A Halloween Story...

Well it's Halloween and what better time to tell a real story involving me...

Back around 1963 or 1964, the family was living in a fairly new constructed two bed room house in Abilene, Tx on Glendale Street. The home was part of a new tract of homes being built up in the north side of town. Jim and I shared one of the bedrooms. I would have been around 6 years old, yet I remember this episode vividly, or so I think.

As I recall, I was playing with a set of toys in the bedroom. I don't recall if Jim was in the room with me or not. I was sitting on the room's floor when out of the corner of my eye, at the doorway entry, I saw a woman dressed in a black dress which appeared to flow down and cover her feet/shoes. Her hair was black and worn with a bun. I could not make out any facial features, yet the image was most definitely that of a woman.

I quickly glanced towards the open doorway and the image was gone. I recall getting up and going to the doorway to look and see if anyone was in the hallway...there was nobody. I don't recall being scared, but only curious as to who this could have been.

I want to say that I saw this figure on numerous occasions when I was playing in the bedroom...always out of the corner of my eye and standing in the doorway only to vanish when I would look directly towards the doorway. But with the passage of time, I not sure that the image did reoccur on numerous occasions, but only that one time.

So what did or who did I see? Since I only saw this image out of the corner of my eye, I could have mistaken any subtle movement as that of the image. But why the image of a woman in a definitely black long dress with her hair tied up in a bun?

There are certainly logical answers from a neurological standpoint. Yet at the age of 58, I remember this image vividly. Active imagination from the mind of a 6 year old?....Or, was it something else?

Part Two: James Carlson's Echo Flight of Fantasy

Here is James' second part of Echo Flight of Fantasy as posted on Unexplained Mysteries. Again a great read and a must for anyone interested in the 1967 Malmstrom cases.


The discussion regarding the cause of the Echo Flight Incident continues in the 341st Strategic Missile Wing and Combat Support Group Command History covering April-June 1967. "During testing at Boeing, a 30 micro sec Pulse (-10 to 0 volt square wave) was placed on the Self Test Command (STC) line at the C-53P Coupler Logic Drawer interface (STC). Seven out of 10 separate applications of a single Pulse, would cause the system to shut down with a Channel 9 & 12 No-Go.

"Subsequent testing at Autonetics has resulted in the following explanation of what probably happens in the Coupler Logic Drawer. The Pulse inserted is long enough to initiate the Coupler Self test sequence within the C-53P. However, it is not of long enough duration to enable control lines to the computer to place the computer in a Coupler test loop Mode. This causes the Coupler to issue a sequence error due to lack of coincidence between G&C and Coupler Modes. This sequence error, together with the action of two other flip flop outputs (M-17 & M-20), is sufficient to initiate the Coupler and G&C No-Go shut down.

"The effort at Boeing NRA was to determine the source and most likely path of noise Pulse to the Logic Coupler. The results of the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) testing at the LF and Wing IV indicated that the Sensitive Information Network (SIN) were susceptible to noise of the type that could have caused the problem.

"The SIN lines go only from the LCC to all of the LF's in the flight, which could explain the flight peculiar aspect of the problem."

Had a UFO been involved with this incident, the many months of experiment and procedure by USAF personnel, Boeing Corporation and Autonetics scientists and technical representatives would have hardly been necessary. The documents at all levels of the chain of command very plainly establish that the cause of the missile failures was an electronic noise pulse that entered the Logic Coupler within the LCC and shut down all of the LFs from that central location. In July 1967, message traffic from SAMSO, Norton AFB, in California to OOAMA, at Hill AFB, Utah updates recipients on efforts by the Malmstrom AFB Echo Flight investigators to determine the "singular cause." These messages state right up front that it could not yet be determined; it adds, however, that several follow-on actions had been identified.

Read the rest of the article here. 

James Carlson's views on Echo Flight

James Carlson has been an ardent supporter of mine, as well as I have supported his efforts to bring clarity and sanity to the Echo and Oscar Flights story.  We've developed a close friendship in our search for the truth and education of the masses...at least those who are willing to listen.  While I've attempted to look at the technical and psychological side of the story,  James tends to dive into more aspects of the case that deals with other players in the story.  Back in 2010, James wrote a two part article over at Unexplained Mysteries.  I liked it then and I like it now.

Below is part one of his series:  Echo Flights of Fantasy part one.

The author of this article, James Carlson, is the son of Captain (Retired) Eric D. Carlson, the commander of Echo Flight on March 16, 1967. All of the details and descriptions of events and reports that his father would have been witness to have been confirmed by him as accurate.

On September 27, 2010, in an attempt to build support for the disclosure of UFO-related documents by the U.S. Department of Defense, authors Robert Hastings and Robert Salas hosted a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Only confirmed members of the press and Congressional staff were invited to attend. With them were seven veterans of the U.S. military who have publically affirmed the interference by UFOs with nuclear facilities in the United States and Europe. According to Hastings and Salas, this proves that the claim of the United States Air Force since 1969 that UFO activity has never had an effect on the national security of the U.S. is a lie. Out of all of the witnesses present, three had come forward to discuss their involvement with a well-known case that allegedly occurred at Malmstrom AFB, Montana in the spring of 1967: the Echo Flight incident of March 16, and an associated event at Oscar Flight on March 24-25. Since first being exposed to public scrutiny by Robert Salas in 1995, this alleged confrontation between UFO and nuclear missile silos has come to be considered one of ten UFO incidents around the world that is best supported by the most reliable evidence. Questions raised regarding the credibility of the witnesses insist, however, that this notoriety is hardly deserved.

read the rest of the article

I'll provide part two this weekend.

Yes, my assessment of Echo Flight sinks any UFO event...

The other day, I received a comment posted on Did-ufos-disable-minuteman-missiles-at Malmstrom.  It's an interesting comment and deserved posting here along with my reply.  As I stated in my reply to the comment, it did not deserve to be buried in a 5 year old post. Besides, this gives me the chance to discuss something other than UFO inspired music tracks and the Roswell Slides disaster (yes it was a total disaster that was FUBAR).

Here is the comment from "nsurround":

"There was never a final public conclusion to what actually caused the no-go events. However the EMP suppression fixes did seem to stop these events from happening again or so they say. That being said, it really gives no clue as to what actually happened. What ever the cause it had to be localized. That in itself leaves the UFO option on the table considering the chatter in the control room by persons you do not seem to give much credit to. If the cause was known it should have been repeatable using a test set up by engineers etc. You say, that analysis would have been classified and so cannot be known to persons such as yourself. Your main point now seems to be that no witnesses (security guards) who actually say they saw the UFO(s) have come forward with their testimony. That is a good point but does not necessarily refute the testimony of some in the underground control area. In fact your whole analysis still leaves open the possibility of a UFO type event. The only person that does not seem to understand this is yourself."

I don't know if "nsurround" was aware that I had slightly changed my theory as put forth in "Echo Flight: The Makings of a UFO Myth", but the basic premise of the original post still holds true.  The difference being that the investigation gave no credence that missile maintenance teams were ever in the Echo Flight area during the full flight shutdown.

"nsurround", it is true that their was never a final public conclusion as to what actually caused the no-go event due to the investigation efforts being classified.  The classified status seems to bother people, but when one puts the event into proper context, ie, the height of the the Cold War then the classification rationale makes total sense.  Yet with that said, the Echo crew commander, Eric Carlson, has repeatedly stated that the entire wing personnel and the citizens of Great Falls were aware of the missile sorties shutting down so the event itself was not classified...only the investigation.

The EMP suppression fix, ECP 1221, that was installed at ALL missile wings did perform as advertised as there is no evidence that such an occurrence was repeated both in a large or small scale. EMP vulnerability was not a Malmstrom specific issue and this was borne out in the engineering analysis and report for those who want to take the time to read it.  To say that the cause was not localized is simply not true.  The focus centered on the G & C coupler/Logic Drawer.  

Recently, I've come to believe that the issue was more than likely an inherent fault with the Sensitive Command Network (SCN) which interfaced with the logic coupler.  This information was in the engineering analysis, but again appears to have been washed aside by those seeking to "understand" the causes. Issues with the SCN was implicated with the Minuteman II system causing the same logic coupler issues resulting in No-Go indications.

"nsurround" seems to think that I've give no consideration to the "chatter" of those individuals in the launch control center.  How he comes to such a conclusion puzzles me as Walter Figel's accounting (different accounting) is prominent in my assessment since he is the only one who mentioned "UFO" concerning one of the LFs.  I also give equal if not greater weight to the statements of the crew commander, Eric Carlson, who had repeatedly stated that a UFO was not the cause of the shut downs.  BTW, Walter Figel has on numerous occasions recanted his original story now maintaining that there was no UFO activity.  Read some of Robert Hastings' comments concerning Figel and you get the gist.  

Now we come to the crux of my current belief.  Nowhere in the unit history and in the engineering report states that maintenance and security personnel that supposedly were out in the flight area were questioned.  To me this is a striking bit of information since it would have been more important to question those individuals who would have been out on the LFs (inside the silo itself) as the sites where dropping No-Go, yet this potentially crucial first hand testimony is not there.  Could it be possible that there were no maintenance/security personnel out there to begin with?  The evidence leads to support the non-existence of such individuals.  And one has to remember that the UFO sighting supposedly came from a maintenance team member "deep inside" a closed up missile silo. How can anyone see anything while inside a closed up silo?  Worse yet, how can anyone make a claim if there was never anyone out there to begin with?

More importantly, all ten of the flights launch facilities were electrically isolated from one another with only individual HICS cabling for command and control purposes going to and from the launch control center.  There was no direct interfacing with one launch facility to another.  So the claim that one event at one launch facility would cause the rest of the flight's launch facilities to go No-Go is a total impossibility.

This leads to the LCC as being the source of the problem as only from the LCC could an event such as an EMP be generated to effect all ten missile launch facilities.  Since topside personnel, security personnel and facility manager, never made a report of a UFO sighting near or over the site, then the UFO angle is totally sunk.  And yes, "nsurround", no one has ever come forward to support the sighting of a UFO in the Echo flight area after what?  48 years.

There is NO area of my analysis that leads to even the most remote possibility of a UFO event.  With that said, I have to seriously ask, "Did it really happen?"