UFO ICBM/Nuke Connection: Does It Really Exist?

UFOs causing havoc over US ICBM sites?  This tends to be an off/on subject raised on various Internet sites.  The prevailing thought among a few noted Ufologist is that UFOs have been overflying nuclear weapon sites (ICBMs) for a number of decades.  Do the facts support this premise, or is it merely the case of relying solely on subjective vs. that of the available objective data?

Currently, the most vocal proponent of UFO/Nukes connection is Robert Hastings.  Hastings has devoted almost 40 years developing the theory that UFOs have been overflying our nuclear ICBM sites for years and in some cases deliberately causing operational disruptions.  He bases his "proof" on the statements given by some 130 former active duty personnel.  Hastings has conceded, on some occasions, to provide the qualifier that his work has been based solely on "anecdotal" information, i.e., the unverifiable words of witnesses providing statements.  In short, Hastings has constructed a correlation hypothesis bases on the words of his sources.  Below is  a brief outline of Hastings' work, much from his book, UFOs and Nukes:  Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites.

In UFO and Nukes, Robert Hastings asks the following questions (http://www.ufohastings.com/book):

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union built thousands of the far more destructive hydrogen bombs, some of them a thousand times as destructive as the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan. If the nuclear standoff between the superpowers had erupted into World War III, human civilization—and perhaps the very survival of our species—would have been at risk.
Did this ominous state of affairs come to the attention of outside observers? Was there a connection between the atomic bomber squadron based at Roswell and the reported crash of a UFO nearby? Did those who pilot the UFOs monitor the superpowers' nuclear arms race during the dangerous Cold War era? Do they scrutinze American and Russian weapons sites even now?

The above questions are fair enough for consideration.  For the purpose of this blog post, I'll limit most of my thoughts to the United States' ICBM forces.  With that said, Hastings has posted numerous articles on the Internet with the attempt to prove his UFO/Nuke connection with most being segments from his book.  These articles can be accessed on Hastings' site and The UFO Chronicles web site, as well as, other on-line venues.

Did UFO activity disrupt the operations of our ICBMs at various times during the Cold War?  To attempt to find the answer to that question, one has to look at the various missile systems that were fielded during the time period of the Cold War.  As far as defining "the disruption of ICBM operations", the subject should be looked at from the view point that UFOs may have altered the strategic alert status of our ICBM forces.

Atlas

The Atlas ICBM with its variations (D, E, F models) was placed in 11 base locations through out the continental United States totaling 123 missile/launch sites.  The missile used a combination of RP-1 (high grade kerosene) and liquid oxygen (oxidizer) as its fuel.  Prior to launch, the missile had to be raised from its protective enclosure and loaded with the LOX prior to actual launch.  This propellant loading procedure, per SAC protocol, would have taken 15 minutes.  The Atlas missile was operational as an ICBM from 1960 to 1965.  There are four documented major incidents involving the Atlas at operational sites.

The 579th Strategic Missile Squadron located at Walker AFB, NM (Roswell) had three of it's site effectively destroyed during propellant loading exercises on three separate occasions.  Launch complex 579-1 was destroyed on 1 June 1963, site 579-5 suffered an explosion on 13 February 1964, and site 579-2 was destroyed on 9 March 1964.  Again, all three incidents occurred during a propellant loading exercise and no nuclear warheads were mated to the launch vehicle at the time of the explosions. (1)(2)  Of interest, the 579th SMS fielded the Atlas F that was housed in an underground silo, but had to be raised out of the silo for launch.

The 577th Strategic Missile Squadron located at Altus AFB, OK had one of its sites destroyed (577-6, Atlas F' silo housed) on14 May 1964.  As similar to the incidents at Walker AFB,  Altus' accident was a result of a propellant loading exercise. (3)

Based on the four major incidents and the Atlas' vulnerability to Soviet attack, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, in 1964, ordered the phase out of the Atlas ICBM system.  By the end of 1965 all Atlas missile sites were deactivated.  The Atlas ICBM would go on to further glory as an outstanding launch vehicle for NASA.

Titan I

The Titan I ICBM was deployed to 5 bases totaling 54 sites.  Like the Atlas, Titan I relied on RP-1 and LOX as its fuel source.  The missile was housed in an underground silo, but had to be raised to the surface, loaded with LOX prior to launch.  The Titan I system was on alert from 1960 to 1965 the, as Atlas, deactivated as the Titan IIs and Minuteman systems deployed. (4) 

During the operational life of the Titan I, there was two incidents at Beale AFB that occurred prior to the 851st SMS reaching alert status.  On 24 May 1962, during contractor checkout at complex 4C near Chico, CA, two explosions destroyed a missile and heavily damaged the silo.  The two explosions resulted from a blocked vent and blocked valve.  At another site, 6 June 1962, a flash fire damaged the silo killing one worker. (5)  The Beale sites had yet to be certified as operational and had no nuclear RVs mated to the boosters.

Titan II

On August 9, 1965, Titan II launch complex 373-4 (373rd Strategic Missile Squadron) which was located near Searcy, Arkansas, suffered a devastating fire in its silo resulting in the deaths of 53 civilian contractors who were modifying the site under Project YARD FENCE.  This program was designed to increase the hardness of Titan II sites against nuclear blasts.  The fire started from arc welding equipment.  373-4's missile (minus the RV) being fully loaded with propellant was allowed to remain in the silo during the modification program.  There was no major damage to the missile itself.  Had the propellant ignited, one could only wonder how many more would have been killed.(6)

On September 19, 1980, the Titan II launch complex located near Damascus, Arkansas suffered a catastrophic explosion killing at least one AF member and destroying the missile and it's silo.  The site was undergoing routine maintenance and a heavy socket from a wrench was accidently dropped into the bottom of the silo.  The socket bounced off of the silo walls striking and piercing the missile's thin skin causing the leakage of propellant.  After 8 hours of attempts to contain the propellant leak, an explosion rocked the site causing the silo's blast doors to totally dislodge and propelling the missile's RV some 600 feet away from the site.  This single incident forced the Air Force to hasten the deactivation of the entire Titan II system which was fielded at three locations:  Arizona, Arkansas and Kansas.  By the end of 1986, all 54 Titan II ICBM sites would be deactivated.(7)

On a personal note, I had arrived at Vandenberg AFB for my Initial Qualification Training (missile crew training), October 1980, approximately one month after the incident at Damascus, AR.  I recall that I had attended a safety briefing in which the Damascus incident was discussed in detail. What is not told in any of the on-line write-ups is that supposedly the AF had a difficult time finding and recovering the RV.  For an extended period of time, it was effectively "lost."  Whether this was factual or not, it does underscore the intensity of the explosion and the total destruction of the silo.    

Minuteman (I, II, and III)

The only documented incident in the Minuteman I system occurred at Malmstrom's Echo Flight on March 16, 1967.  I'll refrain from going into detail since most of this blog has been devoted to Echo Flight and the reader can "search" this blog for the pertinent articles.  I'm reluctant to list Malmstrom's Oscar Flight due to the lack of any credible evidence supporting an event affecting that flight's operational status.  The reader can draw his/her own conclusions.

In October, 2010, FE Warren AFB's 319th SMS experienced a total squadron communication outage affecting all of the squadron's 50 Minuteman III ICBMs.  Subsequent Air Force investigations revealed that a faulty or improper seated circuit card in the Weapon System Processor at one of the Launch Control Centers resulted in all five LCCs to be "knocked" out of system synchronicity and disrupting time slot round-robin monitoring.  None of the 50 ICBMs were affected operationally and remained on alert.  There is ample evidence that similar events had occurred at both Malmstrom and Minot in the 1990s.(8)

With the exception of the Malmstrom and FE Warren events, none of the Atlas and Titan events had a UFO component to the story.  The only true Broken Arrow event would have been the Damascus, Arkansas incident since it involved a real nuclear RV and again, no one has ever come forward to claim a UFO as it's causation or spotted one in the vicinity of the site.  The UFO story component for the 2010 FE Warren incident only came into being after Robert Hastings had visited the area some two to three months after the incident.  I touched on FE Warren's emergent UFO lore in a couple of previous blog post.

A Hypothetical Look

Going back to Hastings' thoughts that UFOs have attempted to disrupt US ICBM forces, let's hypothetically agree with his premise.  What has been the impact of the various UFO incursions?   If a message was being sent by "outside" observers to discourage the use of nuclear delivery systems, then the US government would have abandoned it's ICBM program since the fielding of those weapon systems would have been deemed as futile.  Yet, despite the supposedly ET interference we see a different response from the government/military.

The early Atlas and Titan I weapon systems were phased out for the more reliable and safer Minuteman and Titan II missiles.  Titan II was eventually phased out due to its complexity and unpredictability with housing a fully propellant loaded missile in it's silo.  Equally important to it's phase out was the enormous costs required to keep the Titan II on constant alert status.  Can we draw the conclusion that UFOs sent a "message" that the Atlas and Titan systems were overly too complicated, unpredictable and economically draining to the treasury?

Since it's deployment in 1962, the Minuteman system has evolved from its initial conception as a potential mobile based weapon to that of a complex command and control weapon system supporting a remotely silo based missile.  This missile system has undergone modifications from that of the Minuteman I, II, III missiles to that of the command and control systems (Modernized, SAS, ILCS, CDB, and the current REACT).  This evolutionary process had progressed unhindered and with out interference regardless of the UFO story component.  IF UFOs and ETs were attempting to send messages of concern, then its obvious that we either were not paying close attention or we were consciously ignoring the threat.

Conclusion

Is there credible evidence that UFO's disrupted the operations of US ICBMs?  The facts appear not to support this hypothesis.   All documented mishaps and problems have been attributed mostly to human error in dealing with complex systems.  The major ICBM weapon systems have evolved solely based on the concepts of system reliability and economic cost factors.  Missiles/rockets that relied on liquid propellants and oxidizers gave way to safer solid propellants thus reducing mishaps.  Individuals such as Robert Hastings have presented anecdotal evidence that "strange" lights of an undetermined nature have been sighted over and near US ICBM sites, but he has failed to demonstrate that this phenomena resulted in the operational disruption of our nuclear missile forces.  We, as humans, have been quite adapt at disrupting our ICBMs with out needing help from ET.    

1.  Walker AFB, 579th Strategic Missile Squadron.
2.  Techbastard, "Atlas at Walker Air Force Base." 
3.  Techbastard, "Atlas at Altus Air Force Base."
4.  Titan I Operational Deployment
5.  Titan I at Beale AFB, CA.
6.  Titan II Accident Searcy, AR, August 9, 1965.
7.  Tian II Accident, Damascus, AR, September 19, 1980.
8.  319 MS (Missile Squadron) LCCs Loses Comm with LFs