History | Page 99

and landings and for bursts of speed necessary for military applications. In fact, there is no reason that the propulsion systems of the Fleissner saucer and the liquid air saucer envisioned by Vesco could not be combined into one aircraft. It is unknown at this time if actual steps were taken to realize a liquid air powered flying saucer by the Germans. Whether it was undertaken or not it certainly did lead thinking on to the next step in this process and for this step there is more than a little evidence. This step was mentioned in the Aftonbladet article. It involves atomic power. Yes, the Germans intended to build a nuclear powered flying saucer (23). These are the conclusions first reached by Dr. Milos Jesensky and engineer Robert Lesniakiewicz in 1998. The former author is a Czech and the latter author is a Pole. Both belong to a large UFO organization which functions in both countries. After the Soviet pullout there were no restrictions on excavation of unused military sites belonging to the Germans during the Second World War. This organization got busy interviewing witnesses who had connections to those times as well as identifying German underground facilities. They opened up as many of these as they could find, and they were numerous. Most of the Polish sites were within the borders of Germany at that time since the borders, before and during the Second World War, extended into about 20% of Western Poland. Other sites were in the heavily German dominated areas of Moravia and Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. Of course, the Germans had taken out what they wanted before retreating and then sealed up the entrances with explosives. As an example of how far this research group was willing to go, they not only opened up and explored the upper levels of Der Riese, mentioned earlier, but also explored the flooded lower levels, in the cold, silent darkness using scuba gear. Besides Der Riese, other very large sites were discovered and explored including "Robert 1", "Robert 11", and "Robert 111". They found that the larger sites were really composed of a complex of sites. For instance, at Der Riese some of these sites within the larger facility were involved in mining uranium ore. Some were involved in refining the ore. Some other sites were involved in nuclear research (24). Wartime German work in nuclear research was not confined to bomb building, as it was in the USA. The Germans were also interested in harnessing the atom as an energy source. Remember, Germany was dependent upon foreign sources of oil for energy. German planners long realized this was a weakness and had been trying to correct the problem since the early 1930s. Great plans were in the works, if not actually built, for atomic reactors used to generate electricity. These were sometimes called "uranium machines" by the Germans. Not only were these uranium machines to be used to generate electricity but they were also destined to 100