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pre-1930s mysteries, catalogued them, and left them for later generations to unravel. At the end of the nineteenth century, with ballooning a popular sport and powered balloons—airships—being tested in hopes of providing elementary air transportation, a wave of sightings of "mystery airships" broke out. While many of the reports were eventually blamed on publicity-seekers and un- ethical journalists, some reports suggested real machines with performance capabilities greater than anything known to have been flying at the time. But not until man entered the age of mechanical flight with the first voyages by the Wright Brothers in 1903 could reports of odd aerial sights be judged in the light of rapidly advancing technology. It wasn't until 1911-1912 that airplanes began to be seen in any numbers, and then mainly at air shows where there were people ready to pay for the privilege. This was soon followed by the first of the twentieth-century waves of UFOlike sights. Called "mystery airplanes," they are only now beginning to attract serious attention. Similar waves of mystery airplanes that failed to conform to known activity were reported from both the United States and Europe in the 1930s, but not until the latter stages of World War II did the press and governments began to pay attention to a cohesive phenomenon: the "foo fighters." These mysterious, often "playful" balls of light and shining spheres were reported by the experienced crews of American warplanes in both the European and Pacific theaters of war in late 1944 and early 1945. They were said to fly along with our planes and even to play tag with them, singly and in small formations. Not once was there any suggestion that a foo fighter had proved aggressive or even mildly unfriendly. That, in the midst of history's most terrible war, suggested two possi- ble explanations: they were something natural (such as St. Elmo's Fire, the eerie atmospheric discharge of built-up static electricity) or they were insidious enemy machines not quite ready for combat. After all, the sky was full of V-1 buzz bombs and V-2 rockets; who could say what other devilish contrap- tions the Nazis might be readying? CRASH AT CORONA