Although
the vast majority of Americans, and people everywhere,
are unaware of its existence, a UFO-Nukes Connection is
now remarkably well-documented. U.S. Air Force, FBI, and
CIA files declassified via the Freedom of Information
Act establish a convincing, ongoing pattern of UFO activity
at U.S. nuclear weapons sites extending back to December
1948.
For
more than 35 years, I have been interviewing
former and retired U.S. Air Force personnel regarding
their direct or indirect involvement in nuclear weapons-related
UFO sighting incidents. These individuals—from former
airmen to retired colonels—report extraordinary
encounters which have obvious national security implications.
In fact, taken to their logical conclusion, the reported
incidents have planetary implications, given the horrific
consequences which would result from a full-scale, global
nuclear war.
At
the time of their experiences, my former or retired
USAF sources held positions ranging from nuclear missile
launch and targeting officers, to missile maintenance
personnel, to missile security police. The incidents
described occurred at Malmstrom, Minot, F.E. Warren, Ellsworth,
Vandenberg, and Walker AFBs, between 1963 and 1996.
Other sources were stationed at Wurtsmith and Loring AFBs,
where B-52 nuclear bombers were based during the Cold
War era.
As
of April 2009, I have interviewed over 100 individuals
who were involved in various UFO-related incidents at
Strategic Air Command bases or remote ICBM sites. I have
selected the statement of one of those persons for presentation
here. An expanded discussion of this material appears
in my 600-page book, UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters
at Nuclear Weapons Sites.
The
testimony below is admittedly anecdotal evidence.
Nevertheless, it is offered—somewhat reluctantly—by
someone who was entrusted by the U.S. government with
the operation of weapons of mass destruction. As such,
my source, David H. Schuur, was subjected to, and passed,
rigorous background checks and personality tests designed
to ascertain, with a reasonable degree of certainty, his
psychological stability and reliability.
For
the moment, the international tensions of the
Cold War era have receded. Consequently, the U.S. and
Russia are currently downsizing their nuclear arsenals.
Nevertheless, vast numbers of nukes still exist and may
be unleashed at a moment’s notice. Therefore, these
weapons remain a potential threat to the future of the
human race.
The
events described below leave little doubt that
our nuclear weapons program is an ongoing source of interest
to someone possessing vastly superior technology. Significantly,
the reported UFO activity in the incident below transcends
mere surveillance and involves direct and unambiguous
interference with our strategic weapons systems.
Considering
this and similar accounts—too numerous
and credible to dismiss—I would argue, as others
have before me, that the heightened presence of the UFO
phenomenon since the end of World War II is a direct consequence
of the advent of the Nuclear Age. To suggest that this
is the only explanation for widespread UFO sightings during
our own era would be presumptuous, simplistic, and undoubtedly
inaccurate. Nevertheless, I believe that the nuclear weapons-related
incidents are integral to an understanding of the mystery
at hand.
Launch
in Progress!
Of
all the interviews
I’ve conducted with former or retired ICBM launch
officers over the past three decades, this was perhaps
the most disturbing. According to David H. Schuur,
a UFO temporarily activated the launch sequence in most
of his Minuteman missiles.
In
August 2007, Schuur told me, “I saw your
request for information in the [June 2007] Association
of Air Force Missileers Newsletter. I was involved in
a UFO incident at Minot AFB in the mid-1960s. I had read
your earlier article [in the September 2002 AAFM Newsletter]
but was hesitant to respond.” I asked Schuur why
he had been hesitant. He replied, “Well, we were
basically told, way back when, that it was classified
information and, you know, it didn’t happen and
don’t discuss it. I guess I was still operating
on that idea when I saw your first article.”
Schuur
had obviously had a change of heart. He continued,
“Anyway, I was a Minuteman missile crewmember in
the 455th/91st Strategic Missile Wing at Minot from December
1963 through November 1967. I was a 1st Lieutenant during
that period and the deputy commander that night. Since
the incident occurred some 40 years ago, my memories are
a bit foggy but, based on who my commander was at the
time, I would say it occurred between July 1965 and July
1967.”
I
asked Schuur if he could narrow the time-frame
during which the incident occurred, by associating it
with another event.
He
replied, “Not really, but my sense is
that the incident occurred toward the end of my duty
in the [missile] field, so it was probably during 1966,
or ’67. I was pulling alert in the Echo [Launch
Control] Capsule and was at the console at the time,
probably early in the morning when the commander was
sleeping. I know I was at Echo because that’s
where I pulled almost all of my alert duty. My crew
commander at the time has died. He was a Lieutenant
Colonel at Minot, in his 50s—he was in the reserves,
an old Korea veteran, who was recalled to duty in the
early 1960s.”
“As
far as the incident, here’s my best recollection
of it: Alpha capsule, which was east of us, reported
on PAS—the Primary Alerting System—that
their security personnel were observing a large, bright
object hovering over some of their missile sites. It
was moving from missile to missile. I think the Alpha
missile crew also reported that they were receiving
‘spurious indicators’ on their missile control
console, but I’m not certain about that. I know
that a few minutes later our capsule had spurious indicators—anomalous
readings—from some of our missiles.”
I
asked Schuur to explain PAS.
Schuur
said, “It was an open line between SAC
headquarters and the wing command posts. There was a
speaker in each launch capsule and when the command
posts issued a directive, or whatever, we were able
to hear it. When Alpha had their UFO sightings, they
alerted the command post, at which time the command
post called SAC headquarters. So, when the report of
the sightings went out, we all heard it on PAS.”
“But
it wasn’t just Alpha and Echo. Over the next hour
or so—I don’t recall exactly how long it
was—all of the flights reported that their [Security
Alert Teams] were observing a UFO near their facilities.
The path of the object could be followed as it passed
over each flight area by the reports on the PAS. The
object moved over the entire wing from the southeast
to the northwest, following the layout of the wing.”
“As
far as our flight, Echo, a few minutes after
hearing the report from Alpha, I received a call from
topside security that a large bright light—actually,
a large, bright object would be more accurate—was
in the sky, to the east of the launch control facility.
When the guard called down, he may have used the term
‘UFO’ but I don’t recall. He didn’t
describe it’s shape or altitude because it was
too far away. It never got close enough to the LCF to
see any detail. At its closest, it was two, three, maybe
four miles away from us, near one of the missile sites.”
Schuur
continued, “However, when the object
passed over our flight, we started receiving many spurious
indications on our console. The object was apparently
sending some kind of signals into each missile. Not
every missile got checked [out] by the object, but there
were several that did. Maybe six, seven, or eight. Maybe
all ten got checked, but I don’t think so.
As
this thing was passing over each missile site, we would
start getting erratic indications on that particular
missile. After a few seconds, everything reset back
to normal. But then the next missile showed spurious
indicators, so the object had apparently moved on to
that one, and did the same thing to it. Then on to the
next one, and so on. It was as if the object was scanning
each missile, one by one.
The
Inner Security and Outer Security [alarms were triggered]
but we got those all the time, for one reason or another.
However, on this particular night, we had to activate
the ‘Inhibit’ switch because we got ‘Launch
in Progress’ indicators! After a few minutes,
the UFO passed to the northwest of us and all indicators
reset to normal.”
I
wanted to be certain about what I had just been
told. I asked Schuur, “So, if you get a Launch in
Progress indicator, does that mean the launch sequence
has been triggered—that the missile is preparing
to launch?”
Schuur
replied, “That means the missile has received
a launch signal. When that happens, we get an indication
in the capsule that a launch command has been received
by that missile. If that happens, without proper authority,
you flip what’s called an “Inhibit”
switch, to delay the launch for a given period of time."
If
an Inhibit command comes in from another launch
capsule, that shuts down the launch totally. But if that
second command doesn’t come in, the missile will
wait for a specified period of time and then launch automatically
at the end of that expired period—theoretically.
Of course, that night, we had all kinds of other indicators
coming on from each missile so, in that situation, the
launch probably would have aborted itself. I honestly
don’t know.”
I
asked Schuur if the Launch in Progress indicator
had ever been triggered on any other occasion, either
before or after the UFO incident, while he was on alert
duty. He replied, “No, never.”
I asked Schuur if he had heard about missile maintenance
teams having to replace components or whole systems in
the affected missiles—the ones that generated the
spurious readings. He replied, “No, if that happened,
I never heard about it.”
Schuur
said, “Upon returning to the
base the next day, my commander and I were met by the
operations officer. He just said, ‘Nothing happened,
nothing to discuss, goodbye.’ Our logs and tapes
were turned in.
Every
capsule had a 24-hour tape that, as I recall, recorded
the communications that went over the PAS system, so
all the reports would have been on that tape. But we
were essentially told that nothing had happened that
night and to discuss it no further. It was a non-event.
We were never debriefed, by OSI or anyone else. We just
went home.
Most
of the returning missile crews drove back to the base
from their facilities, so they all arrived at different
times. There was no group debriefing that I know of.
I never heard another thing about the incident.”
I
asked Schuur, “I know that you were given
no feedback from your superiors, but what is your personal
assessment of the event?”
He
replied, “Oh, I think something was up
there, uh, scanning the missiles, seeing what was going
on. Some kind of a scanning process.”
I
asked Schuur whether he thought the launch activation
had been incidental or deliberate. He seemed surprised
by my question and said:
“I
think that the scanning just set it off. It set all kinds
of things off, we were getting all sorts of indicators.
There
were some kind of signals being sent [from the
UFO] to the missile that inadvertently triggered the launch
activation, but I don’t think it was deliberate.
I hope not! That would have been—.” Schuur
didn’t finish this sentence. His voice broke and
he heaved a deep sigh. Apparently, the thought that those
aboard the UFO might have deliberately attempted to launch
his nuclear missiles that night had caused him to pause—and
probably shudder—over 40 years later.
I
obviously accept Schuur’s report as credible,
but am of course attempting to locate other former members
of his squadron who are willing to corroborate it. As
Schuur candidly admitted, after reading my first article
in the September 2002 AAFM newsletter, he waited some
five years before approaching me. It was only after my
second published request for information from former/retired
USAF missileers, that he decided to unburden himself.
This hesitant response is not atypical. Many of my former
missile launch officer sources have not readily or easily
divulged their UFO experiences to me, for one reason or
another.
Virtually
all of my other ex-USAF sources who mentioned apparent
UFO interference with their nuclear missiles state that
the ICBMs were knocked off “alert status”
by failures in the Guidance and Control (G&C) systems
and were, therefore, not launchable.
To
my knowledge, Schuur’s testimony represents the
only credible report on record of a UFO temporarily activating
a U.S. nuclear missile. However, that said, there is one
other reliable report of such an activation—in the
Soviet Ukraine, in October 1982. In 1994, that incident
was divulged by two retired Soviet Army officers to journalists
working for the American television network ABC-TV. The
dramatic details are discussed at length in my book.
Text
extract from the book, UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary
Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, by
Robert Hastings, available only at www.ufohastings.com
Since
1981, Robert Hastings has lectured about
the UFO-Nukes Connection at more than 500 colleges and
universities in the United States. His appearance with
three former USAF officers on CNN’s Larry King Live
on July 18, 2008 (rebroadcast on December 31, 2008) is
still viewable on YouTube.
