Skeptic Robert Sheaffer Solves Famous “UFO” Sighting Case: Nuclear Missile Guards Were Terrified by the Planet Mars

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By Robert Hastings
www.ufohastings.com
2-1-14

     Or so the debunker claims. Sheaffer’s latest attempt to explain away all UFO sightings as misidentifications of man-made aircraft or astronomical objects, including bright planets, focuses on the now-well-known Oscar Flight case at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, on March 24, 1967. That incident involved the mechanical failure of several Minuteman-I nuclear missiles occurring just as a large, glowing, disc-shaped object briefly hovered above the entrance to the Oscar Flight Launch Control Facility—according to one of the U.S. Air Force launch officers on alert that night.

Former U.S. Air Force Captain Robert Salas has stated that Air Force security police at the site were panicked by the UFO’s looming presence—the head guard estimated the object’s diameter at 30 to 40-feet—and one of them was physically injured during the encounter.

Decades later, in 1996, Salas finally located and telephoned the other launch officer who had been on alert during the incident, retired Colonel Frederick Meiwald, and tape recorded the conversation. An excerpt:

RS: I remember receiving a call first and the security guard said, ‘I’ve seen some UFOs up here flying around,’ and I said, ‘Ah, forget it.’ I didn’t believe him. I kinda hung up on him. And then, a little while later—I don’t know how long it was, maybe five, ten minutes, maybe longer—[he] called back and the guy sounded real scared and said there was [a UFO] just outside the front gate. And he also said, I recall, that one of the other guards had gotten injured in some way. I don’t think it was from the UFO; I think it was from trying to climb the fence or something like that. And then I hung up, or he hung up because he had to go—his guard got injured—and then I, I believe you were either getting up or I woke you up—and then some of our missiles started shutting down. Is that right?

FM: Uh huh.

RS: Is that about how you remember it?

FM: Right. We had security alarms and—

RS: Yeah.

FM: —and problems at a couple of the [missile] sites.

RS: Yeah, okay, okay. Well, I’m sure glad I found you. [Were there] any reports from the field about UFOs?

FM: I remember that two guards that we had [sent] out to one of the sites and finally got back scared to death and we had to relieve them of duty.

RS: Yeah. [Pause] Oh, you mean our guards?!

FM: Yeah.

RS: Oh, I [had forgotten] that.

FM: Yeah, a roving patrol type—

RS: Oh, I see—

FM: —and had gone out to one of the sites, the LFs, and on the way back they lost radio contact and we ended up having to send them back to the base early—I’m not sure what happened but I don’t think they ever returned to guard duty.

On May 6, 2011, an obviously uneasy Colonel Meiwald reluctantly elaborated on his earlier remarks to Salas during a taped telephone conversation with me, excerpted here:

FM: I know that Bob [Salas] has relayed what happened at Oscar very accurately...I think it would be best if I said no more.

RH: Okay. But you will at least confirm that there were reports from the Security Alert Team of a UFO at the LF they were out at, is that correct?

FM: Yes!

RH: Okay, and it was quite clear that object was saucer-shaped—or do you recall what the description was, other than it being a UFO or a flying saucer? Do you have any sense of what they reported to you?

FM: All I remember is a bright object; a bright, flying object at low-level. Beyond that, I can’t say.

RH: But they were terribly frightened by their experience?

FM: They were upset and were directed to come back to the LCF.

RH: Okay, and I believe you said in your letter [to Salas dated October 1, 1996] that they were so frightened that they actually had to go [back to Malmstrom] early; they couldn’t complete—

FM: Well, one man I know was directed to go back to the base, at least one of them was—

RH: Okay, and—

FM: —Whether or not they flew a special helicopter out there to get him or not, I don’t recall that, but I know that he did go back to the base a very upset individual.

Meiwald readily admitted to me that he had been on a rest break when the first UFO appeared at the launch control facility and the missiles began malfunctioning. However, once Salas woke him up, he was completely aware of, and involved in, subsequent events—including being sworn to secrecy about the incident:

RH: Okay. Do you remember, well, you’re willing to confirm, as Bob has said, that your debriefing was in the presence of an [Office of Special Investigations] agent? Is that correct?

FM: That did take place.

RH: And you were required to sign non-disclosure statements about the incident?

FM: Right.

In summary, the two officers who were on alert in the underground Oscar Flight Launch Control Center have confirmed a bona fide UFO-presence during the dramatic events occurring that night, as well as the terrified reaction of a number of security guards who actually saw the objects in the sky. Of course, none of these facts will sway debunker Robert Sheaffer whose observation-of-Mars hypothesis is offered as the most likely explanation for the incident.

Sheaffer writes, “A bright, glowing orange UFO is allegedly seen over the base by security men, and then the Oscar Flight missiles were said to start going off-line, one by one. So let's examine that specific claim. Guards reported seeing a bright glowing orange object in the sky...Whenever witnesses report a bright object in the sky that is red or orange, the first thing to check is whether Mars might have been the culprit. Mars only appears conspicuously bright from earth for a period of a few months every two years. Sure enough, this was one of those times. Mars was only about 3 weeks away from its opposition of April 15, 1967, when it would be directly opposite the sun, and at its maximum brightness until the next opposition 26 months later. It would rise a few hours after sunset, and remain in the sky the rest of the night. The guards were very likely looking at Mars.”

One can recreate the sky on the night of March 24/25, 1967 at www.fourmilab.ch. To see the rising of Mars above the SE horizon, input the latitude and longitude of the Oscar Flight Launch Control Facility, located just east of Roy, Montana (47-degrees N and 109-degrees W will be close enough) and set the Universal Time to 1967-03-25 4:38:00 (which is 1967-03-24 9:38:00 p.m. Local Time).

As the Earth rotated that night, the planet moved into the southern sky and then the southwestern sky before setting below the SW horizon around 1967-03-25 13:38:00 UT (or 6:38 a.m. Local).

In short, Mars traveled from the southeastern to the southern to the southwestern sky that night. Unfortunately for Sheaffer’s Mars-as-UFO theory, the guard who excitedly reported the large, glowing disc-shaped object to Salas on the telephone had to be looking NNW, which is where the launch control facility’s front gate was, relative to his assigned post in the Launch Control Support Building. Given that Mars was never visible in the northern sky at any time that night, it could not possibly account for the UFO sighting, despite Sheaffer’s claims to the contrary.

Oscar Flight Launch Control Facility, out side of Roy, Montana. (Click image to enlarge)

Launch Control Facility (LCF)_with security post denoted. (Click image to enlarge)

Once again, the frightened guard, who was screaming into the phone, had told Salas that the UFO was hovering just beyond the gate. Later, after the object left, he told Salas that it was 30 to 40-feet in diameter and that one of the guards was so terrified by its presence that he had apparently injured himself while climbing the barb-wire-topped security fence to get away.

I don’t plan to discuss at length the absurd notion that Mars, or any other planet, even at its brightest, could be mistaken for a 30 to 40-foot hovering disc-shaped object. Sheaffer and his ilk have always been able to engage in such reality-detached mental gymnastics—given their need to explain away the UFO phenomenon as misidentified prosaic objects at any cost—and nothing I can say will ever change that.

But what about the other UFO that was sighted by the frightened Security Alert Team as it hovered near one of the missile silos later that night? Could Mars have been the culprit in that instance, at least in the hopelessly biased mind of Sheaffer and those who think like him?

Given that Col. Meiwald has described the missile silo where the second UFO was observed as being “located just east of Highway 19”, only two sites qualify: Oscar-04 and Oscar-06. To travel between the launch control facility and either of these sites the two-man team would have first gone north on the LCF’s access road, then east on Route 191 until it intersected with Route 19. Oscar-04 is located just east of that junction, meaning that if the reported UFO was at that site, the panicky men would have been looking nearly due East when they were observing it.

But according to the astronomical data cited above, Mars was not in the Eastern sky at any time that night. And, even if it had been, the likelihood that the Red Planet would have thrown the security team into a panic, requiring actual hospitalization for one of the guards, is remote in the extreme. (Although Robert Sheaffer would probably argue otherwise.)

If, on the other hand, the object was above Oscar-06, the SAT team would have turned south onto Route 19 to reach it and the UFO would have appeared SSE of their position as they approached the launch facility. Hey, in this case, Mars may have actually appeared somewhere in the sky above the silo as they travelled toward it. But, again, the possibility that a bright planet was the cause of the team’s terror is highly unlikely, to say the least.

Significantly, Robert Sheaffer conveniently fails to mention is that another USAF veteran, former Captain Robert Jamison has substantiated Salas’ testimony regarding a UFO-related, full-flight shutdown at Oscar Flight. (Although Meiwald later recalled 6-8 missiles going off alert status, Salas has long said that he remembered all ten going down. In light of Jamison’s input, it appears that he was correct on this point.)

At the time of the incident, Jamison had been a Minuteman targeting officer who, along with other Combat Targeting Team members, was involved in retargeting the stricken missiles at Oscar Flight. He has said, repeatedly and on-camera, that his briefers told him and the other targeters that “UFOs had been messing with the missiles” before they left the base. Jamison provided all of this information to me during an interview in 1992, some three years before Salas went public with his own revelations.

Actually, as difficult as it will be for some people to accept, the event at Oscar Flight was not all that unusual. Thousands of declassified U.S. government documents refer to UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites—including laboratories, storage depots, test and deployment sites—extending back to December 1948. A small cross-section of those U.S. Air Force, FBI and CIA files may be reviewed at www.ufohastings.com/documents.

Over the past 41 years, I have located and interviewed more than 140 U.S. military veterans who were directly or indirectly involved in one or more of those cases, including incidents at nuclear missile sites where the ICBMs mysteriously malfunctioned just as a disc-shaped aerial craft hovered near them. Affidavits issued by some of those witnesses—including former Minuteman missile launch and targeting officers—are available at the link above.

On September 27, 2010, seven of the veterans discussed a few of these cases at the UFOs and Nukes press conference in Washington D.C., which CNN streamed live. (See below). The event was also covered, mostly favorably, by mainstream media all over the globe.

UFO debunkers have for years attempted to dismiss the reality of these incidents, often claiming that my book and articles on the subject merely present my “theory” about UFO incursions at nuclear weapons sites. Actually, all I have done is to accurately present the contents of the now-publicly-available documents and the tape recorded testimony of the military witnesses who were involved, all of which demonstrate—beyond a reasonable doubt—a pattern of ongoing UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites over the past six decades.

Robert Sheaffer cites other “evidence” in his article to support the claim that there was no UFO activity at Oscar Flight by quoting former USAF missileer and skeptic Tim Hebert. Even though Hebert was not present for the incident, or any of the other UFO events discussed by my many ex-missileer sources, he has concluded that the UFO-Nukes Connection is non-existent and that all of his former Air Force colleagues who have publicly discussed dramatic UFO incursions at one Strategic Air Command base or another during the Cold War are, at best, misguided.

Hebert also maintains that I have “used” these witnesses for my own allegedly nefarious purposes. I won’t repeat here what those former missileers have said about Hebert to me in confidence, but I recently “used” seven of those ex-military sources again, when I interviewed them for the documentary film I am currently producing. As I have previously mentioned in various articles, all of these gentlemen have repeatedly and profusely thanked me over the years for my dogged efforts to get the facts out, despite the resistance I have encountered in some quarters.

To support his skeptical argument regarding the Oscar Flight incident, Hebert cites the 341st Missile Wing’s official history, which makes no mention of it, as if the ICBM shutdown event never happened. However, both officers on alert that night have said that they were told by an OSI agent that their event was classified Secret. Still-classified material would never appear in a wing history. Hebert knows this, or should know it, so his distorted commentary is most curious. Given that this problematic fact doesn’t mesh with his own skeptical thesis, he has apparently decided to ignore it.

Sheaffer also cites as evidence the demonstrably false pronouncements of James Carlson, the notorious, wild-eyed debunker who has made it a point of calling me and Bob Salas “liars and frauds” hundreds of times in his blog posts. Carlson’s father, Eric, was at another missile flight, Echo, when those missiles shut down, on March 16, 1967, eight days prior to the Oscar Flight incident. James can’t abide the fact that Salas and I have his father’s former missile commander, retired Col. Walter Figel, admitting on audio tape that there was indeed a UFO reported to him during that incident.

Although Carlson incessantly misrepresents—that is, lies about—what Figel has said regarding the Echo Flight case, one may listen to Figel’s comments to me on the matter—including the serious nature of the initial sighting report, the corroboration of the presence of “a large, round object” hovering over an Echo missile silo by security teams sent out to assess the situation, and the debriefing that occurred afterwards when Figel and James’ father were told never to discuss the incident—all of which Robert Sheaffer carefully avoids mentioning in his article. A brief excerpt follows here:

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

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

RH:: But he seemed to be serious to you?

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

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

WF: He just said a large round object.

RH: Directly over the LF?

WF: Directly over the site.

When I telephoned the elder Carlson in October 2008, to discuss the incident, he denied knowing about any UFO reports at Echo Flight, something that elicited this response from Col. Figel when I brought it to his attention:

RH: Uh, did you discuss the report with Mr. Carlson—that you were being told that there was a UFO at one of the sites?

WF: Um, he could hear it, uh, I mean he was sitting right there, two feet away from me—

RH: So—

WF: Whatever I said, he would have heard.

Despite Eric Carlson’s now-untenable insistence that there were no reports of UFO activity at Echo that day, when I asked him why his son James is so clearly out-of-control when attacking me and Bob Salas, Eric candidly replied, “James has some problems”. Moreover, in another telephone conversation with a colleague of mine, also in October 2008, Eric expressed concern that James might “have a nervous breakdown”.

Indeed, a great many people have responded to James Carlson’s manic online rants about Echo and Oscar with astonishment, regardless of their position on UFOs. One of his strongest supporters once called him excitable, which is putting it mildly. Carlson’s behavior may be due to his epilepsy, a brain-related syndrome associated with abnormal psychological manifestations in many of its sufferers. (Google “Epilepsy and Mental Illness” to review scores of scientific papers on the subject).

Regardless, although Robert Sheaffer cites James Carlson as a reliable source of information on the Echo and Oscar Flight incidents, a careful review of Col. Walter Figel’s recorded comments about Echo and Col. Frederick Meiwald’s recorded comments about Oscar, will expose the utterly false nature of Carlson’s many claims.

In conclusion, Robert Sheaffer’s latest article will appeal to his usual audience—persons who have already decided that UFOs don’t exist and are unwilling to take the time to investigate the facts, in an objective manner, or to listen to the
testimony of witnesses directly involved in the most important cases, such as the ICBM-related incidents. No surprise there.

Meanwhile, I am happy to report, two documentary films on the subject of UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites will be out before the end of the year, as will the German and Spanish editions of my book UFOs and Nukes (the Portuguese edition was published in Brazil last October). In short, efforts to educate people everywhere about the reality of the UFO phenomenon’s link to nuclear weapons are proceeding nicely, thank you.

See Also:

The Echo Flight ICBM Incident: Retired USAF Officer Confirms Receiving A UFO Report Just as the Missiles Failed

The Echo/Oscar Witch Hunt

My Evidence: The Account of Minute-Man Missiles Being Disabled, While UFOs Hovered Over The Launch Facilities

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of March 8, 2010 (Link 1)

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of January 8, 2009 (Link 2)

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of October 20, 2008 (Link 3)

VIDCAST: Former Boeing Engineer, Robert Kaminski Confirms UFO Activity at Echo Flight Missile Launch Control Facility in 1967

Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; "Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base"

UFO Lands Near Minuteman Missile Base; Affects Radio Transmissions - Defensive Measures Taken!

UFO Sightings at ICBM Sites and Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas

Air Force Staff Message: Malmstrom AFB Receives Multiple Reports of UFOs in The Great Falls, Montana Area

UFOS & NUKES | U.S. Air Force Fighters Chased UFOs at Malmstrom AFB in the 1960s and ‘70s

Whatever It Is The Air Force Must-Hunt For The Flying Saucer

UFOs & NUKES | Missile Shut Down at Malmstrom Confirmed By (Civilian) Veteran of Minuteman Program

UFOs & NUKES | UFOs Have Penetrated Restricted Air Space Over Nuclear Missile Sites; Jammed Vital Electronic Equipment & Eluded Fighter Aircraft

SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

The Echo Flight UFO Incident: James Carlson is Still Wrong After All These Years

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By Robert Hastings www.ufohastings.com 11-3-13

     Saying that the moon is made of green cheese doesn’t make it true, even if one repeats that claim over and over, hundreds of times, or finds a small band of like-minded believers who parrot the claim.

It’s not entirely clear why James Carlson continues to post countless comments online, denying the existence of UFO reports during the Echo Flight missile shutdown incident at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, on March 16, 1967, in the face of witness testimony to the contrary—including from one of the missile launch officers present that day.

Carlson knows about the tape recorded conversation (see below) between myself and now-retired Col. Walter Figel, the deputy missile commander at Echo during the incident, in which he told me that he had indeed received a radio call from a security guard at one of the Echo missile silos, saying that he was observing “a large, round object” hovering “directly over the site.”

Robert Hastings/Walt Figel Audio Interview Clip (2008)

Figel also confirmed that he had, in response to the call, sent out two Security Alert Teams to investigate the report and that at least one of them confirmed seeing the object hovering over the missile silo. Figel also said that he and James’ father, Captain Eric Carlson, had been debriefed back at Malmstrom and told not to talk about the incident.

While my recorded conversations with Col. Figel took place between 2008 and 2010, he had made nearly identical statements in another taped phone conversation,(see below) with former Minuteman missile launch officer Bob Salas, in 1996.

Robert Salas/Walt Figel Audio Interview Clip (1996)

There are other U.S. Air Force veterans who have also gone on the record about a UFO involvement in the Echo Flight incident, as well as a Boeing Corporation engineer, Robert Kaminski, whose job it was to find out why the missiles malfunctioned.

In 1997, in a letter to researcher Jim Klotz, Kaminski wrote that, “There were no significant failures, engineering data or findings that would explain how ten missiles were knocked off alert. In other words there was no technical explanation that could explain the event.”

Kaminski also wrote, “Meanwhile I was contacted by our representative at OOAMA [Office, Ogden Air Material Area], 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 Launch Control Facility at the time E-Flight went down.”

Actually, the large round object sighted by the missile guard and reported to launch officer Lt. Walter Figel, had been hovering over one of the Echo missile silos, not the launch control facility itself. Nevertheless, Boeing engineer Kaminski’s revealing testimony essentially confirms Figel’s account of a UFO-presence during the incident.

Of course, if James Carlson were ever to admit that Kaminski’s letter is important, or that Figel’s tape recorded statements to me and Bob Salas do indeed contradict his father’s now-discredited claim that there were no UFOs reported at Echo Flight, he would in effect be admitting that he has been making a complete fool of himself online for the past several years, by championing his dad’s untenable position and, in doing so, viciously insulting the other veterans and researchers who dare challenge it.

This is one reason why Carlson will never, in his many online rants about Echo Flight, provide a link to the tape recorded admissions by Col. Figel that are available online.

After all, one can hear Figel tell me that, while he was skeptical of the UFO report he received from the security guard, it nevertheless did indeed occur. Figel also says, clearly on the tape, that while he thought the guard might be joking, that individual’s demeanor was calm and businesslike. “He seemed to be serious and I wasn’t taking him seriously,” Figel told me.

When I posted the transcript of this conversation-excerpt in 2008, James Carlson doubted it’s accuracy and chided me to post the actual tape recording. When I eventually did, Carlson then claimed that I had doctored it to make it prove my points. All challenges by me, to have a team of audio experts examine the tape—to verify that it is pristine and unaltered—have been ignored by Carlson and his supporters. Of course, they would have to pay for that expensive analysis so, it seems, they are not prepared to put some money where their skeptical mouths are.

Another reason James Carlson does not want others to listen to my tape recorded conversations with Col. Figel is because he refutes Carlson’s claims, calling them “off-base”. Figel also says that Carlson “has an ax to grind,” something that James certainly does not want others to hear—given that Carlson incessantly cites Figel as someone who supports his own position. Regardless, James’ relentless hate campaign is quite obvious to anyone who reads his breathless tirades against me and Bob Salas.

Even Carlson’s handful of supporters have urged him to tone it down, given the manic, often hysterical tone of his blog comment postings in which he wildly attacks anyone who supports the notion of a UFO presence at Echo Flight during the shutdown incident. Other, unaffiliated readers of his rants—who have no strong opinion about the case, one way or the other—have called him a “nut”, “wacko”, “fruitcake” and the like.

Years ago I myself accused James Carlson of “foaming at the mouth”. However, that was before I learned that he had been medically discharged from the U.S. Navy due to a diagnosis of epilepsy. One symptom sometimes exhibited during epileptic “fits” is indeed a frothing at the lips during the seizures. Once I had James’ medical situation brought to my attention, I never again used that unkind characterization of his online outbursts.

Nevertheless, James’ usually bizarre, over-the-top tirades against me and Bob Salas—he has called us “liars and frauds” countless times—raises the issue of his state of mind. When I spoke with his father Eric, in October 2008, he continued denying that UFOs had been reported at Echo Flight, however, when I asked why his son was so out of control in his online posts, Eric responded, “James has some problems.”

That same month, in a phone conversation with an associate of mine, Eric told him that he was concerned that James would “have a nervous breakdown.” (I am willing to testify under oath in a court of law that the elder Carlson’s comment to me was exactly as I have portrayed here, and that I have accurately related the other conversation as it was presented to me.)

So, does James Carlson incessantly lie about the facts relating to the UFO events at Malmstrom Air Force Base because he is psychologically unbalanced, or is it just due to his complete lack of ethics? Or both?

Regardless, the questions remain: Why is James Carlson so unwilling (or perhaps unable) to accept the fact that his father misled him when he said that there were no UFO reports at Echo Flight at the time of the mysterious, full-flight missile shutdown? Why does James continue to deny or, in some posts, twist Col. Figel’s candid, taped remarks to me and Bob Salas?

Similarly, why does Carlson repeatedly lie about Salas’ former missile commander, Col. Frederick Meiwald, who has made emphatic remarks supportive of Salas? In 2011, Meiwald told me during a taped conversation (see below) that UFOs were indeed present at a different flight—Oscar—when those missiles malfunctioned eight days after the Echo incident.

Robert Hastings’ Call to Col. Frederick C. Meiwald

Although Meiwald had been on a rest break in the launch capsule when the ICBMs began “dropping off alert status”, once awoken by Salas, he witnessed most if not all of the missiles malfunctioning.

Meiwald also confirmed that moments later, in response to triggered alarms at one of the silos, Salas had dispatched a two-man Security Alert Team to the site. Those men, said Meiwald, saw “a bright, flying object at low-level.” near the missile silo and immediately fled back to the Oscar Launch Control Facility. One man was so distraught that he had to be transported to the base hospital before completing his shift.

James Carlson has for years loudly proclaimed that Salas was lying when he said that he had witnessed a UFO-related missile shutdown at Malmstrom in 1967. True, until Salas located Meiwald in 1996, he couldn’t remember the designation of the flight and thought that he might have been at Echo or November.

Nevertheless, by the time Carlson started his public vendetta against Salas in the late 1990s, Col. Meiwald had already discussed the UFO-related events at Oscar Flight with Salas during a taped telephone conversation (see below). Meiwald later wrote him a follow-up letter (see below) containing more details.

Bob Salas’ 1996 Telephone Call to Col. Frederick Meiwald

Meiwald Letter 10-1-1996
-click on image(s) to enlarge -

Fortunately, James Carlson has a relatively small audience, even though he has posted hundreds of comments about these topics at various websites over time. Unfortunately, his hard core supporters, whose strong anti-UFO biases apparently allow them to endorse a delusional (or, perhaps, merely dishonest) person’s baseless charges, keep egging him on, rather than urging him to seek the help he obviously needs.

Now, in the wake of Bob Salas’ recent revelation about having had an apparent UFO abduction experience in 1985, the usual critics are gleefully sharpening their knives. Given their blanket rejection of anything UFO-related, Carlson and his crew can be expected to go after Salas with renewed viciousness.

Importantly, six other former U.S. Air Force personnel have provided similar accounts to me in recent years. Those individuals had previously been involved in a nuts-and-bolts UFO incident in one of the nuclear missile fields operated by various Strategic Air Command bases. Then, weeks, months or years later, they allegedly had an experience comparable to the one now being revealed by Bob Salas. In short, his account is not unique.

I will have more to say on this last subject at some point in the future. At the moment, I am still gathering data. While the number of military veterans who have told me of their strange follow-up experiences is quite small, compared with the number who make no such claim, their accounts obviously deserve serious, unbiased investigation.

Visit Robert's Site . . .

See Also:



James Carlson Gets it Wrong Again

Cutting to the Chase: Robert Hastings Exposes James Carlson’s Chief Falsehood Regarding The Echo Flight UFO Incident

UFOs & NUKES | James Carlson’s Desperate Question: “Who Are You Going to Believe, Me or Your Lying Ears?!”

The Echo Flight ICBM Incident: Retired USAF Officer Confirms Receiving A UFO Report Just as the Missiles Failed

The Echo/Oscar Witch Hunt

My Evidence: The Account of Minute-Man Missiles Being Disabled, While UFOs Hovered Over The Launch Facilities

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of March 8, 2010 (Link 1)

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of January 8, 2009 (Link 2)

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of October 20, 2008 (Link 3)

VIDCAST: Former Boeing Engineer, Robert Kaminski Confirms UFO Activity at Echo Flight Missile Launch Control Facility in 1967

Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; "Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base"

UFO Lands Near Minuteman Missile Base; Affects Radio Transmissions - Defensive Measures Taken!

UFO Sightings at ICBM Sites and Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas

Air Force Staff Message: Malmstrom AFB Receives Multiple Reports of UFOs in The Great Falls, Montana Area

UFOS & NUKES | U.S. Air Force Fighters Chased UFOs at Malmstrom AFB in the 1960s and ‘70s

Whatever It Is The Air Force Must-Hunt For The Flying Saucer

UFOs & NUKES | Missile Shut Down at Malmstrom Confirmed By (Civilian) Veteran of Minuteman Program

UFOs & NUKES | UFOs Have Penetrated Restricted Air Space Over Nuclear Missile Sites; Jammed Vital Electronic Equipment & Eluded Fighter Aircraft

SHARE YOUR UFO EXPERIENCE

UFOs at Nuclear Missile Sites:

The Witnesses Speak, A Debunker Deceives

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By Robert Hastings www.ufohastings.com © 1-23-12

     Here’s an important news story that bears mentioning again and again: On September 27, 2010, seven U.S. Air Force veterans talked about their nuclear weapons-related UFO experiences at a press conference in Washington D.C. which CNN streamed live. The video of that event, the witnesses' affidavits, and a small number of declassified documents confirming UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites may be found here:

The UFOs-Nukes Connection Press Conference:

Witness Affidavits and Declassified Documents

Four of the seven participants spoke of UFOs at Malmstrom AFB, Montana in the 1960s, including an incident involving several ICBMs mysteriously malfunctioning just as an unknown aerial object—oval in shape and glowing reddish orange—was observed hovering above their launch control facility.

One vocal debunker, James Carlson, hotly disputes all of this. His father, Eric, is a former U.S. Air Force ICBM launch officer who was involved in a second UFO-related missile shutdown incident at Malmstrom—on March 16, 1967—although the elder Carlson continues to deny it.

Nevertheless, I’ve interviewed other former/retired officers and enlisted men who’ve stated that a UFO had indeed been hovering over one of the Echo Flight ICBMs early that morning, when the entire “flight” of ten mysteriously malfunctioned.

I subsequently published those persons’ testimony and, still later, some of the actual tape recordings of their conversations with me—thereby convincingly contradicting Eric Carlson’s claims of no UFO-involvement in the incident.

In response, son James has been libeling me all over cyberspace ever since. His daddy is telling the truth, he claims, and all of those other guys are full of it.

My taped conversations with Eric Carlson's former Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander, now-retired Col. Walter Figel, may be heard here.

Figel states 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 after it dropped-off alert status and became unlaunchable.

Figel further says that he and Eric Carlson were told not to talk about the incident by their squadron commander.

James Carlson continues to claim that Figel and others I have interviewed have disputed my published remarks, however, he never posts those supposed objections online. Gee, I wonder why?

Indeed, despite my repeated challenges to him, Carlson has failed to produce a single email or affidavit from Figel (or anyone else) in which he disavows my written summary of our conversations or, more importantly, my posting of our taped conversations.

Because they support my contentions completely, James Carlson has even claimed that I altered the tapes. If that’s so, why hasn't Figel himself said that online, in an affidavit, or other written statement?

The reason is because the audio tapes are legitimate and unaltered. I have recently challenged Carlson to pay for a professional analysis of them, to verify all of this. He, of course, ignores my offer. It's much easier to go on making unfounded claims about me and my work. Unfortunately, some people—who are too biased and/or too lazy to investigate the facts—fall for his many falsehoods.

On the other hand, a random Google search reveals that the UFOs and Nukes topic is fairly hot and gaining ground in popularity. And that’s a good thing.

. . . More


See Also:

James Carlson Gets it Wrong Again:
Reuters Was NOT Paid to Publicize Robert Hastings’ Investigation of UFO Activity at F.E. Warren AFB in October 2010

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) By Robert Hastings - 1 of 3

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) By Robert Hastings - 2 of 3

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) By Robert Hastings - 3 of 3

Early Figel & Meiwald Audio Interviews

VIDCAST: Former Boeing Engineer, Robert Kaminski Confirms UFO Activity at Echo Flight Missile Launch Control Facility in 1967

The Echo/Oscar Witch Hunt

Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; "Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base"

Twenty Year (Civilian) Veteran of Minuteman Program Confirms UFO Activity & Nuclear Missile Shut Downs!

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UPDATE: USAF Col. Walter Figel Admits Receiving Reports of a UFO Presence During the Echo Flight Shutdown Incident

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By Robert Hastings
www.ufohastings.com
7-10-11

     It has now been five weeks since I posted links to my audio-taped telephone conversations with Col. Walt Figel (USAF Ret.) regarding his experiences at Malmstrom AFB in 1967. Nevertheless, Figel still has not written to me or called me to protest my doing so, or to challenge the authenticity of the tapes—even though I provided him with the links on June 5th and have emailed him at least three times since then to update him on one thing or another (including the desperate claims by some to the effect that the tapes are doctored).

In response to Figel's documented admissions, James Carlson has continued to claim that I am a liar and a fraud. Carlson has been doing this at countless blogs over the past few years, in an attempt to discredit the testimony of USAF veterans who have courageously come forward and divulged their involvement in UFO incidents at nuclear weapons sites over the years.

In particular, Carlson has claimed that there was no UFO-involvement in two separate large-scale missile shutdown incidents at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, in March 1967, even though three of the four ICBM launch officers involved—Captain Robert Salas, Colonel Frederick Meiwald and Colonel Walter Figel—have gone on-the-record regarding a UFO presence during those missile-disruption events. (Figel at Echo Flight; Salas and Meiwald at Oscar Flight)

James Carlson's father, Eric Carlson—who was the fourth launch officer involved—claims to have no memory of a UFO presence at Echo Flight, even though his deputy missile commander, now-retired Col. Walt Figel, has confirmed (repeatedly, on tape) receiving reports from his security personnel of a “large round object” hovering over one of the missiles, just as the entire flight of ten ICBMs malfunctioned.

Figel also says that he and the elder Carlson were later debriefed by their commander and told not to talk about the incident. Figel further acknowledges that his own skeptical views about UFOs have no bearing on the credibility of the reports he received from persons in the field at Echo Flight, who were “serious” when they informed him of the hovering UFO.

James Carlson, taking his cue from his, ahem, forgetful father, has brazenly and repeatedly misrepresented these startling facts, as one will hear by listening to my audio taped conversations with Cols. Figel and Meiwald, both of whom reveal the dramatic details of the shutdown incidents and, further, repudiate James Carlson's many falsehoods about them.

The article containing audio links to my (and Bob Salas’) taped conversations with Col. Figel is at:

The Echo Flight ICBM Incident: Retired USAF Officer Confirms Receiving A UFO Report Just as the Missiles Failed

The article containing audio links to my (and Bob Salas’) taped conversations with Col. Meiwald is at:

Echo Flight UFO Incident Not Unique: Retired Col. Frederick Meiwald Says “Bright Object” Also Sighted During OSCAR Flight Missile Malfunctions

While James Carlson will undoubtedly continue to claim that his father is the only person being truthful in this affair, one should carefully listen to the statements of the other launch officers involved in these amazing events before drawing conclusions.

. . . More

See Also:

UFOs & NUKES | Were Saucers [UFOs] Spying On Bomb Site?

UFOs & NUKES | Whiteman AFB, Missouri: UFO Explodes, Lands Near Missile Sites; Strike Team Dispatched

Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; "Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base"

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Echo Flight UFO Incident Not Unique: Retired Col. Frederick Meiwald Says “Bright Object” Also Sighted During OSCAR Flight Missile Malfunctions

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By Robert Hastings
www.ufohastings.com
6-14-11

     On September 27, 2010, seven U.S. Air Force veterans took part in a press conference in Washington D.C. during which they discussed dramatic UFO incursions at nuclear weapons facilities in the 1960s and ‘70s. CNN streamed the event live–see below:

One of the participants, former USAF Captain Robert Salas, spoke of being on duty as an ICBM launch officer at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, in March 1967, when a UFO disrupted key systems in each of the ten Minuteman nuclear missiles under his control. Although Salas first divulged the astonishing Oscar Flight UFO Incident in 1995, and had even discussed it at previous public events, the unprecedented, worldwide media coverage surrounding the September 2010 UFO-Nukes Connection press conference resulted in huge publicity for the still-classified case.

On the other hand, intriguing, corroborative statements by the other officer on duty during the Oscar missile-shutdown event, now-retired Colonel Frederick C. Meiwald, have received far less attention. Although Meiwald had candidly discussed it during a tape-recorded telephone conversation with Salas in 1996, his reluctance to talk about the subject further has been obvious.

Nevertheless, during a second telephone interview, conducted on May 6, 2011, Col. Meiwald cautiously confirmed to me that a “bright, flying object at low-level” had indeed been sighted near one of Oscar Flight’s missile silos during the disruption event. Then-Captain Meiwald had received the startling report from a two-man Security Alert Team sent to the site by his deputy missile commander, First Lieutenant Bob Salas, to investigate the reason for triggered alarms there. After making their report to Meiwald by radio, the terrified team had raced back to Oscar’s Launch Control Facility, frantic to get inside. The men had apparently been so distraught that they had to be transported back to Malmstrom before the end of their normal work shift.

Later, after returning to the base themselves, Meiwald and Salas had been debriefed by an agent from the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and ordered to sign national security non-disclosure statements relating to the incident.

An audio link to my taped conversation with Meiwald appears below.

Meiwald’s revelations are especially important because a number of UFO debunkers, following the cue of James T. Carlson, have noisily claimed that Bob Salas has been lying about his UFO-related experience at Oscar—allegedly making up the story to increase sales of his book Faded Giant, in which the topic of UFOs at Malmstrom AFB’s missile sites is extensively examined.

But Carlson’s oft-repeated, frequently hysterical accusations are completely untrue, according to Col. Meiwald, who told me that Salas has reported the UFO-related events at Oscar Flight “very accurately.”

During the incident, deputy missile commander Bob Salas had been on alert in the underground Launch Control Capsule when he suddenly received a frantic telephone call from his head guard, the Flight Security Controller, saying that a glowing, oval-shaped craft was hovering over the ground-level Launch Control Facility (LCF). Within seconds, one of flight’s ICBMs malfunctioned—its guidance and control (G&C) system disrupted by an unknown force.

Salas quickly alerted Captain Meiwald, who had been resting at the time, whereupon Meiwald took his position at the commander’s consol. Within a minute or two, all ten missiles had dropped offline, according to Salas. (Meiwald recalls the number as six-to-eight.) Regardless, had U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union at that moment, most or all of Oscar Flight’s ICBMs would have remained in their subterranean silos.

Just as this crisis was unfolding, alarms began sounding in the launch capsule, indicating that the security at some of Oscar’s widely-separated missile silos (known as Launch Facilities or LFs) had been breached. Salas immediately ordered Security Alert Teams to those locations to investigate. According to Col. Meiwald, that is when one of those teams reported observing a UFO near one of the sites. But let’s now listen to Meiwald, as he tells the story himself:

Robert Hastings’ Call to Col. Frederick C. Meiwald

What follows is a partial transcript of my May 6, 2011 telephone interview with Col. Meiwald. Emphasized words are italicized; confidential comments have been excluded at Meiwald’s request; numerous “uh” and “um” sounds, uttered by both of us, have been eliminated for easier reading, although I retained a few of them when appropriate.

After I introduced myself to Meiwald and described my association with his former deputy missile commander, Bob Salas, I asked Meiwald whether the telephone interview might be tape-recorded. He agreed and our conversation about the mass-missile shutdown incident at Malmstrom’s Oscar Flight, in March 1967, began.

(Unfortunately, an electronic hum mars the quality of the tape and makes Meiwald’s soft voice hard to hear at times. However, if one reads the transcript below while listening to it, the colonel’s important comments are discernable.)

FM: Okay, essentially, I was resting—whether or not I was sound sleep I don’t recall—but I know Bob got me up because we had unusual indications on the consol, plus we’d had a security violation and, uh, the response team that [inaudible] had gone out to investigate at one of the LFs. They reported unusual activity over there and—by that time I was up—and saw consol indications. [I] also directed that the strike team return to the LCF while maintaining radio contact on the way back. As they came back we did lose radio contact for a short period of time, however, the flight [security] leader—the person who was in charge at the time—recognized the team as it was approaching the LCF and opened the gate so that his troops could get in.

RH: Okay. The letter that you sent Bob [on October 1,] 1996 elaborated on the phone conversation that you and Bob had—uh, I think it was in August 1996—in which you said that the persons, the Security Alert Team that had gone out at, I guess, Bob’s direction, had seen something that scared them silly and they beat a hasty retreat back to the LCF. Do you remember that part of it?

FM: That’s basically true. I can’t remember [my] exact words, but they were directed to come back to the LCF upon completion of their mission [inaudible].

RH: Uh, they apparently described seeing an object in the sky. Do you remember any of the details?

FM: I remember them saying something along those lines [inaudible] to me. Beyond that, I couldn’t elaborate.

RH: Okay. Now, when Bob, I think moments [after] he woke you up, or you got up and sat down at the commander’s consol—he of course had received a call from the Flight Security Controller, saying that there was a bright red, oval-shaped object hovering over the security fence gate—my understanding is that is what he told you as soon as you were at your consol, that he had received this call and, uh, that of course coincided with the missiles beginning to malfunction. Do you recall him telling you that?

FM: I really don’t remember that portion of it, relative to the bright object. I remember an unusual condition [but] as far as the details, uh, I can’t elaborate on that.

RH: Okay. He of course has also said that you two were, uh, when you were back at Malmstrom, you were debriefed by OSI and required to sign non-disclosure statements. Do you remember that?

FM: I remember being directed to do that. But that was no problem. I’ve been one of these people, when told to forget something, I forget it—eventually [inaudible].

RH: Right, well, is that a polite way of saying that you really don’t want to discuss this, even though you know more than you’re saying?

FM: No, I’m saying I don’t remember.

RH: Okay, well, it’s been 44 years. That’s right.

FM: That’s right!

BREAK:

Hastings tells Meiwald that he will send the colonel links to various articles he has written about the UFO incidents at Malmstrom AFB. (A new one—summarizing an earlier UFO-related missile shutdown incident at Malmstrom’s Echo Flight, on March 16, 1967, some eight days before the Oscar Flight incident—has recently been posted at this website. The article contains audio links to my taped interviews with retired Col. Walter Figel, a former ICBM launch officer, who confirmed that a “large, round object” had been reported hovering over one of Echo’s missiles just as that entire flight failed. This contradicts the statements of the other officer on duty at Echo that day, Captain Eric Carlson, who claims to have no memory of UFOs being involved. Debunker James Carlson is Eric’s son.)

RH: Walt Figel, even though he has told me—he was in the same situation that Bob was, basically—Eric Carlson was resting and Walt was at the [deputy commander’s] consol over at Echo and suddenly his first missile dropped offline. When he called the security guard who was out at the site—because the site was down overnight for maintenance; there was a two-man maintenance team there, and the security guard—when Walt Figel called the security guard, to ask if the team was working on the missile, uh, at some point the security guard said there was a quote large, round object end quote hovering directly over the silo.

And, even though he’s acknowledged all of that and even though he said that, uh, back at base, he and Carlson were debriefed and told not to talk about this, he nevertheless has gone on-the-record about there being a UFO hovering above the missile when it went down. Now, you may or may not know—even though he admits that took place and that Echo was a real event and there was a UFO present when the missiles failed—he does not believe that the incident at Oscar ever took place. In fact, he’s come just shy of calling Bob Salas a liar.

FM: Oh, is that right?

RH: Absolutely, and, you know, I know that you have confirmed Bob’s story...and yet Figel has just decided that this never happened. Um, so how would you respond to something like that? You’ve described the Security Alert Team being out in the field, seeing this object, and beating a hasty retreat to the [LCF] and yet Figel says none of that ever took place.

FM: We had an incident in October [sic] Flight. Whatever happened over at Echo, I have no idea. What Walt Figel may have relayed [to Bob Salas, during a taped phone conversation] 15 years ago, versus what he’s saying at the present time, I have no idea. I have no way of making a judgment upon what he has, uh, expressed whatsoever. I think since leaving Malmstrom I have only seen Walt Figel one time and, uh, not even to talk to him. So I can’t verify—and I certainly don’t know [his] motives. All I know is relative to the situation within Oscar Flight itself and, basically, what Bob Salas has relayed, relative to our actions at Oscar. I can’t verify anything outside of that.

RH: Okay...I think you got a call, or maybe an email or two from James Carlson, who is the son of Eric Carlson. Eric, uh, James Carlson, rather, has spent the last three years posting [hundreds] of posts, literally [hundreds] of posts all over the Internet, saying that Bob Salas is a liar and a fraud; that there were no UFOs at Malmstrom; there were no incidents such as Bob has described. When you apparently corroborated part of Bob’s story—the part after you were awake, in your taped phone conversation in ‘96 and in the letter you wrote, when you confirmed what you could recall of it at that time—Carlson [subsequently] said he still doesn’t believe it happened and he still continues to call Bob a liar and a fraud.

FM: All I can say is something happened [at Oscar] and, to the best of my knowledge, Bob Salas has stated what he believes [to be] true and I’ve supported the majority of what he has said. I have read his book and [although] I can not, you know, support what other folks are saying, I know what happened at Oscar. I know that Bob has relayed what happened at Oscar very accurately. But, what goes beyond that, I am not in a position to even express a viewpoint. I certainly can’t question somebody else’s judgment. Uh, I think it would be best if I said no more.

RH: Okay. But you will at least confirm that there were reports from the Security Alert Team [at Oscar] of a UFO at the LF they were out at, is that correct?

FM: Yes!

RH: Okay, and it was quite clear that object was saucer-shaped—or do you recall what the description was, other than it being a UFO or a flying saucer? Do you have any sense of what they reported to you?

FM: All I remember is a bright object; a bright, flying object at low-level. Beyond that, uh, I can’t say.

RH: But they were terribly frightened by their experience?

FM: They were upset and were directed to come back to the LCF.

RH: Okay, and I believe you said in your [1996] letter that they were so frightened that they actually had to go [back to Malmstrom] early; they couldn’t complete—

FM: Well, uh, one man I know was directed to go back to the base, at least one of them was—

RH: Okay, and—

FM: —Whether or not they flew a special helicopter out there to get him or not, I don’t recall that, but I know that he did go back to the base a very upset individual.

RH: Okay. Do you remember, well, you’re willing to confirm, as Bob has said, that your debriefing was in the presence of an OSI agent? Is that correct?

FM: That did take place.

RH: And you were required to sign non-disclosure statements about the incident?

FM: Right.

RH: Okay. Well, to be redundant here, what you were involved in—and what the other 120 people [who] I’ve interviewed over the years were involved in at various bases—is dramatic history. I mean, it’s American history. It’s suppressed history but, hopefully at some point, you know, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, are going to read about it in the history books, because it’s real and it’s quite obviously important—

FM: Okay, do you want to turn off the recorder, just for a moment? I have a side comment about something.

RH: Sure. You have my word [that] it’s off.

After making a comment that must remain confidential, Col. Meiwald gives Hastings his address. Hastings says he will type-up the transcript of the conversation, at least the relevant portions, and forward it to Meiwald, together with a copy of his book UFOs and Nukes.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

Meiwald’s first conversation regarding the Oscar Flight shutdown incident, taped-recorded by Bob Salas in 1996, resulted in nearly-identical admissions by Meiwald. A partial transcript of that interview, together with a link to the audio tape itself, appeared in my article, “The Echo/Oscar Witch Hunt”, which I posted at The UFO Chronicles website in September 2010. The transcript appears again here:

Bob Salas’ 1996 Telephone Call to Col. Frederick Meiwald

Salas began by asking Meiwald whether he recalled the earlier UFO-related missile shutdown at Echo Flight—given that researcher Jim Klotz had recently accessed declassified documents relating to it and, therefore, knew the flight’s designation. In response, Meiwald said that he didn’t recall the Echo incident, only the one he and Salas had been involved in, at Oscar Flight.

FM: I just remember [laughs] our side of it.

RS: Yeah, alright, here’s the sequence I remember: I remember receiving a call first and the security guard said, ‘I’ve seen some UFOs up here flying around,’ and I said, ‘Ah, forget it.’ I, uh, didn’t believe him. I kinda hung up on him. And then, a little while later—I don’t know how long it was, maybe five, ten minutes, maybe longer—they called back and the guy sounded real scared and said there was [a UFO] just outside the front gate. And, uh, he also said, I recall, that one of the other guards had gotten injured in some way. I don’t think it was from the UFO; I think it was from, uh, trying to climb the fence or something like that. Uh, and then I hung up, or he hung up because he had to go—his guard got injured—and then I, I believe you were either getting up or I woke you up—and then some of our missiles started shutting down. Is that right?

FM: Uh huh.

RS: Is that about how you remember it?

FM: Right. We had security alarms and, uh—

RS: Yeah.

FM: —and problems at a couple of the, uh, sites.

RS: Yeah, okay, okay. Well, I’m sure glad I found you. [Both laugh]

[Were there] any reports from the field about UFOs?

FM: I remember that two guards that we had had gone out to one of the sites and finally got back scared to death and we had to relieve them of duty.

RS: Yeah. Oh, you mean our guards?!

FM: Yeah.

RS: Oh, I didn’t know that.

FM: Yeah, a roving patrol type—

RS: Oh, I see—

FM: —and had gone out to one of the sites, uh, the LFs, and on the way back they lost radio contact and we ended up having to send them back to the base early—I’m not sure what happened but I don’t think they ever returned to, uh, guard duty.

RS: What were they scared about?

FM:Oh, they had seen these, some crazy things and—

RS: Oh, they did?!

FM: Yeah, and—

RS: And they reported that to you?

FM: They reported it to the topside guy [the Flight Security Controller]—

RS: Oh, the topside guy. That’s right. Okay, okay. Okay, well, interesting, don’t you think?

FM: Yeah! [Both laugh]

END OF TRANSCRIPT

Col. Meiwald’s Follow-Up Letter to Bob Salas

Meiwald elaborated on all of this in an October 1, 1996 letter (seen below in its entirety) to Salas which may be read in its entirety. According to Meiwald, the “crazy thing” that had frightened the guards so badly was a UFO. Excerpting from that letter:

“My records indicate that we were formed as a crew in Sept 66 in ‘N’ [November Flight] status. I don’t have the date of update to ‘R’ [Romeo Flight]. Our home site was Oscar. I left crew duty for the Command Post in early Nov 67.”

“Related to the incident itself, I recall us being at the Oscar LCF. Topside security notified us [that] the mobile team had reported a ‘UFO’ while responding (obviously at your direction) to a situation at an outlying LF—this particular one being located just east of Highway 19, the state highway which runs north from Grass Range to the Missouri River. With little or no direction from higher authority (Command Post or Alternate Command Post), the Security team was directed to return to the LCF, maintaining radio contact at all times, as the security system reset. While enroute back to the LCF, radio contact was lost and remained out until the security vehicle approached the LCF. Two very upset young men wasted no time getting back inside.”

“I do not recall personnel injury of any type but the two individuals were sent back to the support base early. I heard second-hand that one was released from security team duties.”

END OF LETTER EXCERPTS

- click on image(s) to enlarge -
Meiwald Letter 10-1-1996

In a May 9, 2011 email to me, Bob Salas wrote, “I told Fred about the UFO over the gate of the LCF as he was waking up from a nap. The second [UFO] report apparently came to Fred from the FSC after the shutdowns and after I had directed the security team to one of the Oscar LFs, due to security incursion lights. Apparently the FSC communicated to Fred that an object was seen by the team as they were out responding to that security incursion. I was not a part of that conversation but I recalled Fred telling me about it after he wrote to me in 1996.”

So, despite James Carlson’s unfounded claim that Bob Salas has fabricated the story about having been involved in a full-flight missile shutdown at Malmstrom AFB, in March 1967, Salas’ former missile commander, now-retired Col. Frederick Meiwald, has confirmed that such an incident did indeed happen—at Oscar Flight—and that the Security Alert Team sent out to investigate tripped alarms, just after the disruptions occurred, had been “scared to death” by the UFO they saw hovering over one of the silos.

James Carlson has known about all of this since September 2010, when I posted my “Echo/Oscar Witch Hunt” article at The UFO Chronicles, containing the audio link to excerpts from Salas’ taped 1996 conversation with Meiwald. Not that it matters. True to form, Carlson has continued to brazenly lie about the dramatic events at Malmstrom AFB, claiming that no one other than Bob Salas has confirmed a UFO presence during the missile shutdowns.

Fortunately, relatively few people—mostly hardened skeptics irrevocably biased against the UFO reality—have been duped by Carlson’s bogus claims. As for the rest of you, please circulate a link to this article far and wide. Simple facts, presented by the witnesses themselves, are the best antidote to the debunker’s shameless dishonesty.

. . . More

See Also:

The Echo Flight ICBM Incident: Retired USAF Officer Confirms Receiving A UFO Report Just as the Missiles Failed

The Echo/Oscar Witch Hunt

My Evidence: The Account of Minute-Man Missiles Being Disabled, While UFOs Hovered Over The Launch Facilities

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of March 8, 2010 (Link 1)

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of January 8, 2009 (Link 2)

Telephonic Interview with Colonel Walter Figel (USAF Ret) of October 20, 2008 (Link 3)

VIDCAST: Former Boeing Engineer, Robert Kaminski Confirms UFO Activity at Echo Flight Missile Launch Control Facility in 1967

Malmstrom Air Force Base Picks Up UFO on Radar; "Sabotage Alert Team Located Another UFO Directly Over The Base"

UFO Lands Near Minuteman Missile Base; Affects Radio Transmissions - Defensive Measures Taken!

UFO Sightings at ICBM Sites and Nuclear Weapons Storage Areas

Air Force Staff Message: Malmstrom AFB Receives Multiple Reports of UFOs in The Great Falls, Montana Area

UFOS & NUKES | U.S. Air Force Fighters Chased UFOs at Malmstrom AFB in the 1960s and ‘70s

Whatever It Is The Air Force Must-Hunt For The Flying Saucer

UFOs & NUKES | Missile Shut Down at Malmstrom Confirmed By (Civilian) Veteran of Minuteman Program

UFOs & NUKES | UFOs Have Penetrated Restricted Air Space Over Nuclear Missile Sites; Jammed Vital Electronic Equipment & Eluded Fighter Aircraft

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