Thursday, January 05, 2012

New Reports of UFO Activity Near F.E. Warren AFB’s Nuclear Missile Sites

At Least Two More Sightings During the Last Half of 2011

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New Reports of UFO Activity Near F.E. Warren AFB’s Nuclear Missile Sites

Robert Hastings By Robert Hastings
www.ufohastings.com
© 1-3-11
     Those familiar with my UFO-Nukes Connection research already know about the long history of UFO incursions near nuclear weapons facilities, including ongoing incidents at various U.S. Air Force ICBM sites.

F.E. Warren AFB, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, has experienced such events since the early 1960s, when the base hosted first-generation Atlas missiles. One witness from that era, then-Airman 1st Class Arthur McEnaney, had been an Air Policeman assigned to the 809th Combat Defense Squadron, which provided security for the 566th Strategic Missile Squadron. One evening in August 1964, McEnaney and his fellow guards sighted a UFO above the four-silo Atlas launch complex they were patrolling.

“We were at Site 1, Pad 1,” McEnaney told me during a 2003 interview, “Around midnight we saw an object hovering over the site. It was round and shone brightly. After we reported it to the NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge), we were informed that interceptors had been dispatched from Denver and reported it to be a weather balloon. The only problem with that explanation was that no aircraft were seen in the area, and we were later told to keep quiet about it as it was national security. Our NCOIC, Staff Sergeant Fred Coffer, told us that.”

One year later, after the new Minuteman I missiles had been installed at F.E. Warren, UFOs spent several hours maneuvering around some of them during the period of July 31 to August 2, 1965. An intriguing declassified document about those incidents may be found at:


During interviews with former Minuteman launch officers and missile guards, conducted decades later, I was provided with many more details about these and similar sightings at the base. While the transcripts of several of those taped conversations appear in my 600-page book UFOs and Nukes, I will mention two of them here.

Several UFOs Simultaneously Hover Above F.E. Warren’s Echo Flight

In 2005, Jay Earnshaw told me, “I was a Captain, a Missile Combat Crew Commander or, early on, a Deputy Commander, primarily at Echo Flight. Between 1965 and 1968, except for assignments overseas, I was with all three squadrons at Warren—the 319th, the 320th and the 321st. Echo was assigned to the 319th. We did have [UFO] sightings at Echo Flight. There were times when our security forces up above would report strange things. Lights in the sky. Because I was a missile commander, the security people were required to call down to the [underground] capsule and report anything unusual going on up there. The information we got about the UFOs was that none of them came inside the fenced area [around the Echo Launch Control Facility] and none of them touched-down in the area outside the fence. As reported by the on-duty security controller, the [unexplained] lights visible from Echo Flight would have extended from the northwest to the southeast. So they were all just strange aerial lights, making no noise, that would stack on top of one another and then just disappear.”

Earnshaw continued, “The security people described them as oblong or, from the correct perspective, disc-like. No reported markings or navigation lights. If a color was reported, it was usually reddish or orange-ish shades. They were reported as ‘aloft’ or ‘up in the air’ but I don’t recall any mention of altitude—no reliable estimated distance other than ‘close.’”

Earnshaw then said firmly, “But we got reports from our security people that there were objects in the sky stacked up, one on top of the other, just hovering there. The Russians sure didn’t have the capability to do that! So that leaves only one other possibility. I am one who believes that we are not the only ones in the Universe and, well, I think someone might have been interested in what we were doing at our [nuclear missile] sites. I wasn’t one of the witnesses to these events, because I was underground in the capsule, but my second-hand information from the security people up above was that the objects were really there.”

Eight UFOs Hover Above F.E. Warren’s Quebec Flight

Another individual who has reported UFOs at F.E. Warren in 1965, then-Airman 2nd Class Robert Thompson, had been assigned to the 809th Combat Defense Squadron. He guarded the Quebec Flight Launch Control Facility, whose underground launch capsule controlled ten Minuteman I nuclear missiles. While on duty one night, Thompson got a strange call from the site’s Missile Combat Crew Commander, asking him and his partner to walk outside and look straight up.

“The launch crew in the capsule, and the guards topside, played practical jokes on one another quite often,” Thompson recalled, “When the commander called for us to step outside and look straight up, I thought that it was another joke.” However, as soon as he did so, Thompson’s attitude instantly changed. Directly overhead, he saw eight stationary lights, much brighter and larger than stars, grouped together in four pairs. Due to their altitude and brilliance, it was not possible to determine the objects’ shape or other details.

After a few moments, one light left its position and began to roam among the others, moving slowly from pair to pair. Thompson and his partner watched the mysterious aerial formation for about 10 minutes, before reporting the sighting to the missile commander. In response, Thompson was informed that NORAD, then located at Ent AFB, Colorado, had earlier notified F.E. Warren that its radars were tracking eight unknown objects hovering in the vicinity of the Quebec LCF. Apparently, the base’s Command Center had called the site and asked the missile commander to have his guards visually verify their presence in the sky.

Said Thompson, “I wasn’t sure what we were seeing until I reported back to the launch commander. When he told me of the report of UFOs from NORAD, I could tell by his voice that he wasn’t joking.” He added, “Please note, at that time, I was not a believer in stories of UFOs and little green men.”

A Cigar-Shaped UFO Frightens USAF Security Policemen in 1976

Retired USAF Minuteman missile launch officer Capt. Bruce Fenstermacher discusses the still-classified incident at F.E. Warren during my UFO and Nukes press conference in Washington D.C. on September 27, 2010. CNN streamed the event live and a full-length video may be viewed at:



The Large-Scale Missile Disruption Event of October 23, 2010

Such sightings at F.E. Warren’s missile sites have also occurred much more recently. The last known case to be investigated by myself involved multiple sightings of a huge, cigar-shaped craft by Air Force missile maintenance technicians on October 23, 2010—the same day the base temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 of its Minuteman III missiles. My in-depth report on the dramatic incident may be found at:



Now, however, two new F.E. Warren-related sighting reports have come to light. An as-yet anonymous source posted the following account online, under the title, “UFOs Spotted Near Air Force Base Missile Silos: Five glowing orbs witnessed over F.E. Warren Air Force Base”. The full text reads:
I observed five round brightly colored objects moving SW to me quietly at great speed. On August 5, 2011, at about 18:10 to 18:15 MDT, I was facing east (nearly 90 degrees true). I just happened to be looking for the Moon which I observed south (nearly 180 true), when I observed two objects approximately 3 degrees east of the Moon and the same south. They were moving at about a course of nearly 15 true. The first seemed to be moving ahead a little faster and opening the distance between them that I adjudged to be several degrees at first. They appeared to have some color in the setting sun. I watched them as they continued to separate a little and then slowly veer to the east to a heading between 15 true and maybe 45 true. As they now moved away from me they appeared closer together, that is, less separation.

Shortly, another object appeared from the same location, so I went to get binoculars. With the binoculars I could not resolve anything but a ball-like object. That is, no wings. The third object had bright red markings and some black. The fourth object appeared out of the same location and followed the same path except these seemed not to veer off to the east as much. The fourth object was a brilliant green, and could only be resolved to be round. The fifth object seemed to be as the first three; bright red with some markings. Since I had only a 45-degree field of view, blocked by a tree, my estimates of speed and altitudes are just that, estimates. Speed I [now] adjudge to be greater than Mach 1. I first thought greater than 500 nm [nautical miles-per-hour]. Altitude I adjudge to have been greater than 50,000 ft. There was no sonic boom. There was no sound of propulsion system.
END OF REPORT

Because I have not interviewed this individual myself or conducted an investigation of his/her statements, I can not personally vouch for the report. Nevertheless, at first glance, it seems credible to me and the witness appears to have aeronautical navigation training which permitted him/her to describe the objects’ positions in technical terms and probably helped him/her rule out astronomical bodies or mere aircraft as the source of the sighting. I am, therefore, currently attempting to learn more about the case, including the witness’ identity.

Even more recently, a second report was posted at the National UFO Reporting Center by (presumably) another anonymous source:

Occurred: 11/5/2011 21:30
Reported: 11/7/2011 10:43
Posted: 12/12/2011
Location: Torrington, WY
Shape: Cigar
Duration: A few seconds
I was on a hill enjoying the sunset. I fell asleep [but] woke up because of a very bright light in the sky. It soared past; it was so bright I had to look away. It was cigar-shaped and I had never seen anything like it before.
END OF REPORT

While frustratingly lacking in details, the location of the sighting—Torrington, Wyoming—is significant given that it is situated on the northern boundary of F.E. Warren’s Sierra Flight, which is composed of 10 Minuteman missiles scattered across the countryside south of town.

Anonymous reports are always exasperating for researchers because they are difficult to follow-up on and are especially vulnerable to the charge of hoaxing by skeptics, justifiably or not. Once again, I have not interviewed this individual myself or conducted an investigation of his/her statements, so I can not personally vouch for the report.

My plan is to approach local law enforcement personnel in the near future—a strategy that worked quite well in my investigation of the October 23, 2010 50-missile communications-disruption incident—to attempt to learn whether anyone else had reported such an object in the sky near Torrington on November 5, 2011. Sometimes a town’s police department or a county’s sheriff’s department receives calls about such sightings which are then recorded in their official logs known as blotters.

Regardless, I am mentioning this still-unevaluated sighting—as well as the one occurring on August 5, 2011—in the hope that someone reading this will be able to shed some light on either case, or reveal similar sightings in the region in recent months. Such reports, should they materialize, will be thoroughly investigated by me on a case-by-case basis, in an effort to learn whether they are bona fide UFO sightings or merely misidentifications of prosaic phenomena.

More Falsehoods From The Notorious James Carlson

Over the past few years, a rather bizarre and disreputable individual, James T. Carlson, has polluted cyberspace with countless lies about me and my ex-military sources. He has accused me of fraud, of doctoring tape recordings, of misrepresenting my sources’ statements in my articles and book, and similar unfounded accusations.

Predictably, I suppose, just days ago I learned that Carlson now accuses me of perpetrating a hoax related to the dramatic events at F.E. Warren AFB on October 23, 2010, when the base temporarily lost the ability to communicate with (or launch) 50 of its ICBMs. According to two now-retired USAF missile maintenance technicians, a huge UFO was sighted that day by several technical teams in the field. Those revelations are discussed at length in the article at my website referenced earlier.

This kind of baseless allegation by Carlson is nothing new, given his long track record of blatant lies, gross distortions, and completely unsupported claims.

Carlson’s campaign of hostility against me commenced in 2008, shortly after I began discussing UFO activity at ICBM sites operated by Malmstrom AFB, Montana in the 1960s. Carlson’s father, Eric, had been a Minuteman missile launch officer at the base during that era and was on duty at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967, when UFOs were reported to be in the vicinity—at the very moment when all ten of the flight’s ICBMs mysteriously malfunctioned.

During several interviews, the elder Carlson has denied that any UFOs were present at the time of the incident, despite the tape-recorded confessions of the other launch officer on duty that day, now-retired Col. Walter Figel, who says that he did indeed receive a report from one of his guards of a “large, round object” hovering “directly over” one of the Echo ICBMs seconds before it dropped-off alert status and became unlaunchable. My taped conversations with Col. Figel may be heard at:


Despite these dramatic revelations, James Carlson still insists that his father, Eric, is telling the truth, and that no UFOs were present at Echo Flight when the missiles failed.

James’ incessant blogging on this topic has grown increasingly disturbing over time. In one especially revealing incident, a few weeks ago Carlson engaged in a lengthy, contentious debate with an anonymous blogger who had been defending my work. Although I had absolutely nothing to do with that exchange, Carlson was unshakably certain that it was I who he was engaging in battle and the increasingly elaborate fantasies he wove when addressing “me” are weird in the extreme.

This strange episode pointedly illustrates James Carlson’s paranoid, reality-detached personality. He remains utterly convinced that I was responding to his own posts on that particular blog, even though I had been recovering from cataract surgery at the time and could barely focus my eyes for several days, let alone read. Nevertheless, the thought that someone else in cyberspace might actually want to defend my well-documented research was apparently an impossibility in Carlson’s obstinate mind and he remains convinced, even now, that I am lying about all of this.

And, I might add, James is equally convinced that his father, Eric Carlson, has told him the absolute truth about the Echo Flight missile-shutdown incident—that is, no UFOs were reported in the vicinity when it occurred—despite the tape recorded testimony to the contrary from the other officer involved in the still-classified event, Col. Walter Figel.

Among other things, Figel explicitly told me that he and James’ father had been directed not to talk about the presence of UFOs during the missile shutdown, an order he had complied with until 1996, when he privately confessed the facts to former USAF Captain Robert Salas during another audio taped conversation. (Salas had been involved in another missile shutdown incident, at Oscar Flight, eight days after the events at Echo, something confirmed by retired Col. Frederick Meiwald, who was Salas’ missile commander that day.) While Walter Figel’s personal skepticism about UFOs remains intact, he now readily admits that he had received multiple reports of a hovering UFO at Echo Flight from his deadly-serious guards in the field.

In any case, James Carlson’s deep-denial delusions aside, some rather interesting UFO-related events continue to occur in the U.S. Air Force’s missile fields—in particular the one operated by F.E. Warren AFB—nearly to the present day. I will update the reader on my impending investigation of the most recent reports from the Wyoming base in the weeks ahead.

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