Intelligence Review of “Ghost Rocket” Incidents, 1947

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8ElCRET
GHOST ROCKETS
end of July almost 1,000 such reports had been received.
The investigation has been carried out by the Swedish
Defense Staff in a very peculiar manner. In the beginning,
many of the key personnel were on summer leave, and they
were not recalled to deal with the problem. Spokesmen
for the Defense Staff repeatedly have told the United States
Military Attache that they definitely believed there were
rockets over Sweden, and that they were launched by the
Soviets from Peenemtinde on the German Baltic coast.
However, they have not been able to produce any evidence
to support these statements. To date, no United States
military or naval personnel in Sweden have seen any frag­
ments, points of impact, or other direct evidence to prove
that guided missiles have appeared over Sweden.
The official communiques issued to the press by the
Defense Staff have not reflected the same tone as the state­
ments made by individual officers in conversations. In fact,
the communiques themselves have varied. The last one,
issued on 10 October, very strongly indicated that the great
majority of the reported incidents were of celestial origin,
which is a complete change from the one of 6 August when
it was reported that, except in a few cases, they could not be
meteorites.*
Attitude of Swedish Officials
To arrive at any definite conclusion from the conflicting
evidence available on these reported missiles is impossible.
The contradictory attitude of Swedish officialdom would
tend to indicate that it was doing very little to arrive at a
definite conclusion, perhaps for political purposes. The com­
plete change in attitude between the communiques issued on
* In September and October, flying objects were reported over widely separate
points in Europe and Africa, including Belgium, Greece, Italy, Morocco, and
Austria. In the main, these reports have not been confirmed and appear to be
due to explainable ca.uses, such as meteors or Very flares, fireworks, etc.
BEGRJBT
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