Veteran World War II pilot says he had close encounter during mission

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Veteran World War II pilot says he had close encounter during mission
January 30, 2011
By Bob Turner
Ocala.com

Sixty-six years ago, during World War II, Everett Harris saw something he only spoke of sparingly to family members and a few close friends. EV, as he is known around the Summerfield retirement community where he lives, thought it might be time, at age 89, to reveal his experience without reprisal.


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Everett Harris points to the area on a model plane where he says he saw two spherical objects appear in Germany.
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Bob Turner/correspondent

Calling it "The Mystery Spheres," Harris composed a three-page account of that experience. Part of the account reads, "... another pilot and I were flying in close formation on our way back to base ... Suddenly, two spherical objects, each bigger than a single-engine plane, appeared, flying not more than 20 yards off my left side, as if they were flying in formation with us."

Harris caught the attention of his wingman and pointed toward the globes. He said the wingman gave a shrugging motion with his shoulders, indicating he was as puzzled as Harris.


Deciding to have a closer look, Harris began to turn slowly toward the objects. He said they took off at high speed before disappearing in a southerly direction. Harris said he could clearly see rivets on them, but no source of propulsion.

Before their debriefing session, the young pilot asked his wingman, who he only knew briefly, "Are you going to say anything about what we saw this morning?" The wingman's response was, "Hell no! If we do, they'll think we've lost it and we won't fly anymore."

Today, Harris wonders if they did the right thing.

He said he never mentioned the encounter again, until years later when his work supervisor, also a former World War II pilot, told him of an almost identical sighting over the skies of Italy.

In his book "Strange Company — Military Encounters with UFOs in WWII," British author Keith Chester writes about many strange sightings by Allied pilots over Nazi Germany, similar to what Harris and his supervisor described.

Harris said he never heard the term UFO until years after his discharge from the Army Air Force. He said recently, however, that he is not ruling out anything it might have been that flew beside his P-51 fighter plane over the skies of Germany that morning in 1945.