Malmstrom AFB UFO Incident

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Malmstrom AFB UFO Incident
June 30, 2009
Gregan Wortmann
Examiner.com

Thursday morning March 16, 1967 Captain Eric Carlson and First Lieutenant Walt Figel were below ground in the Launch Control Center (LCC) or capsule of the missile silo called Echo Flight located between Winfred and Hilger, Montana about fifteen miles north of Lewistown.

Missile maintenance crews and security personnel were camped out at two of the Launch Facilities (LFs), having worked there during the previous day and were staying overnight to be there to do more work in the morning. During the early morning hours, more than one report came in from the security patrols and maintenance crews about seeing UFOs. One UFO was reported directly above one of the Echo Flight LF or silos.

Around 8:30 a.m., Figel, the Deputy Crew Commander (DMCCC), was briefing Carlson, the Crew Commander (MCCC), on the flight status when the alarm horn sounded. One of the Minuteman missiles they supervised had become inoperable. It was one of the two sites where maintenance crews had camped out on site. Thinking that the missile had gone "off alert" because of work done by the maintenance crew, Figel immediately called the missile site.

Figel spoke with one of the on-site security guards who reported that they had not yet performed any maintenance that morning. The guard also told Figel about a UFO seen hovering over the site. Figel thought the guard must have been drinking. Suddenly, other missiles started to go "off alert" in rapid succession! Within seconds, the entire flight of ten ICBMs was down! All missiles reported a "No-Go" condition. One by one, across the board, each missile had became inoperable. When the checklist procedure had been completed for each missile site, it was discovered that each of the missiles was down due to a Guidance and Control (G&C) System fault. Power was still on and available to the sites; the missiles simply were not operational because, for some unexplainable reason, each of their guidance and control systems had malfunctioned.

Captain Don Crawford's crew relieved the Echo Flight crew later that morning. Crawford recalled that both Carlson and Figel were still visibly shaken by what had occurred. Crawford also recalled that the maintenance crews worked on the missiles the entire day and late into the night during his shift to bring them all back on alert. Not only had missiles been knocked out of service but had remained out of service for an entire day!

The Oscar Flight LCC was located a mile or two south of the town of Roy, about 20 miles southeast of the Echo Flight LCC. Robert Salas was the DMCCC in Oscar Flight during the morning hours of 16 March 1967.

Outside, above the underground LCC capsule, it was a typically clear, cold Montana night sky and there were a few inches of snow on the ground. There were no city lights to distract from seeing anything like stars in the sky. Airmen on duty topside probably spent some of their time outside looking up at the stars. It was one of those airmen who first saw what at first appeared to be a star begin to zig-zag across the sky. Then he saw another light do the same thing, and this time it was larger and closer. He asked his Flight Security Controller, an NCO, to come and take a look. They both watched the lights streak directly above them, stop, change directions at high speed and return overhead. The NCO ran into the building and phoned Salas at his station underground. The NCO reported that they had been seeing lights making strange maneuvers over the facility, and that they weren't aircraft. Salas replied: "Great. You just keep watching them and let me know if they get any closer."

A few minutes later, the security NCO called again. This time he was clearly frightened and was shouting his words. Here is the conversation that took place:

"Sir, there's one hovering outside the front gate!"

"One what?"

"A UFO! It's just sitting there. We're all just looking at it. What do you want us to do?"

"What? What does it look like?"

"I can't really describe it. It's glowing red. What are we supposed to do?"

"Make sure the site is secure and I'll phone the Command Post."

"Sir, I have to go now, one of the guys just got injured."

Salas woke his commander and began to brief him about the phone calls and what was going on topside. In the middle of this conversation, they both heard the first alarm sound and both immediately looked over at the panel lights at the Commander's station. A 'No-Go' light and two red security lights were lit indicating problems at one of the missile sites. Another alarm went off at another site, then another and another. Within seconds, six to eight missiles went to a 'No-Go' (inoperable) condition.

After reporting this incident to the Command Post, Salas phoned the security guard who said that the man who had approached the UFO had not been injured seriously but had been evacuated by helicopter to the base. The security guard said that the UFO had a red glow and appeared to be saucer shaped and that it had been immediately outside the front gate and had hovered silently.

Salas sent a security patrol to check our the LFs after the shutdown, and they reported sighting another UFO during that patrol. They also lost radio contact immediately after reporting the UFO.

After the silo crews were relieved by the replacement crews later that morning the missiles had still not been brought on line by on-site maintenance teams http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case1017.htm (readers interested in this story should definitely watch the video at this link).

An investigation of the incident was conducted at the Boeing Company's Seattle plant. Boeing engineers confirm that no cause for the missile shutdowns was ever found. Robert Kaminski was the Boeing Company engineering team leader for this investigation. Kaminski stated: “There were no significant failures, engineering data or findings that would explain how ten missiles were knocked off alert and there was no technical explanation that could explain the event.” Another Boeing Company engineer, Robert Rigert, reproduced the effects by introducing a 10 volt pulse on a data line that repeated the shutdown effects 80% of the time, but only when directly injected at the logic coupler. No explanation could be found for a source of such a pulse occurring in the field and getting inside the shielded missile system equipment.

According to articles from the February 8, 1967 Great Falls Tribune newspaper Louis DeLeon saw two strange objects in the sky which did not look like airplanes and they glowed an orange and red color while driving east of Chester, Montana and later, ten miles east of Chester, Jake Walkman was in his back yard when he sighted a "flying saucer." The next evening, George Kawanishi, a foreman for the Great Northern Railroad, saw a bright ball of light in the sky directly above the Chester train depot. These sightings all preceded the missile shutdown incidents later in March. http://www.coasttocoastam.com/photo/ufos-aerial-phenomena/48

Also in March a two person security team, assigned to Echo Flight, was performing a routine check of the missile launch facilities a few miles north of Lewistown, Montana. As they approached one of the launch facilities, an amazing sight caused the driver to slam on his brakes. They watched stunned as, about 300 feet ahead, a very large glowing object hovered silently directly over the launch facility. One of them picked up his VHF hand microphone and called Captain Don Crawford who was the DMCCC on duty that evening.

“Sir, you wouldn’t believe what I’m looking at,” he said.

He described what they were seeing. Crawford didn’t believe him at first but the young airman insisted he was telling the truth, his voice revealing his emotional state. Eventually Crawford took him seriously enough to call the Command Post to report it. The officer on duty at the Command Post refused to accept the report and simply stated, “We no longer record those kinds of reports,” indicating he didn’t want to hear about the UFO. Crawford unsure of what to tell his shaken security guard, decided to give the guard his permission to fire his weapon at the object if it seemed hostile.

“Thanks, sir, but I really don’t think it would do any good,”

A few seconds later the object silently flew away. http://www.nuforc.org/ http://www.nuforc.org/webreports.html http://www.ufocasebook.com/

Malmstrom AFB is near Great Falls, Montana. From Billings take 27th Street North to Montana Route 3 and drive to Harlowton then take U.S. Highway 191 to Moore and then take U.S. Highway 87 to Great Falls. It is about 219 miles. http://www.malmstrom.af.mil/

For readers interested in this subject here are some places to check out. 4th Annual International UFO Symposium August 6th to the 7th in Denver, Colorado. http://www.mufon.com/symposia.htm Great Lakes Paranormal Convention July 24th in Eveleth, Minnesota http://www.darkplainsradio.com/event.html Roswell UFO Festival July 2nd to the 5th in Roswell, New Mexico http://www.ufofestivalroswell.com Ancient of Days 2009 Roswell UFO Conference July 4th to the 5th and the Shag Harbour UFO Festival August 14th to the 15th in Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia http://www.shagharbour.com