Montana's mini-UFO wave of 1967

Back in 2010, my first blog posting regarding the Echo Flight incident, listed a few UFO sightings that occurred in Montana 1967.  This demonstrated that UFOs were on the minds of the general public.  I suspected that this may have been the catalyst for the UFO rumors that emanated around Malmstrom on 16 March 1967.


Jan 9, 1967: Malta, MT at 9pm, on family farm. Family alerted by dog, family saw a large rectangular object with glowing red light along the bottom and large amber light on top moving at high speed. The object landed in a field for approximately one hour. Object suddenly disappeared as if it took off at at a high rate of speed. The next day, family went to the field were the object had landed. There were no tracks in the snow and no sign that anything had been there. (Billings Gazette, 1-20-67)

Jan 26, 1967: Havre, MT at 8:15pm. A man saw a yellow sphere with blinking yellow body lights which circled a mountain and flew off (nicap.org)

Feb 9, 1967: Chester, MT, 6:30am, Railroad foreman saw a saucer (disk) with bright body of light hovering over the railroad depot. The depot was engulfed in light, the object departed straight up. (Spokane Spokesman-Review, 2/12/67)

Feb 23, 1967 Glasgow AFB, MT, reported sighting by NICAP (no details listed)

Mar 22, 1967: Newspaper article (UPI), "UFOs Seen In Great Falls Vicinity", The Daily Inter Lake
Tuesday night, 7:45pm - 8:30pm, several persons reported seeing unidentified flying objects over the Great Falls, Vaughn, Fort Benton, and Manchester. White lights, big with a little one on top. The object was moving east to west then north to south.

Mar 23, 1967: Great Falls, MT, 9pm: Sheriffs deputies saw a yellow object with a red glow coming from top to bottom. Object hovered then flew away. Many sightings throughout the state. (Great Falls Leader, 3/24/67) 

Mar 24, 1967: Belt, MT, 9pm, Truck driver outside of Belt, MT sees a dome shaped object showing bright lights and landing in a nearby ravine. ( Investigated by Project Blue Book)

What's interesting is that most of these sightings occurred between 8pm and 9pm.  The Malta UFO supposedly landed in snow covered field, but on investigation no evidence that the snow had been disturbed or melted.

Four sightings occurred in a fairly straight line in the north/central portion of the state (Glasgow, Malta, Havre and Chester).

Glasgow AFB was a major SAC base which consisted of "super" Bomb Wing consisting of B-52s and KC-135 tankers.  Traffic in and out of the based would have been constant with ORI alert launches, training exercises and transient air traffic.

The UFO sightings, March 22 and 23, could have had some psychological impact leading to the Oscar Flight story as told by Robert Salas.

The March 24 Belt sighting was covered by Blue Book.  Despite "around the clock" observation by local and military personnel there was no evidence that anything had actually landed.  The object was observed to have landed, but nothing was observed to have left the ravine.  I hope to put together a blog post on this incident in the future.

Echo/Oscar Flight "Incidents" 51 years have past!

March, 16/24, 1967 to June 2, 2018

It's now been 51 years since the Echo Flight "No-Go" and the Oscar Flight UFO myth.  It seems that it was only yesterday that I touted the 45th anniversary of Echo Flight.  My how time has past.

Since then, what is new?  Absolutely nothing.  There has been no new evidence to show up that supports Robert Sala's claim that Oscar Flight suffered the same fate as that of Echo.  Yet, he does still persist in his claim...sparring with windmills no doubt.

Robert Hastings had produced and released a documentary that had elements of the Echo/Oscar stories (and others), but for producing a good presentation, its content was stale.  Nothing new added to the discussion, but rather a rehash of the old.

I've received bits and pieces from former Minuteman crew members that portray interesting events during that time period, ie, actual balloons (man-made) landing on launch facilities, but no actual UFOs...go figure.

And after 51 years, no eye witnesses have come forward to corroborate that UFOs where seen in both flight areas....not one.   Where are they?

Rumors and innuendo that still persist to this day.

Did it really happen?

Jose Caravaca's Distortion Theory

Is there a weird affect on UFO witnesses that UFO investigators have overlooked?  Jose Caravaca has long been attempting to find the answer and has formulated his Distortion Theory.

Via Rich Reynold's site, Jose has provided interesting points of contention regarding the behaviors of both UFOs, the craft occupants, and the witnesses.

In my opinion, Jose provides salient points that underlines the insanity of the Disclosure movement and Ufology in general.  It's the absurdities of the behaviors of UFOs and the witnesses that Jose has highlighted.

"The behaviour of the occupants of the flying saucers is absurd and lacking in logic. And this does not happen because, as most scholars explain, we are incapable of interpreting or elucidating the actions of an advanced civilization in millions of years of evolution. Let's not be fooled. Simply put, the actions of the ufonauts are a set of nonsense, one after the other. The actions developed by extraterrestrials are very similar to those recorded in dream experiences. Therefore, all the gratuitous and unsubstantiated speculation about the absurd factor, an important key for many researchers of something sublime and extraordinary inserted inside the UFO encounters, is wrong. These circumstances are due to an effect caused by the interaction/communication of the witness's unconscious with an unknown external agent, which creates a projection following similar processes of creativity to that displayed by our psyche during the sleep phases. And we all know that dream experiences are signified by their absurd character..."

This is loosely borne out by some of the cases that I've referenced here on this blog.  For example, Robert Hastings relays a story told to him by a ICBM maintenance team member who experienced an encounter over an Ellsworth AFB launch facility circa winter of 1978.

"Of course, by now, we knew it wasn't a cloud, but you could not see what it was! We turned at that corner and walked, maybe a hundred feet, until that edge turned a corner. I do remember walking to the north side [of the site], and exiting the gate, then heading west, south, east and returning to the gate to get back in. Anyway, the object was not a triangle. It looked like it was four-sided, like a parallelogram or a rhombus [which is diamond-shaped]. But you couldn't tell how high it was.

So, we went back on the site and closed the gate. By then, the noise was deafening. Still, we weren't scared, just perplexed and maybe apprehensive. We had heard rumors about UFOs, and we had heard that people had been discharged for reporting them. I began to wonder if it was some kind of SAC exercise. If it was, we were in trouble. You are not allowed to go off-site, and we had walked out the gate. So, I was concerned we would get in trouble."

Absurd behavior on the part of the maintenance team?  It would seemingly defy logic as far as human behaviors go.  BTW, Hastings thought so too.

During this same time, two of my IQT classmates at Vandenberg AFB (1980) were FSCs at Ellsworth and relayed a story of Alarm Response Teams chasing strange lights in the skies throughout their flight.  They appeared sincere and rather circumspect about their experiences, and yet they stated that they were not emotionally traumatized on the night in questions.

I posted a blog article detailing the story of SSgt Louis Kenneweg who made statements to seeing strange lights near the Malmstrom AFB weapon storage facility, yet he calmly reports for duty apparently telling no supervisor of his observation....basically business as usual.


These are but a few of the UFO stories that I've come across involving observations of seemingly highly trained individuals responsible in some form for the operation and upkeep of nuclear ICBMs.  There are trace elements of Caravaca's absurdities in all of these stories.

The only draw back to Caravaca's theory is the use of a possible paranormal make up of his "external" agent that acts on the observers/witnesses.  I submit that external stimuli may well be a factor, but other environmental agents should be closely looked at as well as the psychological make up of the observers themselves.

Could it be that these witnesses, per Jose's cases, have something in common as far as cognitive behavioral traits?  I would like to see this aspect further explored. 

Contacted By Former Launch Officer Assigned to Malmstrom AFB

Last week I stumbled on a few Face Book messages sent my way.  My personal Face Book page is devoid of any UFO discussions as I use it mainly as a platform to converse with family and former crew members who had served with me while on station at Malmstrom back in the early 1980s.

Go to my Face Book page, and you'll be treated to the obligatory dopey dog photos, I've two dachshunds whom I pay mortgage on their home...they rule the house.  Plus, I've photo of my wife.  I believe I've more photos of the dogs than that of my wife...I believe my wife is not concerned as we are still married after almost 36 years.

So, back to the thrust of this post.  One of my ignored Face Book message was from a former Air Force officer that had been assigned to the 490th SMS (my old squadron) at Malmstrom AFB during the late 1960s!

I've intentionally omitted this gentleman's name, and after connecting with him, he gave permission to post a portion of his comment.

"I was a Missile Combat Crew Commander at Malmstrom AFB N-01 during 1966-1969. I had a UFO come down on one of my LFs which was found to be an amateur balloon  of some sort. I was in periodic training the day of the E-01 incident and was a friend of Bob Salas. There were reports of UFO's in those days but I never saw any..."

Brief, yet filled with interesting detail.  I'll try to get more info, if this person is willing.  BTW, I've no background on this person other than looking at details  from his FB page.  He went on, as he stated to me, to be assigned to Elmendorf AFB.  I believe that his FB page shows that he went on to the AFIT program (Air Force Institute of Technology) and is now retired.

A response to a few comments on the blog

I've received a few comments from an individual named Phil Tanny.  I don't know Mr. Tanny, nor do I know if that is his real name, but his comments appear to be reasonable to entertain a reply.  Mr. Tanny provided the below comment on my post:  

http://timhebert.blogspot.com/2016/09/robert-salas-takes-exception-to-my.html

Phil Tanny:  Well, the officers interviewed by Hastings are either liars, seriously disturbed individuals, or they are telling the truth.

If we reject the stories they are telling it seems the burden then falls upon us to provide evidence they are lying or disturbed.

Seeing no such evidence, and finding their reputations and demeanor to be credible, I've chosen to believe them. If new evidence arises which brings their character in to question, I'll of course review my conclusion at that point.

It seems to me Hastings has proven that there have been craft of unknown origin in the vicinity of our nuclear bases. In this interview he seems pretty careful to state that any theories he has beyond that are merely his opinion and not proven fact.

https://vimeo.com/80881015


I think Hastings should be applauded for making a sincere serious effort to study this subject in a manner that is as professional as possible. He's provided us with information which, as he would say himself, we are free to do with as we please.

Science ignores the UFO subject entirely, and most UFO "research" is dreamy wildly speculative trash.

Hastings is attempting to do it right, and he deserves respect for the attempt, however one might regard his conclusions.

A final thought. UFO believers only have to be right one time to win the day, whereas UFO skeptics have to defeat each and every one of the thousands of reports.


First, the burden falls squarely on the shoulders of those who make a claim.  It is the inability to qualify the claim which causes me to reject the story.   That I had taken considerable personal time to research such claims was a means to satisfy my professional curiosity and shows a respectful deference to those officer's that had made the claims.  In other words, I gave numerous stories due consideration and in the end have rejected them for the various reasons mentioned in the many blog posts listed on this site.  I might add that all were free to make comment on this blog, but had chosen to be silent...that of course is their right.  

As far as Hastings' "sincere serious effort to study this subject..."  That depends on the cases which he chooses to propagate.  The few which I've looked in depth at leaves me unconvinced due to the distortion of memories over time, the changing nature of the individual narratives and his lack of understanding of the weapon systems involved.   Frankly, Mr. Hastings has the tendency to pound a round peg into a square hole.

Despite my misgivings about Hastings' research, I do agree that in the end one must look at his information and be free to do with as one please.  I merely provide alternative possibilities to the alleged UFO encounters involving our nuclear ICBM forces.  This information I provide and one is free to do with it as pleased. 

"A final thought. UFO believers only have to be right one time to win the day, whereas UFO skeptics have to defeat each and every one of the thousands of reports."  

The problem is that UFO believers state that they are right all of the time, yet provide, at best, poor evidence to support their claim.  BTW, you commented on a post involving Robert Salas.  Curious, you made no defense of his claim.  Salas is a prime example of offering a decades old story that has morphed so many times over the years.  There is no documentation that supports his story nor have anyone come forward that provided support for his story.  There would have been at a minimum 8 people above ground at Salas' alert facility.   The devil's in the details, Mr. Tanny, or in this case the lack of details.

I'll provide more of Mr. Tanny's comments in a later post.