Claim

A UFO shut down nuclear missiles at Malmstrom Air Force Base in March 1967

Also known as Malmstrom UFO claim, Echo Flight UFO claim, Oscar Flight UFO claim

Disputed. The Air Force's own wing history records the Echo Flight shutdown but says rumours of UFOs there “were disproven” and has no account of an Oscar Flight shutdown; the Wall Street Journal reports AARO traced the shutdowns to a secret EMP test. Former launch officers say they saw objects as the missiles went down. (341st Strategic Missile Wing histories, January 1967 – March 1968 (Echo Flight incident), FOIA release)

On 16 March 1967 all ten Minuteman missiles of Echo Flight at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, lost alert status within seconds; former officers say missiles at Oscar Flight went down a week later. The claim is that an object seen over the sites caused it.

The shutdown itself is documented. What caused it is the question: the launch officers and maintenance staff who say UFOs were present, against the Air Force's records and the account the Wall Street Journal attributes to AARO.

Evidence against

Related claims

Who has said it, in order

  1. 1967 — disputes it, documented: It states: "Rumors of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) around the area of Echo Flight during the time of fault were disproven." A mobile strike team that had checked all of November Flight's launch facilities that morning stated that no unusual activity or sightings were observed, and the 801st Radar Squadron reported no radar or atmospheric interference related to Echo Flight. Source: doc-341smw-history-1967.pdf
  2. 1967 — context, documented: The histories concern Echo Flight. They contain no account of an object over a launch facility or of a separate Oscar Flight shutdown. Source: doc-341smw-history-1967.pdf
  3. 1967 — disputes it, documented: Engineering tests recorded in the later wing histories traced the shutdown to a noise pulse reaching the Minuteman I C-53P logic coupler, judged to be of electromagnetic-pulse or electrostatic nature and peculiar to the Wing I system. The wing histories do not mention the Oscar Flight event Salas describes. Source: 341st Strategic Missile Wing histories, January 1967 – March 1968 (Echo Flight incident), FOIA release
  4. 9 May 2001 Robert Salas — says so, first-hand: Robert Salas corrects his card (he left the Air Force as a captain), then describes the March 16, 1967 loss of six to eight Minuteman missiles at Oscar Flight while guards reported a glowing red object at the gate. Source: Disclosure Project press conference, National Press Club (May 9, 2001), full event at 42:36
  5. 9 May 2001 Robert Salas — says so, documented: Salas: Echo Flight lost all ten missiles under similar circumstances; a FOIA-released SAC telex said the loss “is cause for grave concern to this headquarters.” Source: Disclosure Project press conference, National Press Club (May 9, 2001), full event at 45:16
  6. 2005 Robert Salas — says so, first-hand: Salas's first book on the March 1967 Malmstrom missile shutdowns, self-published with researcher James Klotz in 2005: it argues that UFOs seen over the launch facilities shut down some twenty Minuteman missiles. Source: en.wikipedia.org (archived)
  7. 2005 — disputes it, opinion: Skeptoid notes that the book is the main source for the Oscar Flight story, and that the Air Force documents released on the shutdowns mention Echo Flight but never Oscar. Source: skeptoid.com (archived)
  8. 27 September 2010 Robert Salas — says so, first-hand: Salas: on 24 March 1967, as deputy crew commander at Oscar Flight with Lt. Fred Meiwald, his topside guard reported strange lights, then called back screaming about a red glowing object about 30 ft across hovering above the front gate. Source: UFOs and Nukes press conference, National Press Club (27 September 2010) at 1:47
  9. 27 September 2010 Dwynne Arneson — says so, relayed: Arneson says his Boeing supervisor, the engineer who investigated the Echo Flight shutdown, told him the missiles "did not go down by themselves" and that the Air Force told Boeing to stop the investigation and send no report. Source: UFOs and Nukes press conference, National Press Club (27 September 2010) at 11:37
  10. 27 September 2010 Robert Jamison — says so, relayed: Robert Jamison, a missile targeting team commander, says that before being sent to restart Oscar Flight he was told a UFO had been seen over Roy, Montana, and saw on the job-control board that all of Oscar Flight was down, which he was told had happened once before, at Echo Flight. Source: UFOs and Nukes press conference, National Press Club (27 September 2010) at 13:17
  11. 29 April 2013 Robert Salas — says so, relayed: Salas plays his 1996 phone recording of Col. Walter Figel, deputy crew commander at Echo Flight, describing reports of UFOs over two launch sites as all ten Echo missiles went down on 16 March 1967. Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: Nuclear Tampering, Part 1 at 8:02
  12. 29 April 2013 Robert Salas — says so, documented: Salas reads from the unit history he supplied: the investigating team's opinion was that “externally generated signals” shut the Echo missiles down, since all ten couplers failing within seconds was very remote. Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: Nuclear Tampering, Part 1 at 11:01
  13. 29 April 2013 — says so, opinion: A former missile officer on the panel says UFOs could shut missiles down “until we put emf filters on our missiles in the early 70s”, and that by 1976 they no longer could. Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: Nuclear Tampering, Part 2 at 4:36
  14. 29 April 2013 — says so, opinion: A former launch officer says he thinks the objects are extraterrestrial and here to show “we are on the verge of annihilation” through nuclear weapons. Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: Nuclear Tampering, Part 2 at 31:04
  15. 29 April 2013 — says so, relayed: A panellist says a Boeing bench test showed that a certain frequency of electromagnetic pulse injected into the missiles' logic coupler disabled it, and that the later shielding answered both nuclear-blast EMP and the 1967 incidents. Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: Nuclear Tampering, Part 2 at 44:28
  16. 29 April 2013 — says so, documented: A researcher who read the Echo Flight investigation documents says they record that Boeing's concern with how EMF affected the missiles and that “boeing was going to work on” the problem. Source: Citizen Hearing 2013: Nuclear Tampering, Part 2 at 48:21
  17. 2014 Robert Salas — says so, first-hand: The book disputes the Air Force's 1969 statement that no UFO it investigated ever threatened national security, using military testimony about UFOs over nuclear weapons sites, Malmstrom among them. Source: harvard.com (archived)
  18. 17 May 2022 Scott Bray (as reported by Mike Gallagher) — context: Gallagher asks about the reported Malmstrom incident in which ten ICBMs went offline under a red orb; Bray: the data is not in the task force's holdings — “I have heard stories.” Source: Congressional hearings on military reports of Unexplained Aerial Phenomena (UAP) - May 17th, 2022 at 56:57
  19. 2023 Robert Salas — says so, first-hand: An updated edition of Salas's 2014 book *Unidentified*, with revised chapters and a new foreword by Leslie Kean (alongside Stanton Friedman's), arguing from military testimony and documented incidents that UFOs over nuclear sites were a national-security matter the Air Force denied. Source: readings.com.au (archived)
  20. 6 June 2025 — disputes it, relayed: On the 1967 Malmstrom missile shutdowns, the Journal reports that AARO traced them to an Air Force electromagnetic-pulse generator used to test the missiles' vulnerability, kept secret from the launch crews. Robert Salas disagrees: “There is a gigantic coverup, not only by the Air Force, but every other federal agency that has cognizance of this subject.” Source: wsj.com (archived)
  21. 12 July 2025 Robert Salas — context, first-hand: He long told the story as having happened at Echo Flight, until his crew commander Fred Meiwald told him in 1996 that they had been at Oscar Flight, a week after Echo; in a recorded call Meiwald confirmed the guard's reports and missiles going down, though not how many. Source: “This UFO Shut Down 10 Nukes!” - Air Force Officer Robert Salas at 57:53
  22. 12 July 2025 Robert Salas — says so: He calls the 2025 Wall Street Journal report attributing the Malmstrom shutdowns to a secret EMP test a deliberate attempt to discredit his story, citing DOE confirmation that there were no nuclear tests on 16 or 24 March 1967. Source: “This UFO Shut Down 10 Nukes!” - Air Force Officer Robert Salas at 39:19
  23. 9 September 2025 George Knapp — says so, relayed: Knapp: Bob Salas, who saw UFOs over a nuclear ICBM base as missiles went down, was also disregarded; “It almost looks like AARO operated as a counterintelligence operation.” Source: Restoring Public Trust Through UAP Transparency and Whistleblower Protection at 2:15:30

Connected files

Claims

Incidents

Documents

News

People

Mentioned in this file

More claims

WHERE ARE THEYUAP · NHI CASE ARCHIVE
About