Nazi gold, UFOs and other unsolved mysteries from World War 2

World War 2 was fought 80 years ago. A global conflict of such size and importance has not been fought since 1945 and, hopefully, something similar won’t happen again. However, there are still many things about history’s most studied conflict that we still don’t know.

If World War 2 had a soundtrack, it would surely include some of the most memorable big band songs by bandleader Glenn Miller. However, Miller’s demise is still a mystery to this day.

On December 1944, after the Normandy landing and with the war almost over, Miller insisted on crossing the English Channel to France for a series of engagements for the troops stationed in Paris.

Miller, exasperated by two canceled flights due to bad weather, pressed to take a flight to France on December 14. The plane and its crew were lost in the English Channel and the remains were never found.

Glenn Miller was hardly the only person to disappear in the fog of war. From 1939 to 1945, Heinrich Müller was the director of the Gestapo and one of the main architects of the Holocaust.

Müller can be seen in the far-right (no pun intended) in this picture with Heinrich Himmler.

Müller was last seen on May 1, 1945, in Hitler’s bunker in Berlin after the Führer had taken his own life as the Red Army prepared to enter the city.

There are no reports if Müller survived after that day. Some speculate his body was never identified, however, others like Adolf Eichmann, who was captured in Argentina in 1960, believed that Müller survived the war and went into hiding.

Pictured: Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem in 1961

Another mystery related to the end of the war involves the German submarines U-977 and U-530, both departed from Europe in March and April 1945 for unclear reasons, surfacing in Argentina in July and August 1945.

Many have wondered why these submarines took so long to surrender and decided to cross the Atlantic to do so. The most common argument is that their crews believed they would be treated more leniently by the Argentinean government, headed by Juan Perón.

However, for many years there have been theories that the U-977 and the U-530 were carrying more than their usual crew. Speculation goes from gold and resources to high-ranking Nazi officers trying to flee to South America.

During World War 2, Nazi Germany developed a series of “super weapons” that were meant to change the tide of the war in their favor. Many of these ‘wunderwaffe’ never left the drawing board, then there are others like The Bell (‘Die Glocke’).

Image: Markus Winkler / Unsplash

First described by Polish author Igor Witkowski, depending on the source The Bell has been described as a hypothetical time machine, an antigravity engine, or a device capable of instantly killing anyone around it.

It all sounds implausible and it’s most likely a hoax. However, considering some real-life theoretical Nazi super weapons included prototypes of missiles and the idea of building a giant reflector in a space station. It wouldn’t be farfetched if some Third Reich scientist came up with such a comic book device.

The Amber Room of the Catherine Palace, near St. Petersburg, was the height of the opulence of Imperial Russia. Decorated in amber panels with golden leaves and mirrors, it was looted by the German Army, disappearing in 1944.

The dismantled ornaments of the Amber Room have been estimated to be valued at over 500 million US Dollars. A reconstruction at the Catherine Palace was inaugurated in 2003.

On the night of February 24, 1942, in the city of Los Angeles, the alarm was raised that an attack from the Imperial Japanese Navy was imminent.

Chaos erupted around the city in the middle of a total blackout as air raid sounds went across LA County. The next morning, five were reported dead of an attack that didn’t happen.

The so-called “Battle of Los Angeles” was later found out to have been probably caused by the sighting of a weather balloon just months after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, mixed with mass hysteria.

Long before UFOs entered common parlance, there were the Foo Fighters. Not the rock band, but the sight of mysterious flying objects reported by American and British pilots during World War 2.

Instead of imagining an extraterrestrial origin, witnesses assumed that these balls of fire were some sort of Nazi super weapon. Instead, they inspired one of the most memorable rock bands to come out of Seattle in the 1990s.

Pictured: The Foo Fighters (the band, not the UFOs)

CIA’s Robertson Panel on unidentified flying objects looked into reports of Foo Fighters and argued that the most likely explanation was St. Elmo’s fire or some sort of electromagnetic phenomenon.