dogs and falling rockets

[Doug Millison]

"...during the last year of the Second World War, the Germans were 
firing supersonic V2 rockets at London. These missiles were launched 
from Holland and headed upward at about 45 degrees. Their engines cut 
out after a minute or so, and they followed a ballistic trajectory, 
reaching speeds of over 2,000 miles per hour as they plunged 
downward, arriving unseen and unheard. They took only five minutes to 
reach their targets in England, some 200 miles away, carrying a ton 
of high explosives. They were particularly terrifying because their 
explosion was preceded by no warning and they could strike anywhere 
in southeast Engliand at any time of day or night.
Dr. Roy Willis, who was seventeen at the time, was living in Essex, 
just east of London. 'I noticed that our dog [a German 
Shepherd-Norwegian Elkhound cross] was seemingly able to sense the 
imminent arrival of a V2 rocket. The dog, called Smoke, would go to 
the window and stare out, hackles raised, as if in anger and fear. 
After about two minutes, during which time he remained in the same 
aggressive posture at the window, I would hear the ominous crump of 
an exploded rocket.' At least one other dog owner had a very similar 
experience, his animal reacting shortly before the explosions. 
Assuming that these accounts are reliable, and I have no reason to 
doubt that they are, the dogs could not have heard these missiles 
coming, however acute their hearing, precisely because they were both 
silent and supersonic.
If animals were not anticipating air raids by hearing the approaching 
bombers or rockets, how did they know the attacks were coming?"
--Rupert Sheldrake, _Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home 
And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals_, 1999.
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