“It came … in a straight line from the north, heading south, approximately 120 miles per hour and perhaps 3000 feet above us. There was no sound of any kind emanating from the mysterious object. It stopped over our front lines.”

I never scoffed at the possibility of UFO existence, having observed them twice, in 1945 and 1946 in France. Have commented about the matter many times during the last 13 years since commencing to write this column.

By George Todt Los Angeles Herald-Examiner 6-18-1964

Briefly, what happened to me was this: In August 1944, I was the Duty Officer of the 38th Infantry Regimental Headquarters staff, part of the 2nd Infantry Division, then heading south toward Falaise after the tremendous [illegible] breakthrough in the Battle of Normandy.

The Sergeant of the Guard at our headquarters awakened me a little before 1:00 am, as instructed, at my foxhole – about 100 yards away from the French farmhouse then serving as our regimental headquarters base. But as I rose to go, I saw something.

It was a prominent orange-red light which was just commencing to sail up above the trees in the northerly direction of Omaha Beach. Bigger than Venus, smaller than the moon. At first I thought it was a German V-1 jet missile. The executive officer of the 38th Regiment, Lt Col. Frank H. Boos of Janesville, Wis., had expressed a personal desire only a few days before, at our officer’s mess, to see a V-1. He had not seen one prior to that time.

So the guard and I trotted up the hill on the double and called to Frank to come outside and see his V-1 at long last. He was there soon enough, as well as 1st Lt. John J. Murphy of New York City, leader of our intelligence reconnaissance platoon.

Both officers came outside and the four of us proceeded to watch the UFO – because that was what it was, actually, not a German V-1 jet missile.

Let me describe this strange light, vehicle, craft or whatever it may have been.

It came toward our interested little group in a straight line from the north, heading south, approximately 120 miles per hour and perhaps 3000 feet above us. There was no sound of any kind emanating from the mysterious object. It stopped over our front lines.

The UFO had a reddish-orange glow that looked about the same color as a red hot horseshoe just before the blacksmith plungers it into the water to cool it off again. This glow pulsated rhythmically every two or three seconds, contracting and expanding constantly. We could not see the outlines of the stalled UFO.

The UFO was halted for about a minute overhead when I commenced to time its stay on my illuminated dial wristwatch; it was anchored silently above us, as though observing something, for 15 minutes.

Suddenly it commenced to move away from us at a 90-degree right angle and disappeared into nearby clouds. What was it? Who knows?

Military personnel witnessed a UFO approach their position and hover for several minutes during the war in 1945.