Echo Flight launch facilities, Malmstrom AFB missile field, central Montana, United States
Record
Curated case
Assessment
Contested
Evidence strength
NoneWeakModerateStrong
467 case pages by decade; this one falls in 1960s with 49 othersAll cases
<1900
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n.d.
What was reported
On 16 March 1967 all ten Minuteman missiles of Echo Flight went off strategic alert almost simultaneously; the unit history, released in 2001, records the fault and that 'rumors of Unidentified Flying Objects' around Echo Flight 'were disproven'. From 1996, former missile officer Robert Salas said a glowing red object hovered over a launch facility gate as missiles went offline, an account that has moved between Echo and Oscar Flight; it has been repeated at congressional hearings. Records of the period show the Echo shutdown investigated as an electronic fault, and skeptics suggest the light seen around Oscar Flight was Mars; a 2025 Pentagon report, as summarised on Wikipedia, attributes the shutdown to a classified electromagnetic-pulse test (not verified here). Navy intelligence told Congress in 2022 that it is not in the Task Force's holdings, and AARO has dismissed the claim.
What officials concluded
Tentative explanation
USAF unit history (1967): electronic fault; UFO rumours 'disproven'
Strongest ordinary reading
An equipment or test-induced electrical fault unrelated to any light; the UFO link rests on accounts given three decades later
Robert Salas reported witnessing a 1967 Malmstrom AFB incident in which, according to him, about 10 nuclear missile sites were disarmed coincident with an unidentified object sighting; he retained his security clearance.
I've met Robert Salas at Malmstrom in 1967... 10 of these sites were disarmed according to him.
In 1967 at Malmstrom Air Force Base, a UAP hovered over a nuclear-missile silo and ten Minuteman ICBMs shut down; multiple Air Force veterans have since gone public about this.
one incident in 1967... involved UAPs tampering with the nuclear missiles at Malmstrom Air Base in Montana... hovered over a nuclear weapons silo and shut down 10 nuclear ICBM missiles
A publicly circulated account holds that at Malmstrom Air Force Base, 10 U.S. nuclear ICBMs were rendered inoperable at the same time a glowing red orb was observed overhead; Bray states this incident is not within UAP Task Force holdings and that he has only 'heard stories,' with no official data.
one such incident allegedly occurred at malmstrom air force base in which 10 of our nuclear icbms were rendered inoperable at the same time a glowing red orb was observed overhead
