British commandos carried out one of the most successful operations of World War II when they raided a German radar installation at Bruneval on the coast of Normandy during the night of February 27–28, 1942. British scientists urgently needed to capture the German electronics to devise countermeasures. How did the planners select the date of this raid for astronomical reasons involving both moonlight and also the effects of the lunar phase on the tidesTides? And what is the connection between this commando raid and the iconic Hollywood producer Darryl F. ZanuckZanuck, Darryl F.? Incidents from the last year of World War II provide examples of occurrences when the U.S. military planned attacks upon and even tried to shoot down mysterious objects in the sky. In February 1945, the battleship U.S.S. New York fired hundreds of rounds of various calibers in an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down an unusual bright object that appeared high above in the daytime sky. What do astronomical calculations reveal about the identity of this mysterious bright object? July 1945 was an especially tense time for the scientists of the Manhattan Project as they prepared for the Trinity Test, when they would learn whether the plutonium atomic bomb would work as designed. On one morning during this period, project scientists called a nearby air base to scramble interceptor aircraft to attack a bright object in the sky. Who was the astronomer who served as the voice of reason and told J. Robert Oppenheimer to “Stop trying to shoot down Venus!”? And what is the connection to a television program hosted by Eleanor Roosevelt during the post-war flying saucer hysteria?