Malmstrom Echo Flight Missiles Offline 1967

On March 16, 1967, Launch Control Officers Captain Eric Carlson and Lieutenant Walt Figel at Malmstrom Air Force Base's Echo Flight Launch Control Center experienced one of the most significant incidents in American nuclear weapons history. A security guard called Figel to report a glowing red orb hovering above the LCF. Shortly thereafter, Echo Flight's ten Minuteman ICBMs began going offline sequentially — losing their launch readiness status. All ten missiles were offline within approximately 30 seconds. The simultaneous loss of all ten missiles in a single flight had never occurred before and had essentially no probability in normal operational parameters. SAC was immediately notified. Boeing missile engineers and USAF investigators were deployed. After extensive investigation, no electronic malfunction was found that could account for the simultaneous shutdown of all ten missiles. USAF officers Robert Salas and Robert Jamison, who were involved in related incidents, later testified about the pattern of nuclear facility UAP encounters to Congress. The Echo Flight incident is the most extensively documented case of apparent UAP interference with US nuclear weapons systems.