Incident · May 1946 – October 1946 · Sweden and Scandinavia
Scandinavian “ghost rockets”
Also known as Ghost rockets, Spökraketer, Swedish ghost rockets
Explained. A 1947 U.S. War Department review attributed most reports to meteors, with perhaps a handful of genuine V-1-type missiles. (DOW-UAP-D099 — Intelligence Review of “Ghost Rocket” Incidents, 1947)
From late May 1946 the Swedish press reported "ghost rockets" — fast objects described as balls of fire with tails or shiny cigars — crossing southern Sweden, and soon Finland, Denmark and Norway. The Swedish Defence Staff asked the public for reports and received almost a thousand by the end of July; in August it imposed partial censorship on where sightings were made. Among the few trained observers was a Swedish Air Force pilot who on 14 August reported a wingless cigar-shaped object about 50 feet long over central Sweden.
The U.S. War Department's intelligence review of January 1947 found the evidence thin: no fragments beyond "nonmetallic slag", no physical evidence seen by U.S. personnel, and Swedish officials who privately blamed Soviet tests from Peenemünde while publicly moving toward a celestial explanation — a shift the review read as an effort to avoid trouble with the Soviet Union. It concluded that most sightings were meteors or fireworks, with perhaps a handful of genuine low-flying V-1-type missiles, probably Soviet tests of captured German technology.
The wave was the first post-war cluster of unexplained aerial reports to draw intelligence attention, a year before the 1947 American "flying saucer" wave; British scientific intelligence still cited "the Swedish incident" in 1952.
Sources: DOW-UAP-D099 (local copy) · CIA-UAP-014
Facts and claims
- documented A U.S. War Department intelligence review (Intelligence Division, General Staff, January 1947) records that "ghost rockets" were first reported over southern Sweden in late May 1946, then over Finland, Denmark and Norway; almost 1,000 reports had reached the Swedish Defence Staff by the end of July, most from untrained observers describing "a ball of fire with a tail" or a "shiny cigar-shaped object". Source: DOW-UAP-D099 — Intelligence Review of “Ghost Rocket” Incidents, 1947
- documented The review notes that no fragments were found other than "nonmetallic slag", that no U.S. personnel in Sweden saw any physical evidence, and that Swedish Defence Staff officers privately told the U.S. attaché they believed the rockets were Soviet launches from Peenemünde while their public communiqués shifted by 10 October to attributing most reports to celestial origin. Source: DOW-UAP-D099 — Intelligence Review of “Ghost Rocket” Incidents, 1947
- documented The review concludes: "The best evidence, at present, is that there have been only 2 or 3 real incidents, perhaps as many as 5 or 10, of low-flying missiles of the V-1 type. The high-altitude missiles reported seem definitely to have been meteors or fireworks." Source: DOW-UAP-D099 — Intelligence Review of “Ghost Rocket” Incidents, 1947
Connected files
Official records (PURSUE)
- DOW-UAP-D099 — Intelligence Review of “Ghost Rocket” Incidents, 1947 (documented in)
- CIA-UAP-014 — British activity in the Field of "Unidentified Flying Objects" (mentioned in)
Organizations
- Department of War (Department of Defense) (investigated by)
Mentioned in this file
- Central Intelligence Agency (Organization)
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