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?
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