Obscure Occurrences : An Anonymous Adversary

 From the unsolved disappearance of Caesar’s Ninth Legion during the invasion of Britannia to the encounters of British and US bomber crews with mysterious Foo Fighters, the combatants of large-scale warfare have often borne witness to strange events that defy rational explanation. In the aftermath of these happenings, explanations usually point towards enemy action. It is only when both sides deny their involvement even after the cessation of hostilities that it becomes apparent that another anonymous participant may have intervened in the conflict.  A major portion of irrational stories are easily dismissed due to a lack of physical or third-party evidence, but it is harder to discredit similar stories that arise during times of war due to the documentation and the corroborating testimonies involved.

 By the time the Vietnam War eventually came to an end in 1975, it had extended for over two decades, claiming the lives of approximately 60,000 US military personnel and mentally scaring many more. It devolved into a political fiasco that divided American society, nearly breaking it. Such was the public outcry against the warfare that the unexplained occurrences during that period were kept a secret until many years later.

(Source: The Atlantic)

 Over the summer of 1968, US Commanders witnessed a significant increase in reported Vietnamese air activities in and around the area of the Demilitarised Zone. Incidents were logged by both Army and Air Force units, claiming they had been engaged by significant deployments of enemy aircraft. These reports resulted in the United States Air Force stepping up their patrols and an order was issued that photographs of the new enemy planes were to be taken for intelligence and evolution purposes. A number of frantic aerial engagements followed, but citing their superior speed and manoeuvrability, the American pilots claimed it was impossible to capture the Vietnamese craft on film. However, things started coming together when an Australian ship was attacked near Tiger Island in June.

Inexplicable Attacks on Ships and Boats

 The guided-missile destroyer had been tracking the movements of a number of anonymous aerial targets when she had been attacked. As the destroyers and US planes rushed to her aid, she was rocked by a number of explosions that killed two of her sailors and wounded eight more. Although the official report enlisted it as a “friendly-fire” incident, witnesses at the scene gave conflicting testimony. Some claimed that the damage was caused by the mystery targets the ship had been chasing, while others claimed that American missiles had accidentally hit the ship. Unfortunately, this would not be the last such encounter.

 Soon after the Australian vessel was attacked, PCF-12, a patrol boat under the command of Lieutenant Pete Snyder, was travelling along the Thach-Han River. They were about 10 km south of the Demilitarized Zone when the crew’s radio operator overheard a garbled transmission emanating from PCF-19, another patrol boat. The vessel had been positioned further up along the tributary and was reporting that it was under attack from inexplicable lights in the sky. Snyder immediately ordered his men to action stations and the small craft surged upriver in the direction of the vessel’s allocated patrol zone.

(Source: United States Coast Guard)

 As they powered through the muddy waters, the transmission from the other boat became more frantic and non-sensical. It sounded like they had engaged a couple of enemy aircraft before taking heavy fire. Minutes later, the horizon was illuminated by a distinct red light. When the crew finally caught sight of PCF-19, the boat was being ravaged by flames, lazily turning in a wide circle with her rudder stuck to the starboard as unidentifiable objects hovered over her. As PCF-12 battled forward to assist, Snyder scanned the attackers for any recognisable features but they were both moving at incredibly high speeds. PCF-19 exploded in a hail of debris a few minutes later following which the inexplicable attackers fled the scene, disappearing from sight within a few seconds. The crew of PCF-12 were able to rescue two badly burned sailors from the water before Snyder quickly ordered the ship to head for the safety of the nearby Cua Viet Marine Corps base.

 The survivors explained that they had initially noticed two inexplicable objects mirroring their patrol movements from a far distance. As the lights had steadily drawn closer to the Patrol Boat, her captain had ordered a warning to be sent from the ship’s main 50 calibre weapon. Soon afterwards, the objects split up and started to buzz the boat at high speed. With no sounds or preannounce of their attack, they had peppered the helpless vessel with explosive detonations. The helmsman had been trying to bring PCF-19 around when a further explosion had stuck her stem, locking her in the turn that Snyder and his crew had witnessed on their arrival.

 A shout of alarm from the rear of PCF-12 pulled Snyder back into the present. The objects were now back in view and were following his vessel downriver at commendable speed. He ordered full head and as the ship’s pace crept up to its maximum speed of 30 knots, he transmitted a short and urgent radio request for assistance from the neighbouring units. As the lights came within 300 yards of the speeding patrol boat, Snyder’s crew opened fire.

 It was difficult to aim effectively as the boat pitched and bucked through the uneven water, but Snyder could hear rounds impacting the surface of the pursuing orbs of light. Suddenly angry detonations erupted in the river around them, causing the freezing water to soak him and his men. There were no signs to associate the firing with the unidentifiable crafts, but the explosions were terrifyingly real. Just when Snyder was starting to lose his hopes, a pair of F4 Phantoms screamed past in pursuit, filling the skies overhead with an ear-splitting roar.

 As the American jets overshot and began to turn back and engage, the two inexplicable crafts broke away and disappeared in no time. It was assumed that these mysterious orbs were weapons supplied to the Vietnamese by foreign backers, but an incident that occurred later that summer directly contradicted the assertion.

A Hovering Mass of Light

 A reconnaissance unit of the Army Rangers was camped out in North Country, an area of the Demilitarized Zone, ordered to observe a Viet Cong position to the north of the American lines. In the early hours of a fateful morning, a brilliant blue light filled the sky, approaching the team’s spotters from the west of their position. It came hurtling towards the area where the Ranger team were hidden and then pulled up about a quarter of a mile away, hovering completely motionless overhead. An eerie silence descended on the valley, prompting the team to reach for their weapons.

 Simultaneously, a valley of tracer rounds erupted from the Vietnamese positions before a wave of heavy machine gun fire commenced. The Rangers stared in astonishment as the hovering ball of light remained completely motionless following which it suddenly took off, flying through the night skies towards the opponent zone. Beams of white light emanated from the inexplicable object, moving back and forth across the Vietnamese forces. Wherever they touched the ground, they left behind explosions and raging fires, followed by the screams of wounded and dying men. The disturbing sounds eventually stopped before the object hurled back in the direction it had come from.

  The following morning, a recon platoon discovered the charred and twisted bodies of soldiers on the grounds of the Vietnamese camp. Their weapons were melted and their supplies were reduced to ash. The officer in command and his unit collected every item that could be used for evaluation, took photographs of the destruction and retreated back to their own lines.

 Strangely, the descriptions of the inexplicable objects and their manoeuvring abilities provided by the witnesses during these incidents were identical. Furthermore, similar accounts were given by many members of the other units deployed in the region during the same period. The most dreadful among them would take place two years further into the conflict.

Accounts of Captain William English

 Despite having first flown back in the 1950s, the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress Bomber remains one of the largest military aircraft ever constructed and it remains active even today. With the ability to carry an explosive payload of 70, 000 lbs, each individual aircraft is capable of levelling the entirety of a small town in a matter of seconds. The B-52 served as the primary offensive weapon of US forces during the warfare, and they were used to facilitate over 1,25,000 separate bombing missions over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Thanks to their high ceiling of operations, only 17 of them were lost during the entire period.

(Source: Defense News)

 During the summer of the 1970s, Captain William English commanded a twelve-membered detachment of Green Berets, stationed in Saigon. The unit was one of the Alpha Teams, which were tasked with carrying our aggressive covert operations against important Viet Cong targets. In June of that year, the unit was ordered to locate a B-52 which had reportedly disappeared over Laotian Airspace. There were informed that the pilots of the aircraft had reported seeing an unknown aircraft, which strangely did not leave any mark on their radar screens. They had described the bright lights covering the odd-looking target, before the abrupt cessation of their radio transmissions.

 The Alpha Team were deployed by helicopter 160 miles from the Laotian border and they started to thoroughly scan in and around the lost B-52’s last reported location. Soon afterwards, the aircraft was found lying about a mile across the border, but the dense canopy around the wreck limited helicopter insertion, thus causing the team to hike through the forested terrain.

 The crash site offered the soldiers a baffling sight. The aircraft was virtually intact and it sat upright on the forest floor surrounded by unbroken trees and foliage. Only the undercarriage showed obvious signs of damage, as it had impacted the ground with the deployed landing gear. Upon closer inspection, the soldiers discovered that the external doors and hatches were still fully secured and they had to use explosives to create an entry point. Unbeknownst to them, a gruesome sight awaited their arrival.

 The cadavers of the six-membered crew were still buckled into their seats and with shredded skin and broken bones, they were horrifyingly discovered. Captain William noted that there was nowhere near the amount of blood loss expected for such violent injuries. The aircraft's payload lay secured and ready to deploy, and the flight equipment and instruments were tidily arranged as if the bomber was still in flight. The sight was too eerie and disturbing even for the war-hardened men. The team documented the scene, took photographs for analysis, collected sensitive information and dog tags, and placed satchel charges to trigger detonation, before hastily leaving the site.

 When the unit arrived back in Saigon, William submitted his report to his superiors, highlighting the witnessed strangeness. In the aftermath, he claimed that he was being treated as an outcast by his senior officers. He was removed from command of his unit and deployed to a desk job at an Air Force Base. Several months later, he was informed that his entire team had been wiped out in an enemy attack and three years later, he was discharged from the army and sent back to the United States. Angered by the way he was treated, he sent copies of the photos taken inside the bomber to a number of established ufologists like Dr J Alan Hynek, who suggested that the circumstances resembled an incident that had occurred in Russia, back in 1961.

 A Soviet AN-2P Cargo Plane had mysteriously disappeared from the radar, only to be found landed perfectly intact in the middle of the dense forests of Serbia. No trace of her four crew members was ever found.

 In line with William’s claims, after he made contact with the ufologists, a number of attempts were made on his life. Once, two men on motorbikes visited his house in the middle of the night, showering it with the bullets of a machine gun. He later settled in rural Virginia, changing his name and taking a job at a local TV station.

Conclusion

 When the war in Vietnam ended, it was clear that the Viet Cong was never in possession of advanced technology or wonder weapons. Their victory in Vietnam had instead been attributed to their numerical advantage and guerrilla techniques.

 The US government had never had public comments on reports of supernatural during its interactions with hostiles. They have maintained that some of these cases are fabrications while others are misunderstandings of a completely natural phenomenon, citing the unimaginably high levels of stress the soldiers undergo during the conflicts. While the available evidence suggests that their assertion is correct in some of the cases, similar testimonies spread across a multitude of locations rises an argument of supernatural in the others.

 These are individuals who had received some of the highest levels of training available and whose judgements were not questioned by their officers, at least until the point they reported these incidents. Furthermore, the soldiers involved were kitted with the knowledge of innumerable ways to incapacitate another human being. Thus, when they present a report stating the inexplicability of the witnessed death, it adds additional weightage.

 Considering the aforementioned aspects, the possibility of the fog of war causing the soldiers to report UFO encounters seems to be a plausible explanation. However, the sheer number of eerily similar witness testimonies makes it inconclusive.