by Mack Maloney
They decided to walk the outline of the object above them. Turning three right angles before getting get back to their starting point, they later estimated that the sides of the object were 80 to 100 feet long and that it was shaped like a parallelogram.
As soon as the trio reentered the site, the loud hum engulfed them again. At that point, the technicians decided to go back down into the silo. But suddenly, everything at the site lost power, from the lights above- and belowground to the truck engine. Most troubling, the guard’s radio had gone dead.
The technicians climbed back down into the silo anyway. They did the best they could to get the lights working again but failed. Since they could accomplish nothing useful inside the pitch-black silo, they returned to ground level again, worried now that they would be blamed for the power outage.
Much to their relief, everything was now quiet up top — but they could still see the UFO above them, blotting out the sky. Then, suddenly, the power returned. The lights snapped on; the entire sky was visible again. The object had disappeared.
But then it was discovered that the guidance system for the silo’s missile was inoperative. The men had immediately begun the procedures needed to restart it when they got an angry call from the command facility. Indeed, the higher-ups thought the techs had caused the power outage at the site. The technicians assured the control facility they were as much in the dark as everyone else about what was going on. They were working to restore the guidance system and would finish the interrupted alignment procedure.
Like so many of the other witnesses to unexplained phenomena, the technicians knew what happened to people who reported UFOs. So, they agreed they would say nothing about the strange object in the sky. On leaving the site, they told the guard to stay quiet about what happened, too.
When the techs returned to base, though, they heard that crews working at two other silos had exactly the same experience as they had. They’d spotted an object overhead, the lights died and their missiles went off alert status.
All of the base leadership seemed to be at the hangar when the technicians dropped off their gear. This was odd enough. But then each man was put in a room by himself and told to fill out a detailed report about what had happened. Sticking to their agreement, the two technicians said nothing about a UFO.
Members of another team did report the UFO, however, and they were ordered to sign a national security agreement, vowing never to discuss the event again.
Later on it was learned that the power failures that night had been widespread. As many as thirteen missiles had gone off alert status.
* * *
Again, this is just a small sampling of UFO incursion incidents at America’s ICBM bases.
Reports tapered off with the 1970s, but not completely. In fact, a UFO incursion at a U.S. missile base was reported as recently as 2005.
Still, there are fewer ICBMs these days, due to various disarmament treaties between the United States and Russia. Perhaps that’s why there are fewer UFO sightings at nuclear missile bases.
But that still leaves the question: Why were UFOs so interested in these places? What were they doing? Surveillance? Sabotage? Or were they sending some kind of message?
The foo fighters seemed curious about the ways we’ve come to kill each other; maybe this was just another form of that inquisitiveness. Or maybe this was someone’s way of telling us what we should already know: that these kinds of weapons could quickly destroy all of human civilization.
Or maybe it was something else altogether.
The biggest mystery of all, though, is why the U.S. military, and mostly the U.S. Air Force, chose to treat these incidents so cavalierly and/or deceptively.
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the late great scientist who first worked for the air force in debunking UFO cases only to become a believer in them himself, published an article in 1972 about one of the UFO incursion incidents.
He reported that after the episode was “investigated,” the air force’s official explanation was that all the witnesses — from airmen to the base in question’s high-ranking officers — were seeing “stars.”
Hynek then asked facetiously: Was the U.S. Air Force putting in charge of the nuclear arsenal people who were so stupid that they didn’t know a “star” when they saw one? These same people who someday might be called on to launch this country’s nuclear weapons?
As with the cascade of UFO incidents in the 1950s and during the Korean conflict, the air force’s actions — or inactions — when it came to the UFO ICBM incursions of the 1960s and ’70s, like the incursions themselves, simply defy explanation.
17
Vietnam
In many ways, America’s involvement in the Vietnam War was an exercise in military mismanagement.
Fought as part of the larger Indochina War, which ran from 1950 to 1975, from America’s point of view, the heaviest combat occurred between 1965 and 1969 when the United States had more than 500,000 troops in the country and many thousands more in ships offshore and in nearby countries supporting the effort.
Essentially a civil war that the United States entered to help the somewhat democratic South Vietnam against the totalitarian communist North, it was a disastrous conflict with no set battle lines, no clear-cut U.S. strategy, few conventional battles and no tangible way to measure success except by body counts.
The war saw more bombs dropped on relatively tiny North Vietnam than on the entirety of Europe during World War II. Hundreds of jet fighters and bombers took to the skies daily, unleashing everything from terrifying “daisy cutter” bombs, to napalm and cluster bombs, to advanced weaponry like the first “smart” bombs, to massive carpet-bombing raids performed by B-52s loaded with conventional weapons instead of nukes.
It also involved this huge, half-million-man U.S. ground force whose members were required to do duty in the war zone for just one year and then go home. For many of these troops, fully aware that what they were doing was universally unpopular, catastrophically destructive, with no chance for a clear-cut victory, the idea wasn’t so much fight to win but more to just stay alive for those twelve months and then hopefully get out. Sadly, 58,000 of them didn’t make it.
There was much heroism in Vietnam, and many brave American soldiers and marines died in what they considered service to their country. But by the admission of many, and by the historical record, there was much drug use and abuse during the Vietnam War as well. American troops went into combat stoned on marijuana or worse. Hallucinogenics were not uncommon in the fighting units or in the rear areas; heroin was readily available, too. At the height of the American involvement, one section of the South’s capital city, Saigon, was considered such a dangerous drug haven for AWOL U.S. soldiers, even the military authorities refused to go there.
It is no surprise then that many of the reports of UFOs from this luckless war — happening at the same time as the frightening UFO ICBM incursions episode — are as chaotic as the war itself. Many sound more like science fiction than scientific mystery. And oddly, most come from ground forces and not from those flying through the air.
With thanks to UFO Casebook, Brian Vike’s HBBC UFO Research, the Australian UFO Research Network’s Jon Wyatt and others, what follows are a few of the most unusual — and infamous — UFO episodes of the Vietnam War.
UFO Kills Machinery
Maybe one of the strangest UFO incidents of any war took place in 1966 at the height of the Vietnam conflict. It happened at a place called Nha Trang, and if the reported accounts are correct, the sighting might have been witnessed by hundreds, or maybe thousands, of U.S. soldiers.
The incident was initially investigated by the original NICAP, the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena; this story comes from its archived files.
At the time of the reported episode, June 1966, Nha Trang was a massive joint U.S.-South Vietnamese military base and one of the most heavily defended installations in the country. Located along South Vietnam’s central c
oastline, the base was actually situated in a valley, with highlands to the west and the South China Sea to the east.
The story of what happened went like this: According to the witness who originally reported the incident to NICAP, the base was abuzz with activity this particular night. A construction crew using more than a half dozen bulldozers was cutting roads around a hill about a half mile west of the base. Two Skyraider fighter-bombers were warming up on the base runway about a mile to the east, getting ready to take off. Meanwhile, a large group of U.S. soldiers were in an open area somewhere in between, all set to watch an outdoor movie. The recent addition of a small electrical generator had made such open-air entertainment possible.
According to the witness, the movie started around 8 P.M. and ran for a while without any problems. But around 9:45, the sky around the base suddenly turned extremely bright. At first the cause seemed to be a flare lit off over a hill to the north of the base. The troops at Nha Trang were used to seeing flares being fired around the base’s defense perimeters, so initially no one in the crowd of moviegoers gave it much thought.
But then the light did not go away — and it was soon obvious this was not a flare illuminating the huge military installation. It was a luminous object hovering high above the base. Some fighter pilots in the crowd estimated the object was at least five miles up. But no one knew what it was.
Suddenly the object began dropping straight down, heading right for the base. But before a full-scale panic could break out, it stopped in midair. Now it was just 500 feet above the crowd, and at this point the witness said not just the base, but the entire valley around it was lit up like daytime. That’s how bright the object was.
Then, just as suddenly, the object shot straight up and out of sight. It was gone in seconds, returning the valley to darkness again and leaving the hundreds of soldiers dumbstruck.
But the strangeness didn’t end there. According to the witness, as soon as the luminous object appeared, the bulldozers clearing the road, the two Skyraider airplanes warming up and even the generator that was providing power to run the movie projector all suddenly stopped working.
The witness said: “There wasn’t a car, truck, plane or anything running for about four minutes.”
Again according to the witness, the next day a plane carrying investigators from the United States arrived at Nha Trang. Presumably, they spoke to some of those involved and examined the affected machinery.
But what conclusions they came to, if any, remain unknown.
Giant Saves GI
During the long years of war, a stretch of no-man’s-land split Vietnam in two, almost evenly, north from south. Approximately a mile wide, and more than 50 miles long, it was called the Demilitarized Zone, but was more commonly known as the DMZ.
One afternoon, in late 1966, the witness in this odd incident was part of a U.S. Army helicopter force touching down in a landing zone close to the DMZ.
The communist enemy had opened up on the helicopters as they were landing. The American soldiers in the helicopters returned fire, and a full-scale battle was soon in progress.
Because the landing zone was covered with waist-high dry grass, several grass fires erupted as a result of the gunfire going back and forth.
Suddenly one of the helicopters ran into a problem. Experiencing engine trouble once on the ground, it now had both the enemy and grass fires surrounding it.
The commanding officer of the landing force told the witness to grab a fire extinguisher from his helicopter and run back to the stricken one, hopefully to help rescue its crew.
The soldier did as ordered, taking the fire extinguisher but leaving his weapon behind. But upon getting close to the damaged copter, he saw its crew waving him away — the engine problem had been fixed and the helicopter was taking off.
The soldier turned to return to his helicopter — but the smoke and flames from the grass fires, plus the firefight still going on around him, had him disoriented. In seconds, he was hopelessly lost.
Suddenly he heard someone yelling in Vietnamese. He turned to see an enemy soldier pointing his weapon at him. The American trooper, being unarmed, was sure his end was near.
Then he heard a loud crack! He was certain he’d been shot but weirdly felt no pain. Instead he turned to see the enemy soldier fall to the ground, dead. That’s when the U.S. soldier looked up and saw an astonishing sight.
A figure at least eight feet tall was standing nearby. This creature was dressed “perfectly,” in the witness’s words, with a sort of helmet covering most of his face. There was an aura around it — and somehow this giant had killed the enemy soldier and saved the American’s life.
This creature was not of this earth; this much seems clear. Yet it spoke to the American soldier, telling him all was okay and that he should return to his helicopter.
The soldier did as told and ran back to his copter unharmed.
As the helicopter took off, the man could see the dead enemy soldier, but there was no sign of the giant who’d saved his life.
“Charlie” Fires at UFO
Located on the south central coast of Vietnam, Da Nang was a huge American base utilized by all four of the U.S. services: Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines. The vast installation was a seaport, boasted thousands of ground troops and was home to a massive air base.
Close to Da Nang was a location called Red Beach. The First U.S. Marine Division had a supply base there. There was a very dangerous place nearby, an enemy-infested area known as the A Shau Valley. One entrance to this valley was close to the First Division’s supply base, and at night marines would sneak into the darkened jungle and set up ambushes, hoping to catch enemy forces by surprise. The marines called it “Hunting Charlie.”
One night in March 1967, a small group of marines left Red Beach and slipped into the valley. They walked two miles in and established their ambush site near a trail the enemy was known to frequent.
But the enemy chose not to walk down this particular trail that night, so there was no ambush, no combat. By morning, the marines were headed back to camp.
It was on this return trip that the strangeness began. The marines were passing through an open area when suddenly there was a huge object above them. The object could be seen clearly hovering just over the top of the jungle canopy.
The marines stared at it in astonishment, but they did not open fire on it. However, there were enemy troops nearby, and they started shooting at the object with everything they had. This included rocket-propelled grenades and a fusillade of machine-gun fire.
Yet in shades of the Loreto incident in Italy in World War II, nothing shot at the object seemed to have any effect on it.
The enemy eventually stopped firing at the UFO. Moments later, it accelerated quickly and disappeared at a high rate of speed. In all, the marines had it in sight for at least five minutes.
The marines finally resumed their march back to Red Beach. Later on, their commanding officer told them never to mention the incident to anybody.
UFOs Chasing Phantoms
Da Nang, again. 1968. Early morning. Four marines were sitting at the end of the air base’s runway.
They were watching two F-4 Phantom jets getting ready to take off. The F-4 was accurately described back then as a flying dump truck. A massive two-engine fighter-bomber, it could carry almost two and a half times the bomb load of a B-17 Flying Fortress — this while flying twice the speed of sound. The marines watched the pair of F-4s take off and climb into the sky — but then they spotted two strange lights flying over the base as well. Incredibly, those lights began following the Phantoms — and then, a few seconds later, they were joined by six more lights.
At first the marines thought the lights were North Vietnamese MiGs — as unlikely as that would be, because the communist air force never ventured below the DMZ. But on calling the base ATC tower, the marines were told there were no “unknown” blips on the radar screen. In other words, the F-4s were being chased by eight U
FOs.
The marines continued watching the unfolding drama and saw the F-4s, apparently aware of their situation, quickly alter their flight plans and turn back for the base. Yet the lights were still following them; in fact, they stayed with the Phantoms almost right down to the runway itself. At this point the marines were astonished to see that the lights were actually oval-shaped objects with multiple beams emanating from them. Each beam was giving off an amber glow.
The objects finally stopped following the F-4s a few hundred feet before they landed. The marines watched as the objects hovered there for a while before turning skyward and leaving the area at high speed.
The UFO and the Hit Squad
During much of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military, sometimes in conjunction with the CIA, ran special operations throughout Indochina.
The goal of many of these top secret missions was to hunt down high-ranking communist officials and political figures and, in CIA-speak, “terminate them with extreme prejudice.” Translation: Assassinate them.
In other words, these special ops units were hit squads. During August 1968, one of these teams infiltrated North Vietnam, found their target and assassinated him. But on starting their withdrawal, they were detected by the enemy and a chase ensued.
The team had to get back to their pickup point, the predetermined location where they would meet a helicopter to extract them from North Vietnam.
Getting close to this point by midmorning, with the enemy still on their tails, the team found themselves in front of two hills. They climbed the one to their left, hoping this choice would help them avoid capture.
Just as the team was getting under cover, they heard the unmistakable chattering sound of AK-47 assault rifles firing from the next hill over. Enemy soldiers were nearby. But what were they shooting at?
The hit squad saw the enemy tracers going nearly straight up into the sky. The assassins were certain they were firing at their extraction aircraft — but they were in for a surprise.
