Flying Demons of the Vietnam War

In the depths of the Vietnamese jungle during the Vietnam war, American soldiers faced more than guerrilla warfare and harsh terrain. Some veterans claim they seen something horrifying – inhuman entities, visible only through a rare experimental device known as the Red Phosphor Night Vision Goggles. Though largely forgotten about by official military history, these sightings form one of the most bizarre and chilling stories of the Vietnam War, the appearance of “flying demons.”

Red Phosphor Night Vision

The Vietnam War was a technological proving ground. Through the chaos of jungle warfare, the U.S. military field-tested everything from chemical weapons to early forms of drone surveillance. Night vision, though still in its infancy, became critical in the fight against the Viet Cong, who operated predominantly under cover of darkness.

Most people are familiar with the green hue of night vision imagery. The green phosphor screens used in the image intensification process. However, in the late 1960s, several units were issued with a rare prototype of night vision goggles utilising red phosphor instead of green.

Why red? Well, some developers believed that red phosphor would reduce eye fatigue, improve contrast, and enhance depth perception in low-light environments. These goggles would cast the dark of night in an eerie crimson glow, giving the battlefield an almost otherworldly look.

Encounters in the Jungle

Accounts of strange sightings began surfacing from units that were deployed along the Ho Chi Minh trail and in the Annamite Mountains. Regions that are known for being thick dense jungle, poor visibility, and intense spiritual significance among the locals.

According to multiple reports, soldiers using red phosphor goggles began to see strange entities that could not be seen with the naked eye, binoculars, or even the green night vision devices.

These beings were described as being winged and humanoid with elongated limbs and unnatural body proportions, emitting no sound as they moved despite flapping and gliding motions, having glowing or reflective eyes visible only through the red spectrum, often observed hovering motionlessly or watching from above and disappearing entirely the moment the goggles were removed.

One Army radio operator, a now a retired veteran in his 70s, recounted his encounter in 1969:

“It was around 0300 hours. We were watching for movement in a clearing. Through my red goggles, I saw this… thing. It was perched up in a tree, maybe 12 feet tall, with wings half-spread like a vulture. It was watching us. I asked the guy next to me if he could see it but he couldn’t. I took off the goggles and it was gone. Put them back on… and there it was again.”

These sightings however weren’t one-offs. Entire platoons would report encounters and in some cases soldiers claimed the entities followed them or hovered silently overhead during their long jungle marches. Panic would set in and several soldiers reportedly refused to wear the goggles again.

Suppression or Strategic Silence?

Military records make no official mention of these events, but according to some former servicemen, investigators from MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group) quietly confiscated the goggles and debriefed troops, warning them not to speak of what they had seen.

It’s unclear whether these actions were part of a psychological operations (PSYOP) program, a classified paranormal investigation, or just simply damage control to prevent hysteria, but for whatever the reason the red phosphor goggles were suddenly pulled from circulation and within a few years they were phased out completely.

Today red phosphor technology is being used again in some law enforcement and special forces gear but with no public mention of its unusual legacy.

Paranormal and Scientific Theories

There are several competing theories about what those soldiers may have seen:

• Optical Illusions or Pareidolia – The simplest explanation that tired minds in a high stress environment misinterpreted shadows, birds, or tree branches as demonic figures. The unique red contrast of the goggles may have exaggerated minor movements creating ghostly images.
• Spectral Wavelength Perception – Some paranormal researchers suggest the red phosphor spectrum could allow visibility into a different frequency range or another realm, perhaps overlapping with electromagnetic fields or entities normally beyond human perception. Could these goggles have exposed a layer of reality we’re not meant to see?
• Local Folklore and Jungle Spirits – Vietnamese and Cambodian folklore speaks of “Ma Quỷ” (evil spirits) and “Người Chim” (bird people or sky ghosts). Could American soldiers, unknowingly, have stumbled into long feared supernatural territories and their technology was piercing the veil between our world and another one?
• Classified Experiments or Psychological Warfare – Some conspiracies suggest the entities were not supernatural but rather the byproduct of military experimentation. Could hallucinogens, infrasound weapons, or psychological triggers have been used on U.S. troops in covert tests of mind manipulation? Were the flying demons an engineered hallucination?

Modern Echoes

While the original goggles have long vanished, a small community of tech hobbyists and paranormal researchers continues to investigate the red phosphor mystery. Some even claim modern red-light-enabled devices can reproduce strange phenomena, though never with the clarity that was described during Vietnam.

A few veterans, speaking anonymously, still maintain their stories decades later:

“You can say we were sleep-deprived, scared, half-crazy. Maybe we were. But that doesn’t explain why we all saw the same damn thing. It wasn’t in our heads. It was up there.”

Thoughts

The story of the Red Phosphor Night Vision Goggles remains one of the strangest mysteries in both military and paranormal history. Whether they were hallucinations, spiritual encounters, or unclassified military phenomena, something deeply unsettling was witnessed in the deep jungles of Vietnam, only by those who dared to see the world through a crimson lens.

So did soldiers in Vietnam catch a glimpse of another reality, another dimension or see spirits that are always there but that we just can’t see with the naked eye?

What do you think?  Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.