An ICBM missile complex is a lot like an iceberg. The big part lies unseen underneath.
That reality means the team underneath is isolated, physically disconnected from what happens to their colleagues on the surface, where things can get beyond strange pretty darn quick.
United States Air Force Captain Robert Salas remembers the early morning of March 16, 1967, when a UFO hovered topside and apparently de-activated the ten Minutemen I missiles under his authority:
OSCAR-FLIGHT
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.
The following is as told by Robert Salas who was the DMCCC in O-Flight that morning:
My recollection is that I was on duty as a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander below ground in the (Launch Control Center) LCC, during the morning hours of 16 March 1967.
Outside, above the subterranean LCC capsule, it was a typical clear, cold Montana night sky; there were a few inches of snow on the ground. Where we were, there were no city lights to detract from the spectacular array of stars, and it was not uncommon to see shooting stars. Montana isn’t called “Big Sky Country” for no reason, and 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, (FSC, the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) in charge of Launch Control Center site security), to come and take a look. They both stood there watching the lights streak directly above them, stop, change directions at high speed and return overhead. The NCO ran into the building and phoned me at my station in the underground capsule. He reported to me that they had been seeing lights making strange maneuvers over the facility, and that they weren't aircraft. I replied: “Great. You just keep watching them and let me know if they get any closer.”
I did not take this report seriously and directed him to report back if anything more significant happened. At the time, I believed this first call to be a joke. Still, that sort of behavior was definitely out of character for air security policemen whose communications with us were usually very professional.
A few minutes later, the security NCO called again. This time he was clearly frightened and was shouting his words:
"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."
Before I could ask about the injury, he was off the line. I immediately went over to my commander, Lt. Fred Meiwald, who was on a scheduled sleep period . I woke him and began to brief him about the phone calls and what was going on topside. In the middle of this conversation, we both heard the first alarm klaxon resound through the confined space of the capsule, and both immediately looked over at the panel of annunciator lights at the Commander's station. A 'No-Go' light and two red security lights were lit indicating problems at one of our missile sites. Fred jumped up to query the system to determine the cause of the problem. Before he could do so, another alarm went off at another site, then another and another simultaneously. Within the next few seconds, we had lost six to eight missiles to a 'No-Go' (inoperable) condition.
After reporting this incident to the Command Post, I phoned my security guard. He said that the man who had approached the UFO had not been injured seriously but was being evacuated by helicopter to the base. Once topside, I spoke directly with the security guard about the UFOs. He added that the UFO had a red glow and appeared to be saucer shaped. He repeated that it had been immediately outside the front gate, hovering silently.
We sent a security patrol to check our LFs after the shutdown, and they reported sighting another UFO during that patrol. They also lost radio contact with our site immediately after reporting the UFO.
When we were relieved by our scheduled replacement crew later that morning. The missiles had still not been brought on line by on-site maintenance teams.
Again, UFOs had been sighted by security personnel at or about the time Minuteman Strategic missiles shutdown.
Same thing, if not some thing similar, had happened to Echo Flight at Malmstrom AFB. Security topside reports, “Saucer,” the underground team thinks, “Alcohol.” Click here for details at The Computer UFO Network.
Launch Commander Control Panel
Mr. Salas was interviewed in November 2024 by US Rep. Nancy Mace, who asked what he believed the “extraterrestrial visitors” wanted to communicate? Mr. Salas said, “To me, that says they were sending us a message about nuclear weapons: ‘WTF, nuclear weapons.’”
Deputy Launch Commander Control Panel
The National Park Serviceprovides an excellent history on the ICBM sites across the western United States:
The six Minuteman missile fields were located in the states of Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Missouri.
The Air Force wanted to deploy Minuteman as a single, immense, “missile farm,” equipped with as many as 1,500 missiles. However, the Air Force soon determined that “for reasons of economy 150 launchers should be concentrated in a single area, whenever possible, and that no area should contain fewer than 50 missiles.” Consequently, the Air Force organized the Minuteman force into a series of administrative units called “wings,” each comprised of three or four 50-missile squadrons. Each squadron was further subdivided into five smaller units, called “flights.” A flight consisted of a single, manned, launch control facility, linked to ten, unmanned, underground, missile silos. The silos were separated from the launch control facility and from each other by a distance of several miles.
The dedicated and intrepid researcher Robert L. Hastings helped Capt. Salas and other Air Force Missileers publicly report their active-duty interactions with the UFO phenomenon in a historic 2010 press conference in Washington DC. In his work, he has preserved the history between the UFO phenomenon and nuclear weapons, energy and technology. He also has chronicled similar events as happened at Echo Flight and Oscar Flight at Malmstrom AFB. A brief bio from Goodreads:
Robert L. Hastings was born May 6, 1950, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at Sandia Base, where atomic weapons were engineered. His father, Robert E. Hastings, was career U.S. Air Force, retiring in 1967 with the rank of Senior Master Sergeant. In 1966–67, the Hastings family was stationed at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, during one peak period of UFO activity at nearby Minuteman nuclear missile sites. In March 1967, Hastings witnessed five UFOs being tracked on radar at the base air traffic control tower. He later learned that these “unknown targets” had been maneuvering near ICBM sites located southeast of the base. This experience ultimately led to his decades-long research into the UFO-nukes connection.
Although most people are completely unaware of its existence, the UFO-Nukes Connection is now remarkably well-documented. U.S. Air Force, FBI, and CIA files declassified via the Freedom of Information Act establish a convincing, ongoing pattern of UFO activity at American nuclear weapons sites extending back to December 1948.
Moreover, these mysterious incursions are not ancient history, so to speak, occurring only during the Cold War era. Indeed, evidence suggests that multiple, ongoing incidents have taken place near ICBM sites operated by Malmstrom AFB, Montana, as recently as October 2012.
For more than 40 years, noted researcher Robert Hastings has sought out and interviewed former and retired U.S. Air Force personnel regarding their direct or indirect involvement in nuclear weapons-related UFO incidents. These individuals—ranging from retired colonels to former airmen—report extraordinary encounters which have obvious national security implications. In fact, taken to their logical conclusion, these cases have planetary implications, given the horrific consequences that would result from a full-scale, global nuclear war.
Significantly, the UFO activity occasionally transcends mere surveillance and involves direct and unambiguous interference with our strategic weapons systems. Numerous cases include reports of mysterious malfunctions of large numbers of nuclear missiles just as one or more UFOs hovered nearby. (Declassified Soviet Ministry of Defense documents confirm that such incidents also occurred in the former USSR.)
To date, Hastings has interviewed more than 150 military veterans who were involved in various UFO-related incidents at U.S. missile sites, weapons storage facilities, and nuclear bomb test ranges. The events described by these individuals leave little doubt that the U.S. nuclear weapons program is an ongoing source of interest to someone possessing vastly superior technology.
On September 27, 2010 Hastings hosted the UFO-Nukes Connection press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., during which seven U.S. Air Force veterans discussed UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites during the Cold War era. CNN streamed that event live; (click here for Mr. Hasting’s website, including a historic full-length video).
Like the images and messages decorating the noses of the Army Air Force aircraft during World War II, a work of art featuring a famous cartoon rabbit greets visitors to the entrance of an underground missile facility.
UFO and Nuclear Weapons History Is a Real Shocker
Marik von Rennenkampff outlined the history of the phenomenon and its intersection with nuclear technology and weapons in “The shocking history of UFOs and nuclear weapons” for The Hill. The writer and investigator also reminds us of an interesting synchronicity just prior to the close encounters that shut down entire flights of ten Minuteman missiles.
On August 25, 1966, an Air Force officer in charge of a missile crew in North Dakota suddenly found that his radio transmission was being interrupted by static. At the time, he was sheltered in a concrete capsule 60 feet below the ground. While he was trying to clear up the problem, other Air Force personnel on the surface reported seeing a UFO — an unidentified flying object — high in the sky. It had a bright red light, and it appeared to be alternately climbing and descending. Simultaneously, a radar crew on the ground picked up the UFO at 100,000 feet.
So begins a truly puzzling UFO report — one that is not explainable as it now stands by such familiar causes as a balloon, aircraft, satellite or meteor. “When the UFO climbed, the static stopped,” stated the report made by the base’s director of operations. “The UFO began to swoop and dive. It then appeared to land ten to fifteen miles south of the area. Missile-site control sent a strike team [well-armed Air Force guards] to check. When the team was about ten miles from the landing site, static disrupted radio contact with them. Five to eight minutes later the glow diminished, and the UFO took off. Another UFO was visually sighted and confirmed by radar. The one that was first sighted passed beneath the second. Radar also confirmed this. The first made for altitude toward the north, and the second seemed to disappear with the glow of red.”
This incident, which was not picked up by the press, is typical of the puzzling cases that I have studied during the 18 years that I have served as the Air Force’s scientific consultant on the problem of UFO’s. What makes the report especially interesting is the fact that another incident occurred near the base a few days earlier. A police officer — a reliable man — saw in broad daylight what he called “an object on its edge floating down the side of a hill, wobbling from side to side about ten feet from the ground. When it reached the valley floor, it climbed to about one hundred feet, still tipped on its edge and moved across the valley to a small reservoir.”
The object, which was about 30 feet in diameter, next appeared to flatten out, and a small dome became visible on top. It hovered at a height of about 10 feet some 250 feet away from the witness, who was standing by his parked patrol car. The object then tilted up and disappeared rapidly into the clouds. A fantastic story, yet I interviewed the witness in this case and am personally satisfied that he is above reproach.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek was among the first to apply the scientific method to the investigation of the UFO phenomenon in public and attest to the reality of the phenomenon by reputation. He made clear what we had to work with were “UFO Reports.” And until we had a saucer in our garage or some excellent photographs of UFO interiors and selfies with an Alien or whatever it is, we are going to have to grab all the data we can study and then examine and analyze what we got. For us today, the data for survey includes what we learned decades ago, as well as what we are just now discovering.
Looking back from today, I remember Dr. Hynek appeared on a television program, perhaps it was the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, some time around 1975. He said, paraphrasing: Should humanity ever experience a chain of events leading to nuclear war, he wondered whetherthe nuclear weapons would even work because of intentional interference by the intelligence behind UFOs.
I distinctly remember during the interview, Dr. Hynek did not mention any of the incidents at the USAF nuclear missile sites on TV. I semi-remember thinking, “What an incredible thought!”
Now, half a century later, thanks to Capt. Salas, Mr. Hastings and a good number of others, we can understand what led the good doctor to relate his thoughts on the possibility of UFOs and nuclear war. Like the UFOs hovering over the ICBM sites, we too can understand, if not see, what happened underground.
The montage at the top of the article:A sequence of images captures the launch of a Minuteman ICBM and its signature smoke ring. The effect is caused when the first stage solid rocket motors’ hot exhaust gases suddenly explode from the underground silo and meet cool air above the open tube that houses the three-stage ICBM. Images are courtesy of the National Park Service and the United States Air Force.
