Fmr Lt. Robert M. Jacobs Who Captured UFO On Film Takes AARO To Task

Messing With an American Hero

"I will not, however stand-by and let them defame and slander an American hero, fighter pilot, test pilot, photo interpreter, then-Major Florenze J. Mansmann, later Stanford Research Fellow, Doctor Florenze J, Mansmann, PhD. ..."

Dr. Bob Jacobs has asked me to forward this statement to members of AARO, past and present. It is also being sent to other interested parties, including prominent journalists, and will be posted at The UFO Chronicles website–Robert Hastings My name is Robert M. “Bob” Jacobs, PhD. I am Full Professor Emeritus in Communication at Bradley University located in Peoria, Illinois.

By Robert Jacobs 8-1-2025

Among many other things before this, I was First Lieutenant Robert M Jacobs, Officer in Charge of the Photo-Optical Instrumentation Section of the 1369th Photographic Squadron at Vandenberg Air Force Base. My section of 135 NCOs and Airmen provided high-speed motion picture coverage of every single ICBM launched down the Western Test Range from about 30 cameras located on and around the launch pad, as well four-to-six high-speed, long focal length lensed cameras mounted on trackers from three different locations around the pad.

During my three-and-one-half-year tenure there I became extremely well adept at analyzing thousands of feet of film showing up close and personal views of missiles launching and flying off to wherever. I’ve attached a copy of one of my Officer Efficiency Reports (OERs) to demonstrate the confidence my superior officers had in my performance of duties. I was also awarded The Air Force Guided Missile Badge for “Making a significant contribution to America’s Missile and Space Program.” I wrote a report entitled, “Deliberate Deception: A Critical Analysis of the Curious Events at Vandenberg Air Force Base in September, 1964.” It was published in The MUTUAL UFO Journal, Number 249, January 1989.

-click on images to enlarge-

I wrote that piece to clarify and specify what had been reported first in 1982 in a badly butchered version of my statement in the National Enquirer rag. That article had stimulated a flurry of calls and letters from “researchers” around the country. I stand behind the UFO Journal piece.

In short, many know that I reported having been in-charge of a new tracking site that I made near Anderson Peak at Big Sur, California. Corporate engineers from aerospace companies, the builders of the missiles, wanted to know if we could provide tracking coverage showing missile in flight downrange from a side view. I found such a site and began showing coverage that delighted those engineers.

One day I got a call from Major Florenze J. Mansmann, chief photo analyst in the Office of the Chief Scientist at the First Strategic Aerospace Division Headquarters on base. I had worked with Major Mansmann a number of times on other projects. He informed me that a new device for tracking missiles was being flown out from Cape Canaveral to our Big Sur site. I was dispatched to meet what was the Boston University Telescope and its creator Doctor Walt Manning.

My team and I did so, helped install the impressive scope on site and a day or two later, we captured on film a UFO firing four beams of light and disabling one of our dummy nuclear reentry vehicles in near-space on a trajectory to Eniwetok Lagoon. “Deliberate Deception” provides details of that event.

Some years later now, I received a note from a friend showing me that Wikipedia has published a factoid that Big Sur was all a mistake and that I had simply misinterpreted what I saw, even after analyzing hundreds of other film images of missiles in flight, and that my account—after numerous retellings by me in writing, in podcasts, TV series, a motion picture, and personal testimonies including to AARO—has been dismissed by that august body as my having mistaken what I saw as chaff and a few decoys of ours. This conclusion, reached by the then-AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick, is based on an article from the “esteemed” publication, Skeptical Enquirer, authored by the late Kingston A. George.

He was a civilian analyst who did, in fact, participate in bringing the BU Telescope to Vandenberg. He was on the site when the tool arrived, and we had pictures taken together to prove it. I never saw him again after that day, but I did read a report he issued after the experiments with it were over. In response to my MUFON article, he was solicited by the guy who ran Skeptical Enquirer to rebut me. George did so by testifying that he knew of an ‘anomaly’ on one Atlas launch code named, “Buzzing Bee” and that it involved some “chaff” and the releases of “decoys” and that he saw this film “a couple of weeks after the launch” and I believe him. However, “Buzzing Bee” was NOT the event that I filmed.

Mine, on 15 September 1964 was code named, “Butterfly Net” and my account of the UFO event in it has been verified by Major Mansmann and others who have actually seen the film image, including Lue Elizondo.

George’s testimony that he saw my film a couple of weeks later has been proven not to be true. And that is simply because, as Major Mansmann testified in writing, that film was snipped from the reel with a pair of scissors and taken back East that very day by the CIA. That film was never at Vandenberg after that day so, as Lt. Colonel Tim Phillips of AARO has falsely reported, they could not have recently gone back to Vandenberg, recovered the original 35mm and 45mm original film and verified George’s account. Well, there never was any 45mm film, and there was no 35mm or 16mm film left at Vandenberg for Tim or Sean to have looked at.

Period. They lied.

So, I am now relegated to the scrapheap of morons reporting on UFOs. Another victim of the ongoing, orchestrated campaign of propaganda and disinformation from our own government.

Tim and Sean may not have seen my film images. But other contemporaries have. It still exists, as Lue assured me.

My train is nearing the end of its long run sooner than I would have liked. At that moment of checking-out I would like to know that someone finally cleans out the barrel at AARO, DoD and the rest, and that full disclosure comes to the land. Asked by someone recently if I believed in UFOs. I said, “Certainly not. I believe in many things because I can’t know them based on lack of evidence. I do KNOW things though, and that transcends believing in them. I know, full-well that UFOs are real. They have been here a long time. I also know I filmed one committing what would have been an act of war by any terrestrial adversary.

And revealing that one event has cost me my honor, reputation, a couple of teaching jobs, an explosion in my mailbox, evil phone calls in the night and brooding anger at the pinheads who slander, defame, belittle, and deride anyone who makes them quiver in their cubbyholes by challenging their paradigm.

I will not, however stand-by and let them defame and slander an American hero, fighter pilot, test pilot, photo interpreter, then-Major Florenze J. Mansmann, later Stanford Research Fellow, Doctor Florenze J, Mansmann, PhD who examined my film frame-by-frame with a jewelers loupe and described in writing, in detail, the flying saucer-shaped UFO with a dome on top moving into position to fire beams of light four times, striking the reentry vehicle.

Damn you Sean Kirkpatrick, damn you Timmy Phillips you cowardly scum. I knew him well. You bozos did not. How dare you dismiss his verification of my account based on a mistake made by Kingston George. I can only hope that the preponderance of evidence catches up with you one day and proves “what fools you mortals be.”

See Also:

	Officer Who Filmed UFO Downing Missile Sets the Record Straight
	Big Sur UFO Film: Government Whistleblower Reveals He Watched It
	Mansmann Letters

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

UFOs at Missile Base: AARO Deputy Director Misstates Facts

Below is an email that I recently sent to former and current members of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO): Title: ICBM Shutdowns at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967 From: ufohastings@aol.com To: [Redacted] Mon, Aug 4 at 8:34 AM

By Robert Hastings The UFO Chronicles 8-6-2025

Due to my extensive research on UFO (UAP) activity at nuclear weapons sites, investigative journalist Marik von Rennenkampff asked me to review his findings regarding two major incidents, presented below, and to direct them to members of AARO, former and current.

—Robert Hastings

[-begin email from Marik von Rennenkampff-]

To Whom It May Concern,

In two recent interviews, former All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Deputy Director Timothy Phillips stated that AARO will address select reports of incidents involving UFOs and nuclear weapons in a forthcoming historical report. According to Phillips, AARO determined that a “cascading transformer failure” triggered by an “electrical storm”, and not UFO activity, led to the March 1967 shutdown of a 10-missile “flight” of nuclear-armed Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana.

Conversely, a 6 June 2025 Wall Street Journal story, citing AARO officials, states that an unannounced Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) test caused the shutdown.

However, official unit histories of the 341st Strategic Missile Wing (SMW), other U.S. government documents, and witness testimony flatly contradict both explanations.

Phillips also stated that AARO “did not see any evidence of UAP or UFO activity in the journals or logs” of airfields and radar installations in the vicinity of Malmstrom Air Force Base during the incidents in question. This, too, is contradicted by official U.S. government documents, contemporaneous media reporting, and witness testimony.

Of note, there are two incidents in question:

(1) The shutdown of Echo Flight on 16 March 1967

(2) The shutdown of Oscar Flight on 24 March 1967

Significant official documentation exists in the public domain regarding the former, while none exists regarding the latter. This is likely due to the non-disclosure agreements that the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) required missile launch officer 1st Lt. Robert Salas, his then-missile commander, 1st Lt. Frederick Meiwald, and, presumably, other witnesses to the 24 March 1967 incident to sign.

Beyond the March 1967 incidents at Malmstrom AFB, official U.S. government documents, contemporaneous media reporting, and witness testimony suggest that at least one other similar incident occurred at Minot AFB in 1966.

Malmstrom AFB:

Immediately after the 16 March 1967 shutdown of Echo Flight, testing began at Malmstrom to determine the cause of the incident. Official 341st SMW unit histories state that, following initial testing, “the investigation teams at Malmstrom were unable to determine a logical cause for the incident.”

Contrary to Phillips’ statements (and AARO’s apparent findings), the 341st SMW unit history spanning 1 January – 31 March 1967 states that, “After performing the tests, it was decided that commercial power switching operations were not the cause of the Echo shutdown.” (Emphasis added; see appendices for full sourcing).

Following additional testing at contractor facilities throughout mid-1967 and final testing again at Malmstrom, official 341st SMW unit histories, some written nearly a year after the incident, rule out an electrical fault or power issue. Instead, engineers and contractors speculated that an Electromagnetic Pulse may have caused the shutdown.

See:

“Due to the fact that the power tests were essentially negative, it appears that the cause of the Echo Flight problem was of the EMP or electrostatic nature.” (Emphasis added) (1 April – 30 June 1967 341st SMW Unit History; PDF p. 38)

“A primary cause always associated with Echo Flight Incident has been connected with some type of adverse power affect [sic]. Tests have been conducted time and time again to determine this, but have always lead [sic] to a negative result.” (Emphasis added) (1 July – 30 September 1967 341st SMW Unit History; PDF p. 51)

“One of the primary theorys [sic] of the Echo Flight incident was connected with some type of adverse power effect. All test [sic] conducted toward this end proved negative results. (Emphasis added) (1 October – 31 December 1967 341st SMW Unit History; PDF p. 77)

“OOAMA thought that the cause of the incident was of the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) noise or electrostatic nature.” (1 July – 30 September 1967 341st SMW Unit History; PDF p. 48)

“The EMP tests at Sierra-39 were considered to be the final series of tests in this area.” (1 October – 31 December 1967 341st SMW Unit History; PDF p. 77)

Additionally, as noted in the 1 January – 31 March 1967 341st SMW unit history, and contrary to Phillips’ assertion, “weather was ruled out as a contributing factor” in the 16 March Echo Flight shutdown. (See also: “Weather condition and Capsule crew have been eliminated as causes of the incident.”)

Similarly, according to the unit history, the Echo Flight shutdown occurred before (at “0845”) any reported transformer malfunctions. The first documented power failure occurred when a “7.2 KV transformer shorted in the line to site E-3 at 1450, 16 March 67.” (Emphasis added)

Beyond official unit histories, former Boeing engineer Robert Kaminski, who served as the Boeing in-house project engineer for the investigation of the Echo Flight shutdown, wrote in a 1 February 1997 letter (attached) to researcher James Klotz that, “After a week in the field the team returned and pooled their data. At the outset the team quickly noticed a lack of anything that would come close to explain why the event occurred. There were no significant failures, engineering data or findings that would explain how ten missiles were knocked off alert.” (Emphasis added)

According to Kaminski, “The use of backup power systems and other technical system circuit operational redundancy strongly suggests that this kind of event is virtually impossible once the system was up and running and on line with other LCF’s and LF’s interconnectivity. The only thing that even came close to a failure was that a transformer on a commercial power pole down the road from one of the sites was in the process of failing. It exhibited a[n] intermittent transient type of failure that could have generated noise spikes on the power line. This in itself could not have caused the problem at E-Flight. The problem was reported to the local power company who took action to replace the transformer. The team met with me to report their findings and it was decided that the final report would have nothing significant in it to explain what happened at E-Flight. In other words there was no technical explanation that could explain the event.” (Emphasis added)

Kaminski continued, “The team went off to do the report. Meanwhile I was contacted by our representative at OOAMA (Don Peterson) and told by him that the incident was reported as being a UFO event – That a UFO was seen by some Airmen over the LCF at the time E-Flight went down. Subsequently, we were notified a few days later, that a stop work order was on the way from OOAMA to stop any further effort on this project. We stopped. We were also told that we were not to submit the final engineering report. This was most unusual since all of our work required review by the customer and the submittal of a final Engineering report to OOAMA.” (Emphasis added)

Beyond Kaminski’s account, Robert Hastings, author of UFOs & Nukes, has documented witness accounts from missile launch control and targeting officers, as well as other persons involved in both the 16 March and 24 March incidents. These include Col Walt Figel (Echo Flight, missile launch deputy commander), T/Sgt N. Henry “Hank” Barlow (Echo Flight, electro-mechanical team), Col Frederick Meiwald (Oscar Flight, missile commander), Capt Robert Jamison (Oscar Flight, missile targeting officer), LtCol Dwynne Arneson (Officer-in-Charge, Malmstrom AFB communications center), and 1st Lt Robert Salas (Oscar Flight, missile launch deputy commander). All of them attest to UFO activity coincident with both the Echo and Oscar missile flight shutdowns. (Robert Hastings)

Moreover, contrary to Phillips’ claim that no UFO activity was reported during the incidents, extensive Project Blue Book files document such activity on 24 March 1967. A Telex from Malmstrom AFB to Wright-Patterson AFB and various Air Force offices in Washington, D.C., for example, states that “Between the hours of 2100 and 0400 MST numerous reports were received by Malmstrom AFB agencies of UFO sightings in the Great Falls, Montana area. Reports of a UFO landing near Belt, Montana were received from several sources including deputies of Cascade County Sheriff’s Office.” (National Archives)

Contemporaneous news reporting also contradicts Phillips’ assertion that no UFO activity was recorded at local airfields or radar stations. A 26 March 1967 Great Falls Tribune article on the reported UFO landing near Belt, MT, titled “UFO Breaks Monotony of Run,” states that “Airmen at Malmstrom Air Force Base reported sighting a UFO about 5 to 10 miles northeast of the base at 3:30 a.m. Saturday. FAA radar picked up the object at 3:42 a.m. to the northwest and reported it was off the radar at 4:26 a.m.” (Emphasis added) (Newspapers.com)

For additional details, see: “Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base,” 25 March 1967, Great Falls Leader (The UFO Chronicles)

In short, a significant amount of official U.S. government documentation, contemporaneous media reporting, and witness testimony directly contradicts Phillips’ statements (and, apparently, AARO’s conclusions) regarding the 1967 Malmstrom AFB incidents.

Minot Air Force Base 1966:

Recommend AARO review the following:

19 August 1966: U.S. Border Patrol Officer Donald Flickinger observes a disk-shaped UFO at close range along the western edge of Minot AFB’s Mike missile flight. Flickinger draws detailed sketches (See: National Archives). Note, also, static interference with Flickinger’s radio. (National Archives; Saturday Evening Post; Minot Daily News)

25 August 1966: Minot Air Force Base tracks two UFOs over Mike missile flight. Per official U.S. government documentation, missile commander “on duty at Missile Site (MIKE Flt)… indicated that radio transmission was being interrupted by static, this static was accompanied by the UFO coming close to the missile site (MIKE Flt). When UFO climbed, static stopped.”

Additionally: “Strike team reported UFO descending, checked with Radar Site they also verified this. The UFO then began to swoop and dive. It then appeared to land 10 to 15 miles South of MIKE 6. ‘MIKE 6’ missile site control sent a strike team to check. When the team was about 10 miles from the landing sight [sic], static disrupted radio contact with them [emphasis original]… Another UFO was visually sighted and confirmed by radar. The one that was first sighted passed beneath the second. Radar also confirmed this.” (Saturday Evening Post; Minot Daily News; Robert Hastings)

25 September 1966: Former Minot Air Force Base missile launch control officer Capt. David Schindele arrives at November Flight (adjacent to Mike Flight) Launch Control Facility to see that all 10 November Flight missiles are off-alert status following a close-range UFO incident the previous night. Per Schindele, Air Force OSI instructed him to never speak of the incident. (Schindele testimony)

Sincerely,

Marik von Rennenkampff

Appendix A: Tim Phillips Comments

“There was some work done with the national labs dealing with a cascading transformer failure at one of the missile ranges [Malmstrom]… The missile silos were actually connected to the commercial grid for power. They did have their critical power, they had their own generators but for cost-savings they were connected to the commercial grid; dual-power feeds. There was an electrical disturbance, there were some storms, and the filtering, the capacitors that would have shielded the critical systems in the missile silos from an energy surge coming through the commercial grid failed and actually took some of the missile silos down.” (Interview with Mick West, 17 June 2025)

“There’s been new stories about an EMP test that I was not privy to when I was still in the government. What I knew about was a report of a cascading transformer failure where there was [an] electrical storm and the silos were actually connected to the commercial power grid, however they did have their own generators and critical power and they would switch off to their own generators so power would not be interrupted. There was some electrical disturbance that actually defeated those filters, and the silos themselves were taken offline by a cascading transformer failure.” (Interview with John Michael Godier, 2 July 2025)

“There were also some reports of security personnel who were up above who, in some of the stories, they saw UFOs or things that they could not understand. We were able to get logs at the various towers and we did not see any evidence of UAP or UFO activity in the journals and logs that AARO actually got to investigate.” (Interview with John Michael Godier, 2 July 2025)

Appendix B: Excerpts from 341st Strategic Missile Wing Unit Histories

1 January – 31 March 1967:

“On 16 March 1967 at 0845, all sites in Echo (E) Flight, Malmstrom AFB, shutdown with No-Go Indication of Channels 9 and 12 on Voice Reporting Signal Assemble (VRSA). (PDF p. 7)

“The initial time of the incident, decided by the crew, could be no more than two or three minutes earlier than the official log of 0845.” (PDF p. 11)

“Weather was ruled out as a contributing factor in the incident.” (PDF p. 14)

“Rumors of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) around the area of Echo Flight during the time of the fault were disproven.” (PDF p. 14)

“The power outage that affected E-1 at 1453 on 16 March 67, occurred on the 7.2/12.5 kilo volts (KV) transmission line from Winifred Substation.” (PDF p. 16)

“Weather condition and Capsule crew have been eliminated as causes of the incident.” (PDF p. 16)

“A 7.2 KV transformer shorted in the line to site E-3 at 1450, 16 March 67.” (PDF p. 20)

“On 28 March 67, the 341st SMW in conjunction with the Montana Power Company conducted a switching test on the 50 KV high voltage line between the Harlowton and Glengarry substations. The test was performed at the request of OOAMA/OONE as a part of the initial Echo Flight incident investigation performed at Malmstrom. The intent of the test was to verify correlation, if possible, between high voltage switching and launch facility shutdown or other launch facility faults.” (PDF p. 20)

“After performing the tests, it was decided that commercial power switching operations were not the cause of the Echo shutdown.” (PDF p. 21)

“The investigation teams at Malmstrom, were unable to determine a logical cause for the incident.” (PDF p. 21)

1 April – 30 June 1967:

“A test plan was reviewed to accomplish the transformer failure simulation tests at Malmstrom. Boeing had co-ordinated with the power company, and had received their approval for the tests.” (PDF p. 35)

“The power tests were accomplished at Malmstrom AFB during the week of 15 May 67… Information on the Sensitive Information Network lines and on the commercial primary power lines showed no significant noise propagation as a result of simulating the transformer failure.” (PDF p. 36)

“Due to the fact that the power tests were essentially negative, it appears that the cause of the Echo Flight problem was of the EMP or electrostatic nature.” (PDF p. 38)

1 July – 30 September 1967:

“OOAMA thought that the cause of the incident was of the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) noise or electrostatic nature.” (PDF p. 48)

“A primary cause always associated with Echo Flight Incident has been connected with some type of adverse power affect [sic]. Tests have been conducted time and time again to determine this, but have always lead [sic] to a negative result.” (PDF p. 51)

“On 28 September 1967, Sierra 39, 564th SMS, was depostured and turned over to Boeing for EMP tests.” (PDF p. 51)

1 October – 31 December 1967:

“In direct relation to the Echo Flight incident as covered in the April – June 1967 History of the 341st SMW was the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) testing conducted throughout the quarter.” (PDF p. 76)

“One of the primary theorys [sic] of the Echo Flight incident was connected with some type of adverse power effect. All test [sic] conducted toward this end proved negative results. The EMP tests at Sierra-39 were considered to be the final series of tests in this area.” (PDF p. 77)

Appendix C: Power Distribution to Echo, Delta, Mike, Oscar Flights

Launch Facilities (LFs) E-2-6, E-9-11 Supplied by Different Substations than E-7, E-8

(PDF p. 17)

Kaminski To Klotz Letter 2-1-1997

See Also:

	Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; "Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base"
	The UFOs-Nukes Connection Press Conference: Witness Affidavits and Declassified Documents
	VIDCAST: Former Boeing Engineer, Robert Kaminski Confirms UFO Activity at Echo Flight Missile Launch Control Facility in 1967

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

UFOs and Nukes Veteran Researcher, Robert Hastings — A Candid Interview

In a thought-provoking exchange on the New Thinking Allowed YouTube channel, host Jeffrey Mishlove PhD, interviews Robert Hastings, the foremost researcher on the connection between UFOs and nuclear weapons. Hastings, the author of UFOs and

By The UFO Chronicles 7-21-2025

Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, shares highlights from decades of investigative work during which he interviewed more than 160 military veterans who either personally witnessed or were ancillary witnesses to unexplained aerial phenomena (UFOs/UAP) at ICBM sites, weapons storage facilities, and other nukes-related locations.

Hastings details multiple cases; in one terrifying incident, involving a “flight” of ten Minuteman ICBMs outside of Minot AFB, North Dakota, a UFO was reported in the sky by US Air Force security guards, as it moved from missile to missile. Meanwhile, down in the subterranean launch capsule, the two launch officers were shocked to see that their missile-status console suddenly displayed a “LAUNCH IN PROGRESS” indicator associated with each of those ICBMs! One of them, Captain David Schuur, was forced to repeatedly flip an Inhibit Switch each time the UFO moved toward and hovered over another missile, to stop the progression-to-countdown sequence.

Hastings adds that an equally frightening and inexplicable unauthorized launch activation also occurred in the then-Soviet Union, as evidenced by documents smuggled out of the country by journalist George Knapp. In that October 1982 incident, a large disc-shaped craft briefly hovered over an intermediate-range nuclear missile base, just as the missiles suddenly went into launch-countdown mode, before unaccountably returning to normal stand-by status.

Hastings speculates on an explanation: The Non-Human Intelligences associated with the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon seem intent on signaling to humanity the risks and disastrous consequences of nuclear conflict. Hastings emphasizes the consistent efforts by governments to suppress or downplay these reports, and suggests that the implications of these cases go far beyond national security, touching on larger existential and consciousness-related questions.

Beyond the technical and historical, Hastings discusses his own personal experiences with non-human entities since childhood, a secret he kept from the public for decades.

See Also:

	The UFOs-Nukes Connection Press Conference: Witness Affidavits and Declassified Documents
	Self-Confessed UFO Abductees Robert Hastings and Dr. Bob Jacobs to Appear on Coast to Coast AM
	Launch in Progress!
	UFOs, Nuclear Weapons and Drones – Interview with Noted Researcher, Robert Hastings

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

USAF Security Policeman Sights Orbs Near ICBM Launch Site

Between 1973 and 2010, I interviewed 167 former/retired US military personnel regarding their nuclear weapons-related UFO encounters. More than a hundred of those accounts were presented in the second edition of my book, UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites. [ad] Since 2010, I’ve more or less ceased investigating the topic, primarily due to advancing age. Recently, however, another military veteran contacted me after reading a post by Joe Murgia on X (@TheUfoJoe) regarding my work. I was of course interested in what he had to say.

By Robert Hastings The UFO Chronicles 7-8-2025

Former US Air Force Security Policeman Devin C. Lingo emailed me and briefly summarized an incident he witnessed while stationed at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, in 1995, involving two orbs maneuvering near a Minuteman-III nuclear missile launch facility (LF).

I asked Lingo to provide me with his DD214 document, which is a Department of Defense record of his military service. It confirmed that he had been stationed at Malmstrom beginning in February 1995, and had been a Security Police/Security Forces member assigned to the 12th Missile Squadron.

Once his bona fides had been established, I called Lingo. He told me,

At the time, I was an Airman, a trainee, preparing to become a full-fledged member of an Alert Response Team (ART). The person supervising my training was an Airman 1st Class named Brent Mullings. Our particular group of ARTs would rapidly respond to alarms at any of the Fox Flight missile sites, to determine whether or not there was a real security threat.

On the day of my sighting, we had six alarms at one LF! That was a record, at least for me, during the years that I worked there. The site was Launch Facility Fox-2, located on Pishkun Road, just west of the town of Choteau, Montana.

The first Outer Zone alarm came in around 6:00 p.m. We quickly proceeded out there to investigate. Our alarms were triggered by the sensors on the IMPSS pole at each site. That’s the Improved Minuteman Physical Security System, which is basically a motion-detection system. Almost all of the time, an alarm was set-off by a wild animal or something like that.

That evening, we discovered a rabbit inside the fence. I tried to scare it away by throwing rocks at it, but it kept hiding inside a culvert. Eventually we left but, over the next several hours, we had to return five more times to reset the alarms.

I asked Lingo why they didn’t just shoot the rabbit. He responded, “The only way we had to kill it was with our duty weapons—M-16 A2 rifles—and that wasn't an option. Had we returned to base after our [shift] and turned-in our weapons to the armory with missing rounds, it would have been a big deal. Also, I personally wouldn't have felt good about killing a rabbit over an alarm.”

He continued,

My orb sighting took place during our last visit, at roughly 4:00 a.m. I had gotten out of the truck and was standing on the site access road. As I was facing west towards the Rockies, in my peripheral vision I saw a small reddish glow in the sky. For a moment, I thought that it might be the Northern Lights.

I turned my head to the right and immediately saw that it was actually a small, glowing object, just hovering there. I couldn’t tell how far away it was. As I was trying to figure out what I was looking at, another object just like it, but blue in color, suddenly appeared. It was to the left of the red one. They were very close together, from my perspective, and at the same altitude. Both seemed to shimmer as if they were energized somehow.

I was stunned! I had no idea what I was looking at. After a few seconds, the red object blinked-out. Gone, just like that. A second or two later, the blue object shot straight up into the sky and instantly disappeared. There was no noise.

During this final alarm of the night, Brent felt sorry for me because I had already conducted the five previous searches, so he decided to run the final one himself. So I just stood there on the LF access road, covering him and giving status-updates to our Flight Security Controller on the two-way radio.

During the time-frame when I noticed the orbs, Brent was doing his detailed search on the LF. His focus would have been on searching the ground within the fence with his flashlight. I’m sure that he didn’t see them.

I was the new guy, the trainee, so I quickly decided that I wouldn’t mention what I saw to Brent, or anyone else. I was afraid that they would think I was crazy. I was worried about losing my PRP.

(RH: Anyone assigned to work with or around nuclear weapons is subject to a Department of Defense directive known as the Personnel Reliability Program, or PRP. An individual whose conduct, on or off-the-job, is judged by his or her superiors to be suspect and, therefore, a potential threat to the weapons, may be ordered to undergo psychological evaluation and risks being relieved of duty. In short, if one wishes to continue working with nuclear weapons while serving in the U.S. Air Force, reporting a UAP is definitely not a good career move. Unfortunately, this situation has undoubtedly resulted in a great many sightings at ICBM sites going unrecorded over the years, something arguably detrimental to US national security.)

Lingo continued,

So, that’s where I left things. I never talked about the incident, but I sure wondered about what I had seen! I don't believe that any other members of my squadron ever mentioned seeing anything strange in the sky. Even if someone had seen something out of the ordinary, there's a high probability that they would never have reported it out of fear of ridicule.

The only other sighting that I'd heard rumors about happened on the east side of Malmstrom, which would have been the 10th Missile Squadron or the 490th Missile Squadron. I was told that sometime during the years prior to 1995, a couple of Security Policemen were at a launch facility when some sort of triangular craft started hovering above them. I don't have any information on how long the encounter lasted or what the fallout was.

Lingo may have been referring to an incident at Alpha Flight, as described to me in 2003 by former Security Policeman Joseph M. Brown. One spring night in 1992, his two-man team, and a second team located a few miles away, observed a bright object erratically racing around the sky for several minutes. At some point, the men became unnerved by what they were seeing and began anxiously discussing the sighting with each other over the radio, whereupon the Alpha Flight Security Controller, who had been listening-in on the tense exchange, broke into the conversation and asked about the situation.

Finally, the aerial object instantly stopped in mid-air and remained stationary. As the sun rose, the craft’s triangular shape could be seen through binoculars. Then it disappeared. When the two teams returned to base, they were debriefed by their commander and pointedly told that any further mention of the UFO would jeopardize their PRP status. This incident is covered at length in my book. [ad]

Lingo said that after leaving the Air Force he had consulted the state-by-state UAP-sighting database at The National UFO Reporting Center website, to learn whether any sighting report in Montana in 1995 might have matched his own.

He told me, “On 9/25/1995 there were two sightings in the towns of Ronan and Polson. One of them states that there were red and blue strobing lights observed. The other just says that the witness saw lights. Both reports stated that the objects were in the eastern sky. Both towns are many miles west of Choteau, at roughly the same latitude, just on the opposite side of the Rocky Mountains. I had been just west of Choteau myself, so what those witnesses reported could have been what I saw. I’ve often wondered whether those sightings related to my incident.”

VISIT ROBERT's SITE ►

See Also:

	UFOs Have Closely Monitored US Missile Tests Since the 1940s
	AARO Interviews 'UFOs and Nukes' Witnesses
	UFO Activity at Nuclear Weapons Sites, Including Disabling Ballistic Missiles

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

Officer Who Filmed UFO Downing Missile Sets the Record Straight

A DETAILED TRUTH

The venerable Wall Street Journal recently published an article telling readers that the entirety of the UFO/UAP issue in America from 1945 through today is nothing more than an official DoD program of utter disinformation perpetrated to deflect the public from what is really going on behind closed doors, SCIF sessions, trillions of dollars being spent on God knows what and the ruse has been perpetrated by a mysterious Air Force colonel passing out photos and films of non-existent unknown flying objects. Supposedly initiated to dispel the mystique of Area 51 and Groom

By Bob Jacobs The UFO Chronicles 6-20-2025

Lake, Nevada the program now casts doubt on all UFO, alien abductions by these craft on the people, all of the people, who have reported sightings in the air, land and sea.

I am one of those people.

Many podcasters and one brilliant researcher wrote about their and our collective outrage at this disgraceful reportage. I needed to personalize it. Six million Jews murderd by Hitler is a terrible writ. One Jewish girl named Ann Frank personalizes it.

Here is a first-hand report of what I experienced. And also the result of my having reported it to Sean Kirkpatrick, then head of AARO- the All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office in DC:

In 1964 I was an Air Force officer in charge of the Photo-optical Instrumentation section of the 1369th Photographic Squadron at Vandenberg Air Force Base. (now Vandenberg Space Force Base).

I was OIC of this 135-man unit charged with providing both normal and high- speed motion picture coverage of every launch from the base down the Western Test Range. We had cameras on the launch pad getting detailed information from engine ignition through liftoff. There were 20 to 30 cameras at a time. I was involved personally in hundreds of such events.

In addition to on the pad coverage we also provided tracking from three opposed sites triangulating each missile with 6 to 8 cameras using long focal length lenses to follow the missile up and away on its flight heading for targets at either Kwajalein Island or Eniwetok Lagoon in the deep south Pacific.

I received outstanding OERs (Officer Efficiency Reports) all during my three and one-half years at VAFB as well as commendations from my squadron and group HQ, from contractors like Boeing, as well as the Air Force Guided Missile Badge for “making a significant contribution to America’s Missile and Space Program.” In short, I knew what the Hell I was doing.

One day in the Fall of 1964 I was called into the office of Major Florenze J. Mansmann in the Chief Scientists section of the 1st Strategic Aerospace Division HQ. He and I had worked together before determining ways to improve coverage. He asked me if I knew anything about the coastal area north of the base known as Big Sur. I told him that I did, having driven my MG-TD up Highway 1 in my college days to listen to Beat Poets like Alan Ginsberg and Henry Miller at a resort called Nepenthe.

The Major then asked me to take a film camera and a radio unit up there, staying out of uniform and make contact with a Forest Service Ranger who would escort me up to a spot close to Anderson Peak. There I was to wait for a call telling me that a launch was in progress to see if I could see the missile through all three stages of powered flight from the side. Since we were not in uniform I took my Dad up with me. We had a camera and the radio and within a couple of hours on site I got the call. An Atlas missile was about to launch. I sighted it, rolled my Bell and Howell and got the bird seen from the side.

Engineers hoped to tell more about a flight if they could get a side view rather than as seen from the base, a shot up the tailpipe. They could and my tracking site at Big Sur was established.

A few weeks after this successful experiment and fun with Dad, I had to get serious. In caravan I escorted one our M-45 tracking mounts fully equipped up Highway 1 and then up the winding Forest Service road to a large flat cutout area on the edge of a steep declining mountain side with a sweeping, unimpeded view to the Southeast looking back from Big Sur located miles northwest of the base. The map of California indicates how Point Arguello, where VAFB lay, is several miles farther east. Hence our side view. Well-established after three days on site we were notified of an upcoming launch. With our 180 -inch telephoto lenses on our tracker we provided previously unavailable reactions from contractor engineers. They were thrilled.

The stage was set for a totally unexpected, unprepared for event that would change my understanding of reality and make my life in many respects a continuing morass of danger and calamity and a fractured dream.

Next time I met with major Mansmann he had a surprise. At Cape Canaveral they had employed an experimental large astronomical telescope run by Dr. Walter Manning at Boston University. This device employed a folded Gregorian scope that, the signal from which, fed directly into a large scale Image Orthicon tube. The face of that tube was filmed by a 35mm Mitchell motion picture camera. The combining of these instruments allowed for maximum manipulation of the image for definition and focus. It was a very large device that had to be hauled around by a big rig truck. And it was arriving in two days to be transported up the Forest Service road to my tracking site. I departed for the site that day with a crew of one NCO and two airmen.

We camped in the pickup truck with a camper and an Army tent. In the morning the crew and I awoke, had lots of coffee and Cheerios for breakfast and waited. By noon, an entourage of Brass from VAFB arrived lead b Major Mansmann, a Mister Poulson from the Cape and Walter Manning. Behind them came the BU telescope and excitement as we placed it in the best spot to view down the coast.

L to R - CWO Guy Spooner, Lt Bob Jacobs Mr. Paulson Major Mansmann

That afternoon the VAFB visitors went back home, Mr. Paulson and his crew operating the BU telescope retired downhill to rooms at the Nepenthe, Staff Sergeant Dodd, Airman First class Williams and I worked on our gear to be ready for the promised launch tomorrow morning. And with all assembled back on site by 0600 hours we, with our M-45, the crew from the Cape and high hopes were set to make history.

There was a vast coastal fog bank hugging the coastline as far as we could see. It was early morning light. Over our radio we heard the countdown and trained eyes and instruments at the coordinates we knew would be Vandenberg. And the countdown reached 30 seconds and 20 seconds and the 10, 9,8, 7, I shouted out “Roll Cameras” and they rolled to 6, 5, 4,3,2,1 and we heard “engines start” and “liftoff”.

And after 3 seconds the big Atlas popped out of the white coated seacoast and up and away on AZ and on Elevation to targets, one hoped. As our M-45 cameras ran out we lost sight of the bird to distance. The BU Telescope unit however kept rolling, finally shutting down. Mr. Paulson gave a thumbs up and we all cheered the fact that we had given the Convair/General Dynamics engineers and all other stake holders in our missile and space program the cherished side view all the way. We had no idea the quality of the BU footage because the screen is not visible during the operation as it must be covered by a dark hood to prevent light hitting the Image Orthicon tube. With hearty handshakes all around I collected all of the film from both units and drove back to base to have it processed. Mission accomplished I supposed.

The second day I received a call from Major Mansmann asking me to come to his office right away. I thought it might have to with the success at Big Sur. I rapped on his office door and was invited in. There in the middle of the room was a 16mm film projector on a table. Next to it was a chair. Against the far wall was a Da-Lite projection screen. In one corner two men in business suits stared at me. Major Mansmann without introducing us asked me to sit down. He dimmed the lights. I hoped that this would be the BU film. I was not wrong.

“Lieutenant Jacobs watch the screen,” he said. Then he flicked on the projector. There was the image of the bottom of the Atlas missile seen from 130 miles away, filling the screen. My heart soared, this was, indeed the view as seen by the Folded Gregorian telescope lifting skyward. Major Mansmann said, “Watch closely to the end.”

As the bird continued on, it rose rapidly looking spectacular against the sky made black by contrast on the IO. The Atas D was a stage and a half weapon. It had a main pressurized body for fuel and liquid oxygen, when it burned out and fell away, three smaller engines propelled the nose cone holding the warhead downrange. I watched Stage One burnout and drop off, the final stage ignition puff. By this time with our eyes from Big Sur we were losing the object. But here on the screen the nose cone was a quite small white object. It opened and a small batch of aluminum foil splayed out in a fan to deflect the enemy radar tracking. The dummy nuclear warhead, in every dimension, weight and appearance identical to the real thing deployed into a slightly higher trajectory in front of the chaff. I smiled at Major Mansmann. He said, “Watch carefully.” So I did.

On that movie screen I watched another object slide into the frame. It approached the warhead from the same direction; in short it chased and caught up. The entire image on screen was moving away down range at several thousand miles an hour. The object, a larger spot on film than the warhead, moved closer and shot a beam of light striking the device. The object rotated above the package and shot another beam of light down, hitting it again. The object than dropped down in the path and struck it in the front with a third beam, rotated beneath it and fired a fourth beam then zipped out of the frame at a fantastic rate of speed back the same way it had come in. The dummy warhead than slowed and malfunctioned. It appeared to me to be falling out of the frame when the film ended.

The object as made out in fine detail later as Major Mansmann studied it frame by frame with a jewelers loupe, was a classic Flying Saucer, two dinner plates turned convex side out and stuck together with a round dome on top. The illustration is an enlarged artist’s conception.

The two CIA agents glared at me as the lights came back on. Major Mansmann stood up between them and me. He said, “Lieutenant were you guys screwing around up there?” (Meaning at Big Sur.)

“No sir,” I replied.

He said. Pointing at the screen, “Then what was that?”

Wanting badly to talk about it I said confidently, “It looks like we got a UFO!”

The agents stepped around so I could see them.

Major Mansman said very firmly, “You are never to say that again.”

I was startled.

“As far as you’re concerned, this never happened. Do you understand.”

I couldn’t reply. I did not understand.

“You can go now. Not a word to anyone.” And he escorted me to and out of the door to his office. It would be twenty years before I ever spoke with him again.

I did not talk about the revelation I had just witnessed–not to anyone.

Never a ‘believer” in flying saucers before this moment, my whole intellectual being was shaken by the fact of all facts, we are NOT ALONE in the vast universe.

One night ten years later I was hosting a late night radio talk show in Eureka, California. Topics among lost, late night souls reaching out in the dark for something, anything to soothe anxiety and god-awful loneliness, turn to ghosts and goblins and Jewish banking conspiracies and yeah, UFOs. About two a.m. a guy named Rick Van Pelt phoned in with a story that happened to him as an Air Force security force sergeant.

He and a partner were summoned to Thule AFB, Greenland to guard a flight of B-52 nuclear bombers on a frosty snowy night. While at a remote end of the base he and his partner spotted an apparent native Greenlander appearing over a snow bank a few feet away. Rick sent his partner to check the guy out. When his partner got near, it turned out that the “guy” was a couple of feet taller than the airman. He wore a skin tight iridescent ski suit and had long blonde hair. They spoke for a bit, then the partner started back to join Rick, dragging his rifle on the ground. He stared blankly. Rick stopped him. “Hey, what did he say?”

“He said we were supposed to stop using nukes.”

Just then Rick looked over to see a brilliant, glowing “flying saucer” lift up and shoot silently away.

Without even thinking about it, I went ahead and told mine. The same one you just read about.

Nothing happened. No bolts of lightning. No armed guards at the station door. My car didn’t blow up when I started it. The curse was lifted.

I thought.

It came back in a blind fury that goes on to this very day when I am still in pain for telling the truth: I and many, many more of my brothers-in-alien land. The date was November 1, 1982. I was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. I had a small alfalfa farm in the country. My pay at UWO was only for nine months. So every summer I had to make some money. I usually did it producing TV commercials. Nothing was in the offing so I turned to freelance writing. It had been 18 years now since Big Sur so I wrote a small article about it to try out. Omni Magazine, Life Magazine, Argosy Magazine all turned it down. So I sent it to sleaze publications and The National Enquirer bought it. I paid the mortgage, kept the farm and went back to teaching film production.

Shortly after the story hit the streets, as they say, the decades long nightmare began. I started to get telephone calls that ended in a click. My address got out and letters from a large number of UFO ‘nuts’ began mounting up in my rural mailbox. Some of these things were from various people around the country claiming to have been on a space ship to Venus, to have flying saucers in their back yard or being from some planet or another. Mixed in with these came a few from apparently rational humans seeking the truth. One of these was a gifted researched named Lee M. Graham. The Air Force denied to him that there had ever been any of the following: anyone named Robert M. Jacobs in the Air Force, assigned to the Photo-Optical section of the 1359th Photographic Squadron, nor had there even been an Atlas D missile launched on that date, nor that they had any record of a BU Telescope, nor of anything at Big Sur… ever.

Lee dug into them with FOIA requests, letters and phone calls and did verify that they had lied on each and every count. I was reinstated into humanity.

Then the terror campaign began on the phone. I had an answering machine back then and it began to record dozens of threatening phone calls, each ending with the epithet that I received live in person to wit; “You talk too much. You’re going down motherfucker!” My fiancé at the time, now my wife also got these calls. And one night in 1986 we had come home from a movie. There was a call waiting on the answering machine. The same gruff voice said, “Fireworks in your mailbox at night, oh, what a beautiful sight. You’re going down motherfucker!” and my rural mailbox exploded.

I bought a gun. I learned how to shoot it. I practice and I don’t miss.

Then in September, 1986 I met Robert Hastings. We are close friends today. His counsel has meant a great deal to my ability to deal with the issue. Here’s what the issue has cost me personally after appearing on several television, motion picture, print and podcasts to keep telling my account, which has never varied an iota. I left Wisconsin under the constant threats to my life and the safety of my wife. I lost my next professorship at the University of Maine under a character assassination by Phillip J. Klass, I lost my next professorship at Cleveland State University under a mysterious character assassination accusing me with no proof of sexism and homophobia and after a relatively pleasant and productive 20 years as Full Professor at Bradley University from which I retired 2017, the final character assassination of all.

In a phone call one day, Robert said that he had been contacted at AARO, led by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, when it began its investigation into UFO- now called UAP phenomena, to see if any of his interviewees would testify. He said, with a caveat that he would. He passed this invitation on to me, to Mario Woods, and Terry Lovelace that I know of. I told him that I would be happy to do so.

A few days later I was called by a man saying he was from AARO and he would like to hear my story. I asked if he was recording me and he said that he was not. So I spoke with him for nearly an hour. Afterward I sent the following note to Robert and the others in my group:

On April 29, 2023 Sean Kirkpatrick after being praised lavishly by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, chairing the Senate Armed Services Committee testified. After extensive investigation and testimony from military and former military witnesses and ‘whistle blowers’ he reported that AARO had found “no evidence of extraterrestrial” objects, machines, space ships or little green men in the United States of America. Nothing to see here.

If you’ve hung with me to this point, I’ve tried to spell out a no doubt extraterrestrial or NHI incursion that I filmed at Big Sur. My account has been substantiated by Major Mansmann, then Dr. Mansmann who when contacted by a number of researchers and TV producers stated in writing that my account was TRUE as written. The images I captured have been seen by others in government, including by Luis Elizondo. He saw the film when he was with ATTIP in Washington, DC. He told Dave Grusch when he had left his post, exactly where to find it. When Dave got to the ATTIP office everything of Lue’s in it had been cleared out. It is certain that Sean Kirkpatrick knew all about that film if not having seen it himself. In spite of the fact that that Big Sur UFO committed an act of war, this guy is a shill for the cabal suppressing NHI presence among us; everything that every honest, American patriot has told us about since 1945.

I have been compelled for reasons I don’t fully understand to prepare this document, this testimony, this tribute to my fellow witnesses, experiencers, rational thinkers. Others of us have suffered from PTSD to depression, defamation, unmitigated anger, self-doubt, threats, loss of jobs, community standing and worse- to be sold out by shills and fakirs, like AARO and the damned Wall Street Journal. F%CK YOU!

FAREWELL THE TRANQUIL MIND.

See Also:

	Big Sur UFO Film: Government Whistleblower Reveals He Watched It Big Sur UFO Film: Government Whistleblower Reveals He Watched It - PART 2
	UFOs are Stalking and Intercepting Dummy Nuclear Warheads During Test Flights
	Mansmann Letters

Fmr Lt. Robert M. Jacobs Who Captured UFO On Film Takes AARO To Task

REPORT YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE