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Echo Flight


quillius

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http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=176314&pid=3972181&st=15entry3972181

I thought I would bring this thread back to life as recent discussions have me very intruiged.

For anyone that followed the heated debate on the (now closed) cheyenne thread will be interested in reading through this thread also.

I personally find it hard to believe that a security team would 'joke' about UFO's at such a serious time, in addition I find the fact that they returned 'scared' and were relieved of duty quite interesting also.

I think this would be a good discussion to continue as long as we can avoid people accusing anyone else of lying and have a sensible debate to try and ascertain what really happened.

I would urge both R. Hastings and J.Carlson to join in the debate to try and settle matters in an amicable fashion.

I would also think it fair to say that whoever decides to make personal attacks and derail (or have thread closed)thread will be loooked upon as doing so on purpose and will raise much doubt on their 'version'.

I would also urge the likes of LS, McGuffin, Leonardo, Boon to get involved as their input and experience, I find is always very valuable in these discussions.

Edited by quillius
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Yes, we should be able to disagree without becoming disagreeable. It seems apparent to me that the accounts of these alleged cases of UFO interference with InterContinental Ballistic Missiles are made up of evidence given by several persons, not just Mr. Salas. Even if we were to disregard his remarks, some others' reports seem to support the gist of these incidents.

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Yes, we should be able to disagree without becoming disagreeable. It seems apparent to me that the accounts of these alleged cases of UFO interference with InterContinental Ballistic Missiles are made up of evidence given by several persons, not just Mr. Salas. Even if we were to disregard his remarks, some others' reports seem to support the gist of these incidents.

hello Bison, I agree 100% with your post....I especially like the opening line which needs to be adhered to by all if we are to progress discussions.

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Salas and Fred Meiwald were actually at Oscar Flight when they received UFO reports from up above. Eric Carlson and Walter Figel were not there at all, since this group of missiles was quite far away from Echo Flight.

Robert Hastings has an audiotape of that interview here:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2011/06/echo-flight-ufo-incident-not-unique.html

Meiwald said: "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.

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."

Robert Salas also interviewed Meiwald in 1996 and got the same story on tape.

Meiwald also sent him a follow-up letter in October 1996:

Meiwald%2BLetter%2B10-1-1996.gif

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In 2010, Larry Bryant requested the complete declassification of records about the Malmstrom UFO incident and got the usual brush off.

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2010/12/foia-request-for-malmstrom-afbs-entire.html

Commander

341st Missile Wing (AFGSC)

ATTN: CS/SCOK (FOIA)

30 73rd Street North - Bldg. 772, Suite 2

Malmstrom Air Force Base, MT 59402-7513

FROM:

Larry W. Bryant

3518 Martha Custis Drive

Alexandria, VA 22302

DATE:

November 26, 2010

1. Reference: Your Mr. Wayne E. Ford's Nov. 9, 2010, letter to me (quoted below), by which he resorts to a red-herring, public-relations response to my freedom-of-information request of Sept. 30, 2010.

2. Since I need additional documentation by which to prepare my forthcoming appeal of Mr. Ford's tantamount denial of my Sept. 30, 2010, FOIA request, I hereby submit this letter as a formal FOIA request that you send me a photocopy of your command's entire case file on the processing of my FOIA request No. 2011-00354-F - said file to include all action log sheets, tasking documents, agency coordination documents, action officers' processing notes, memoranda for record, e-mail messages, memoranda of telephone calls, minutes of meetings, and related records-management protocols/correspondence/talking points.

3. Please note my intention to share the contents of the sought-for case file with staff members of any congressional committee concerned about your command's apparent lack of adequate security preparedness as regards Malmstrom operations' decades-long vulnerability to UFO intrusion.

4. By USPS mail, I'm sending to you a signed printout of this e-formatted letter.

LARRY W. BRYANT

Copies furnished to:

Chairman, U. S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

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I personally find it hard to believe that a security team would 'joke' about UFO's at such a serious time, in addition I find the fact that they returned 'scared' and were relieved of duty quite interesting also.

I would also urge the likes of LS, McGuffin, Leonardo, Boon to get involved as their input and experience, I find is always very valuable in these discussions.

I think that everyone who got the UFO reports at first treated the whole thing as a joke or kidding around, including Robert Salas. At some point, though, this incident went far beyond that, and higher headquarters got involved along with the Office of Special Investigations.

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Looks like Echo Flight is going to buy the farm here. Oh well....

The Echo Flight incident is similar to other incidents that involved UFOs and missiles, including those of the former Soviet Union. Such incidents are well-known and in some cases, jets were scrambled to intercept the objects. There are cases where a B-52 and a KC-135 were pulled away from their missions to investigate, and they too, visually confirmed the objects, as well as on their radar scopes.

My base was involved in the Echo Flight investigation and the report was going to be treated as a UFO report, but then, the Air Force stepped in.

Edited by skyeagle409
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Salas and Fred Meiwald were actually at Oscar Flight when they received UFO reports from up above. Eric Carlson and Walter Figel were not there at all, since this group of missiles was quite far away from Echo Flight.

Robert Hastings has an audiotape of that interview here:

http://www.theufochr...not-unique.html

Meiwald said: "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.

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."

Robert Salas also interviewed Meiwald in 1996 and got the same story on tape.

Meiwald also sent him a follow-up letter in October 1996:

Meiwald%2BLetter%2B10-1-1996.gif

Interesting, and I spoke with Capt Salas a few months ago on the phone.

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http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=176314&pid=3972181&st=15entry3972181

I thought I would bring this thread back to life as recent discussions have me very intruiged.

For anyone that followed the heated debate on the (now closed) cheyenne thread will be interested in reading through this thread also.

I personally find it hard to believe that a security team would 'joke' about UFO's at such a serious time, in addition I find the fact that they returned 'scared' and were relieved of duty quite interesting also.

I think this would be a good discussion to continue as long as we can avoid people accusing anyone else of lying and have a sensible debate to try and ascertain what really happened.

I would urge both R. Hastings and J.Carlson to join in the debate to try and settle matters in an amicable fashion.

I would also think it fair to say that whoever decides to make personal attacks and derail (or have thread closed)thread will be loooked upon as doing so on purpose and will raise much doubt on their 'version'.

I would also urge the likes of LS, McGuffin, Leonardo, Boon to get involved as their input and experience, I find is always very valuable in these discussions.

IRT: "I personally find it hard to believe that a security team would 'joke' about UFO's at such a serious time, in addition I find the fact that they returned 'scared' and were relieved of duty quite interesting also."

There is no testimony from anybody that any of the guards at Echo Flight were "scared". You're thinking of Meiwald's testimony regarding Oscar Flight.

I received the following email from the signed respondent as a result of queries I made at the Missile Forums, a website for retired and active duty missileers:

It was likely late 1970 at a 490th SMS Dinning Out that I heard the story, A specific crew commander believed in UFOs. And when he went on alert, other crew members in the same squadron on alert at the same time called the the Flight Security Controller at the LCF and pretending to be a local farmer saying there was a glowing object of some significant size hovering over a specific Launch Facility. the FSC notified the LCC crew where the UFO believer is and he relates the phone call or patches him in to the caller, not sure of the details. as it is a multi-handed story embellished to make it sound better and the people telling it have had a few drinks any way. The information is relayed to wing command post and eventually SAC CP. I don't know if the flight security was dispatched our not to check the site out, they likely would have been and would have found nothing. So the story was likely spun the the object had left before the call was made to the FSC by the other crew member. Any way it was enough after the fact that the story was written up in one of the UFO magazines and the perpetrators had a big laugh over it.

A little Background about the the prior 490th Squadron Commander. He was a full Col. who had been offered the Wing Commander Position and turned it down and he had date of rank on all wing staff. So he could get away with a lot and one one on base could touch him. His crews knew it and he did not let any one else mess with his crew member either. So the 490th SMS had a reputation as being a very undisciplined squadron where a lot of pranks were pulled. After the 490th Commander retired all of the operations branch officers were replaced and the new squadron commander was supposed to rain in the missile crews which happened to some extent after Gerald G. Falls became Wing Commander if the 341st Strategic Missile Wing.

So this is about as much as I can relay to you, the story was told by by inebriated personnel at a squadron dining out and embellished to make it a better story so you can't put a great deal of credence in any of it. but knowing the reputation of the 490th under the former squadron commander it sounds highly likely that such a stunt would have been pulled as there were a number of tricks pulled on crew members even after that in the 490th while I was on crew between June 1970 and April 1974.

Good luck with your project.

Phil C. Walton, Captain USAFR (Ret.)

Jokes are very common in the military, as anybody who has ever served will tell you. Your doubts regarding such matters aren't supportable, and they represent an invalid argument.

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Yes, we should be able to disagree without becoming disagreeable. It seems apparent to me that the accounts of these alleged cases of UFO interference with InterContinental Ballistic Missiles are made up of evidence given by several persons, not just Mr. Salas. Even if we were to disregard his remarks, some others' reports seem to support the gist of these incidents.

In regards to the Echo Flight incident, the only testimny offered by Robert Hastings and Robert Salas are from Col. Walt Figel, and Salas' insistence throughout the 1990s that Meiwald had confirmed the event by telling him [salas] during the course of the event he was allegedly involved with that my father called him from Echo Flight and told him that "same thing" happened earlier at Echo Flight. Not only does my father insist that this never occured, but Meiwald has also refused to confirm this call. Granted, this was while Salas was claiming that he ad Meiwald were at November Flight on March 16, 1967 when the event took place, so these admissions mean nothing now, just as Salas' original claims that her was at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967 mean nothing now.

Oddly enough, throughout all of these claims, Salas was in possession of a letter from Meiwald insisting that he and Salas served only at Oscar Flight. Salas continued to claim the event he remembered was at November Flight for another three years.

As a result, Meiwald has certainly not confirmed any such event at Echo Flight. Salas has insisted, and continues to do so today, that my father, the commander of Echo Flight, also confirmed the UFO story. This is also untrue. My father has never claimed that a UFO was involved, and he told this to a newspaper reporter in Great Falls, Montana in 1996. He also told the producer of "Sightings", the cable television program that gave Salas' story national coverage in March 1997, that there was no UFO. That's the primary reason that they refused to have him on that particular show, even though Salas had been telling his friend, Raymond Fowler, that it was very important to have someone who served at Echo Flight on the show. Both my father and the Echo Flight deputy commander refused to be on the show, because they insisted that there was no UFO. As a result, they were forced to have the deputy commander of the crew that relieved Echo Flight many hours after the fact, a man who saw nothying, and could report nothing.

Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have only presented one additional Echo Flight witness, and that was Col. Walt Figel, Jr. When I contacted Col. Figel and asked him what exactly he had confirmed, he responded immediately that his comments has been wildly distorted, misinterpreted, and that statements were taken out of context by Robert Hastings to suggest a UFO presence that never actually existed. He staed that he hjad pointed out numerous errors in both Hastings' and Salas' books that both authors have refused to correct. To this day, he insists that there was no UFO at Echo Flight, there was no UFO inestigation, and there was no resolution to the case involving a UFO. He has been very outspoken in regard to the claims that Hastings and Salas have attributed to him, and insists that he has never told anybody that a UFO wa sinvolved, or even that he believed a UFO was involved.

Therer are no other witnesses for the UFO, but there are very many who insist there was no UFO. If a UFO report had been made, there would have been an investigation by the command UFO officver, Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase. But no such investigation ever took place, and Lt. Col. Chase insisted from 1967 until his death many years later, that there wa no UFO investigation, ecause there was no UFO reported. He continued to make these claims well after the entire incident had been declassified.

There is no evidence at all to suggest that an actual UFO was involved at Echo Flight, and there are no witnesses who have stated otherwise, excepting Robert Salas and Robert Hastings. Robert Salas' claims are based on absolutely nothing, all of which we can easily see in the many different versions of this story that he has told (inconsistency being the only consistent aspect of his claims), while Hastings' claims are based on statements that his own witness has repeatedly and very strongly denounced.

If there are any other witnesses, I would be very interested in knowing who they are.

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I don't want to get involved in yet another of these infinite loops of round-the-houses arguing, but just to pick up on something Q said in your opening P;

"I find it hard to believe that a security team would 'joke' about UFO's at such a serious time,"; I could believe it. Surely joking in times of tension is a well-known human characteristic, it probably serves a purpose in relaxing tension. I think the whole thing was probably an off-hand remark made by someone that was picked up by someone. Probably similar to the way someone suggested that maybe the Roswell debris was a weather balloon; I bet they never thought that that would be taken seriously. ( :P )

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In regard to the claims made (allegedly) by Col. Meiwald, I find it interesting that even Hastings has agreed that in his interviews with Meiwald, the Oscar Flight commander has refused to confirm any UFO, insisting that if such a call came in, it happened while he was asleep, and that if Salas later told him about it, he doesn't remember it.

In his 1996 letter, he fails to mention any missile failures at all. He also describes an incident that couldn't possibly be associated with a missile failures incident. A missile failures incident would not have been under the command of the security command post as he states -- it would have been under his own direct command, just as the Echo Flight missile failures were under my father's direct command. In addition, a missile failures incident would have required the security team to be augmented by maintenance personnel -- exactly as the security teams at Echo Flight. Security teams had neither the training nor the knowledge to crack open the silo and determine what the status of the missiles were -- and this was required in any missle failures incident, which we can easily see from the example of the Echo Flight incident. Meiwald even apologizes to Salas for not being able to help him out in his quest to establish UFO interference. His letter, in fact, describes nothing more than an unconfirmed UFO incident that occurred during a fairly common security alert, so common a happenstance that command responsibility was taken away from the capsule crew in order to let them concentrate on duties directly affecting the missiles themselves. You can ask any of the literally hundreds of missileers at any of the USAF missileer websites to confirm this -- it's very easy to do, and they don't mind at all discussing the events central to their profession. There are also numerous newsletters published by such groups that are publically available. The fact that so few people have actually done anything to investigate the claims made by Salas and Hastings doesn't erase the knowledge -- it's available to anybody with the will to look at it, and you don't have to be in the USAF or a missileer to do so.

I think it's interesting as well to note that Col. Meiwald to this day does not even believe in UFOs, a remarkable aspect of the man's character if he has indeed "confirmed" everything that Salas and Hastings insist he has confirmed. It's also interesting that every time Salas has changed his version of these events, he continues to insist that Meiwald has confirmed it. He insisted that Meiwald had confirmed the event that allegedly took place at November Flight, even though he was in possession of the above letter that insists they were at Oscar Flight -- and that was a three year confirmation by all accounts!

Plainly, Meiwald represents an especially remarkable confirmation for a UFO at Oscar Flight. He doesn't believe in UFOs, he insists that he doesn't remember the UFO report allegedly made to Salas, and the only UFO incident he does recall and has discussed took place during a common security alert that he had nothing to do with, cannot confirm as anything more than the hearsay it represents, and refuses to associate with a missile failures incident anywhere at anytime.

If this is all that Hastings and Salas can come up with, I honestly don't see the point. I've written to Col. Meiwald and I've asked him to clarify these issues for us, and I'll certainly let everyone know as soon as I get a response from him, whatever that response is. If he confirms a UFO and a missile failures incident occuring at the same time, as Hastings and Salas have plainly asserted, I'll certainly give it the public airing the issue demands, but as things stand right now, there are far too many questions regarding the "spin" that Hastings and Salas have given his testimony. Meiwald has yet to confirm anything with a clear and cohesive statement, and the fact that this has been accepted as a clear confirmation of a UFO knocking off a full flight of missiles when it can be interpreted in so many other ways is a damn shame, but not a surprising one, considering the source. Why is there this reliance on audio tapes, when a plain and clearly written account by the witness himself would be so much easier to accept? If the man really made these claims (and I don't believe for a second he did), than why doesn't he just say so? In light of Col. Figel's testimony regarding what he insists was done to the claims he made to Robert Hastings, if nothing else, clarity regarding Meiwald's claims needs to be clearly established; after all, we're talking about the same source. And I can't help but wonder why Robert Hastings has failed to get anything definitive from his witness. A clearly written statement by the respondent to those claims could establish that, and yet he continues to present this waffling testimony that isn't definitive, can't be used to establish anything, has no provenance, possesses no reliability that it's been unedited or is complete (and Hastings has already admitted that similar records he has presented have indeed been edited and are not complete), and needs to be interpreted for us by a man who has already proven to be a very poor source of such interpretation. I hope that Col. Meiwald will clarify these matters for us, but as Hastings' interpretation stands now, it can't be (and shouldn't be) accepted as the final word on any of Salas' claims regarding Oscar Flight.

This entire investigation by Salas and Hastings has unfortunately proven to be little more than their attempts to establish a foundation for Salas' claims, not an investigation to determine the truth. They haven't "looked" at anything except those bits of scattered information that support their claims. As a result of this, they've ignored some very applicable facts. For instance, Lt. Col. Chase was queried by his direct superiors regarding equipment failures on March 24-25, 1967 -- the date that Hastings and Salas insist the Oscar Flight missile failures occurred -- and his response establishes that no such failres took place anywhere on Malmstrom AFB. Salas' and Hastings' only response to this is that Chase must have been lying, but this is a ridiculous assumption to make in light of the fact that the query came from his superiors, who also represented one of the most important intelligence hubs in the entire Department of Defense. They've ignored the fact that there are no documents anywhere to establish a missile failures incident of any sort occurring at Oscar Flight. Meiwald refuses to confirm anything more than 3-4 missiles failing, while Salas insists it was 8-10, so even his own confirmation refuses to confirm the event Salas insists upon; and without anything else, are we to simply accept Salas' and Hastings' claims as factual? On their say so alone?

I don't see why ANYBODY would want to catch a ride on that bus.

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I don't want to get involved in yet another of these infinite loops of round-the-houses arguing, but just to pick up on something Q said in your opening P;

"I find it hard to believe that a security team would 'joke' about UFO's at such a serious time,"; I could believe it. Surely joking in times of tension is a well-known human characteristic, it probably serves a purpose in relaxing tension. I think the whole thing was probably an off-hand remark made by someone that was picked up by someone. Probably similar to the way someone suggested that maybe the Roswell debris was a weather balloon; I bet they never thought that that would be taken seriously. ( :P )

I have no desire or interest in repeating the same points over and over again, either. This is one of the better-documented UFO cases from the number and quality of witnesses, and the audiotapes and written testimony have already been posted many times.

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I have no desire or interest in repeating the same points over and over again, either. This is one of the better-documented UFO cases from the number and quality of witnesses, and the audiotapes and written testimony have already been posted many times.

McGuffin,

In the thread linked to by quillius, I rounded off my anaylsis of the posts by Messrs Carlson and Hastings with the following...

1) There is no eyewitness testimony of a UFO at Echo flight or Oscar flight. All accounts of these incidents are, at best, second-hand, and, imo, those pertaining to Echo flight of dubious nature that the accounts were not meant as a joke.

2) Apart from a heightened state of alert due to UFO reports (again, second-hand at best), the US Air Force doesn't appear to have instigated any special measures to protect missile sites from further intrusion.

3) After the circuitry of the Minuteman missile systems was upgraded following several failures in the late 1960's, no further mass shutdowns of these missiles was reported. This seems to corroborate Mr Carlson's claim that the failures were a result of faulty (or fragile) circuitry and not outside interference. The premise that the US military could 'harden' its missiles against an unknown force that did not leave any trace of its effect on these missiles cannot be entertained.

4) Some of Mr Hastings conclusions about various testimonies are inconsistent with the facts of those testimonies. This is not an indictment of Mr Hastings in that he may be intentional in his inconsistency.

5) We appear to have some controversy over a few material facts pertaining to the incident. Was the 20th Air Division (or part of it) stationed at Malmstrom AFB? Did Col. Figel report to the onsite teams at Echo flight there was a "Channel 9 No-Go" and, if so, why did Mr Barlow, who was on the Maintenance Team, not verify that? Why does Mr Kaminski not recognise the "Channel 9 No-Go" from the VRSA indicator reports?

6) In the testimony pertinent to the Oscar flight shutdown, why was Mr Jamison not questioned as to whether he found (or was appraised of) the cause of the shutdown? All we have in this testimony is a general discussion of UFO rumour.

One of the most pertinent points I mentioned is that there is absolutely no eyewitness testimony of any UFO at either Echo or Oscar. Furthemore, I know that at Echo, there is also no testimony by radar, etc - I am unsure if any exists for Oscar - to independently corroborate any UFO was within the area of Echo flight.

So how, then please, can you suggest either incident is...

...one of the better-documented UFO cases from the number and quality of witnesses, and the audiotapes and written testimony have already been posted many times.

???

Edited by Leonardo
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In regards to the Echo Flight incident, the only testimny offered by Robert Hastings and Robert Salas are from Col. Walt Figel, and Salas' insistence throughout the 1990s that Meiwald had confirmed the event by telling him [salas] during the course of the event he was allegedly involved with that my father called him from Echo Flight and told him that "same thing" happened earlier at Echo Flight. Not only does my father insist that this never occured, but Meiwald has also refused to confirm this call. Granted, this was while Salas was claiming that he ad Meiwald were at November Flight on March 16, 1967 when the event took place, so these admissions mean nothing now, just as Salas' original claims that her was at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967 mean nothing now.

Oddly enough, throughout all of these claims, Salas was in possession of a letter from Meiwald insisting that he and Salas served only at Oscar Flight. Salas continued to claim the event he remembered was at November Flight for another three years.

As a result, Meiwald has certainly not confirmed any such event at Echo Flight. Salas has insisted, and continues to do so today, that my father, the commander of Echo Flight, also confirmed the UFO story. This is also untrue. My father has never claimed that a UFO was involved, and he told this to a newspaper reporter in Great Falls, Montana in 1996. He also told the producer of "Sightings", the cable television program that gave Salas' story national coverage in March 1997, that there was no UFO. That's the primary reason that they refused to have him on that particular show, even though Salas had been telling his friend, Raymond Fowler, that it was very important to have someone who served at Echo Flight on the show. Both my father and the Echo Flight deputy commander refused to be on the show, because they insisted that there was no UFO. As a result, they were forced to have the deputy commander of the crew that relieved Echo Flight many hours after the fact, a man who saw nothying, and could report nothing.

Robert Hastings and Robert Salas have only presented one additional Echo Flight witness, and that was Col. Walt Figel, Jr. When I contacted Col. Figel and asked him what exactly he had confirmed, he responded immediately that his comments has been wildly distorted, misinterpreted, and that statements were taken out of context by Robert Hastings to suggest a UFO presence that never actually existed. He staed that he hjad pointed out numerous errors in both Hastings' and Salas' books that both authors have refused to correct. To this day, he insists that there was no UFO at Echo Flight, there was no UFO inestigation, and there was no resolution to the case involving a UFO. He has been very outspoken in regard to the claims that Hastings and Salas have attributed to him, and insists that he has never told anybody that a UFO wa sinvolved, or even that he believed a UFO was involved.

Therer are no other witnesses for the UFO, but there are very many who insist there was no UFO. If a UFO report had been made, there would have been an investigation by the command UFO officver, Lt. Col. Lewis D. Chase. But no such investigation ever took place, and Lt. Col. Chase insisted from 1967 until his death many years later, that there wa no UFO investigation, ecause there was no UFO reported. He continued to make these claims well after the entire incident had been declassified.

There is no evidence at all to suggest that an actual UFO was involved at Echo Flight, and there are no witnesses who have stated otherwise, excepting Robert Salas and Robert Hastings. Robert Salas' claims are based on absolutely nothing, all of which we can easily see in the many different versions of this story that he has told (inconsistency being the only consistent aspect of his claims), while Hastings' claims are based on statements that his own witness has repeatedly and very strongly denounced.

If there are any other witnesses, I would be very interested in knowing who they are.

I must respect a man who defends the honor and probity of his father with such diligence. It seems that nothing further can be accomplished in debating this matter. I am more interested in the possibility that ICBMs can and have been inexplicably compromised in the presence of Unidentified Flying Objects, than in one specific alleged incident, at one particular missile base. As I remarked before, there is nothing unique about the alleged Malmstrom UFO interference case. The Russians seem to have experienced something quite similar. http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1142.htm If an incident very suggestive of highly sophisticated, outside interference with ICBMs can occur elsewhere, it seems natural to suspect that such incidents could have occurred somewhere, at some time, in this country, too.
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McGuffin,

One of the most pertinent points I mentioned is that there is absolutely no eyewitness testimony of any UFO at either Echo or Oscar. Furthemore, I know that at Echo, there is also no testimony by radar, etc - I am unsure if any exists for Oscar - to independently corroborate any UFO was within the area of Echo flight.

So how, then please, can you suggest either incident is...

I just meant that Robert Hastings has an unusual number of military officers who came forward and spoke about the UFO reports and their involvement with the missile shutdowns: Robert Salas, Fred Meiwald, Don Crawford, Robert Jamison, Dwynne Arneson and others, who tell a similar story. Looking at their statements and their audiotape interviews, I believe they are recounting events as best they recall them, and that Salas and Hastings have been very scrupulous in recording all this testimony.

I don't think that they were able to get the complete documentary record declassified, though.

Jamison was there at the time and confirmed what Salas, Hastings and Meiwald said about the missile shutdown at Oscar flight. His affidavit is here:

Robert+C+Jamison+Affidavit+%28Pg+1%29++Age+%26+Address+Redacted.jpg

Robert+C+Jamison+Affidavit+%28Pg+2%29.jpg

Arneson was there and also confirms that missiles were shut down by UFOs in this affidavit:

Dwynne+C+Arneson+Affidavit+%28Age+%26+Address+Redacted%29.jpg

Like I said, we have quite a few witnesses who were there at the time, and well aware of the upset that the UFOs caused, whether or not they actually saw them. When they did not actually see them, they were honest about admitting it, but like I said, it's rare to have all these military witnesses coming forward for a single incident.

Hastings was there at the time, after all, and he did hear that UFOs were tracked on radar.

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Robert Jamison told Robert Salas the same story in 2004:

http://www.theufochronicles.com/2009/01/ufos-did-shutdown-minuteman-missiles-at.html

"On the day of the UFO events in Oscar Flight in March 1967 I was on evening stand-by, I received a call from Job Control (they are the unit that keeps track of the missile status and dispatches maintenance teams as needed). I was told that a missile in Oscar Flight had gone off alert and required a restart. No other information was given, which was not unusual. I called my team members (two enlisted personnel: an NCO and an Airman). Upon arriving at the MIMS hanger to prepare for the dispatch, a friend (I don't remember who) approached me and asked me if I knew what was happening. I did not. I was told a UFO was seen over Oscar Flight and the whole flight went off alert. I then went to job control to find out what was going on. They confirmed what I had been told and that I would have to restart 3 or 4 missiles that night but stick around until they were sure that the event was over.

I mentioned that I thought that was unusual, or something to that effect. They told me something even more unusual. A truck driver reported a UFO going into a canyon south of Great Falls. At this location, near a town named Belt, was a long, straight down grade fill section with steep sides. On the south side was a small canyon. I was told that several people from the base, including either the Base Commander of the Wing Commander, I don't remember which, was also on site. They reported strange lights on the floor of the canyon. The sides of the canyon were rather steep and not safe for scaling until, at least, daylight. Also two helicopters were dispatched to the area to keep their eyes on the thing until daylight. Again, because of the steep sides and narrowness of the site, they were not permitted to descend in the dark. I was told that I could possibly get more information at a temporary Command Post set up in the Daily Briefing Room. I was let in but didn't get much information as nothing much was going on at the time. They were in radio communication with those at the scene. I did hear descriptions of lights on the bottom of the canyon. Other than that, it was pretty boring. I stood in the back of the small room as I had no input to offer. I was there for probably 45 minutes when one of my crew members came in and told me that no new incidents have occurred and that we were to dispatch. Prior to dispatch I was told to attend a short briefing, involving only my crew (other crews were given the same briefing, separately, when they were dispatched). We were told to keep our eyes open for any unusual aerial activity. If anything was seen en route to or from any of the sites, report immediately by radio. If we were at the site and the site was open we were to enter the silo with the targeting tapes which we carried to the site and close the personnel hatch. (Although the missiles were more or less "pointed" in the right direction we had to program the missile's computer, using the tapes, with other information such as the launch code (partial), range data and blast type. The tapes were optically encoded and classified secret/crypto. They were to be guarded at all times). The SAT guard (accompanying us to the sites at all times) was to be left outside. At that time, he was the only one armed. Later, the Targeting Team members (officer and NCO only) were issued .38s (but not as a result of the UFO activities). The missiles in Oscar Flight averaged about 160 miles from the base. With the Air Force vehicles, we spent 7 to 8 hours traveling time and about two hours for each restart procedure but no activities were seen and the remainder of the night was uneventful.

Upon return to the base, about mid-day the next day, I reported for trip debriefing. All dispatches, including those prior to the incident required a debriefing upon return to the base. Not surprisingly, the main topic was the UFO incident. I reported that I saw nothing unusual. I also inquired about the trapped UFO. I was told that at daybreak the UFO in the canyon rose up out of the canyon, between the two helicopters, and sped away. Later I found out that the area in the canyon was investigated. Weeds and brush in the canyon appeared to have been disturbed but I don't know how much or to what extent or the nature of the disturbance.

I talked to several people, mostly SAT members, who personally witnessed these events. They obviously saw something and were visibly shaken. I remember one telling of seeing two small red lights off at a distance. They then began to close in toward the missile site, then he broke down so I don't know what happened. I thought it best not to pursue the matter further. I never even mentioned it to him later. Rumor had it that several people went bonkers, but I don't know who and I seriously doubt it. In these types of events, exaggeration and fancy take their toll.

A short time following these events (I don't remember how long) a UFO was seen over India Flight and several, but not all, missiles went off alert. As in the Oscar event, I was called upon to restore alert status to these missiles. I also heard that a similar event occurred over Echo Flight. I don't remember this event. This may have occurred during one of my off-duty days when I try to have as little contact with MIMS as possible. These are the days I reserve for myself and my family.

Several weeks after the above events, I was assigned to accompany Boeing technicians to visit the sites to query the guidance and control sections. They were not permitted to be at the site unless accompanied by authorized personnel. I asked then to include the UFO incident in their final report and they said they would! The final report was classified and I can't confirm that this was done."

To me, it sounds like UFOs were shutting down missiles all over the place, and my guess is that the Air Force got just a little upset about that, for understandable reasons. The more I hear about this case, the bigger I think it was, but it was by no means unique.

Edited by TheMcGuffin
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I watched and listened to the testimony of Lt. Jamison, and Col. Arneson in the Washington D.C. press conference earlier this year. I would like to accord them the respect they are due, and assume that they gave truthful accounts. The latter also referred to substantiating conclusions of missile investigator Robert Kaminski, who reportedly found the malfunctions unexplainable by any conventional means.

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Here are some more speakers at the National Press Club:

And I could tell Patrick McDonough that I know what it's like when they hover and then just take off at lightening speed. They do that quite a lot.

Edited by TheMcGuffin
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The best part of that press conference was watching Hastings get annoyed during the Q/A. Classic.

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I just meant that Robert Hastings has an unusual number of military officers who came forward and spoke about the UFO reports and their involvement with the missile shutdowns: Robert Salas, Fred Meiwald, Don Crawford, Robert Jamison, Dwynne Arneson and others, who tell a similar story. Looking at their statements and their audiotape interviews, I believe they are recounting events as best they recall them, and that Salas and Hastings have been very scrupulous in recording all this testimony.

I don't think that they were able to get the complete documentary record declassified, though.

Jamison was there at the time and confirmed what Salas, Hastings and Meiwald said about the missile shutdown at Oscar flight. His affidavit is here:

Robert+C+Jamison+Affidavit+%28Pg+1%29++Age+%26+Address+Redacted.jpg

Robert+C+Jamison+Affidavit+%28Pg+2%29.jpg

Arneson was there and also confirms that missiles were shut down by UFOs in this affidavit:

Dwynne+C+Arneson+Affidavit+%28Age+%26+Address+Redacted%29.jpg

Like I said, we have quite a few witnesses who were there at the time, and well aware of the upset that the UFOs caused, whether or not they actually saw them. When they did not actually see them, they were honest about admitting it, but like I said, it's rare to have all these military witnesses coming forward for a single incident.

Hastings was there at the time, after all, and he did hear that UFOs were tracked on radar.

I think it's far more interesting to consider the details of Jamison's case as it was told to Robert Hastings between 1994 and 2004-05. Throughout that entire period, Jamison insisted that he could neither date nor give an accurate location to the event he recalls. Only after numerous "proddings" by Robert Hastings was Jamsion eventually able to claim that the incident was at Osacar Flight on March 24-25, 1967. His original assertions are on the record. He believed the event occurred sometime betwen 1966 and 1967, and the location was one of the flights near Lewistown, which includes Echo Flight, November Flight, Oscar Flight, and Mike Flight. Oscar Flight is significantly farther away than either Mike or November, but since Jamison for many years could do nothing more to qualify his account, it's a moot point.

It isn't a common thing for a man of Jamison's age to see such a marked improvement of him memory as his age advances, but I suppose anything is possible. It should also be noted, however, that Jamison's testimony is all second hand hearsay, as he witnessed nothing himself.

Oddly enough, most of Hastings' witnesses have this little tidbit in common.

One thing about Hastings having leapt at Oscar Flight as the subject of Jamison's “testimony” that bothers me is the fact that Lewistown is about the same distance from Oscar Flight as it is from Echo Flight, and yet Hastings doesn’t even consider Echo Flight an outside possibility. So he either doesn’t believe that Echo Flight was the subject of a UFO encounter, or he’s once again molding and shaping testimony (that doesn’t even have a date attached to it) in order to make it fit into his own closed-off little world view. Personally, I think Jamison is hedging a bit much. The only thing he’s “positive” about is that “the incident occurred at one of the missile flights located near Lewistown, Montana”, and anybody who can look at a map can tell you that’s not Oscar Flight or Echo Flight. It has got to be Mike or November Flight, which means we may have another incident entirely.

And that is merely one example of Robert Hastings' numerous confirmations. Of course, he and Salas only had about seven witnesses at their last press conference. One could understandably wonder why the 120 ex-military witnesses that Hastings has oh so very often mentioned in past forum discussions were not able to make the trip. If all are dead, that would be an interesting bit of trivia to dress up his bio with. I've tracked down and discussed the statements of only two of his witnesses, and 100% of them failed utterly to confirm the accounts he and Salas have so often discussed in public. I would suggest that this statistic is also somewhat newsworthy, but I doubt he or Salas would agree.

Edited by James Carlson
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The best part of that press conference was watching Hastings get annoyed during the Q/A. Classic.

I thought the best part of the Q and A was when Robert Salas was asked if anybody had confirmed his claims. He named both my father and Col. Walt Figel. Interesting that TheMcGuffin has made such a point of insisting that neither my father nor Col. Figel were at Oscar Flight, and couldn't, therefore, confirm or deny anything that may or may not have happened. Robert Hastings has repeatedly made the same call.

Perhaps they should both call up Robert Salas and tell him so ...

Edited by James Carlson
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Of course, Don Crawford also reported a shutdown of missiles at Echo flight when he was there:

"Twelve hours later, at missle launch site "Echo", located 20 miles away, launch commander Don Crawford suddenly found that his ICBMs were also shutting down. According to Crawford, there is NO command in the launch capsule (bunker) to be able to turn these systems off. He stated that there were no breakdowns in the systems, however, he also stated that, three weeks earlier, a security guard at this site had reported a UFO over the missile silos."

http://www.rense.com/ufo/minuteufo.htm

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