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One interesting account comes from Captain Robert L. Salas. A retired U.S. Air Force officer, (1964-1971), Salas served as a SAC, or Strategic Air Command, Launch Controller. In other words, Salas was stationed at one of the many nuclear missile launch sites which dot the country, and was thus responsible for the launch of Minuteman nuclear-tipped ICBM missiles at a time when the Cold War was still in progress. In his video-taped testimony to The Disclosure Project, Salas describes a UFO-related event that occurred on March 16, 1967, in central Montana, at the Oscar-Flight Launch Control Center, or LCC. Salas was the DMCCC, or Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander of the underground complex, or capsule, as they are called. In his own words, Captain Salas states:

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"My security guard says, 'Sir, there's a glowing red object hovering right outside the front gate; I'm looking at it right now. I've got all the men out here with their weapons drawn' . . . The nuclear-tipped warheads went into a "no-go" condition, meaning they could not be launched. That morning, we lost anywhere from between sixteen to eighteen ICBMs at the same time UFOs were in the area and were observed by airmen. Bob Kominski headed up the organization to look at all aspects of these shutdowns. He was told by his boss that the Air Force said, 'Stop the investigation. Do no more on this, and do not write a final report.' This is very unusual; especially in light of the fact that headquarters was stating that this was of extreme importance."

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Captain Salas also stated -- although I am not certain that it was a part of this same interview -- that "many of the guards that reported this incident were sent off to Viet Nam". This line of action, if it is true, would be consistent with what we discussed earlier regarding how some UFO observers would be threatened into silence; and in extreme cases, they would even be eliminated entirely. The disastrous war in Viet Nam would undoubtedly be the perfect cover-up for the government to rid itself of these men; and the evidence of a UFO event, as witnessed by these men, would be buried forever. Did the U.S. Government actually resort to these tactics? I really don't know. Captain Salas seems to hint that it was so.

Given the nature of his experience, Captain Salas obviously shared his UFO account with eager listeners and readers on more than one occasion. In discussing his UFO experience on what may have been a separate occasion from the above-noted interview, Salas adds a few more details to what occurred on the early morning of March 16, 1967. He states:

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"The UFO incident happened on the morning of March 16, 1967. . . . on duty at Oscar Flight as part of the 490th Strategic Missile Squad, and there are five launch control facilities assigned to that particular squadron . . . and I received a call from my topside security guard . . . and he said that he and some of the guards had been observing some strange lights flying around the site, around the launch control facility. I said, 'You mean UFO?' He said, well, he didn't know what they were, but they were lights, and were flying around. They were not airplanes. They were not helicopters. They weren't making any noise . . . [A little later] our missiles started shutting down one by one. By shutting down, I mean they went into a 'no-go' condition, meaning they could not be launched. These weapons were Minuteman One missiles, and were of course nuclear-tipped warhead missiles . . . this incident was of extreme concern to SAC headquarters because they couldn't explain it."

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Let me point out that in earlier accounts of his experience, Salas had said that he was the DMCCC at the November-Flight Launch Control Center; while in more recent ones, he states that he was actually the DMCCC at the Oscar-Flight LCC. On May 15, 2000, Captain Salas and Jim Klotz -- the admin of the CUFON website -- clarified that further research and witness testimony had confirmed that Salas was actually stationed at the Oscar-Flight LCC. Perhaps this obvious difference was a memory slip on his part. However, since both LCCs were under the jurisdiction of the 490th Strategic Missile Squadron, in my view, this was just a minor discrepancy; and it doesn't by any means diminish the overall credibility and truthfulness of Salas' account. Please bear in mind that these astounding events transpired forty years ago; and that is sufficient time for anyone to forget a few of the facts, or to mix them up by mistake. There's no intentional malice when we do this.

In fact, as I continued my research for this series, I came across some addition information on the NICAP website, where Captain Salas explains how initially, he was under the false impression that he was on duty at the Echo-Flight LCC when these events occurred. However, he soon realized that this could not be, because the Echo-Flight Launch Command Center was not the responsibility of the 490th Strategic Missile Squadron to which he was assigned. As you will see shortly, apart from the great amount of time which has elapsed since the UFO event occurred, Salas' confusion may also have been due to the fact that more than one LCC had UFO sightings on that day. Salas also mentioned that sometimes they would man LCCs that were outside of their own squadron's control.

Out of all of the different versions of Salas' story that I found scattered across the Internet, the following one seems to be one of the more detailed and up-to-date accounts of the UFO encounter that occurred at Oscar-Flight LCC on March 16, 1967. This is because -- as Salas points out in his testimony on the NICAP website -- other people who served with him at that time, stepped forward and helped him to fill in some of the missing details of his account. I found this information on the Computer UFO Network website. An even longer version of Salas' testimony can be found on the NICAP website. In the interest of getting this information out, I have relied upon the "Fair Use" clause -- Section 107 of the Copyright Code -- and am sharing Salas' testimony in its entirety, as it is found on the CUFON website:

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"My recollection is that I was on duty as a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander below ground in the LCC, during the morning hours of 16 March 1967.

Outside, above the subterranean LCC capsule, it was a typical clear, cold Montana night sky; there were a few inches of snow on the ground. Where we were, there were no city lights to detract from the spectacular array of stars, and it was not uncommon to see shooting stars. Montana isn't called "Big Sky Country" for no reason, and Airmen on duty topside probably spent some of their time outside looking up at the stars. It was one of those airmen who first saw what at first appeared to be a star begin to zig-zag across the sky. Then he saw another light do the same thing, and this time it was larger and closer. He asked his Flight Security Controller -- FSC, the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) in charge of Launch Control Center site security -- to come and take a look. They both stood there watching the lights streak directly above them, stop, change directions at high speed and return overhead. The NCO ran into the building and phoned me at my station in the underground capsule. He reported to me that they had been seeing lights making strange maneuvers over the facility, and that they weren't aircraft. I replied: "Great. You just keep watching them and let me know if they get any closer."

I did not take this report seriously and directed him to report back if anything more significant happened. At the time, I believed this first call to be a joke. Still, that sort of behavior was definitely out of character for air security policemen whose communications with us were usually very professional.

A few minutes later, the security NCO called again. This time he was clearly frightened and was shouting his words:

"Sir, there's one hovering outside the front gate!"

"One what?"

"A UFO! It's just sitting there. We're all just looking at it. What do you want us to do?"

"What? What does it look like?"

"I can't really describe it. It's glowing red. What are we supposed to do?"

"Make sure the site is secure and I'll phone the Command Post."

"Sir, I have to go now, one of the guys just got injured."

Before I could ask about the injury, he was off the line. I immediately went over to my commander, Lt. Fred Meiwald, who was on a scheduled sleep period. I woke him and began to brief him about the phone calls and what was going on topside. In the middle of this conversation, we both heard the first alarm klaxon resound through the confined space of the capsule, and both immediately looked over at the panel of annunciator lights at the Commander's station. A 'No-Go' light and two red security lights were lit indicating problems at one of our missile sites. Fred jumped up to query the system to determine the cause of the problem. Before he could do so, another alarm went off at another site, then another and another simultaneously. Within the next few seconds, we had lost six to eight missiles to a 'No-Go' (inoperable) condition.

After reporting this incident to the Command Post, I phoned my security guard. He said that the man who had approached the UFO had not been injured seriously but was being evacuated by helicopter to the base. Once topside, I spoke directly with the security guard about the UFOs. He added that the UFO had a red glow and appeared to be saucer shaped. He repeated that it had been immediately outside the front gate, hovering silently.

We sent a security patrol to check our LFs after the shutdown, and they reported sighting another UFO during that patrol. They also lost radio contact with our site immediately after reporting the UFO.

When we were relieved by our scheduled replacement crew later that morning, the missiles had still not been brought on line by on-site maintenance teams.

Again, UFOs had been sighted by security personnel at or about the time Minuteman Strategic missiles shut down."

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Please note that Captain Salas said that five Launch Control Centers are under the jurisdiction of the 490th Strategic Missile Squadron, which, according to my research, has been stationed at the Malmstrom Air Force Base for almost forty years. Information from the mid 1990's indicates that these five LCCs are Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, and Oscar. As I mentioned earlier, the 490th Strategic Missile Squadron was not responsible for the Echo-Flight LCC. A map I found shows two LCCs located in Fergus County, Montana, about fifteen miles to the north/northeast of the town of Lewistown. These two Launch Control Centers, Echo-Flight LCC and Oscar-Flight LCC, each control ten LFs, or Launch Facilities. An LF is a military term for a missile silo. Each Launch Facility has one missile. Currently, most of these missiles are probably Minuteman III "G" model missiles, although some of the LFs may already be equipped with the newer Minuteman IV missiles.

To put things in perspective, Malmstrom AFB is located about eighty-five to one hundred miles west of these two LCCs and their accompanying missile silos. It is just to the east of Great Falls, Montana. The 490th Strategic Missile Squadron is responsible for a total of fifty missile silos; ten per LCC; and thus, a total of fifty Minuteman ICBM missiles. At the Global Security website, I found the following description of the LCC and LF layout:

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"The Minuteman missile is maintained on alert in an unmanned, hardened underground launch facility (LF) approximately 80 feet deep, 12 feet in diameter, and covered by a 100-ton blast door which is blown prior to missile launch. A launcher support building (LSB) buried near the launch tube contains environmental control equipment and standby power sources. An electronic surveillance system is used at the LF to detect intruders. The missiles are deployed in "circular" flights of ten missiles controlled by a single, centrally located launch control center (LCC) manned by a Missile Combat Crew. The LCC contains all equipment needed by the crew to control and monitor the missile and the LF. Each LCC is separated from the others by a minimum of 14 miles and is buried at a depth of 40 to 100 feet below grade. The missile alert facility (MAF) topside contains living quarters and support equipment for the facility meager (FM), cook, and security personnel. The 490 MS consists of 50 LFs, located at least three miles from adjacent missiles for survivability, arranged in five flights (Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, and Oscar), all redundantly interconnected by a buried, hardened cable network which connect them with the LCCs. Each LCC continually monitors the operational status and security of the ten missiles and LFs in its own flight and has the capability to control, monitor, and launch all 50 missiles in the squadron. Launch, if directed, must be commanded by at least two different LCCs in the squadron or by the airborne launch control center (ALCC) aboard a modified EC-135."

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Personally, I find all of this information very sobering, if not a bit unnerving. It shows how very serious the U.S.A. is regarding its defensive system. Perhaps the part that alarms me the most, is how easily an American president can launch an attack, if he deems it prudent to do so. There is no one between him and the LCCs. If he gives the order, they must follow it. Consider this:

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"The primary mission of each alert duty crew is the same: be prepared at any moment, upon receipt of valid execution orders initiated by the President of the United States, to launch one or more intercontinental ballistic missiles against enemy targets. The missile crew in effect responds directly to the President. There is no intermediate or intervening authority."

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As I'll be sharing in a moment, the Echo-Flight LCC observed UFOs, and experienced missile shut-downs that same morning in March of 1967. The testimony of Captain Salas appears to be corroborated by Lt. Colonel Dwynne Arneson, who seems to be describing the very same events discussed by Capt. Salas. In his testimony to The Disclosure Project, Arneson stated:

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"I was the top-secret control officer at Malmstom AFB for the 20th Air Division. I happened to see a message that came through my communications center. It said . . . that 'A UFO was seen near missile silos' . . . and it was hovering. It said that the crew going on duty and the crew coming off duty all saw the UFO just hovering in mid-air. It was a metallic circular object; and from what I understand, the missiles were all shut down. What I mean by 'missiles going down', is that they went dead. And something turned those missiles off, so they couldn't be put back in a mode for launching."

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The previous UFO incident, as described by Salas and Arneson, is commonly referred to in UFO circles as the Malmstrom AFB UFO Incident. The CUFON -- Computer UFO Network -- website offers additional information which helps us to fill in some of the details which are not included in the previous quotes from Captain Salas and Lt. Colonel Arneson; and tells us what was happening at the Echo-Flight Launch Control Center, at the same time that UFOs were also being observed about fourteen miles away at the Oscar-Flight LCC. Again, relying upon the "Fair Use" clause, I am sharing the following information written by Jim Klotz, as found on the CUFON website:

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"In central Montana, Thursday morning March 16 1967, Captain Eric Carlson and First Lieutenant. Walt Figel, the Echo-Flight Missile Combat Crew, were below ground in the E-Flight Launch Control Center (LCC) or capsule. The Echo Flight LCC was located between Winfred and Hilger, about fifteen miles north of Lewistown.

Missile maintenance crews and security teams were camped out at two of the Launch Facilities (LFs), having performed some work during the previous day and stayed there overnight. During the early morning hours, more than one report came in from the security patrols and maintenance crews that they had seen UFOs. A UFO was reported directly above one of the E-Flight (LF) or silos. It turned out that at least one security policeman was so affected by this encounter that he never again returned to missile security duty.

Around 8:30 a.m., Figel, the Deputy Crew Commander (DMCCC), was briefing Carlson, the Crew Commander (MCCC), on the flight status when the alarm horn sounded. One of the Minuteman missiles they supervised had gone off alert (become inoperable). It was one of the two sites where maintenance crews had camped out on-site. Upset, thinking that the maintenance personnel had failed to notify him as required by procedure when maintenance work is done on a missile, that the missile was going 'off-alert' status, Figel immediately called the missile site.

When Figel spoke with the on-site security guard, he reported that they had not yet performed any maintenance that morning. He also stated that a UFO had been hovering over the site. Figel recalls thinking the guard must have been drinking something. However, now other missiles started to go off alert in rapid succession! Within seconds, the entire flight of ten ICBMs was down! All of their missiles reported a "No-Go" condition. One by one across the board, each missile had became inoperable. When the checklist procedure had been completed for each missile site, it was discovered that each of the missiles had gone off alert status due to a Guidance and Control (G&C) System fault. Power had not been lost to the sites; the missiles simply were not operational because, for some unexplainable reason, each of their guidance and control systems had malfunctioned.

Two Security Alert Teams (SAT, "strike teams") were dispatched from Echo to those sites where the maintenance crews were present. Figel had not informed the strike teams that one of the on-site guards had reported a UFO. On arrival at the LFs, the SAT reported back that UFOs had been seen hovering over each of the two sites by all of the maintenance and security personnel present at each site.

Captain Don Crawford's crew relieved the Echo Flight crew later that morning. Crawford recalls that both Carlson and Figel were still visibly shaken by what had occurred. Crawford also recalled that the maintenance crews worked on the missiles the entire day and late into the night during his shift to bring them all back on alert. Not only had missiles been lost to our deterrent forces, but had remained out of service for an entire day!

Because of this unique incident, as an ex-Missileer describes it: "All Hell broke loose!" Among the many calls to and from the E-Flight LCC one was to the MCCC of Oscar-Flight which links to the equally dramatic story of what happened in another LCC that same morning."

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So as you can plainly see by the previous testimonies, the personnel at two different Launch Control Centers and their adjoining Launch Facilities, had observed UFOs on that same morning in March of 1967. Furthermore, ICBM missiles at both locations became inoperative for reasons that were unknown to the personnel there. At the Echo-Flight Launch Command Center, all ten Minuteman missiles were mysteriously taken offline; and at the Oscar-Flight LLC, according to Salas' commander, five missiles were disabled. However, Capt. Salas continues to believe that it was more than five. Finally, both groups of people reported these UFO events to their superior officers, not realizing that the other LCC was experiencing the very same thing.

While I have concentrated on the major events which occurred at the Echo-Flight and Oscar-Flight Launch Control Centers, please note that there were other UFO sightings which were directly related to these two events, but which occurred not only before them, but after them as well; and they happened in the very same general region of Montana. Again, I'm going to share some additional information from the CUFON website:

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"According to articles from the Great Falls Tribune newspaper, on February 8, 1967 Louis DeLeon saw two strange objects in the sky which did not look like airplanes and they glowed an orange and red color while driving east of Chester, Montana. Later, ten miles east of Chester, Jake Walkman was awakened by a bright light at his home. From his back yard he sighted a "flying saucer" shaped object. The next evening, George Kawanishi, a foreman for the Great Northern Railroad, saw a bright ball of light in the sky directly above the Chester train depot. These are but a few of the sightings which preceded the missile shutdown incidents later in March.

It was during this same period, according to Col. Don Crawford (USAF ret.), that a two person SAT, assigned to Echo Flight, was performing a routine check of the missile launch facilities a few miles north of Lewistown, Montana. As they approached one of the launch facilities, an astonishing sight caused the driver to slam on his brakes. Stunned in amazement, they watched as, about 300 feet ahead, a very large glowing object hovered silently directly over the launch facility. One of them picked up his VHF hand microphone and called then Captain Don Crawford who was the DMCCC on duty that evening.

"Sir, you wouldn't believe what I'm looking at," he said.

He described what they were seeing. Crawford didn't believe him at first but the young airman insisted he was telling the truth, his voice revealing his emotional state. Eventually Crawford took him seriously enough to call the Command Post to report it. The officer on duty at the Command Post refused to accept the report and simply stated, "We no longer record those kinds of reports," indicating he didn't want to hear about the UFO. Crawford unsure of what to tell his shaken security guard, decided to give the guard his permission to fire his weapon at the object if it seemed hostile.

"Thanks, sir, but I really don't think it would do any good,"

A few seconds later the object silently flew away.

There were sightings in the area before and after the missile shutdown incidents by military personnel and civilians."

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Following these events, naturally, an official investigation was undertaken in order to find out exactly what had caused the launch mechanisms to simultaneously fail on all the ICBM missiles. It was theorized that an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, from an unknown source might have been the culprit. Is it possible that this EMP may have originated from the UFOs that visited the two LCCs that morning? If so, were their occupants, be they humans or aliens, conveying the message that they are concerned about humanity's destructive nature, and our dangerous fixation with WMD, or weapons of mass destruction?

Ironically, as amazing as these events were, and even though they presented a danger from a defensive point of view, to this day, the United States Air Force continues to maintain that no UFO incident has ever presented a danger to national security. This statement directly contradicts what actually happened following the Malmstrom AFB UFO incident. I found out that beginning in that same year, 1967, a major upgrade of the weapons system at Malmstrom AFB was begun. Furthermore, a second major upgrade was initiated in April, 1977. Known as the Improved Launch Control System Program, among other improvements, this second systems upgrade provided electromagnetic pulse protection for some of the weapons system hardware and software. The upgrade was completed on March 1, 1979.

Obviously, this EMP protection came about as a result of the UFO intrusions at two LCCs that morning in March of 1967. So it seems to me that the military does in fact view UFOs, at least some UFOs, as being a direct threat to maintaining national security. In fact, in one declassified message that was sent from SAC headquarters during that time, it clearly states that the fact that all ten LFs were simultaneously neutralized, was a "cause for grave concern" at SAC headquarters.

Allow me to point out that I'm not saying that the occupants of all UFOs are a threat to humanity, as I honestly don't know what their intentions are concerning the inhabitants of Planet Earth. I don't know if they are hostile or not. As I have already stated, going by the amount of information that I have collected, it may very well be that some of them are good, while others are evil. If they are real, perhaps they are not much different from ourselves. Contrary to being a threat to us, these testimonies concerning the Malmstrom AFB UFO events would seem to indicate that, if anything, they are trying to prevent us from destroying ourselves. Through our modern technology, we have become a threat to ourselves. If alien intelligences exist, they obviously don't want us humans to carry our violence-prone nature into Outer Space.

While I've said that the occupants of the Malmstrom AFB UFOs may have intentionally knocked out the missiles at those two LCCs, in order to send humanity a clear message regarding the use of WMD, there also exists the possibility that they may not have even been aware that their crafts were having such an effect on the hardware and software at the LFs that day. Finally, while I have mentioned UFO occupants, perhaps we should also consider the possibility that these were not manned crafts at all. Perhaps they were remotely controlled crafts -- drones -- similar to those that are currently used by the U.S. military. Considering all of the information we have gone over, it may very well be that the events which occurred at these two locales, were actually psychological experiments being conducted by the military on their own people. Maybe they were testing some of their own new technology, in order to see how effective it would be against a foreign enemy's nuclear missiles. It is a possibility worth considering.

What I also find disturbing, is the fact that while the U.S. Government has long maintained that UFOs do not exist, in the case of the Malmstrom AFB UFO incident, all of the info concerning it, that was included in the 1967 unit histories for the 341st Strategic Missile Wing, was immediately buried and classified, so that it would never come to light. In his testimony that is found on the NICAP website, Captain Salas states in part concerning the intentional cover-up:

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"After that day, and through the time of my transfer from the base in June 1969, none of the crews, including ours, ever received any additional information on the incident. There was never a report of investigation that was released to the missile crews or any other explanation given of the incident. This was also unusual because we were given regular briefings about any technical areas of concern regarding the readiness of our weapons."

"The first unit history (January - March 1967, pg. 38) also has a brief statement suggesting reports of UFO activity. It states the following: "Rumors of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) around the area of Echo Flight during the time of fault were disproved. A Mobile Strike Team, which had checked all November Flight's LFs (launch facilities) on the morning of 16 March 67, were questioned, and stated that no unusual activity or sightings were observed." This statement was informative in that there would be no reason to query the November Flight strike team (security) about rumors of UFOs in the area of Echo Flight. This is the only reference to UFOs regarding this incident in any of the documents received from USAF and the statement is simply untrue. None of the reports we received from guards or maintenance personnel were ever retracted."

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In short, the U.S. Air Force was blatantly lying by stating that no UFOs had been seen in the area of the Echo-Flight Launch Command Center on that day. As Captain Salas states, the men who were directly involved in the incident, and who actually saw the UFOs, never retracted their statements; meaning that they stood by them. So why does the official USAF record -- the unit histories -- state that "no unusual activity or sightings were observed"?

Please go to part fifteen for the continuation of this series.

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