SE Report Swedish Defence Staff
The Defence Staff reports on the ghost rockets
The document on file is not a Swedish Defence Staff report but a United States one. On 22 August 1946 the Central Intelligence Group, in a memorandum to the President signed by Lieutenant General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, revised its 1 August conclusions on the "ghost rockets" over Scandinavia. It said the weight of evidence now pointed to Peenemunde as the probable launching site and judged it probable that the U.S.S.R. was carrying out large-scale guided-missile tests around the Baltic, with scientific experimentation as the primary objective. On 23 August 1946 William D. Leahy forwarded the report to the President for his information.
2 documents·5 points·1 story
- The memorandum says additional intelligence meant the tentative conclusions of the original memorandum of 1 August 1946 "should be somewhat modified".
- It reports that a key Swedish Air Officer stated, on the basis of Swedish radar course-plotting, that most launchings had been identified with the Peenemunde area.
- It concludes that most of the missiles were probably launched from the Peenemunde area and traversed Sweden toward the Gulf of Bothnia.
- It states CIG's belief that scientific experimentation was the primary Soviet objective and political considerations secondary.
- It notes several foreign estimates that only "rockets" off course, presumably through functional failure, land in Sweden.
Documents
- Report CIG cover memo on Ghost Rockets report CIA Reading Room· 1946-08-23· 5 pp.
- Official release Intelligence Review of “Ghost Rocket” Incidents, 1947 U.S. Department of War· 1947-01-09· 8 pp.
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