Robert Hastings has a message for UFO non-believers.

reply to post by Xtraeme

I also want to add that I pray every night that Salas or Hastings is stupid enough to sue me for something I've said, but I'm equally convinced that any lawyer any of them would ever go to for advice would tell them immediately that they would lose should they press the case. Why is it that people insist libel is so easy to prove? And why is it that ignorant people always threaten to take other folks to court for what they've said? I assure you, no court in this country would ever find for Salas because he is completely unable to substantiate ANYTHING he's ever said on the subject. Why do you think he keeps changing his story whenever someone comes along and says, "y'know, that never happened..."

Robert Salas is a liar -- he's one of the most irresponsible researchers I have ever come across in my entire life, and everything I've ever said about him is not my OPINION, it's a FACT -- is that grounds enough for a lawsuit? I hope so -- I would welcome a lawsuit. ANYTHING is better than having to listen to him change his story every other year. Find me one shred of evidence that even comes close to proving what he's said -- just one -- and I can GUARANTEE that I can show it doesn't apply. I'm confident enough to make that claim because I know for a fact that he's been lying for years. Now you don't have to believe that -- you don't have to believe anything I've said, and that's fine -- but when you find yourself with an extra few minutes, please ask yourself -- WHY do I believe what Salas is claiming? I actually looked for reasons, because I don't like believing that some guy I really don't know is a schmuck. But I didn't find anything, and now I know better. In fact I found so much evidence contrary to the man's claims, that I wrote a friggin' book about it. So are you so certain he's telling the truth because you've looked at all the evidence carefully, because you like the guy and figure he needs a break, or is it because you just want to believe that UFOs were involved? I can tell you exactly why I think he's a liar, but in the long run, that doesn't mean anything if you're predisposed to believe his claims on the basis of faith alone. Ciao...

Xtraeme: This entire piece above [written by James Carlson] *completely* misrepresents the actual meaning of what Salas wrote in the MUFON article.

RH: Thanks, Xtraeme. Anyone who reads James Carlson’s take on things, including what he *says* Salas (or Col. Figel or I) supposedly said, and then checks his comments against the original source material, will quickly learn how reckless and selective James is with the facts. A perfect example is his recent exchange with Malefactor:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Originally posted by James Carlson
Walt Figel and my father were the only people in the room, and Figel has repeatedly stated that he had the impression the guys who said "This UFO must have brought the missiles down" were joking around -- in every single interview with him, he has said the same thing: "I thought it was a joke, that these guys were yanking my chain," exactly as every investigator who ever talked to them over the course of the next few months.

Malefactor: Rather than paraphrasing, because lord knows we can't trust your capability to read (www.abovetopsecret.com...), lets show exactly what *was* said:

RH: What was the demeanor of the guard you were talking to?

WF: Um, you know, I wouldn’t say panicked, or anything [like that]. I was thinking he was yanking my chain more than anything else.

RH: But he seemed to be serious to you?

WF: He seemed to be serious and I wasn’t taking him seriously.

RH: Alright. If it was a large object, did he describe the shape of the object?

WF: He just said a large round object.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is typical: James always picks the part of any given witness’ testimony that seems to support his claims but conveniently leaves out the rest of it, because it trashes his bogus argument. A very strange mental dichotomy. Is it dishonesty or delusion?

This fall, a dozen or so former or retired U.S. Air Force personnel, including Bob Salas, will speak at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. and divulge their involvement in nuclear weapons-related UFO incidents, including the two separate missile shutdown incidents at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967. Nothing they will say will satisfy James Carlson but then why does that matter? Carlson’s track record of rejecting or distorting key witness testimony, such as that offered by Col. Walter Figel, is well-established and his take on things is, therefore, irrelevant. His manic tirades, both here and in his “book”, will only serve to strengthen the testimony of those speaking at the press club.


[edit on 16-2-2010 by Robert Hastings]

In 2002, The Association of Air Force Missileers (AAFM) published a brief article of mine it its September newsletter, in which I asked former or retired USAF nuclear missile personnel to contact me with their UFO experiences. Among the 30-plus responses I received was this letter from former 1st Lt. Walter F. Billings, regarding three incidents at F.E. Warren in the early 1970s.

Robert

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Dear Mr. Hastings:

This is written with the assumption that you are an ex missile man and that I do not need to go into an explanation of my position at F.E. Warren AFB or what the job entailed.

I arrived at F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wyo. in late January of 1972 from Vandenburg AFB and had been trained in Minuteman One, and after further training at F.E. Warren was sent with the operations crews as a Deputy Missile Commander and assigned to a Squadron for the typical duty as a 2nd Lieutenant. I was later trained as a training officer for the Wing in Minuteman One, which encompassed assisting new arrivals in training and running simulators, and other duties. This was the standard duties until the Spring of 1973.

As a First Lieutenant, along with so many others, went back to school at F.E. Warren to learn the new Minuteman Three system that was to be installed during the year of 1973. After training and evaluations, alert duties were assigned for the new system to those that had completed their training. We were to go on alerts as the new missile system was installed. In those days, F.E. Warren had 200 missiles on alert and was very active.

I am afraid that the dates that I will provide are somewhat vague. I wrote my experiences for a publication in this arena back in September 1993 and even then the dates were not exact. Also, some of the missile terminology may not be exact. I have forgotten some of the terms. I am sorry that I did not keep a private log of these events, back when they occurred.

The first event took place in the Fall of 1973, over half of the [Launch Control Capsules] had been converted to Minuteman Three by this time and I was on alert at Golf LCC, it was late at night. The UHF radio linking all twenty LCCs opened up with urgent talk from India LCC. In those days, the UHF radio was turned on, at all times, and if one LCC spoke to their SAT team or other LCCs, all twenty LCCs heard the conversation. After the India crew received a Outer Security Zone indicator on one of their missiles and sent their SAT crew out for the standard investigation trip, we began to hear over the radio the events that developed.

From the UHF radio communication between the SAT team and the India LCC crew, as we listened, we heard that as the truck was heading to the missile silo, the Inner Security Zone indicator had been tripped at the silo. Upon arriving near the subject silo, the SAT team observed a bright UFO hovering above the silo. The LCC crew advised the SAT team to proceed no further and to observe only. Approximately a minute later, the UFO moved off slowly for several thousand feet and then sped off at a high rate of speed. The conversation between the India LCC crew and the SAT team was heard by 19 other LCC crews on duty that night.

Upon relief by the next crew and upon return to F.E. Warren AFB, all crews on duty that night were informed that they would not speak to civilians or the news media about what they had heard on the UHF radio that night. Severe penalties were mentioned for those that did not heed this warning.

We, the LCC crews in general, began to hear rumors and stories, from other officers in operations and maintenance, that SAC headquarters at Offut AFB had sent the OSI to investigate this incident by helicopter. The India crew of that night, would not speak of the incident, at all. There were stories from missile maintenance, that the missile in question had been carefully examined and that they found the target tapes on the three warheads, had been supposedly erased that night by the UFO. Needless to say, I only heard that these things had occurred. These stories were told between missile guys over the following week, but they were reliable people, who did not speak to civilians or the press about this subject. However, the Squadron commanders warned us, again, not to speak of the incident.

The second incident involved an entire missile maintenance crew, I believe six enlisted men and one officer. This, also, occurred in late1973. A Minuteman III missile was being worked on for some routine problem during one of those late fall nights. A UFO was observed by the entire maintenance crew. The UFO appeared to be watching the work and was seen for a full five minutes has it maneuvered close to the missile silo. This was told to me by a missile maintenance 1st Lieutenant, approximately three days after the incident occurred.

The third incident took place in early Spring of 1974. As I was arriving at Charlie LCC, in the morning with my captain, to begin an alert duty, we were told by the Staff Sergeant and two security police, who had been on duty that night, of the strange thing that had happened. They told us that a UFO had actually landed near the LCC and had been observed by the three, and that a minute by minute report had been given to the operations crew downstairs. When we asked about this, as we were relieving the LCC crew for our duty to begin, they would not talk about it with us. I heard a few days later that the Staff Sergeant was in some sort of trouble for speaking to us about what he saw, and that the OSI, was again, involved.

While I was in SAC, I, personally, was not directly involved with a UFO incident, while on duty. However, during June of 1974, while on a camping trip in Dubois, Wyoming with three other Lieutenants, we observed a UFO flying relatively low. It was similar to the ones that were described to us, in the above three incidents. Since all four of us were AF Lieutenants, we knew that this low flying object was not an aircraft. From that time forward, I have had an interest in this subject and have read some on the subject, as well.

I can tell you that these three incidents, at F.E. Warren AFB, did occur. It was a long time ago and I am sure many other things have happened since. I have not been able to find any written statements of these three incidents since. This could be because there was a very good cover-up of the situation, at that time, or they were not deemed important enough to bother with. Though, I doubt that the later is true.

I have always wondered as to what really happened to the missile that had the UFO hovering above it, and if the warhead target tapes had really been erased.

I wish you good luck on any research that you may do on this subject. I doubt that you will receive any help from those that might know the truth. I am sure that the cover-up that I observed many years ago, is still in effect.

Thank you for your interest.

Sincerely,

Walter F. Billings
10/18/2002

Like a Diamond in the Sky



The following report is extraordinary. The source is highly credible and the importance of the incident is self-evident. Simply put, this case is among the most fascinating I have encountered during my decades of research into nuclear weapons-related UFO sightings. It all began with an email:

According to now-retired USAF Technical Sergeant John W. Mills III, the events described below occurred in very late December 1978, or early January 1979, outside of Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, at one of the base’s remote Minuteman missile launch facilities. At the time, Mills was an airman assigned to the 44th Organizational Missile Maintenance Squadron (OMMS) and a member of a missile targeting team.

After I interviewed Mills, he provided me with various USAF records relating to his assignment, including security clearances and performance reviews. Given the astounding, almost unbelievable nature of the UFO incident he reports, I will first briefly excerpt some of those files to establish his professional expertise and psychological stability.

One document describes Mills’ duties this way: “Performs a series of precision angular measurements to establish an accurate heading of Minuteman missiles...Loads the onboard guidance and control computer with essential launch and targeting information using preprogrammed tapes.”

Mills’ performance reviews are impressive. In one, covering the period 1 March 1978 to 28 February 1979, Mills’ superiors had rated his performance in the most favorable terms. The reporting officer, a 2nd Lieutenant—whom I must not identify—concluded the performance review by writing: “Airman Mills performs his duties in an outstanding manner...SUGGESTED ASSIGNMENT: Airman Mills would make an excellent Combat Targeting Team Chief.”

This recommendation for promotion and assignment was approved. By the summer of 1980, Mills was a Staff Sergeant and being evaluated for further promotion. As a part of his review for the period 19 January 1980 to 14 August 1980, various superiors had commented upon his performance and evaluated his potential. While I have been asked to withhold the identities of those persons, their comments are noteworthy.

A sergeant wrote, “Sgt Mills’ adaptability to stressful situations and maturity have made him a tremendous asset to the [missile targeting] branch as well as to the [missile] wing. He continually strives for excellence in all facets of duty performance. This is exemplified by having 100 percents on paper work audits on 15 [missile launch] sites without any errors. Recommend promotion as soon as possible.”

A major wrote, “Sgt Mills is a highly qualified Team Chief whose extensive system knowledge and dedication makes him a very valuable asset. His efforts during the SAC worldwide readiness exercise “Global Shield” were particularly noteworthy and greatly enhanced the wing’s ability to place 100% of assigned missiles in alert for simulated execution. Promote [him].”

In short, John W. Mills III was hard-working, an expert in his field, and highly-rated by his superiors. Even so, he was not prepared for what he experienced one night while working in Ellsworth AFB’s missile fields. In many ways, it would change his life forever.

During two taped interviews, combined here, Mills told me,



"I was an Airman 1st Class at the time, part of a two-man Combat Targeting Team. A week, maybe two, after Christmas 1978, I was dispatched out to the Delta missile field, to do a targeting alignment procedure called RMAD (Reference Mirror Azimuth Alignment), which measures earth movement—whether the site has moved or not—so that the targeting would be accurate. My team chief was on Christmas leave so I was paired with a temporary chief, 2nd Lt. ------. We were on-site at Delta-3. It was about 6 to 6:30 at night, pitch black, one of those cold winter nights in South Dakota.



The RMAD procedure is very sensitive to vibration. Our guard, who was topside, suddenly started banging on the ladder. We were screaming, ‘No, no, no! Don’t ever do that! Now we have to reshoot the set!’ But he kept banging on the ladder and started screaming at us. He said, ‘You’ve got to get up here now! Either you come up or I’m coming down!’ Well, the cops were never allowed below grade.



So, my team chief and I went up the ladder, really frustrated. We were screaming at this kid. He said, ‘You tell me what’s going on here!’ It was then that I noticed this low-frequency hum. I don’t know what it was—I’ve never heard anything quite like it. It wasn’t like a hum from machinery. It was coming from everywhere. It was loud! You could feel it on your skin. It permeated everything—you could feel it inside you. You could feel it in your teeth. It was like a microwave except it wasn’t heating you up. You could feel it vibrating off the [Launch Facility’s] access hatch. The truck [parked next to the access hatch] vibrated. You could feel that reflecting onto you.



We asked the kid, ‘When did this start?’ He said, ‘Five minutes ago.’ He told us he had already called the Flight Security Controller and reported the hum. He thought the [missile site’s] diesel generator was breaking down and had reported it. According to procedure, the FSC should have called the crew in the [Delta Flight launch] capsule and then they would have called us. But that didn’t happen for some reason. Instead, the cop was apparently told to contact us directly. That’s when he started banging on the ladder. So, we went upstairs, really angry about the RMAD being ruined. Then we heard the hum too. We thought there had to be a logical explanation. At first, we agreed with the cop that something had gone wrong with the generator.



Then suddenly the kid starts freaking out. He was going nuts! He said, ‘Look up!’ We looked up. All I saw was black. He said, ‘Look to the East.’ We did. We saw stars. He said. ‘Look to the North.’ We did. We saw stars. He said, ‘Look to the West.’ We did. We saw the light from [the town of] Wall. He says, ‘Look to the South.’ More stars. Then he said, ‘Now look up!’ We did. No stars. Nothing, just black. We said, ‘It’s just clouds.’



By now, we’re ready to kill this kid. He said, ‘Follow me.’ We walked to the north side of the site and went up to the gate. You could hardly hear yourself think, because of the hum. Then we saw it. There was a straight-edge in space. On one side, there were stars, on the other side, it was black. That floored us! But again, we were trying to be logical, you know, maybe some idiot parked a barrage balloon above the site. Looking back, I was thinking really stupid things, trying to explain this thing we were seeing.



But we weren’t scared. We were just puzzled. We went out of the gate. Now that we’re talking about all of this, it occurs to me that we couldn’t hear the hum once we opened the gate and walked off-site. It wasn’t outside the site, at least it wasn’t as loud. I seem to recall hearing my boots crunching through the snow once we were outside. And I think I was talking to Lt. ------ and the guard. Huh, it just dawned on me that I had forgotten that until now. But on the site itself, you couldn’t hear yourself walking through the snow, and you could barely hear each other talking—all you heard was the hum.

Anyway, [once we were outside the gate], we walked along the edge of this dark thing to its end. There was a corner, where the edge turned and went another direction. It wasn’t 90-degrees, it was maybe 60- to 70-degrees. But it was a hard corner. So we turned left and followed that edge. By now, we were about 80-feet west of the entry road. Well, we kept walking and followed that edge to the end, which was back over the site.

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."

As I listened to Mills’ account, it seemed to me that his thoughts and behavior that night were strangely inappropriate for the situation at hand. While his attempt to comprehend the object in familiar terms is perhaps understandable, his relative lack of fear struck me as bizarre. Given the looming, even menacing presence of the dark shape hovering overhead, and the increasingly oppressive humming sound, one would think that he would have been far more concerned, if not completely terrified. And yet—although the guard was apparently very frightened—Mills and his Combat Targeting Team partner were basically going about their business in a relatively calm and orderly manner.

Over the years I had read about various close-proximity sighting cases during which one or more witnesses had inexplicably reacted to the presence of the UFO in a strangely calm, almost nonchalant manner—as if some sort of mental-conditioning field was present, capable of suppressing emotions such as fear. But I had never personally interviewed such a witness before.

One will recall the statements of former Minuteman launch officer Bob Salas, regarding the missile shutdown incidents at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967. Salas told me, “[I later interviewed] a person who was out in the field working to put the Echo Flight missiles back on line. His statement was that he had been called topside by a security guard shortly after he began to go through his targeting and alignment procedures. Once outside, he saw a round orange glowing object hovering ‘not far out’ at about 30 degrees from the horizon, which was witnessed by the security guard as well. He stated that he did hear a low-level hum, and could definitely feel the energy field [emanating] from the object, but did not feel threatened by it. He then went back down to continue his procedure—which seemed odd to me, in light of what he just saw. You would think he would have been terrified, but he said he wasn’t.”



The similarities between this witness’ experience and the one reported by Mills are striking. In any case, I mentioned to Mills my incredulity over his apparent nonchalance during the incident. He replied,



"This may seem strange but we figured, well, this thing is not hurting us, so we walked back to the personnel access hatch [to go down into the missile silo]. As I was about to descend the ladder, the lights went out. The topside lights, and the lights downstairs. Then the truck quit. We always let the engine run in winter, the whole time we were working, so we could leave the site when we were finished. The Air Force-issued batteries were terrible. We always had the guard run the truck for 15 minutes, turn it off for 15 minutes, and then run it again, the whole time we were on site. When the truck suddenly died, the guard tried to call the LCF on his radio. It didn’t work.

We got flashlights from the truck and they worked. We figured the back-up generator would kick-in and get the lights back on, but that didn’t happen. There are tertiary batteries down in the Launcher Equipment Room, if the generator doesn’t work, to keep the site up, but the site was dark. By now, we were more than perplexed. We were freaking out. But not because of the object—we figured we were going to be in trouble for having a site drop-off alert while we were on it. We tried to start everything back up but couldn’t, so we went back upstairs.

When we got back outside, the humming had stopped. But the object, whatever it was, was still above us. Then—I don’t know how much later, five minutes, thirty minutes, I don’t know—the lights came back on. The generator started cranking. That’s when I noticed that the object was gone, and you could see the stars overhead. We never saw it leave.



We went back downstairs. The site was down. As far as I could tell, it was a G&C (Guidance and Control) No-Go. I got my control monitor and cable set and began a [missile] start-up procedure. That’s when the [LCF] called. They were screaming at us. They said, ‘What did you guys do?!’ We told them, ‘We didn’t do anything, the site just lost power.’ We didn’t mention the object. We told them that we would get the site back on line, and we had to finish our RMAD. By now, Job Control had called and they were screaming at us. We were long overdue to leave the site and proceed to the next one, to do the RMAD on that one, so we figured they were upset about that. But Job Control said, bring the site up, finish your RMAD, but as soon as you’re finished, we want you back on base.



We went, ‘Uh oh.’ We began getting our story straight right then: We didn’t see anything, we didn’t know anything. The site just lost power. So we went back to the base. On the way, we told the cop, ‘This is how we’re going to play it—we didn’t see anything...’ and so on. He said, ‘Okay. I understand.’ When he called the FSC to report the hum, he’d said that he thought the generator was acting up. He hadn’t seen the object overhead yet, so he never mentioned it, thank God!

There were two other targeting teams out that night, at Echo Flight. Lt. ------ headed up one of them. I forget the name of the officer on the third team. They had been called in too and we all got back to base around the same time. We talked with the other teams, before we were debriefed. We found out that Lt. ------’s team had the same problem we did. They were doing RMADs over at Echo Flight. They told us that they saw something [directly above their site] and what they described was very similar to our something. They had an identical experience. Their lights went out, their site went off alert. The third team saw something too.

Now, after we dropped-off our equipment, we went back to the [missile maintenance] hanger. The entire building was full of people. There were colonels—we didn’t have a general on the base at that time—but the missile Wing Commander was Ralph Spraker. He was there. Colonel Stone, the Deputy Commander of Maintenance was there. My commander, Fenimore, he was there. [The targeting teams] were all divided and conquered. They separated the enlisted men from the officers, they put us in separate rooms and they told us to fill out a report—an official inquiry—of what went on. That way, you can’t get your story straight, unless you already got it straight [before you arrived]. I filled out the report, about what we didn’t see. I gave my statement, my team chief gave his, and I guess the cop gave his.



So, for the record, we didn’t see anything. But [I later learned that] Lt. ------ and his team told the truth. They said they saw something, and heard something. They said they didn’t know what it was, but they admitted that something [unusual] had happened. His team was told, ‘Keep your mouths shut.’ They signed a national security agreement—agreeing not to talk about the incident. So, they signed their statements and went about their business. But Lt. ------ got passed over for captain. He was in the reserves. Ordinarily, if reserve officers did well, they would be promoted. But ------ was passed over. He had an absolutely splendid record. Nobody had a bad word to say about him. But he was history.



The [third] team—they were new and I didn’t even know their names—they also admitted that they saw something, I don’t know, maybe it was just lights in the sky, but they were bragging about it. Well, they were gone. Twenty-four hours later, they were gone [from Ellsworth]. We never saw them again. We didn’t know what happened to them.



Me, I kept my mouth shut and got my career and retired. [My temporary team chief] is still on active duty. The last I heard, he was a full colonel. We kept our mouths shut. We made it, the other teams didn’t."



I asked Mills if OSI had been involved in the debriefings. He said, “No, I never saw anybody in suits. (OSI agents are alleged to dress in civilian clothes when debriefing UFO sighting witnesses.) I talked to Colonel Stone. He questioned [our team] separately and together. Our stories were similar, but different enough to be believable. That was the last duty I had with Lt. ------. I was assigned to the [missile maintenance] shop for about a week and then re-assigned to my normal duties. So, I went about my business. That was in December 1978, or January 1979.”

Mills continued, “But later, after this had settled down, these two officers approached me—they were former Combat Targeting officers—who told me that all of Echo Flight had gone down that night, and part of Delta [Flight] went down, even Delta-1, which was the squadron command post for the 66th [Strategic Missile Squadron].

At first, I thought that the two officers were probing—to see if I would change my story—but after awhile I decided they were just curious. We were just shooting the breeze, you know? They said, ‘So, your site went off alert. You think that’s bad? We lost 12 or 13 missiles that night.’ I was stunned. I said, ‘You’re kidding! I was only aware of three.’ They said, ‘Oh no, all of Echo and two or three in Delta went down, plus D-1.’ By the way, the two missile crew who were at D-1, they told the truth [during the debriefing] and they disappeared too.”

I then asked Mills whether the officers who told him about the missile shut-downs had mentioned that UFOs were involved. “No, that terminology was never used. Never once did I hear that term, even during the debriefing. We talked about ‘anomalies’, you know, we asked each other, ‘Did you have any unknown anomalies?’ Later on, we were trying to explain to a bunch of pencil-pushers how a three-tier power system with commercial, diesel back-up, and batteries [at each of the missile sites] could completely fail all at once, and then become functional again. You know, I said, ‘I’m trained on this system, and I can’t figure out how a you can have a simultaneous failure on all three systems, and then have them all magically reappear.”



--Robert Hastings

www.ufohastings.com

Carlson aren't you tired of getting owned yet? give it up buddy boy

Bruce Fenstermacher recently posted the information below at ufo.cordmagic.com... Bruce will appear at the press conference at the National Press Club this fall.

He wrote: I spent 20 years in the Air Force. The first nine years I served as an enlisted man and the last 11 as an officer. Initially I was very skeptical about all the “UFO nonsense”.

In the fall of 1975 I was a Minuteman III Combat Crew Commander [Launch Officer] on alert with my deputy “Sam.” …We monitored radio communications between the topside NCOIC (“Sgt Jones”) and the cops—actually a Security Alert Team or SAT. They were on patrol near one of our 10 missile sites which was south about 9 or 10 miles from the Launch Control Facility or LCF.

Sometime around 2 A.M. we heard Sgt Jones ask the two cops to stop the vehicle, look around and report anything that the saw that looked unusual. He gave no hints about where to look or what to look for. The response at first was that they didn't see anything. Then a few seconds later, they reported in an excited voice that they saw a pulsating white thing in the sky. They could see flashing red and blue lights between the pulsations. Jones asked where they saw it. The cops responded that it was to the north about 10 miles and that it looked very close to the main capsule. Now fully awake, Sam and I looked at each other and wondered what was going on. I called Jones on the hot line between us and asked him about the conversation he just had with the SAT. He said that right now above the Launch Control Facility (100 feet or so) was a white pulsating light with red and blue lights visible between the pulsations. He also said it was shaped like a “fat cigar” and appeared to be about 50 to 60 feet long. He was looking at it while we talked on the phone. Jones reported that it moved away.

Sgt Jones called back in a few minutes and said that it appeared to stop a few miles away - very close to one of the Launch Facilities (LF) or missile sites. We ordered the cops to that missile site but they had to return to the capsule for batteries for their flashlights and other equipment. When they finally headed towards the silo, the pulsating light moved away before they got there. Over the next couple of hours the pulsating light made stops very close to several more missile sites. Each time we tried to send the cops to the site in question. Each time the cops said they had car problems and/or other equipment problems and never actually made it to any of the sites. According to Jones, some time around 4:30 AM it “whooshed away” and turned into a white dot within a few seconds. The white dot stayed in the sky for a few more seconds and then totally disappeared.

While this was going on, during one of our communication checks with all the other launch control capsule commanders in our squadron we mentioned the object and received some chuckles and ridicule. Within a minute or so one of the other commanders called our capsule said that he was told by his topside crew that they had the same sort of lights over their missile sites earlier that night but didn't want to say anything about it in the communications check for fear of ridicule. He said that he had not and would not report the incident to headquarters – again for fear of ridicule. Sam and I reported it to SAC and Warren Control center right after that call and were laughed at and told to call back if it “ate the cops” we had sent to check it out, which of course did not happen as they never got close to the sites. Even though we were laughed at each time we called, we made sure that it was officially reported with about 3 or 4 more calls to the Control center. On the final call we insisted that they include it in their log or we would wake the base commander. I wish we had.

The next morning after our alert we were relieved by a new crew and went topside. Sgt Jones was there curled up in a chair. He was wide awake and still quite upset and scared about his experience. We spent some time talking to him and trying to calm him down. Under promise that we wouldn't report the SAT actions, Sgt Jones also told us that the cops (SAT) were scared to death last night and had decided they were not going to drive to any of the sites that had “that thing” over it under any circumstances. That explained all their vehicle and equipment problems. To this day I am convinced that Sgt Jones believed that he saw something very unusual that night and was sincere in his description of the activity. I did not see Sgt Jones again on any other alert duty.

At the next several crew departure meetings all outgoing crews were briefed that this event never officially happened and not to talk to anyone about it. I did not recognize the individual who briefed us at that departure meeting. As a serviceman who followed orders for 20 years I have had reservations about mentioning this incident.

However, in the past several years I have read about or seen on the Larry King TV show cases where similar incidents have been reported by former military members. A former Missile commander, Robert Salas, especially comes to mind. Since skeptics appear to have challenged their integrity as well as their memory I think it is time for all of us that have been silent to talk about what we observed.

23 Feb 09 Update: Recent discussions with a flight commander have refreshed my memory that the year is in fact 1976 (previously listed as 1975).

RH: Here is an example of a former missile launch officer recalling a certain date for a UFO event which turned out to be in error. After conversing with other former colleagues, with myself acting as a go-between, the date was amended simply because other information became available which put the event in the proper context.

This is precisely what happened to Bob Salas, two or three times over the last 15 years, as new data developed by Jim Klotz and myself forced a revision of the date, and location, of Salas' incident.

James Carlson views this kind of natural progression as sinister and evidence that Salas is lying. Of course, given Carlson's own suspect behavior, one might understand how he would think that others stoop to the level he does.

It has now been established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Salas and his missile commander, now-retired Col. Fred Meiwald, were at Oscar Flight on March 24, 1967, when their missiles went down. The incident described by Col. Walt Figel and conveniently forgotton by James' father, Eric, occurred at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967.

----- Original Message -----
From: Patrick McDonough
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 5:13 PM
Subject: My Malmstrom UFO Incident

Robert,

I enjoyed hearing you on Coast to Coast AM last week. I ordered your book. I am attaching my UFO experience at Malmstrom which occurred in 1966. I can send you my DD214 and/or my DD256AF. Just send me your fax # or your snail mail address. My squadron, the 1381st Geodetic Survey Squadron, is having its 50th anniversary party this summer and I would like to ask the other former members at our get together if any of them also had a UFO experience. If they did, I will give them your name and e-mail address. The squadron, which has now been disestablished, was under the Defense Mapping Agency and the National Geospatial Intelligence agency.

Pat McDonough, DBA

(Pat then summarized his experience, below, but wrote it in the third-person. --RH)

Airman 1st Class Patrick McDonough - Former Chief of Party, Field Survey Team, 1381st Geodetic Survey Squadron (Missile), F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming (1962-1966).

Joined the Naval Reserve after active duty with USAF and retired in 2003 as the Navy Intelligence Command Master Chief, Southwest Region, USN Ret.

McDonough stated that his squadron was responsible for setting exact latitude and longitude coordinates for missile and aircraft guidance systems using star observations. The squadron members went TDY worldwide from F.E. Warren AFB to perform these surveys for Atlas, Titan, Minuteman, Mace, Matador, and on missiles carried on B-52 nuclear bombers. They also performed these same surveys for aircraft that also used similar guidance systems such as the SR71.

In early September of 1966, McDonough and his team of two other airmen (A1C Al Cramer and A3C Charley Coates) were living off base in Conrad, Montana, and working on the last 50 missile sites (Fourth Squadron) under construction at Malmstrom AFB and were assigned to SATAF and Boeing (SATAF – Site Activation Task Force; Boeing was prime construction contractor). Their work was primarily done at night.

The three airmen were completing an astro-azimuth observation at a missile site (the concrete blast hatch of the silo was wide open awaiting a missile to be installed at the site) when at approximately 0130, a UFO came in from due North and stopped directly over the missile site. The UFO was at an approximate altitude of 300 feet. It was a circular disk and its diameter appeared to be around 30-50 feet. It appeared to have dim lights outlining the disk and a white light emanating from the center. It stayed there approximately 20-30 seconds, and then from a dead stop above them sped off to the East at a tremendous speed. There was no noise or wind.

After the UFO departed, they immediately grabbed their gear and sped off from the missile site to return to Conrad, and while enroute there and making a high speed left turn at an unmarked T intersection the brand new Chevrolet truck right side tires blew and the vehicle flipped upside down. No one was hurt and they walked to a not-so nearby farm house where the Montana Highway Patrol and a tow-truck were called. When the Highway Patrolman arrived, he stated that his dispatch had received over 20 reports from local residents observing a UFO in the vicinity that night. Incident Reports were made to SATAF, Boeing, and the Air Force. Nothing was ever heard from the Air Force about the incident and no retribution/reimbursement was ever requested for totaling the new truck. It was like the incident never happened.

Airman McDonough stated he had worked on the latest missiles and aircraft that the U.S. Air Force had at that time and never saw any Air Force aircraft that could perform like this craft.

----- Original Message -----

From: David Hughes

To: 'Robert Hastings'

Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2003 2:29 PM

Subject: RE: Malmstrom AFB

Mr.Hastings,

Good to hear from you. I was stationed at Malmstrom from Jan. 1966 thru Aug. 1967. I was an Air Policeman, assigned to "B" flight, with the 341st CDS. I worked at the Foxtrot site. Many nights we observed a light in the sky between Choteau, Mont. and Augusta, Mont.

This light would move at incredible speeds, make right angle moves, and continue for hours. And when seeking further info from wing command, we were often insulted when told it was a Telstar satellite. On one occasion we were told by other friends working in the Tower at the base that aircraft had been launched to seek to identify a strange radar echo that had appeared on their screens and on the screens of the local airport. This was later denied the next day, but if memory serves...the local newspaper had an story on it the next day. This must have happened sometime in early 1967 or late 1966.

All I know is that some strange things consumed our attention MANY nights while on patrol. We patrolled from Augusta to Choteau each night and always saw something that lent credence to the UFO concept. To us UFO simply meant it was an Unidentified Flying Object, either from our military or some unknown source. We never believed the satellite story. However when learned that the jets had been scrambled and the next day it was denied...then we knew something was up.

Hope this helps. I enjoyed my stay at Malmstrom, and especially Augusta. We used to go to Augusta when we were off duty and had a great time.

David Hughes

reply to post by Robert Hastings
Hi, Bobby! Nice to hear from you again. I'm happy to see you're still mucking up the issue by scattering lots of irrelevant information around. Why don't you answer a few of the questions I've been repeatedly asking you for a year -- you always end up ducking the issue and talking about every UFO report besides the only one I'm really interested in. Look, I even numbered some of my questions for you today. Anytime you feel like answering some of these, please do -- your constant avoidance of both historicaal relevance and making a valid point is really starting look congenital.

1. Why is there only one mention of UFOs in all of the documents related to Echo Flight, and that one mention is not only unclassified, but found to be groundless?

2. If UFOs were involved, why was the Echo Flight Incident classified SECRET, when all Air Force instructions agree that the classification of such an incident would be a minimum of TOP SECRET due to national security affected by unknown weaponry?

3. Why weren't UFOs reported to Blue Book for March 16, when Air Force Regulation 80-17 orders established in September 1966 required that such a report be made? This was, after all, well before 80-17 was cancelled, and well before the Bolender memo's discussion of JANAP 146 and AFM 55-11, which in any case doesn't order that Blue Book reporting be ignored; standing orders required a Blue Book report be made, regardless of what other reporting procedures were in use. We know this is the case, because there are numerous Blue Book reports that were also reported in accordance with JANAP 146 and AFM 55-11, one example being the 22 July 1965 military source report from Forbes AFB, Kansas (www.bluebookarchive.org...) Requirements for one report has never meant that you ignore the other. So why weren't these instructions followed at Echo Flight?

4. Why weren't any UFOs reported in accordance with JANAP 146? And why didn't any of the messages involving Echo Flight utilize a flash precedence, a DoD requirement for all threat contacts within the borders of the US? JANAP 146 procedures require immediate notification to Wright-Patterson AFB if UFOs were involved, yet nothing involving Echo Flight went to Wright-Patterson -- NOTHING. Why? And keep in mind that message redundancy is always an issue.

5. Why weren't any UFOs reported in accordance with Air Force Manual 55-11? The reports of the missile failures were made in accordance with 55-11, but UFOs were not, and 55-11 dictates no redundancy, so UFOs, if present, were required to be reported at the same time as the Echo Flight missiles went down; why weren't they? And again, none of the 55-11 message traffic was sent to Wright-Patterson, a requirement for all UFO reporting procedures. Why wasn't this done? I swear, Bobby, everytime you make a claim it becomes more and more evident that you know absolutely NOTHING about military message systems -- and yet, you nonetheless claim some authority on the subject of military reporting of UFOs.

6. If UFOs were present, why did Lt. Col. Chase, the Malmstrom UFO officer, affirm repeatedly that UFOs were not involved?

7. If UFOs were involved, why did the Air Force spend so much money simply to confirm that the commercial power grid was incapable of producing a noise pulse that would couple with the shielding in use to send a signal from the position of a known transformer fault? The USAF missile system was, after all, in the middle of a budget crisis precipitated by numerous equipment failures and reassessed vulnerabilities in the course of being repaired.

reply to post by James Carlson

8. If UFOs were involved, then the event qualifies as an attack on US soil -- so why wasn't any of the reporting traffic given a flash precedence? All reporting on the missile failures went out to and from SAC as general traffic, with an ordinary level of precedence. In addition, much of the message traffic was only classified CONFIDENTIAL -- if UFOs were involved, all of this would have been different, so why wasn't it?

9. Three maintenance groups with associated security personnel were camped out at three of the Echo Flight silos -- why didn't anybody report anything until after the missiles went offline? Why did Walt Figel have to call THEM?

10. The combination of VRSA errors noted for Echo Flight had also occurred in December 1966 at Alpha Flight in conjunction with the loss of three missiles, but nowhere else in the entire system -- why hasn't anybody ever associated those losses with UFOs?

11. Why did nobody mention UFOs in connection with Echo Flight until 1995?

12. Why was nobody at Echo Flight required to sign the type of nondisclosure agreement that Robert Salas claims he had to sign?

13. If the phone calls made to Walt Figel were valid UFO reports, why didn't anybody mention anything while they were still outside? Why didn't anybody fire on the UFOs, as they were required to during an invasive attack against a US nuclear missile facility?

14. Why is it that Salas' commander to this day claims that he doesn't even believe in UFOs if they shut down missiles under his care?

15. Why are there no eyewitnesses to any of the UFO events asserted by you and Salas?

16. Why are there no UFO reports for the entire state of Montana for March 16, 1967 when the Echo Flight Incident occurred at 0845 in the morning, when a lot of people would have been outside? Why is it that nobody ever noticed any UFOs in transit to and from anywhere at Malmstrom AFB? On March 24-25, so many people were out looking for UFOs due to the radio reports that they had already compromised a supposed landing area at the bottom of gully that under daylight conditions would have been difficult to get to, yet nobody saw any UFOs leave in the direction of Oscar Flight, 110 miles to the east.

17. Why did investigators report that at least partial responsibility for the susceptibility of the logic couplers to noise pulse was due to Autonetics over-ambitious use of integrated circuitry?

18. If Blue Book is out of the loop where UFO events affect national security, why did they investigate the sightings at other military bases, including missile bases?

19. If UFOs were involved, why were none of the messages regarding Echo Flight sent to Wright-Patterson AFB or the Foreign Technology Division? FTD used to be the Air Technical Intelligence Center (ATIC). They not only ran Blue Book, they were also in charge of all unknown, experimental, and foreign technology developments -- after all, they would have been in charge if UFOs were involved, not OOAMA, not SAC, and certainly not BSD -- and yet, they weren't even listed for Info only. Everything went to Hill AFB, kind of a waste if UFOs were involved, don't you think?

reply to post by James Carlson

20. Why were all messages involving the incident sent out with normal precedence of priority? After all, if UFOs were involved in an incident like this, all message traffic is immediately incorporated into the early warning system, as required in ALL of the procedures listed above -- and yet, nothing was sent with an immediate or flash precedence -- only priority, a precedence required for normal, daily traffic. These messages are supposed to be handled as quickly as possible, with in-station handing time not to exceed 6 hours; that's only one step faster than routine. And yet everything involving Echo Flight went out with this low precedence. Had UFOs actually been involved, you wouldn't have seen a single message with lower than Immediate precedence, and the first few messages would have been flash precedence. Why do you think that's the case? Even the Blue Book messages that went to Air Force staff in 1965 had an Immediate precedence (see www.bluebookarchive.org...), but all of the Echo Flight messages? PRIORITY.

21. If UFOs were reported at Echo Flight, why has NOBODY come forward to claim they actually saw something? The only perdson to ever come forward to claim that they knew a UFO came down and did the job is Salas, and he saw nothing. Why have no eyewitnesses come forward in the past 40 years? According to Salas, the entire security team was outside with weapons drawn, and yet not a single confirmation.

22, Salas has stated that Lt. Col. Chase knew about the UFOs at Echo Flight and Oscar Flight, but lied about there being no equipment malfunctions to the Foreign Technology Division at Wright Patterson AFB in regard to March 24-25. Seeing as how FTD not only ran Blue Book, but were also in charge of all unknown, experimental, and foreign technology developments, why would Lt. Col. Chase lie to them?

23. Why is it that Roy Craig of the Condon group and Raymond Fowler of NICAP were both aware of the Echo Flight Incident, and the rumors of UFOs in connection to that incident, but nobody was willing to say that anything actually happened in connection to UFOs until 1995? After all, even as a rumor the information could have been used by NICAP. And yet, nothing until 1995.

24. Why was Echo Flight documented so thoroughly by the Air Force, yet Salas' claims regarding Oscar Flight were never documented at all, not even as message traffic which was REQUIRED.

25. Why would anyone believe a maintenance personnelman who says "We got a Channel 9 No-Go. It must be a UFO hovering over the site. I think I see one here." when that person couldn't see anything, being in an equipment room next to the silo 6ft underground?

26. Why is it the second report came from the only guy who would have heard both sides of the first conversation, a security team leader, the guy manning the 2-way radio who said "Hey, I see one, too", about whom Figel said, "I was thinking he was yanking my chain more than anything else."

27. Why would Figel order everybody to remain on station until they were relieved if a UFO security breach were in progress? Why would the security personnel, obviously witnessing a high-level security breach, do absolutely nothing, even so far as reporting the incident to their direct chain of command at the security command post? That was, after all their job...

28. Why does the only document discussing the Echo Flight Incident that has a high enough security classification to actually express information regarding a UFO attack on an Air Force nuclear weapons system not even mention a UFO or any sort of interference by a UFO?

reply to post by James Carlson
29. Why has Salas interpreted all information regarding this incident without once taking into consideration his knowledge of security classification protocol -- knowledge he was required at one time to know and understand -- unless he were trying to prove a point beyond what can actually be proven?

30. If UFOs were involved in the Echo Flight Incident, why was NSA not involved in the investigation?

31. Why would the Air Force conduct an expensive investigation lasting months with the assistance of two contract corporations that ignores entirely any interference by UFOs if that were the cause? By refusing to take UFOs into consideration, the entire investigation would be invalidated if a UFO were to blame.

32. Why have none of the witnesses involved in the investigation discussed any tests at all that would have taken UFO interference into question, if the cause of the missiles going offline was a UFO?

33. Why does Salas insist a UFO took out the missiles from a location adjacent to the front gate of the LCF, while the UFO that supposedly took out the missile system at Echo Flight was at a silo location 20 miles away from the Echo Flight LCF?

34. How could the investigation prove that an electronic noise pulse in the logic coupler took out all of the missiles at Echo Flight, resulting in exactly the same combination of errors noted only once before in the entire history of the Minuteman system, if a UFO knocked off all of the missiles from a silo location too far away from the LCF to actually do anything at all that would affect all of the missiles?

35. Why did Salas lie about the high number of missile failures typical nation wide in the Minuteman system between 1966 and 1968, stating instead that such failures were extremely rare?

36. Why did Salas claim that my father called him at the Oscar Flight LCF to notify him about the Echo Flight missile failures when communications of that sort would never occur?

37. Why did Salas lie about being notified by another LCF about the missile failures at Echo Flight, when communications of that sort would never occur?

38. Why did Salas claim for 13 years that he first heard about the failures of Echo Flight while he was still inside the LCF on the day it occured, his confidence strengthened by the fact that he specifically recalls his commander discussing the matter with him before they were relieved, if -- as he now claims -- he only learned about Echo Flight from another unnamed individual a week after the fact?

39. Why did Salas claim for around 13 years that he's certain the date of the incident at Oscar Flight was March 16, because he specifically remembers reading about the UFOs sighted over Malmstrom a week later, but now claims that he's certain the date was March 24-25, because he specifically remembers reading about those same UFO sightings the next day after his watch ended?

40. Why did Salas claim for years that an Electromagnetic Pulse of the same type caused by a nuclear detonation caused the Echo Flinght Incident, when we know for a fact that didn't happen, that it was an electromagnetic pulse created internally by the equipment itself that actually took out the flight, as all records and documents assert, including those documents used by Salas to support his UFO claims?

41. If UFOs took out the missile systems at Echo Flight and Oscar Flight, a minor inconvenience at best, why did they do so? And why did they make it look so much like a relatively mediocre electronic event?

42. Why did the the electronic circuitry making up the logic couplers and the guidance and control units start failing all at the exact time period that they were expected to fail as a result of testing that wasn't conducted until the 1970s?

reply to post by James Carlson
43. Why did the NS-17 guidance and control units start failing at the same time as the Echo Flight and Alpha Flight incidents for exactly the same reasons if UFOs weren't also involved at Alpha Flight and the numerous NS-17 failures?

44. If electromagnetic noise wasn't an important factor in the failure of missile systems nation wide, why was so much money and man hours spent to conduct the testing and the incorporation of hardware to prevent such electrical events from occuring, and if UFOs caused theevent at Echo Flight, why was everybody so certain the problems that caused the incident could be solved by reducing the susceptibility of the logic couplers to electronic noise?

45. If UFOs were involved at Echo Flight, why was nothing done to find a solution to the problem other than incorporating and applying already scheduled modifications to the Minuteman II system to the Minuteman I missiles as well?

46. Why did the Air Force emphasize poor quality control, sloppy workmanship, and too much dependence on the possibly poor understanding of new science and technologies incorporated by Autonetics in their contracted development of the guidance and control systems if UFOs were actually the cause of the missile failures at Echo Flight?

47. Why did the number of failures of the guidance and control units drop significantly as a result of the force modification incorporated as a result of the Echo Flight Incident if UFOs were responsible for the Echo Flight failures?

48. Why did investigators test for electromagnetic pulse injected directly into the logic couplers from the LCF if the noise pulse was injected externally by UFOs over the silos?

49. Why did the investigators tell the Air Force that the cause of the missile failures was an electronic noise pulse that affected the only susceptible equipment that had the ability to shut down the whole system -- the logic couplers -- if it was a UFO that did it?

I'm guessing you'll ignore most of these as well -- just like you've ignorted all of the other questions I've put to you.

A number of the questions were answered a year ago, James, in my rebuttal posts at UFO Chronicles. All you did then, in response, was reject the credibility of my sources, persons other than Salas, and distort the things that Walt Figel told me, just as you are doing this time around.

Others posting on this thread have picked up on your methodology, James, and you look increasingly naked and foolish with every successive rant.

But I will accommodate you once again. I am flying to Alaska tomorrow to give a lecture at UAA. I will print out your list of questions, read them on the flight, and have answers for you sometime over the weekend.

However, already, with just a cursory review of your list, I see that you distort a number of things and misstate witness testimony. Your trademark. You will not benefit from my responses, nor will your lapdog, Drew Clueless, but others posting here deserve some kind of response to your questions. My answering them will give me yet another opportunity to reveal you for what you are: misguided and dishonest.

reply to post by Robert Hastings


I can't wait...

reply to post by Robert Hastings

Hastings is misleadng people completely -- everything that I point to in my book is direct quotes -- I not only tell you exactly where it's from, I show -- I give you links so you check the sources yourself on the internet. Hastings has a bad of paraphrasing everything that everyone says in his book, so you don't know exactly his supposed witnesses actually have to say. I'm not the only one who's noticed this -- there's a large of number of substantiated historians and researchers who all say the same thing. He doesn't give his sources, nor does he tell you exactly what they say in many cases. This is because when he does, it becomes noticeably easy for anyone to reinterpret what these conversations actually meant. And Robert Salas is exactly -- he tells his audience that both my father and his ex-commander, Frederick Meiwald, have confirmed his story -- yet if you talk to either of those two, they will both say they do not believe that UFOs shut down any of the missile systems in 1967. What kind of confirmation is that? Hastings is absolutely correct that I do paraphrase things that people say -- but only in forum discussions, because it saves space. He does it throughout his book on the subject. I don't -- I give direct quotes and tell you where to find the sources on the internet so you can not only check it yourself, you can check the context as well -- there is NOTHING in my narrative tht's been misrepresented -- For 15 years Salas has repeatedly changed his story, and has done so again this year as well, while Hastings has in many cases refused to discuss what his witnesses actually said, and consistently explains things for his witnesses. Case in point if Jamison -- he went to Hastings with a story that he said was sometime between 66-67, he didn't know what the actual flight was, just that it was somewhere close to Lewistown, he didn't see anything and couldn't testify to anything, he only overhesard a few details on somenody else's 2-way radio in another room, and before Hastings even got him written up for a second interview, he was telling folks that Jamison was talking about an event at Oscar Flight opn March 24-25, 1967. And even then, he still got most of his facts wrong regarding an event he supposedly witnessed! He's written an entire book full of asbsolute bunk just like this! Now I don't ask you to believe me, I don't even ask you to care -- but when I discuss in my book, I do give you exact quotes and I tell you exactly where it came from, and I do tell you where you can look it up yourself in order to decide for yourself what the context is!

These people are irresponsible researchers, they paraphrase, they don't list their sources or what their sources actually said, and their interpretations of events are totally ignorant.

Throughout the entire course of the Echo Flight incident and the following investigation, not one message detailing any of the events at all was sent to the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB -- not one. And these were the guys who's responsibility was to follow up on anything regarding new technology, new weapons, the abilities of new weapons and how effective they were against US targets; these were the guys who used to rebuild captured or wrecked MIGs during the war. They were also in charge of everything having to do with UFOs -- the ran Blue Book and every other research project that the Air Force ever had regarding UFOs. They didn't even get a heads up via INFO only messages. They were completely left out of the process -- all messages and notices went to OOAMA, BSD, Hill AFB, locations that you would completely expect if this were an electrical malfunction or event of some kind and not an attack on the most powerful means of waging war the world has ever witnessed.

reply to post by James Carlson

All of the message traffic that from the very beginning had a PRIORITY precedence; if this had been a UFO the very first notification would have had a FLASH precedence as an attack on a DoD system, and everything after that would have been IMMEDIATE. Nothing like that went out in reference to Echo Flight. In addition, there three different notification systems that could have been used -- and UFOlogists argue amongst themselves all the time regarding which ones should have been used and when; the procedures are all outlined in AFM 55-11, JANAP 146, and AFR 80-17, which went into effect September 1966. NONE of these was used to report a UFO at Echo Flight, and the station UFO officer, Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase, while well aware of the events at Echo Flight, conducted NO investigation regarding UFOs and repeatdly told those who asked that UFOs were not involved. Had a UFO been present, standing USAF orders via AFR 80-17 would have required that he not only conduct such an investigation, but immediately notify Project Blue Book and FTD at Wright-Patterson AFB that such an event had occurred. There is NOTHING to indicate that anything more complex than a relatively mediocre and prosaic electrical event was to blame, except for Robert Salas, who has changed his story so much and so significantly that he's no longer a credible witness, and a couple of guys Robert Hastings solicited on the internet who tell stories that are absolutely absurd.

Most recently, Robert Salas has decided that the date for the event he "remembers" is March 24-25. Unfortunately for that supposition, Lt. Col. Chase conducted an investigation of the Belt sighting outside of Malmstrom on the 24th. As a result, the sighting was recorded and dicussed by Project Blue Book. One of the NICAP investigators attached to this story worked for Sylvania Corporation -- a guy named Raymond Fowler. Salas implies or states repeatedly that Fowler knew all about the Echo Flight incident, and told Roy Craig of the Condon Committee, who supposedly investigated it as a UFO sighting. But Sylvania didn't know squat about Echo Flight, because Sylvania was never involved in the investigation. They had absolutely nothing to do with any of the electrical systems at Malmstrom AFB, as Salas contends, excepting the 564th Squadron, which was all Minuteman II missiles. As a result, the information Fowler gave to Roy Craig was incorrect; he told him the Echo Flight Incident happened coincident to UFO sightings, because of the UFO rumors the investigation had already cleared. The only sightings of UFOs in Montana for March 1967 were those around March 24-25. So both Fowler and Craig, who was told by Fowler, believed the Echo Flight Incident occurred on March 24-25, which we know is incorrect. So while Fowler was running around investigating an event he didn't know the correct date of, Craig went directly to Lt. Col. Chase and asked him about the Echo Flight Incident. Chase was not about to correct the date, which Salas interprets as Chase hiding information from Craig in a dishonest attempt to hide something, when he didn't correct the date because everything having to do with Echo Flight was still under investigation and was classified SECRET. And Craig had no clearance. Fowler had a SECRET clearance, but since Sylvania had nothing to do with Echo Flight, he lacked the "need-to-know" for access. There's nothing more mysterious here than the standard application of security. As a result, half of the UFO rumors that Salas asserts are an indication that UFOs were actually involved at Echo Flight stemmed up in response to a NICAP investigator's ignorance during an investigation that he admits turned up NOTHING having to do with UFOs.

reply to post by James Carlson

Both of these guys -- Craig and Fowler -- are now asking questions about Echo Flight missiles going offline coincident to UFO sightings which occurred on March 24-25 -- because remember, that's the only date they've got for any UFO sighting in Montana, because Lewis Chase investigated that sighitng for Blue Book, as was his duty as UFO officer at Malmstrom. So because of this, we now have rumors attached to an actual missile flight being taken offline for March 24-25. A NICAP investigator who's also on Sylvania's Minuteman Board as a result of the contract to work the ground electrical grid at 564th SMS and at other Minuteman II Wings and an investigator for the Condon Committee at the University of Colorado asking questions about UFO sighintgs already investigated in some detail by Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase coincident with missile failures that didn't happen, creates a lot of fodder to burn in the rumor mill, and as would be expected the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB gets wind of it. Their immediate response is to send off a letter to Lt. Col. Chase asking him to clarify some rumors they've heard about equipment failures coincident to the March 24-25 UFO sighings reported in the newspapers and investigated by Chase. Chase immediately writes back, telling FTD that there were NO equipment failures anywhere at Malmstrom during the March 24-25 sightings or around the same period of time -- not failures that might have been mistakenly interpreted as linked to the UFO sighings, but no failures at all. He references his previous report, already sent to FTD, because they run Blue Book and all new technology offensive matters. Before FTD was called FTD, they were Air Technical Intelligence (ATIC). They changed their name in 1961. Today they're called National Air and Space Intelligence Center. If UFOs take down a nuclear missile system, they're the very first guys you call. So we have proof from Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase that not only was Echo Flight not associated in any way with UFOs -- because that's what he told Roy Craig, when he first started nosing around for Condon on the basis of information he received from Fowler -- we also know that nothing involving equipment malfunctions happened on March 24-25. Now all of this information was available since 1995 at least, because that's when Craig published his book about his UFO investigations for Condon. Salas, however, doesn't discuss any of this until 15 years later, after both Roy Craig and Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase have died and can no longer discuss the matter or defend their reputations. And his take on the whole thing amounts to one, inflammatory statement: Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase LIED to FTD to avoid discussing missile failures with a military unit outside of his chain of command!! And all of this when FTD WAS his chain of command. It's like he has no idea who FTD was, what they were in charge of, what their responsibilities were, like they were some minor local Coast Guard group out of Maine or something, and not representing the VERY FIRST GROUP who would have been told if UFOs had caused equipment malfunctions anywhere in the country! And that's just about all Salas has said on the subject: Lewis D. Chase is a liar. He also says Roy Craig was incompetent for not properly investigating the matter -- taking little notice that Craig's investigation didn't get anywhere because he lacked any security clearance for access -- and yet, Craig nonetheless got more than Salas has, because he walked out of Chase's office confident that Echo Flight had absolutely nothing to do with UFOs, a confidence Salas attributes once again to Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase being a good liar, and passing false information to the Condon Committee.

reply to post by James Carlson


Well, I find Salas to be an absolutely sickening individual, and while I was writing my narrative, I vowed that I wasn't about to step back from telling people exactly what kind of person Salas is, what a poor researcher Hastings is, and how badly they have both interpreted everything that happened at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967, simply to sell a few more books, and get asked to appear on Larry King. They have ruined this man, Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase's reputation, over absolutely NOTHING -- and I do not intend to cow back from telling people exactly what I think of them just so my book -- that I'm giving away to whomever wants to read it, sounds a little more professional.

I'm not asking you to believe anything at all that I'm telling you -- I'm giving you the means to check it yourself. I'm not mislesading anybody, and I'm taking anything out of context. In fact, I'm telling you EXACTLY where to go if you want to check it for yourself. I honestly don't know why anybody bothers listening to these guys, but if you're going to do so, then God love, have fun -- but these ridiculous claims they make about me without even bothering to look at what I've produced is nothing more than character assassination in a schoolboy attempt to convince people not to look at the information I've gathered and the narrative I've produced. If you don't care to read it, don't -- nobody's forcing you. But to not read it because some buffoon is telling you lies about what to expect is sadly inappropriate -- and folks wonder why I think these clowns are so relentlessly sickening. Make up your own mind -- letting Hastings do it for you is a stinking joke.

reply to post by James Carlson

For more evidence on the way Hastings has completely subjugated the facts of this matter to his own imagination, readers only have to go to one website: www.bautforum.com...

Hastings wrote:

"One of those launch officers, retired Colonel Don Crawford, arrived for alert duty at the Echo LCF some hours after the malfunctions occurred. The missile crew he relieved, composed of Captain Eric Carlson and 1st Lieutenant Walt Figel. Figel told Crawford about the UFO sightings and subsequent shutdowns. Figel said that a number of unusual calls had come in to the LCF during the early morning hours, sometime before dawn. Carlson was sleeping at the time -- one officer sleeping at night, while the other remained alert, was standard operating procedure for the two-man launch crews, who worked a 24-hour alert shift -- so Figel took all of the calls."

Interviews with Figel, my father, and the FOIA documents themselves all agree that my father, CAPT Eric D. Carlson, was the first to notice that the missiles were going offline. No UFOs were reported prior to the missiles going offline. They were the result of queries by Figel to the crews who had spent the night at the silos for other maintenance problems, and -- as I've repeatedly shown and Figel has repeatedly told Hastings -- everybody considered the mention of UFOs to be a joke.

Hastings wrote:

"RH 10/12: Earlier this week (10/6/08), I spoke by phone with Eric Carlson, one of the launch officers at Echo during the shutdowns and the father of the above-linked article’s author. Although the senior Carlson stated that he could not say with certainty that UFOs were involved in the Echo shutdowns, he did not deny that his deputy missile commander that day, Walt Figel, had in fact told him of a UFO-involvement. (Remember, Carlson was sleeping when the flurry of calls came into the launch capsule, and Figel took them.)"

He was not asleep; he was awake and sitting right next to Figel when all the calls came in, and he was the first to note that the missiles were going offline. And my cfather told Hastings that there was mention of UFOs, but he didn'tbelieve they were real, and Figel didn't either.

Hastings wrote:

"Moreover, Eric Carlson told me that UFO reports from missile guards were so numerous while he was at Malmstrom and, earlier, Walker AFB, New Mexico, that he began to ignore them. He said, "I’m a pragmatist. I will believe in UFOs when I see one." Other launch officers apparently reacted to such reports from their guards much differently, as Col. Meiwald, Lt. Col. Figel and former Captain Bob Salas have all confirmed."

My father also told Hastings that there most of these numerous reports were false -- hoaxes, jokes, etc., that were very common at time, and that I've documented throughout my narrative. I invite readers to go to any of the missileer community websites and ask the members themselves. UFO jokes were extrememly common at the time, and were even told on TV throughout the period -- UFOs were pop culture, and the jokes were popular; I've also documeted that in my narrative. In fact, the night before the Echo Flight Incident, "Green Acres" aired an episode called "The Saucer Season" all about a UFO hoax that was investigated by an Air Force Lt. played by Bob Hastings of "McHale's Navy".