of a meteorite. Maybe it actually crashed to Earth fireball. Me, too. Something like that. Theory number two was that this was a downed Soviet satellite. And theory number three is that it was, I guess, a literal UFO spot, perhaps a UFO that was not CNR origin because of this similarity with the bell. And that's that's that's the rumor part, you know, because there is such mystery behind you, paperclip, etc., that people tend to just start filling in those gaps with whatever they come up with. But I think there's a more probable explanation, something manmade and something that does look like an a'court. What do you personally believe happened at Kecksburg that night? Well, I'm not one. I don't believe there was little green aliens or anything like that. But I I was were there all the information I've seen, I've had you know, it's I believe they could be something that our government doesn't want us to know, because if you remember back then, we was behind in the space race. We'll be here while we are behind. During that time period, Kennedy vowed that we would not be behind. But we do not intend to stay behind. And in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead. So I don't know, you know, it it's something that I believe is manmade in whatever it was. They took it out. You're familiar with I mean in in sixty eight. Sixty nine, the Apollo Lunar Reentry Module. Yes, if you look at that, if you look at that and what did we put in the ocean with a parachute? You look at that, that object. What does it look like, an acorn? Correct. And that's why the backbone of my theory that I think that it could be something of yours that they lost control of it dropped. And Kecksburg. So do you think a crash lunar reentry module could explain Kecksburg? Sure. It's possible the space race was on the time NASA was experimenting with with these vehicles, including the lunar reentry vehicle. And there's no getting away from the fact that it does look similar. You would think if that was the case, this was a NASA lunar reentry module, you would think. Fifty five years later, there would be documents that were released to the public explaining this. They'd be fine. Decades later saying, yep, that's what it was. This happened. We were experimenting and this happened. So tell me about the paper trail when it comes to finding out what this was. Investigative journalist Lesley Kane went after some of the documents about this. She had some fairly important political heavyweight backing to that initiative, and they went off to using Freedom of Information Act NASA files. And NASA turned around and said, oh, we've lost a lot of the paperwork on that. Whoops. Yeah, it time and time again. Whatever you're dealing with with this phenomenon, the logbooks get blown overboard. Radar tapes get confiscated. Documents get lost. There's a kind of pattern here. All right. So I want to move on to other things that we know about rumors versus fact when it comes to Nazi Germany. Their technology and their ambitions with regards to rumors around UFO. So in 1938, Hitler sent an expedition to an article and there was a unofficial kind of claiming of New Swabia called. Now we know that happened. The rumors are about what happened after that expedition, Nazi expedition in 1938 are all over the place. And so I think it's it's good for us to to focus on what we know versus what is rumored. Well, the expedition absolutely happened. I mean, I documented historical fact. I think there were two stated reasons for it. The first, of course, was geopolitics. The Nazis wanted to show that in every field they were just as dominant and influential as any other nation on earth, if not more so. So, of course, when it came to things like territorial claims in Antarctica, they wanted to be in that game. So geopolitics is certainly part of it. Another part of it is resources. I mean, many people in Nazi Germany knew or suspected that war was coming. So the question of what resources there might be in Antarctica and indeed this is what I think gets us into some of the rumors, but the possibility of military bases right down there must have been something in their minds, the ability to have a base to launch weapons, missiles, planes, boats from at that position. They were, I guess, surveying to see the pros and cons of constructing a possible military base here in what they called the Germans come Swabi. Now, the rumors say that, yes, they built a base, a military base, a strong armed military base, that these boomed of OFT's that were mentioned, the bell, whatever the saucers that are referenced in the CIA documents that this was the staging ground and that they were flying flying saucers over an article and staging their wonder weapons out of Antarctica that see that that is indeed the rumor. Now, there is little to no fact that beyond that first expedition, 1938, 1939, they had any real presence in Antarctica. But there is a CIA document talking about flying saucers over Antarctica. Now, of course, just because something is in a CIA document doesn't make it true. Many of these documents are just recording things that you have heard from other suggestion of information, digestion of anecdotes that they've heard. Exactly. Yes. And of course, people forget their history. But after the Second World War, there was even uncertainty about the fate of Hitler. Some people thought that in those dying days of the Second World War, Hitler had somehow escaped, maybe to South America and even Antarctica. So so you get these these kind of linkages that you're not seeing. UFOs. Antarctica. I think a lot of it is far fetched. But as with all of this, there is a kernel of truth to some things. Right. What we know, what is document, what is fact is this one expedition. And you would think that if the Nazis had any kind of military presence in Antarctica, that the allies would have addressed that. And they have found that at an address, that it turns out that in 1946, one year after the end of the World War Two, Operation High Jump, which was over 4000 military personnel, multiple ships of the United States sends to Antarctica for officially and what it seems to be a training exercise to test taking planes on and off of ice and to sea. It was a testing ground for them. Many people have connected that large military presence in 1946 of sending the United States to Antarctica as, oh, they were going after the Nazi base. They were going to shut it down there to attack them. And rumors. There are rumors of interacting with these Nazi weapons and flying saucers. And there's actually a controversial quote in a newspaper in 1947 where Admiral Byrd, Admiral Richard Byrd was the admiral in charge of Operation High Jump. Admiral Byrd was interviewed during Operation High Jump. And the interview appeared in a March 5, 1947 edition of the Chilean newspaper called El MCCAUGHREAN. The quote from him says this Admiral Byrd declared today that it was imperative for the United States to initiate immediate defense measures against hostile regions. The admiral further stated that he didn't want to frighten anyone unduly, but that it was a bitter reality that in case of a new war, the continental United States would be attacked by flying objects, which could fly from pole to pole at incredible speeds. And of course, conspiracy theorists have latched on to that as this ultimate proof that what Byrd is referencing are UFOs, flying saucers of Nazi origin, zipping around the world and, you know, imminently attacking the United States of America. But because the article is written in another language, another translation of what he said is this quote, The admiral explained that he was not trying to scare anyone, but the cruel reality is that in case of a new war, the United States could be attacked by planes flying over one or both poles, meaning quite obviously our enemies, Russia, China, if they had presence in the polls, could easily. Closely attack the United States and its interests from a more geographical location. Is that how you interpret the Byrd statement? Yes. I mean, I think, as you say, at one level, high jump was more about geopolitics and more about using the Antarctic to maybe prepare for the sort of Arctic warfare that some U.S. military planners thought that they might face with with the Soviet Union. But, yes, there is no getting away from the fact that there is this minority report opinion, whatever you call it, that this this was about going off to something. There may be some Nazi base that had survived. Maybe some of the people in the U-boats and other technology had gotten away. And there were also rumors that link this with UFOs and and with the suspicion that there's something down there that they found something or they were going off to something. It's obvious that a lot of exaggeration has occurred on on all of this other Nazis flying saucers. People like you said, they see flying saucer and a CIA document. There it is. There's that ultimate truth. And, you know, it's not necessarily the case. And so but I want to re-emphasize that none of the rumors has been proven true when it comes to all this crazy stuff with an article, Nazi presence there, flying saucers, etc. Ultimately an article to this day is a mystery that that is a safe thing to say, that there is a lot of undiscovered. Things both above and and underneath the ice in Antarctica. And because of that rumor still exists to this day on Google Earth. Conspiracy theorists are scouring the South Pole. Inch by inch, looking for any evidence of a Nazi base, UFOs. Anything strange? Here are some examples of what armchair detectives have found. So on Google Earth, they saw this. They say this looks like some sort of craft that has crashed and slid across the ice and snow. The size is estimated to be between 100 and a hundred feet long. Conspiracy theorists say this is a crash Nazi muraca weapon that's been there this whole time. But the truth is, is that it simply could just be a large rock piece of ice. Even though the crash or whatever caused this is admittedly quite traumatic. They say this mountain here looks strangely like a pyramid, a four foresighted pier, just like the Egyptian pyramids. Is it a pyramid? If so, who built it? But in reality, it's probably just a mountain. Nothing. This cave, conspiracy theorists say, looks like a manmade entrance to perhaps an underground base, a Nazi base. Others claim this blurry object here is a flying saucer. Is this a Nazi device? And then there's this. People say that this is a giant alien face engraved in the snow and ice. And you know what? This actually looks like a giant alien's face. But in reality, it's probably just a trick of light and shadow. The angle of the sun hitting the rocks and ice at a specific angle. But. That looks like an alien's face. Skeptics would say it's it's a classic parody. I don't hear where you get these. The human mind finds the path and the order amidst the chaos. And, you know, you'd have whole Web sites like showing faces. Well, plug's they look like faces and and all sorts of things. Pictures of people's faces in toast. Right. Are our brains tend to put in put together shapes and shadows and we see things we are familiar with or perhaps want to see our brain puts those pieces together. Correct. Exactly. But there's no getting away from the fact that that is a darn good one, if that's what it is. It's it's creepy. It really is. It is indeed unsettling. So without cost, without context or proper forensic scientific research. All of this is just a conspiracy theory. All of this really has to be taken with a grain of salt. And I guess it's fun. It's fun to entertain sometimes conspiracy theory. It's fun to think maybe the Nazis had like a crazy alien underground base in Antarctica, you know, but when it comes to what we can prove, a a Cambridge University research paper was done on this specifically to dispel the rumors about Nazi presence in Antarctica. And they completely across the board show and prove that beyond 1939. That one little excursion by Nazi Germany, they had no presence in Antarctica. Sorry to be a buzzkill, but let's focus on some weirdness going on in Antarctica right now. Scientists have recently discovered some bizarre cosmic rays coming from deep under the ice. High energy particles whose origin is usually outer space have been detected coming from deep under Antarctica. And this is bizarre because this is the first time these rays have been found coming from Earth as opposed to. Also, scientists have recently discovered a very large mystery object under the ice that's causing a gravitational anomaly. Now, some people say it's probably just an asteroid like the one that killed off the dinosaurs. But, you know, conspiracy theorists are gonna say, oh, it's evidence of an underground alien Nazi base. So an article really is the perfect storm of conspiracy theories, like there's this hot mess combo of aliens and UFOs and Nazis like all thrown together. And conspiracy theories to this day are still holding on to the weirdness. If you had to sum up. That hypothesis that people have is something we're going on in an article, Nick. Well, there's no doubt that Antarctica is the the great unexplored continent. I mean, it's it's so inhospitable that the tohold that we have there with a few scientific research bases is is tiny. It is largely unexplored. And we really don't know what's down there. If there's something down here, this if the climate is changing warming and the ice is melting, there is something mysterious down there under the ice, then maybe we'll find out sooner rather than later. Maybe things are thawing out and whatever is down there, whatever these magnetic anomalies are. For example, we'll know one way or the other. Maybe it's just a meteorite. And if that's what it is, fine. Then we'll know. But if it's something else, you don't.
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels / shows.
Great show and chemistry between the two. Now they need to invite some men of science ( astronomers, astrophysicist, aerospace engineers) some members of congress or retired government people like Pope himself between episodes to gain some weight and become a regular informative channel regarding the UAP/UFO phenomenon.
I love this show! They are both easy to listen to and offer a mountain of information. My favorite episode is the one when Mr.Greenstreet(?) talks about the ufo he saw. I think there are a lot of witnesses that decide not to talk about their experience. Mr.Pope gives us a fascinating insight about how governments are handling the ufo issue. I can’t recommend this series enough, and hope new ufo enthusiasts check it out.
Yesss thank you
I gotta tell ya, this episode was my favorite this season. Antarctica is really mysterious and awesome. Also... Die Glocke!
Good episode! I still find it fascinating how project paper-clip shaped the space industry. Especially when von Braun whipped out a concept for a space station with artificial gravity back in the 50/60's. Made me realize how incredibly intelligent these scientists are.
Oh, they're back. Let me sub again