Several types of flying craft we would call flying saucers were built by the NAZI Germans during the Second World War. The exact number is still open for debate but it certainly must vary from between three to seven or possibly eight different types. These different types do not mean experimental models or variants of which there were many. What is meant here is that there were very different lines of flying machines being built in wartime Germany at different places by different groups of people. Since more than one saucer-type may have been produced by a single group. The progress from saucer projects which are factually better known and which deal in conventional propulsion methods and then move to lesser known projects which deal in more exotic propulsion methods which are less well documented and so more controversial.
The Schriever-Habermohl Projects
The best known of these projects is usually referred to as the Schriever-Habermohl project although it is by no means clear that these were the individuals in charge of the project. Rudolf Schriever was an engineer and test pilot. Less is known about Otto Habermohl but certainly he was an engineer. This project was centered in Prag, at the Prag-Gbell airport. Actual construction work began somewhere between 1941 and 1943. This was originally a Luftwaffe project which received technical assistance from the Skoda Works at Prag and at a Skoda division at Letov and perhaps elsewhere. Other firms participating in the project according to Epp were the Junkers firm at Oscheben and Bemburg, the Wilhelm Gustloff firm at Weimar and the Kieler Leichtbau at Neubrandenburg.
This project started as a project of the Luftwaffe, sponsored by second-incommand, Ernst Udet. It then fell under the control of Speer's Armament Ministry at which time it was administered by engineer Georg Klein. Finally, probably sometime in 1944, this project came under the control of the SS, specifically under the purview of General Hans Kammler. According to his own words, Georg Klein saw this device fly on February 14, 1945. This may have been the first official flight, but it was not the first flight made by this device. According to one witness, a saucer flight occurred as early as August or September of 1943 at this facility. The eyewitness was in flight-training at the Prag-Gbell facility when he saw a short test flight of such a device. He states that the saucer was 5 to 6 meters in diameter (about 15 to 18 feet in diameter) and about as tall as a man, with an outer border of 30-40 centimeters. It was "aluminum" in color and rested on four thin, long legs. The flight distance observed was about 300 meters at low level of one meter in altitude.
The witness was 200 meters from the event and one of many students there at the time. Joseph Andreas Epp, an engineer who served as a consultant to both the Schriever-Habermohl and the Miethe-Belluzzo projects, states that fifteen prototypes were built in all. The final device associated with Schriever-Habermohl is described by engineer Rudolf Lusar who worked in the German Patent Office, as a central cockpit surrounded by rotating adjustable wing-vanes forming a circle. The vanes were held together by a band at the outer edge of the wheel-like device. The pitch of the vanes could be adjusted so that during take off more lift was generated by increasing their angle from a more horizontal setting. In level flight the angle would be adjusted to a smaller angle. This is similar to the way helicopter rotors operate.
The wingvanes were to be set in rotation by small rockets placed around the rim like a pinwheel. Once rotational speed was sufficient, lift-off was achieved. After the craft had risen to some height the horizontal jets or rockets were ignited and the small rockets shut off. After this the wing-blades would be allowed to rotate freely as the saucer moved forward as in an autogyrocopter. In all probability, the wing-blades speed, and so their lifting value, could also be increased by directing the adjustable horizontal jets slightly upwards to engage the blades, thus spinning them faster at the digression of the pilot. Rapid horizontal flight was possible with these jet or rocket engines. Probable candidates were the Junkers Jumo 004 jet engines such as were used on the famous German jet fighter, the Messerschmitt 262. A possible substitute would have been the somewhat less powerful BMW 003 engines. The rocket engine would have been the Walter HWK109 which powered the Messerschmitt 163 rocket interceptor. If all had been plentiful, the Junkers Jumo 004 probably would have been the first choice.
Epp reports Jumo 211/b engines were used. Klaas reports the Argus pulse jet (Schmidt-duct), used on the V-l, was also considered. All of these types of engines were difficult to obtain at the time because they were needed for high priority fighters and bombers, the V-l and the rocket interceptor aircraft. Joseph Andreas Epp reports in his book Die Realitaet der Flugscheiben (The Reality of the Flying Discs) that an official test flight occurred in February of 1945. Epp managed to take two still pictures of the saucer in flight which appear in his book and are reproduced here. There is some confusion about the date of these pictures. In the video film "UFOs Secrets of the 3rd Reich", Epp states these pictures were taken in the Fall of 1944. In his book the date is given as the official date of February 14, 1945. In personal correspondence to me of December, 30, 1991, he indicated the date of the pictures as August, 1944.
In that correspondence he further revealed that the official flight had been February 14, 1945 but an earlier lift-off had taken place in August of 1944. The pictures show a small disclike object in the distance at some altitude posed above a landscape. The saucer is at too great a distance and altitude to show any mechanical detail. As Klaus-Peter Rothkugel points out, the foliage on the trees indicates the August date as being the most accurate. Very high performance flight characteristics are attributed to this design. Georg Klein says it climbed to 12,400 meters (over 37,000 feet) in three minutes and attaining a speed around that of the sound barrier. Epp says that it achieved a speed of Mach 1 (about 1200 kilometers per hour or about 750 miles per hour). From his discussion, it appears that Epp is describing the unofficial lift-off in August, 1944 at this point. He goes on to say that on the next night, the sound barrier was broken in manned flight but that the pilot was frightened by the vibrations encountered at that time.
On the official test flight, Epp reports a top speed of 2200 kilometers per hour. Lusar reports a top speed of 2000 kilometers per hour. Many other writers cite the same or similar top speed. There is no doubt of two facts. The first is that these are supersonic speeds which are being discussed. Second, it is a manned flight which is under discussion. But at least one writer has discounted such high performance. It is argued that the large frontal area of one of the possible designs in question makes Mach 2 flight impossible.
The argument seems to be that given the possible power plants the atmospheric resistance caused by this frontal area would slow the craft to a point below the figures stated earlier. Some new information has come to light regarding the propulsion system which supports the original assessment. Although actual construction had not started, wind-tunnel and design studies confirmed the feasibility of building a research aircraft which was designated Project 8-346. This aircraft was not a saucer but a modern looking swept-back wing design. According this post-war Allied intelligence report, the Germans designed the 8-346 to fly in the range of 2000 kilometers per hour to Mach 2. Interestingly enough, it was to use two Walther HWK109 rocket engines.
As an aside, it should be noted that there are those who will resist at any attempt to impugn the official breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager in 1947 in the Bell X-l rocket aircraft. They had better brace themselves. This record has also been challenged from another direction. This challenge was reported in February, 2001, by the Associated Press, Berlin. It seems that a certain Hans Guido Mutke claims he pushed his Messerschmitt jet fighter, the Me-262, through the sound barrier in 1945. This occurred during an emergency dive to help another German flyer during air combat.
At that time he experienced vibrations and shaking of the aircraft. According to the report, a Hamburg Professor is working on a computer simulation in order to check the validity of this claim. Returning to the topic at hand, Schriever continued to work on the project until April 15, 1945. About this time Prag was threatened by the Soviet Army. The Czech technicians working on this project were reported to have gone amuck, looting the facility as the Russians approached. The saucer prototype(s) at Prag-Gbell were pushed out onto the tarmac and burnt. Habermohl disappeared and presumably ended up in the hands of the Soviets. Schriever, according to his own statements, packed the saucer plans in the trunk of his BMW and with his family drove into Southern Germany. After cessation of hostilities Schriever worked his way north to his parents house in Bremerhaven-Lehe. There Schriever set up an inventor-workshop.
On August 4, 1948 there was a break in to the workshop in which Schriever's plans and saucer model were stolen. Schriever was approached by agents of "foreign powers" concerning his knowledge of German saucers. He declined their offers, preferring rather menial work driving a truck for the U.S. Army. Schriever is reported to have died shortly thereafter in 1953.
There is a report, however, that his death was reported prematurely and that he was identified by a witness who knew him in Bavaria in 1964 or 1965. Interestingly enough, Schriever never claimed that his saucer ever flew at all! If this true, Schriever's saucer was still in the pre-flight stage at the time of the Russian advance and its ultimate destruction on the Prag-Gbell tarmac. This is in direct contradiction to the sources cited above and the photographic evidence. How can this seeming inconsistency be explained?
The Miethe-Belluzzo Project
This saucer project may have been an outgrowth of flying wing research. It was begun in 1942, and was under the on-site nuthority of Dr. Richard Miethe, sometimes called Dr. Heinrich Richard Miethe. Not much is known about Dr. Miethe before the war. After the war Dr. Miethe is rumored to have worked on the Anglo-American saucer project at the firm of Avro Aircraft Limited of Canada. Such is stated Klein/ Epp, Barton, Lusar , as well as a myriad of other sources. We will return to the Avro projects later. Working with Dr. Miethe was an Italian engineer, Professor Guiseppe Belluzzo. Belluzzo was the Deputy, Senator and Minister of National Economy under Mussolini. He had written several books on technical matters including Steam Turbines in 1926 and calculations and Installations of Modern Turbine Hydrolics in 1922 (names are English translations of Italian titles). Belluzzo was considered to be an expert in steam turbines. Dr. Belluzzo was not a junior scientist and he was not Dr. Miethe's assistant. He was a senior scientist whose expertise was somehow invaluable on the saucer devices or planned further developments of them.
After the war Belluzzo seems to have led a quiet life in Italy until his death on 5/22/52. Unlike Miethe, however, Belluzzo went on record about German flying discs after the war. He is quoted on the subject in The Mirror, a major Los Angeles newspaper in 1950. This may be the first mention of the subject in the American press. In his obituary in the New York Times his work on the German saucer program is mentioned. This team worked in facilities in, Dresden, Breslau and Letow/Prag according to Epp. Both this project and the Schriever and Habermohl projects were directed by the same experts and advisors. From Epp's discussion, it is clear that Dr. Walter Dornberger first evaluated and recommended his saucer model for further development. Miethe is described by Epp in translation as a "known V-weapons designer".
The association of both projects to Peenemuende is clear. Both were sanctioned and set up by officials there, probably by Dr. Walter Dornberger himself. Miethe and Belluzzo worked primarily in Dresden and Breslau but for a brief time they may have actually joined forces with Schriever and Habermohl in Prag, as evidenced by Klein's statement that three saucer models were destroyed on the Prag tarmac. One saucer, which Klein he describes as Miethe's was among these. Klein acknowledges that Peenemuende, and its nearby test facility at Stettin, retained and developed the Miethe design as an unmanned vehicle. Epp tells us that the Miethe-Belluzzo project was organized under exactly the same authority as the Schriever-Habermohl project and he further identifies the very same industrial firms which supported Schriever-Habermohl as supporting this project. In reality, both should be viewed as one project with different aspects. The designs envisioned by Dr. Miethe and Professor Belluzzo were quite different from those of Schriever and Habermohl. Designs of this project consisted of a discus-shaped craft whose outer periphery did not rotate. Two designs have positively been nttributed to Miethe and Belluzzo although three designs exist as part of their legacy.
The first design is made known to us from Georg Klein's article in the October 16, 1954 edition of the Swiss newspaper, Tages- Anzeiger fuer Stadt und Kanton Zuerich, mentioned above. The same design is reproduced in the book by J. Andreas Epp. This saucer was not intended to take-off vertically but at an angle as does a conventional airplane. In this design twelve jet engines are shown to be mounted "outboard" to power the craft. The cockpit was mounted at the rear of the vehicle and a periscope used to monitor directions visually impaired. Notably, a large gyroscope mounted internally at the center of the craft provided stability.
This and other Miethe-Belluzzo designs were said to be 42 meters or 138 feet in diameter. Aeronautical writer Hans Justus Meier has challenged this design on a number of grounds. It is certainly possible, if not probable, that the outboard jet-turbine arrangement is incorrect, one might ask, if this was an outboard jet-turbine design, then what purpose did the bloated central body serve? In reality the twelve jets may simply have been jet nozzles of one engine. Certainly the large central body had a function, it must have housed the engine. But how could the authenticity of this design come under question when Georg Klein is vouching for it in his article? The answer may be that Klein never saw this design himself and he simply is relying on the descriptions of those that did. If one reads the works of Klein carefully, he never claims to have seen this model in flight. As a matter of fact, he never claims to have actually seen this design at all.
The second Miethe design seems to have originated with a 1975 German magazine article. This version shows a cockpit above and below the center of the craft. Four jet engines lying behind the cockpits are shown as the powerplants. No real detail is supplied in this article. This design is not ever discussed in the text which deals primarily with the Schriever-Habermohl Project. Some writers have speculated on this particular design, supplying detail. For now, however, no named source seems to be able to link this design with the Miethe-Belluzzo Project. Therefore, at least for the time being, we must put this design in suspense and focus on the first and next design in discussing the aforementioned saucer project.
The third design attributed to the Miethe-Belluzzo Project comes to us from and article by Jan Holberg in an August 20, 1966 article in Das Neue Zeitalter and also from Michael X. Barton- Carl F. Mayer-Hermann Klaas connection. This design was capable of vertical take-off. Klaas provides internal detail which has been reproduced here. At first, this appears to be a push-pull propeller system driven by a single engine. It is not. Neither are the twelve jet nozzles unsupported in any way as depicted. The real answer to this mystery is that this drawing is incomplete. With the completed parts depicted, a radial turbojet engine of special type would appear. Design one differs from design three in that the latter, with its centrally located cabin and symmetrical arrangement of twelve adjustable jet nozzles, is controlled by selectively shutting off various jets through the use of a surrounding ring. This allows the saucer to make turns and to take off vertically.
Recently, a German researcher, Klaus-Peter Kothkugel using Vesco as his source, has proposed an engine which links the designs one and three, and possibly even design two, while supplying the missing pieces needed to make the engine depicted air-worthy and resolves other problems. This engine was invented by a French engineer, Rene Leduc and probably acquired by the Germans during their occupation of France. If a flying saucer equipped with this engine were viewed from the outside, no rotating parts would be visible. This is because the engine was totally contained within the metal skin of the saucer. It did rotate but this rotation was within the saucer itself and not viable from the outside. An air space existed all around the spinning engine, between it and the non-rotating outer skin.
This engine was a type of radial-flow jet engine. It was this type of engine which probably powered all of Dr. Miethe's saucer designs. It is also the prime candidate for the post-war design of John Frost, the "Flying Manta." The Flying Manta actually did fly. Pictures of it during a test flight are unmistakable. They were taken on July 7, 1947 by William A. Rhodes over Phoenix, Arizona. It almost goes without saying that the time frame, July of 1947, as well as the geographical location, the American Southwest, as well as the description of the flying object itself, beg comparisons to the saucer which crashed at Rosewell, New Mexico, earlier that same month. If one looks at what is known of Dr. Miethe's saucer design, the Leduc engine, and the Frost Manta, it must be acknowledged that a connection between these three not only explains apparent inconsistencies in the existing Miethe designs but also links them to the post-war American Southwest, the precise spot where evaluated.
There is considerable confusion as to where the first test flight of the Miethe-Belluzzo saucer occurred. Epp tells us that models made by this team were flight tested since 1943. Georg Klein, as well as Andreas Epp, state that a test model of this craft took off from Stettin, in northern Germany, near Peenemuende, roughly where the Oder River meets the Baltic, and crashed in Spitsbergen which are the islands to the north of Norway. A manned test flight in December, 1944 has been mentioned by Norbert Juergen-Ratthofer and Ralf Ettl in one of the films on which they worked.
The pilot named was Joachim Roehlicke or perhaps Hans-Joachim Roehlicke. Klaus-Peter Rothkugel reports that Roehlicke was under the direction of none other than Dr. Hans Kammler himself and was stationed at the Gotha Wagonfabrik company. The Gotha Wagonfabrik company is in the Jonas Valley in Thuringia. This valley was packed full of high-tech underground facilities which included nuclear research. Roehlicke confided to his daughter after the war, according to Mr. Rothkugel, that he "had seen the earth from above". Confusion over the test details of the Miethe-Belluzzo saucer start as early as the whole German flying disc controversy itself in the 1950s.
In the English translation of his book, titled Brighter than a Thousand Suns A Personal History Of The Atomic Scientists. a footnote appeared which deviated from the discussion of atomic weaponry. This 1958 description is one of the first in English and may illustrate some of the difficulties in sorting out this information: " The only exception to the lack of interest shown by authority was constituted by the Air Ministry. The Air Force research workers were in a peculiar position. The produced interesting new types of aircraft such as the Delta (triangular) and "flying discs."
The first of these "flying saucers," as they were later called—circular in shape, with a diameter of some 45 yards—were built by the specialists Schriever, Habermohl and Miethe. They were first airborne on February 14, 1945, over Prague and reached in three minutes a height of nearly eight miles. They had a flying speed of 1250 m.p.h. which was doubled in subsequent tests. It is believed that after the war Habermohl fell into the hands of the Russians. Miethe developed at a later date similar "flying saucers" at A. V. Roe and Company for the United States." One big difference between the Miethe-Belluzzo design and the Schriever-Habermohl designs is that the former craft was alleged to have, or be designed to have, a longer flight range.
This point is reinforced by the Spitzbergen flight mentioned above. Klein states that the Germans considered long range, remote controlled attack from Germany to New York using this craft. As stated earlier, both projects were under the same authority. Experts and advisors included, according to Epp, among others, head-designer Kalkert of the Gotha Waggonfabrik, head-designer Guenther of Heinkel, engineer Wulf of Arado, engineer Otto Lange of the RLM, and engineer Alexander Lippish of Messerschmitt. Pilots were Holm, Irmler, Kaiser and Lange. The test pilot was Rudolf Schriever. There does exist two alleged still pictures of the Miethe craft in flight. One is reproduced here. It may be the first design.
A picture claiming to be of what is called here the third design can be found in W. Mattern's book, UFO's Unbekanntes Flugobiekt? Letzte Geheimwaffe Des Dritten Reiches?. Politically, in 1944, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, replaced Albert Speer's appointee, Georg Klein, with Dr. Hans Kammler as overseer of this combined saucer project. This is a little confusing, however, since Kammler retained Klein as his employee, Perhaps a more practical way to look at this is that Kammler, Himmler's employee, replaced Speer while Klein did what he always did. The result was that the SS took direct and absolute control over these projects from this point until the end of the war. Prior to this happening, news of these designs or application itself was made to the German Patent Office.
All German wartime patents were carried off as booty by the Allies. This amounted to truckloads of information. Fortunately, Rudolf Lusar, an engineer who worked in the German Patent Office during this time period, wrote a book in the 1950s listing and describing some of the more interesting patents and processes based upon his memory of them. They are surprisingly detailed. Included is the Schriever saucer design with detail. Also discussed is the Miethe project. The significance of these two teams can not be minimized in the history of flying saucers or UFOs. Already in this brief discussion, the evidence, taken as a whole, is overwhelming.
Please compare this to any and all extraterrestrial explanations of flying saucers. Here we have Germans who claim to have invented the idea of the flying saucer. We have Germans who claim to have designed flying saucers. We have Germans who claim to have built flying saucers. We have Germans who claim to have flown flying saucers. We have Germans who claim to be witnesses to flying saucers known beforehand to be of German construction. We have German construction details. And finally, we have a man who took pictures of a known German flying saucer in flight. The facts speak for themselves. During the Second World War the Germans built devices we would all call today "flying saucers". No other UFO explanation can even approach this in terms of level of proof, or we must accept that there is an Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence in our universe.
(Source : A Guide to German Flying Discs Of The 2nd World War by Henry Stevens)
The Schriever-Habermohl Projects
The best known of these projects is usually referred to as the Schriever-Habermohl project although it is by no means clear that these were the individuals in charge of the project. Rudolf Schriever was an engineer and test pilot. Less is known about Otto Habermohl but certainly he was an engineer. This project was centered in Prag, at the Prag-Gbell airport. Actual construction work began somewhere between 1941 and 1943. This was originally a Luftwaffe project which received technical assistance from the Skoda Works at Prag and at a Skoda division at Letov and perhaps elsewhere. Other firms participating in the project according to Epp were the Junkers firm at Oscheben and Bemburg, the Wilhelm Gustloff firm at Weimar and the Kieler Leichtbau at Neubrandenburg.
This project started as a project of the Luftwaffe, sponsored by second-incommand, Ernst Udet. It then fell under the control of Speer's Armament Ministry at which time it was administered by engineer Georg Klein. Finally, probably sometime in 1944, this project came under the control of the SS, specifically under the purview of General Hans Kammler. According to his own words, Georg Klein saw this device fly on February 14, 1945. This may have been the first official flight, but it was not the first flight made by this device. According to one witness, a saucer flight occurred as early as August or September of 1943 at this facility. The eyewitness was in flight-training at the Prag-Gbell facility when he saw a short test flight of such a device. He states that the saucer was 5 to 6 meters in diameter (about 15 to 18 feet in diameter) and about as tall as a man, with an outer border of 30-40 centimeters. It was "aluminum" in color and rested on four thin, long legs. The flight distance observed was about 300 meters at low level of one meter in altitude.
The witness was 200 meters from the event and one of many students there at the time. Joseph Andreas Epp, an engineer who served as a consultant to both the Schriever-Habermohl and the Miethe-Belluzzo projects, states that fifteen prototypes were built in all. The final device associated with Schriever-Habermohl is described by engineer Rudolf Lusar who worked in the German Patent Office, as a central cockpit surrounded by rotating adjustable wing-vanes forming a circle. The vanes were held together by a band at the outer edge of the wheel-like device. The pitch of the vanes could be adjusted so that during take off more lift was generated by increasing their angle from a more horizontal setting. In level flight the angle would be adjusted to a smaller angle. This is similar to the way helicopter rotors operate.
The wingvanes were to be set in rotation by small rockets placed around the rim like a pinwheel. Once rotational speed was sufficient, lift-off was achieved. After the craft had risen to some height the horizontal jets or rockets were ignited and the small rockets shut off. After this the wing-blades would be allowed to rotate freely as the saucer moved forward as in an autogyrocopter. In all probability, the wing-blades speed, and so their lifting value, could also be increased by directing the adjustable horizontal jets slightly upwards to engage the blades, thus spinning them faster at the digression of the pilot. Rapid horizontal flight was possible with these jet or rocket engines. Probable candidates were the Junkers Jumo 004 jet engines such as were used on the famous German jet fighter, the Messerschmitt 262. A possible substitute would have been the somewhat less powerful BMW 003 engines. The rocket engine would have been the Walter HWK109 which powered the Messerschmitt 163 rocket interceptor. If all had been plentiful, the Junkers Jumo 004 probably would have been the first choice.
Epp reports Jumo 211/b engines were used. Klaas reports the Argus pulse jet (Schmidt-duct), used on the V-l, was also considered. All of these types of engines were difficult to obtain at the time because they were needed for high priority fighters and bombers, the V-l and the rocket interceptor aircraft. Joseph Andreas Epp reports in his book Die Realitaet der Flugscheiben (The Reality of the Flying Discs) that an official test flight occurred in February of 1945. Epp managed to take two still pictures of the saucer in flight which appear in his book and are reproduced here. There is some confusion about the date of these pictures. In the video film "UFOs Secrets of the 3rd Reich", Epp states these pictures were taken in the Fall of 1944. In his book the date is given as the official date of February 14, 1945. In personal correspondence to me of December, 30, 1991, he indicated the date of the pictures as August, 1944.
In that correspondence he further revealed that the official flight had been February 14, 1945 but an earlier lift-off had taken place in August of 1944. The pictures show a small disclike object in the distance at some altitude posed above a landscape. The saucer is at too great a distance and altitude to show any mechanical detail. As Klaus-Peter Rothkugel points out, the foliage on the trees indicates the August date as being the most accurate. Very high performance flight characteristics are attributed to this design. Georg Klein says it climbed to 12,400 meters (over 37,000 feet) in three minutes and attaining a speed around that of the sound barrier. Epp says that it achieved a speed of Mach 1 (about 1200 kilometers per hour or about 750 miles per hour). From his discussion, it appears that Epp is describing the unofficial lift-off in August, 1944 at this point. He goes on to say that on the next night, the sound barrier was broken in manned flight but that the pilot was frightened by the vibrations encountered at that time.
On the official test flight, Epp reports a top speed of 2200 kilometers per hour. Lusar reports a top speed of 2000 kilometers per hour. Many other writers cite the same or similar top speed. There is no doubt of two facts. The first is that these are supersonic speeds which are being discussed. Second, it is a manned flight which is under discussion. But at least one writer has discounted such high performance. It is argued that the large frontal area of one of the possible designs in question makes Mach 2 flight impossible.
The argument seems to be that given the possible power plants the atmospheric resistance caused by this frontal area would slow the craft to a point below the figures stated earlier. Some new information has come to light regarding the propulsion system which supports the original assessment. Although actual construction had not started, wind-tunnel and design studies confirmed the feasibility of building a research aircraft which was designated Project 8-346. This aircraft was not a saucer but a modern looking swept-back wing design. According this post-war Allied intelligence report, the Germans designed the 8-346 to fly in the range of 2000 kilometers per hour to Mach 2. Interestingly enough, it was to use two Walther HWK109 rocket engines.
As an aside, it should be noted that there are those who will resist at any attempt to impugn the official breaking of the sound barrier by Chuck Yeager in 1947 in the Bell X-l rocket aircraft. They had better brace themselves. This record has also been challenged from another direction. This challenge was reported in February, 2001, by the Associated Press, Berlin. It seems that a certain Hans Guido Mutke claims he pushed his Messerschmitt jet fighter, the Me-262, through the sound barrier in 1945. This occurred during an emergency dive to help another German flyer during air combat.
At that time he experienced vibrations and shaking of the aircraft. According to the report, a Hamburg Professor is working on a computer simulation in order to check the validity of this claim. Returning to the topic at hand, Schriever continued to work on the project until April 15, 1945. About this time Prag was threatened by the Soviet Army. The Czech technicians working on this project were reported to have gone amuck, looting the facility as the Russians approached. The saucer prototype(s) at Prag-Gbell were pushed out onto the tarmac and burnt. Habermohl disappeared and presumably ended up in the hands of the Soviets. Schriever, according to his own statements, packed the saucer plans in the trunk of his BMW and with his family drove into Southern Germany. After cessation of hostilities Schriever worked his way north to his parents house in Bremerhaven-Lehe. There Schriever set up an inventor-workshop.
On August 4, 1948 there was a break in to the workshop in which Schriever's plans and saucer model were stolen. Schriever was approached by agents of "foreign powers" concerning his knowledge of German saucers. He declined their offers, preferring rather menial work driving a truck for the U.S. Army. Schriever is reported to have died shortly thereafter in 1953.There is a report, however, that his death was reported prematurely and that he was identified by a witness who knew him in Bavaria in 1964 or 1965. Interestingly enough, Schriever never claimed that his saucer ever flew at all! If this true, Schriever's saucer was still in the pre-flight stage at the time of the Russian advance and its ultimate destruction on the Prag-Gbell tarmac. This is in direct contradiction to the sources cited above and the photographic evidence. How can this seeming inconsistency be explained?
The Miethe-Belluzzo Project
This saucer project may have been an outgrowth of flying wing research. It was begun in 1942, and was under the on-site nuthority of Dr. Richard Miethe, sometimes called Dr. Heinrich Richard Miethe. Not much is known about Dr. Miethe before the war. After the war Dr. Miethe is rumored to have worked on the Anglo-American saucer project at the firm of Avro Aircraft Limited of Canada. Such is stated Klein/ Epp, Barton, Lusar , as well as a myriad of other sources. We will return to the Avro projects later. Working with Dr. Miethe was an Italian engineer, Professor Guiseppe Belluzzo. Belluzzo was the Deputy, Senator and Minister of National Economy under Mussolini. He had written several books on technical matters including Steam Turbines in 1926 and calculations and Installations of Modern Turbine Hydrolics in 1922 (names are English translations of Italian titles). Belluzzo was considered to be an expert in steam turbines. Dr. Belluzzo was not a junior scientist and he was not Dr. Miethe's assistant. He was a senior scientist whose expertise was somehow invaluable on the saucer devices or planned further developments of them.
After the war Belluzzo seems to have led a quiet life in Italy until his death on 5/22/52. Unlike Miethe, however, Belluzzo went on record about German flying discs after the war. He is quoted on the subject in The Mirror, a major Los Angeles newspaper in 1950. This may be the first mention of the subject in the American press. In his obituary in the New York Times his work on the German saucer program is mentioned. This team worked in facilities in, Dresden, Breslau and Letow/Prag according to Epp. Both this project and the Schriever and Habermohl projects were directed by the same experts and advisors. From Epp's discussion, it is clear that Dr. Walter Dornberger first evaluated and recommended his saucer model for further development. Miethe is described by Epp in translation as a "known V-weapons designer".
The association of both projects to Peenemuende is clear. Both were sanctioned and set up by officials there, probably by Dr. Walter Dornberger himself. Miethe and Belluzzo worked primarily in Dresden and Breslau but for a brief time they may have actually joined forces with Schriever and Habermohl in Prag, as evidenced by Klein's statement that three saucer models were destroyed on the Prag tarmac. One saucer, which Klein he describes as Miethe's was among these. Klein acknowledges that Peenemuende, and its nearby test facility at Stettin, retained and developed the Miethe design as an unmanned vehicle. Epp tells us that the Miethe-Belluzzo project was organized under exactly the same authority as the Schriever-Habermohl project and he further identifies the very same industrial firms which supported Schriever-Habermohl as supporting this project. In reality, both should be viewed as one project with different aspects. The designs envisioned by Dr. Miethe and Professor Belluzzo were quite different from those of Schriever and Habermohl. Designs of this project consisted of a discus-shaped craft whose outer periphery did not rotate. Two designs have positively been nttributed to Miethe and Belluzzo although three designs exist as part of their legacy.
The first design is made known to us from Georg Klein's article in the October 16, 1954 edition of the Swiss newspaper, Tages- Anzeiger fuer Stadt und Kanton Zuerich, mentioned above. The same design is reproduced in the book by J. Andreas Epp. This saucer was not intended to take-off vertically but at an angle as does a conventional airplane. In this design twelve jet engines are shown to be mounted "outboard" to power the craft. The cockpit was mounted at the rear of the vehicle and a periscope used to monitor directions visually impaired. Notably, a large gyroscope mounted internally at the center of the craft provided stability.
This and other Miethe-Belluzzo designs were said to be 42 meters or 138 feet in diameter. Aeronautical writer Hans Justus Meier has challenged this design on a number of grounds. It is certainly possible, if not probable, that the outboard jet-turbine arrangement is incorrect, one might ask, if this was an outboard jet-turbine design, then what purpose did the bloated central body serve? In reality the twelve jets may simply have been jet nozzles of one engine. Certainly the large central body had a function, it must have housed the engine. But how could the authenticity of this design come under question when Georg Klein is vouching for it in his article? The answer may be that Klein never saw this design himself and he simply is relying on the descriptions of those that did. If one reads the works of Klein carefully, he never claims to have seen this model in flight. As a matter of fact, he never claims to have actually seen this design at all.The second Miethe design seems to have originated with a 1975 German magazine article. This version shows a cockpit above and below the center of the craft. Four jet engines lying behind the cockpits are shown as the powerplants. No real detail is supplied in this article. This design is not ever discussed in the text which deals primarily with the Schriever-Habermohl Project. Some writers have speculated on this particular design, supplying detail. For now, however, no named source seems to be able to link this design with the Miethe-Belluzzo Project. Therefore, at least for the time being, we must put this design in suspense and focus on the first and next design in discussing the aforementioned saucer project.
The third design attributed to the Miethe-Belluzzo Project comes to us from and article by Jan Holberg in an August 20, 1966 article in Das Neue Zeitalter and also from Michael X. Barton- Carl F. Mayer-Hermann Klaas connection. This design was capable of vertical take-off. Klaas provides internal detail which has been reproduced here. At first, this appears to be a push-pull propeller system driven by a single engine. It is not. Neither are the twelve jet nozzles unsupported in any way as depicted. The real answer to this mystery is that this drawing is incomplete. With the completed parts depicted, a radial turbojet engine of special type would appear. Design one differs from design three in that the latter, with its centrally located cabin and symmetrical arrangement of twelve adjustable jet nozzles, is controlled by selectively shutting off various jets through the use of a surrounding ring. This allows the saucer to make turns and to take off vertically.
Recently, a German researcher, Klaus-Peter Kothkugel using Vesco as his source, has proposed an engine which links the designs one and three, and possibly even design two, while supplying the missing pieces needed to make the engine depicted air-worthy and resolves other problems. This engine was invented by a French engineer, Rene Leduc and probably acquired by the Germans during their occupation of France. If a flying saucer equipped with this engine were viewed from the outside, no rotating parts would be visible. This is because the engine was totally contained within the metal skin of the saucer. It did rotate but this rotation was within the saucer itself and not viable from the outside. An air space existed all around the spinning engine, between it and the non-rotating outer skin.
This engine was a type of radial-flow jet engine. It was this type of engine which probably powered all of Dr. Miethe's saucer designs. It is also the prime candidate for the post-war design of John Frost, the "Flying Manta." The Flying Manta actually did fly. Pictures of it during a test flight are unmistakable. They were taken on July 7, 1947 by William A. Rhodes over Phoenix, Arizona. It almost goes without saying that the time frame, July of 1947, as well as the geographical location, the American Southwest, as well as the description of the flying object itself, beg comparisons to the saucer which crashed at Rosewell, New Mexico, earlier that same month. If one looks at what is known of Dr. Miethe's saucer design, the Leduc engine, and the Frost Manta, it must be acknowledged that a connection between these three not only explains apparent inconsistencies in the existing Miethe designs but also links them to the post-war American Southwest, the precise spot where evaluated.
There is considerable confusion as to where the first test flight of the Miethe-Belluzzo saucer occurred. Epp tells us that models made by this team were flight tested since 1943. Georg Klein, as well as Andreas Epp, state that a test model of this craft took off from Stettin, in northern Germany, near Peenemuende, roughly where the Oder River meets the Baltic, and crashed in Spitsbergen which are the islands to the north of Norway. A manned test flight in December, 1944 has been mentioned by Norbert Juergen-Ratthofer and Ralf Ettl in one of the films on which they worked.
The pilot named was Joachim Roehlicke or perhaps Hans-Joachim Roehlicke. Klaus-Peter Rothkugel reports that Roehlicke was under the direction of none other than Dr. Hans Kammler himself and was stationed at the Gotha Wagonfabrik company. The Gotha Wagonfabrik company is in the Jonas Valley in Thuringia. This valley was packed full of high-tech underground facilities which included nuclear research. Roehlicke confided to his daughter after the war, according to Mr. Rothkugel, that he "had seen the earth from above". Confusion over the test details of the Miethe-Belluzzo saucer start as early as the whole German flying disc controversy itself in the 1950s.
In the English translation of his book, titled Brighter than a Thousand Suns A Personal History Of The Atomic Scientists. a footnote appeared which deviated from the discussion of atomic weaponry. This 1958 description is one of the first in English and may illustrate some of the difficulties in sorting out this information: " The only exception to the lack of interest shown by authority was constituted by the Air Ministry. The Air Force research workers were in a peculiar position. The produced interesting new types of aircraft such as the Delta (triangular) and "flying discs."
The first of these "flying saucers," as they were later called—circular in shape, with a diameter of some 45 yards—were built by the specialists Schriever, Habermohl and Miethe. They were first airborne on February 14, 1945, over Prague and reached in three minutes a height of nearly eight miles. They had a flying speed of 1250 m.p.h. which was doubled in subsequent tests. It is believed that after the war Habermohl fell into the hands of the Russians. Miethe developed at a later date similar "flying saucers" at A. V. Roe and Company for the United States." One big difference between the Miethe-Belluzzo design and the Schriever-Habermohl designs is that the former craft was alleged to have, or be designed to have, a longer flight range.This point is reinforced by the Spitzbergen flight mentioned above. Klein states that the Germans considered long range, remote controlled attack from Germany to New York using this craft. As stated earlier, both projects were under the same authority. Experts and advisors included, according to Epp, among others, head-designer Kalkert of the Gotha Waggonfabrik, head-designer Guenther of Heinkel, engineer Wulf of Arado, engineer Otto Lange of the RLM, and engineer Alexander Lippish of Messerschmitt. Pilots were Holm, Irmler, Kaiser and Lange. The test pilot was Rudolf Schriever. There does exist two alleged still pictures of the Miethe craft in flight. One is reproduced here. It may be the first design.
A picture claiming to be of what is called here the third design can be found in W. Mattern's book, UFO's Unbekanntes Flugobiekt? Letzte Geheimwaffe Des Dritten Reiches?. Politically, in 1944, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, replaced Albert Speer's appointee, Georg Klein, with Dr. Hans Kammler as overseer of this combined saucer project. This is a little confusing, however, since Kammler retained Klein as his employee, Perhaps a more practical way to look at this is that Kammler, Himmler's employee, replaced Speer while Klein did what he always did. The result was that the SS took direct and absolute control over these projects from this point until the end of the war. Prior to this happening, news of these designs or application itself was made to the German Patent Office.
All German wartime patents were carried off as booty by the Allies. This amounted to truckloads of information. Fortunately, Rudolf Lusar, an engineer who worked in the German Patent Office during this time period, wrote a book in the 1950s listing and describing some of the more interesting patents and processes based upon his memory of them. They are surprisingly detailed. Included is the Schriever saucer design with detail. Also discussed is the Miethe project. The significance of these two teams can not be minimized in the history of flying saucers or UFOs. Already in this brief discussion, the evidence, taken as a whole, is overwhelming.
Please compare this to any and all extraterrestrial explanations of flying saucers. Here we have Germans who claim to have invented the idea of the flying saucer. We have Germans who claim to have designed flying saucers. We have Germans who claim to have built flying saucers. We have Germans who claim to have flown flying saucers. We have Germans who claim to be witnesses to flying saucers known beforehand to be of German construction. We have German construction details. And finally, we have a man who took pictures of a known German flying saucer in flight. The facts speak for themselves. During the Second World War the Germans built devices we would all call today "flying saucers". No other UFO explanation can even approach this in terms of level of proof, or we must accept that there is an Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence in our universe.
(Source : A Guide to German Flying Discs Of The 2nd World War by Henry Stevens)
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