But inquiries such as these were overshadowed by matters much more serious, involving airspace violations over bases near the northwestern U.S. border. On March 5, 1967, NORAD radar tracked a disc-shaped UFO over the Minuteman missile site at Minot AFB in North Dakota. Immediately, strike teams were scrambled to the area with orders to capture the object undamaged if it landed. Sure enough, at the site, they saw a metallic, disc-shaped UFO with bright flashing lights moving overhead. It stopped abruptly and hovered at five hundred feet, circled over the launch control facility, then ascended vertically and disappeared, just before NORAD ordered F-106s to intercept it. The incident reached Raymond Fowler and thence NICAP36
Early in the morning on the sixteenth, at Malmstrom AFB in Montana, one of the most extraordinary events in the history of military-UFO encounters took place. Under a clear and dark Montana sky, an airman with the Oscar Flight Launch Control Center (LCC) saw a starlike object zigzagging high above him. Soon, a larger and closer light also appeared and acted in similar fashion. He called his NCO, and the two men watched in awe as the lights streaked through the sky, maneuvering in impossible ways. The NCO phoned his commander, Robert Salas, who was below ground in the launch control center. Salas was dubious. “Great,” he said. “You just keep watching them and let me know if they get any closer.”
A few minutes later, the NCO called Salas again. As Salas later wrote, this time he was clearly frightened and shouted that a red, glowing UFO was hovering outside the front gate. “What do you want us to do?” asked the NCO. Salas told him to make sure the site was secure while he phoned the command post. “Sir,” replied the NCO, “I have to go now, one of the guys just got injured.”
Before Salas could ask about the injury, the NCO was off the line. The man, who was not seriously injured, was evacuated by helicopter to the base. Meanwhile, Salas woke his commander, Lt. Fred Meiwald. As he briefed Meiwald, an alarm rang through the small capsule, and both men saw a “No-Go” light turn on for one of the missiles. Within seconds, several more missiles went down in succession.
Twenty miles away, at the Echo-Flight launch facilities, the same scenario was taking place. First Lt. Walter Figel, the deputy crew commander of the Missile Combat Crew, was at his station when one of the Minuteman missiles went into “No-Go” status. He immediately called the missile site to determine the cause of the problem. Was it because of the scheduled missile maintenance, he asked the security guard? No, came the response, as the maintenance had not yet taken place. However, continued the guard, a UFO had been hovering over the site. Like Salas, Figel doubted the story. Before he had any time to reflect on this, however, ten more ICBMs in rapid succession reported a “No-Go” condition. Within seconds, the entire flight was down.
Strike teams were dispatched to two of the E-Flight launch facilities, where maintenance crews were already at work. Figel had not told the strike teams about the UFO report. Upon their arrival, however, the teams reported back to him that all of the maintenance and security personnel had been watching UFOs hover over each of the sites.
The missiles were down for the greater part of a day. The air force investigation included full-scale tests on-site, as well as laboratory tests at the Boeing Company’s Seattle plant. No cause for the shutdown could be found. The Boeing engineering chief said, “there was no technical explanation that could explain the event.”37
UFO reports continued to originate from that region, including several on March 24 from the Belt, Montana, region. One of these reports was of a UFO landing. Police and a Malmstrom AFB helicopter searched the area, but found nothing.38
