http://scribd.com/document/42303580/Echo-Flights-of-Fantasy-Anatomy-of-a-UFO-Hoax-by-James-Carlson

Echo Flights of Fantasy
anatomy of a UFO Hoax
By James Carlson

 
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The author of this article, James Carlson, is the son of Captain
(Retired) Eric D. Carlson, the commander of Echo Flight on March 16,
1967. All of the details and descriptions of events and reports that his
father would have been witness to have been confirmed by him as accurate.
 
On September 27, 2010, in an attempt to build support for the disclosure
of UFO-related documents by the U.S. Department of Defense, authors
Robert Hastings and Robert Salas hosted a press conference at the
National Press Club in Washington, DC. Only confirmed members of the
press and Congressional staff were invited to attend. With them were
seven veterans of the U.S. military who have publically affirmed the
interference by UFOs with nuclear facilities in the United States and
Europe.  According to Hastings and Salas, this proves that the claim of
the United States Air Force since 1969 that UFO activity has never had
an effect on the national security of the U.S. is a lie. Out of all of
the witnesses present,
three
 had come forward to discuss their involvement with a well-known case
that allegedly occurred at Malmstrom AFB, Montana in the spring of 1967:
the Echo Flight incident of March 16, and an associated event at Oscar
Flight on March 24-25. Since first being exposed to public scrutiny by
Robert Salas in 1995, this alleged confrontation between UFO and nuclear
missile silos has come to be considered one of ten UFO incidents around
the world that is best supported by the most reliable evidence.
Questions raised regarding the credibility of the witnesses insist,
however, that this notoriety is hardly deserved.  According to Robert
Salas, co-author with James Klotz of
Faded Giant
, which purports to discuss the Echo Flight event, UFOs reported over
two flights – each equipped with ten nuclear missiles – interfered with
the normal operation of the flights by taking all of the missiles off of
strategic alert, thereby rendering them temporarily unavailable to U.S.
forces. When Robert Salas, the primary witness to this event, first made
public this case in 1995, he asserted that
he
 was present at Echo Flight as the deputy commander on duty, who, with
the commander, was required to monitor the missiles and fire them, if
necessary, at pre-selected targets in the Soviet Union and China. This
small, two-man capsule crew was embedded in a chamber 60-100 feet
beneath the surface of the Montana plains. It was very well protected,
because the crew needed to survive a first-strike scenario in order to
retaliate should a nuclear exchange occur. It was in this environment
that Robert Salas posited UFO interference with America’s

 
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primary nuclear deterrent of the 1960s, and he did so by redefining an
actual event that the U.S. Department of Defense was, in the 1960s and
1970s, extremely concerned about keeping secret, not because of UFOs,
but due to the inherent nature of deterrent forces. In the original USAF
records discussing this event, it is characterized as the
Echo Flight Incident
. USAF records indicate that the Echo Flight Incident occurred at 0845
on the morning of March 16, 1967, about two hours after sunrise. The
events that occurred were summarized in September 1969 in Bernard C.
Nalty’s
USAF Ballistic Missile Programs 1967-1968
, a TOP SECRET NOFORN document discussing problems encountered by U.S.
missile forces: “Another problem … appeared in March 1967 when an entire
flight of Minuteman I missiles at Malmstrom went abruptly off alert.
Extensive tests at Malmstrom, Ogden Air Materiel Area, and at the Boeing
plant in Seattle revealed that an electronic noise pulse had shut down
the flight. In effect, this surge of noise was similar to the
electromagnetic pulse generated by nuclear explosions. The component of
Minuteman I that was most vulnerable to noise pulse was the logic
coupler of the guidance and control system. Subsequent tests showed that
the same part in Minuteman II was equally sensitive to this same
phenomenon.” The incident is discussed in some detail in other documents
as well, notably the 341st Strategic Missile Wing and Combat Support
Group Command History: "On 16 March 1967 at 0845, all sites in Echo (E)
Flight, Malmstrom AFB, shutdown with No-Go indications of Channel 9 and
12 on Voice Reporting Signal Assemble (VRSA). All LF's in E Flight lost
strategic alert nearly simultaneously." These statements are clear,
straightforward, and very specific, as almost all of the official
documents discussing the incident are, so why, exactly, are UFOs thought
to have been involved? The documents certainly don’t attribute the cause
to UFOs – they are all very clear, as such records generally are. If
this event is one of the ten UFO incidents around the world that is best
supported by the most reliable evidence,
where is the evidence?
 And where did Salas’ version of this incident originate, if not with
the incident itself?  According to Robert Salas, in the early 1990s, he
read Timothy Good’s book
 Above Top Secret
, which contains a reference to research conducted by NICAP investigator
Raymond Fowler regarding a UFO that was reported by above ground
personnel and confirmed by radar at Malmstrom AFB sometime “during the
week of 20 March 1967.” Fowler insists that these UFO reports were made
coincident to the

 
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missiles failures at Echo Flight, and mentions as well a “nearly
identical” event that occurred at Malmstrom AFB the previous year. Good
concludes that while neither of these incidents were actually
confirmed
 as UFO reports, he sees “no reason to doubt” them. It was after reading
Good’s book that Salas allegedly remembered his own involvement with a
UFO that took out the entire flight of missiles that were, at the time,
under his care as the deputy commander of the flight. With the
assistance of the Computer UFO Network (CUFON) founded by Dale Goudie
and James Klotz, he drafted a series of Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) requests to the U.S.  Air Force addressing the need for a
declassification review of any documents detailing missile failures at
Malmstrom AFB “on or about 25 March 1967.” The date suggests that Salas
searched area newspapers for UFO incidents reported sometime around “the
week of 20 March 1967”, as noted in Good’s book, discovering thereby the
well-known Belt, Montana UFO event and associated UFO sightings at
Malmstrom AFB on March 24-25, 1967. Since this represents the
only
 UFO sightings during the month of March 1967 in the entire state of
Montana, it’s reasonable to assume that this was the rationale behind
the date used on Salas’ FOIA requests. In any case, as a result of his
letters, the USAF sent Salas information pertaining to the Echo Flight
Incident of March 16, 1967, specifically, portions of the 341st
Strategic Missile Wing and Combat Support Group Command History for that
quarter.  According to an article entitled “Minuteman Missiles Shutdown”
that Salas published in the
MUFON UFO Journal
 in 1997, “When we received this information, I assumed that I was in
the Echo capsule during this incident because the events of the incident
were very similar to my recollection.” This
recollection
, summarized in the same article, establishes that “while on duty as a
Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander (DMCCC) at a Minuteman Launch
Control Facility (LCF) during the morning hours, I received a call from
my NCO in charge of site security topside. He said that he and other
guards had observed some unidentified flying objects in the vicinity.”
These UFOs could only be distinguished as “lights” at the time, but they
had flown over the LCF (also called the LCC, or launch control center) a
few times and had caught the attention of the NCO on duty. In later
versions of the story, Salas insisted that the UFOs were making
maneuvers that normal aircraft could not make. He also insists that he
did not take the report very seriously, and told the NCO to call back if
something more significant occurred.

 
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“Five or ten minutes later, I received a second call … he was much more
agitated and distraught. He stated that there was a UFO hovering just
outside the front gate! … As we were talking, he said he had to go
because one of the guards had been injured.” Salas hung up and
immediately awakened his commander, who was, at the time, on his rest
period. “Within seconds, our missiles began shutting down from ‘Alert’
status to ‘No-Go’ status. I reca
l
led that most, if not all, of our missiles had shut down in rapid
succession. Normally, if a missile went off alert status, it was due to
a power outage at a particular site and the site power generator would
come on line and pick up the power load and the LF would come back on
line. It was extremely rare for more than one missile to go off line for
any length of time. In this case, none of our missiles came back on
line. The problem was not lack of power; some signal had been sent to
the missiles which caused them to go off alert.” According to Salas, the
guard who had been injured had to be evacuated by helicopter. The UFO
itself was described as having “a red glow and appeared to be
saucer-shaped.”
None
 
of these claims, like those made by Raymond Fowler as delineated in
Timothy Good’s book, have ever been confirmed.
 Salas agrees that neither he nor the commander of the flight saw
anything, because they were underground in the capsule, and none of the
enlisted security personnel have ever come forward to confirm this
dramatic event. As for supporting documentation, there is none, not even
a record of the one guard having been injured and subsequently evacuated
by helicopter.
 
Robert Salas’ original claims regarding Echo Flight soon proved to have
been made in error as a result of the fact that he had never actually
served
 at Echo Flight. He soon altered his claims sufficiently, however, by
stating that he had simply made a mistake. In the 341st Strategic
Missile Wing and Combat Support Group Command History sent to Salas as a
result of his FOIA request, it states that, "Rumors of Unidentified
Flying Objects (UFO) around the area of Echo Flight during the time of
fault were disproven.  A Mobile Strike Team, which had checked all
November Flight's LFs (launch facilities) on the morning of 16 March 67,
were questioned and stated that no unusual activity or sightings were
observed." According to Salas, upon reading this excerpt, he recalled
something his commander had said during the incident. “After we reported
the incident to the command post, he had received a call from another
LCC. After that call he turned to me and said, 'The same thing happened
at another flight.' With this 'new' recollection, I began to question if
I was at Echo during the time of our incident since I knew I was
assigned to the 490
th
 

 
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Squadron, which did not have responsibility for Echo Flight.” It was
actually the 10
th
 SMS that had manning responsibility for Echo Flight. In an August 12,
1996 email correspondence with Raymond Fowler, the same NICAP
investigator referred to by Timothy Good in
 Above Top Secret
, Salas’ version of this recollection is slightly different: "I did and
do have a vivid recollection of my commander speaking to another flight
that day and then saying to me that ‘the same thing had happened at
their flight.’ However, I had been under the impression up until now
that what he had meant was that it happened to them at some other time
period. I now believe it was the same day because of the rapid response
of the maintenance crews to our site. I believe they had already been
dispatched to Echo before our shutdown." This commentary is significant,
because it establishes as “a vivid recollection” that the flight that
called was the same flight that had been subjected to the UFO
interference under discussion:
Echo Flight
. It also establishes that the incident at Echo Flight occurred
before
 the event described by Salas at the flight under his care. In this same
message, he also states that “I still do not recall, for certain the
name of my Commander during this incident.” In other words, he is
confident regarding the incident and the time frame, but he has
nonetheless presented no confirmation. In an August 2 communication,
however, Salas states "In addition, I had not told you this before, I
recall hearing thru the rumor mill, soon after my incident, that ours
had not been the first full shutdown." This is an interesting comment
from someone who claimed only ten days later that he had “a vivid
recollection” of being told that “the same thing had happened at their
flight"
during
 his watch, not “after my incident,” and that his source for this
information was not “thru the rumor mill,” but from his own commander.
It’s possible, of course, that Salas’ “vivid recollection” didn’t come
about
immediately
 upon reading the excerpt regarding “Rumors of Unidentified Flying
Objects (UFO)”, but gelled for a week or so while he considered the
possibilities presented by the “rumor mill”. If that’s the case, it’s
not unreasonable to wonder how
vivid
 his recollection could have been. Salas claims in his 1997 article that
an unnamed friend told him in 1996 that he was definitely
not
 the deputy commander at Echo Flight on March 16, 1967, confirming
thereby his suspicions that he had
not
 served at Echo Flight, and leading to his eventual revelation that he
had been at
November Flight
, the only other flight of missiles mentioned in the command history
documents. This friend also told Salas the

 
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names of the commander and deputy commander who actually
were
 on duty at Echo Flight, and told him as well the name of his own
commander:
Colonel (Retired) Frederick Meiwald
. With this information, Salas tracked down his one-time commander, and
apparently received from him the confirmation he was looking for
regarding the alleged UFO’s interference with the flight’s missiles. Well,
maybe
 …  As previously mentioned, the August 12, 1996 correspondence between
Salas and Raymond Fowler indicates that Salas had already decided that
he had been at
November Flight
 when the incident he remembers occurred, and that he had not yet
determined the identity of his commander at that time. In a later
communication with Fowler, one written
after 
 he contacted Meiwald, he states that he had neglected to ask Meiwald
what flight they were in at that time, adding, however, that it was
probably November Flight. So if Salas had already decided that they were
at November Flight, and therefore did not ask Meiwald about the flight
they were attached to, as the correspondence indicates, what else did he
simply not bother to confirm when he finally contacted him? Questions
like this make it somewhat difficult to ascertain what specific details
of his story had actually been
confirmed
 by Meiwald once Salas contacted him again after so many years. The
recollection that Meiwald had told him "the same thing had happened at
their flight" was also Salas’ alone, as his article for the
MUFON UFO Journal
 clearly states, so it is not inappropriate to wonder whether or not
Meiwald actually confirmed
that
 memory, or did Salas simply not bother to mention it? Salas fails to go
into any details at all regarding Meiwald’s confirmation of this
incident, asserting only that Meiwald has confirmed his account of the
UFO interference with the missiles under their care. One cannot help but
wonder why Meiwald has not appeared at any UFO conventions or even the
recent press conference organized by Salas and Robert Hastings if he has
indeed confirmed all of the events detailed by Salas since 1995. Did he,
for instance, confirm any of the numerous errors of fact that Salas has
been forced to correct over the years? Was he the
author 
 of any of them?
How much, exactly, is his confirmation of this event really worth?
 According to Robert Hastings, “Salas’ former missile commander,
now-retired Col Fredrick Meiwald, has confirmed that it [the missile
failures incident at Oscar Flight] did indeed happen and that the
missile security guards who had been sent out to investigate tripped
alarms at two of the missile sites

 
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 just after the incident saw something that scared them to death.
Meiwald elaborated on all of this in an October 1, 1996 letter to Salas”.
But is this actually true?
 Examination of this letter, as well as with the transcripts of a
conversation Meiwald had with Salas during the same period suggests
otherwise. The first statement to take note of is Meiwald’s
qualifier 
: “The info you provided is very interesting but I have slightly
different memories – which could easily be incorrect as they say, ‘The
memory is the second thing to go.’” This is
extremely
 important, primarily because Salas himself apparently paid little heed
to the information and events that Meiwald actually discusses. For
instance, Meiwald insists that “Our home site was Oscar.” He also
insists that the UFO event he discusses occurred when they were at Oscar
Flight. It would, however, be another
three years
 after receiving this letter before Salas would agree, asserting until
1999 that he and Meiwald were at
November Flight
 when the UFO incident he recalls occurred. This is not an insignificant
oversight. Meiwald very clearly remembers an incident involving the
possible report of a UFO, but he comes nowhere near to actually
confirming that this incident is the
same one
 that Salas has reported. The fact that Salas refused to acknowledge
Meiwald’s memories of their location during the incident, also speaks
volumes in relation to this issue. It’s questionable whether Meiwald is
describing anything at all in relation to the missile failures event, a
conclusion supported by Salas’ insistence for three years that the
missile failures occurred at November Flight. In Meiwald’s 1996 letter,
the incident he describes seems pretty definitive: “Related to the
incident itself, I recall us being at the Oscar LCF. Topside security
notified us the mobile team had reported observing the ‘UFO’ while
responding (obviously at your direction) to a situation at an outlying
LF  – this particular one being located just east of Highway 19, the
state highway which runs north from Grass Range to the Missouri River.
With little or no direction from higher authority (Command Post or
Alternate Command Post), the Security team was directed to return to the
LCF, maintaining radio contact at all times, as the security system
reset. While enroute [sic] back to the LCF, radio contact was lost and
remained out until the security vehicle approached the LCF. Two very
upset young men wasted no time getting back inside.” Meiwald adds that
“I do not recall personnel injury of any type but the two individuals
were sent back to the support base early. I heard second-hand that one
was released from security team duties. I do not recall any follow-up
activities by any Wing personnel.”

 
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Both Robert Hastings and Robert Salas expect the world to believe that
this is Meiwald’s confirmation of the missile failures event at Oscar
Flight (or November Flight, depending on how far back in the evolution
of Salas’ current assertions the reader wishes to go), that allegedly
occurred on March 24-25, 1967 coincident to the UFO sighting.
Examination of the testimony presented, however, shows that these claims
are nonsense.
Nowhere does Meiwald insist that the event he describes occurred in
conjunction with any missile failures at all, although his memory of the
event is remarkably detailed, particularly in relation to the
environment and the location of the launch facility under investigation.
This holds true as well for the transcripts Hastings has published of
the telephone conversation that Salas conducted with Meiwald in 1996.
His statement could very easily stand on its own without any of the
missile failures that only Salas correlates with
this
 incident. In the fifteen years since these communications took place,
Salas has been completely unable to produce a definitive confirmation from
anybody,
 and one can’t help but wonder
why
.  After all, Meiwald is certainly still
alive
, so why is his confirmation so
ambiguous
? It makes much more sense to assume that Meiwald is referring to an
incident that has nothing whatsoever to do with the event Salas in turn
has described. What Meiwald
does
 discuss, however, are a series of events that make it
impossible
 to correlate his description with anything other than a general, and
relatively minor, security alert of the same type that occurs often at
such facilities. In addition, Meiwald describes
nothing
 that substantiates a UFO presence. In fact, if there actually
had
 been such an extensive number of missile failures during the event
described, Meiwald would most assuredly have been able to produce more
details in relation to it. After all, had missile failures actually
occurred coincident to this event, the
capsule crew
, Meiwald and Salas presumably, would have been
giving
 the orders, not
hearing
 about them second-hand. They would have been in constant communication
with the teams sent out to determine missile status –
exactly as occurred at Echo Flight a week earlier.
 Such an event would have required the deployment of maintenance
personnel in addition to their security escorts, because it’s necessary
to gain access to the lower equipment room at each LF to determine
missile status – an operation that takes a minimum of 30-40 minutes to
complete. The incident that Meiwald describes, however, is very clearly
being run from the Command Post, which is the direct chain of command
for security personnel. This is why there was no

 
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direct communication going on between the capsule crew and security
team, which is exactly the procedure that took place at Echo Flight.
Everything
 that Meiwald discusses was the result of updates originating with the
Command Post. Nothing at all about the alleged UFO was communicated
directly, and none of it came from the actual security team that was
given the assignment. It should be noted as well that the two-man
security teams Meiwald describes were used to check on minor physical
security alerts; without maintenance technicians, however, they could
not be expected to carry out the duties required in the course of a
missile failure
. The security personnel simply went out to check on a physical security
alert, a response confirmed by Meiwald’s insistence that the security
system had to be reset. This type of alert happened all of the time;
bears rubbing up against the fence would cause the same alert, and even
birds were known to set off the alarms.
It was a common part of the security routine
, which is why nobody thought it necessary to have the capsule crew put
in charge of it. This interpretation is also supported by Meiwald’s
allusion to the Command Post checklist. The example of Echo Flight
proves that missile failures require the
capsule crew
 to follow procedures dictated on a checklist,
not
 the Command Post. Missile failures would have also required a great
deal of “direction from higher authority”, contrary to what Meiwald
affirms, since the extent of such authority increases with the
importance of the incident. A physical security response, being so
common and somewhat expected by those manning the Command Post, is far
less important than multiple losses of nuclear missiles to strategic
forces. Nowhere does Meiwald discuss the realization of any duties
required by the capsule crew upon the acknowledgement of missile
failures. While there may well have been a UFO involved with the
incident Meiwald describes in his letter, no certainty can be attached
to this supposition, because nobody has interviewed the actual
witnesses, no reports were ever filed in recognition of the event, and
no investigation was ever conducted as required by regulations effective
since September 1966. Even the story Salas and Hastings insist upon
regarding the one security member who was permanently retired from the
job is “second hand,” as Meiwald readily admits in his letter, investing
it with qualities more suggestive of an archetypal allusion than a
tangible, historical event. In the end, we can say with some confidence
that while a UFO may or may not have been an influential factor, the
failure of numerous missiles coincidental to this event

 
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unquestionably did
not
 occur. Had it done so, Meiwald and Salas would have been a lot busier,
as their colleagues were at Echo Flight a week earlier. It’s difficult
to believe that someone with the experience Robert Salas claims to have
would
ever 
 use this as a confirmation for anything, let alone a missile failure
event at Oscar Flight. Taking into consideration Meiwald’s assertion
that “This probably does not assist your efforts in any way”, it’s far
more likely that he’s describing the only UFO encounter that he has any
memory of at all, and Robert Salas has simply adopted it as a
confirmation for the Oscar Flight event, an easy task as a result of
Meiwald’s inability to
date
 the event he describes. There’s
nothing
 in either Meiwald’s letter or in the transcripts Robert Hastings has
published of Meiwald’s conversation with Salas that can actually be
called a
confirmation
 of the event Salas describes. Meiwald insists that he does not remember
anyone being injured in any confrontation with a UFO, and he only
mentions two security team members who
may
 have had some sort of confrontation. It certainly doesn’t match the
event Salas describes in which the Command Post was emptied of all
personnel, armed and ready for any ensuing battle that might take place.
In fact, Meiwald fails to mention this event at all, making it
questionable at best. Why would he remember a couple of security updates
from the Command Post in such detail, yet
not
 the far more dramatic episode Salas describes?
None
 of this can be called a believable confirmation. The fact that Salas
would even introduce this corruption of a man’s memories as some kind of
a confirmation for the ridiculous incident he describes says more about
his inability to substantiate the event he continues to discuss than it
does the event itself. The one thing that’s most apparent in all of this
is that Meiwald has
not
 confirmed the missile shutdown scenario described by Hastings and
Salas. He only barely confirms a second-hand report of a possible UFO
sighting on an unknown date. If Meiwald does not confirm the incident of
missile failures, we once again find ourselves in the position of one
forced to believe incredible claims on the basis of absolutely
nothing,
aside from Salas’ own resolve. In addition, it’s decidedly
odd
 that the details characteristic of Meiwald’s confirmation as reported
by Salas tend to
change in
 
close correlation
 to those adopted and subsequently incorporated into the ever-evolving
version of the event Salas describes – a characteristic that also fails
to include any direct quotes whatsoever originating with Colonel
(Retired) Frederick Meiwald correlating the missile failures with the
UFO allegedly sighted by the two security personnel. The only useful
assertion that can

 
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be truthfully made is that Robert Salas insists that Meiwald has
confirmed the incident at hand; Meiwald has certainly
not
 done so for himself. There are other suggestions as well that Salas may
not be reporting Meiwald’s actual recollections with adequate precision.
In a 1996 email to Raymond Fowler, Salas reveals that Meiwald thought only
four 
 missiles were actually taken off strategic alert, not all ten as his
own “memories” insisted. In the article he published a year later, Salas
states that Meiwald “confirmed my recollection of events with the
exception that he recalled that about
five
 of our ten missiles shut down in rapid succession.” By December 2000,
however, when Salas was interviewed in conjunction with the
Disclosure Project
, he claimed that upon “recalling this incident with my commander Mywald
[sic], he said he felt we only lost maybe seven or eight of these
weapons.” If Meiwald was the source of these estimations, it would seem
that he has been as inconsistent regarding his claims as Salas has. In
order to clarify this and other questions, the author of this article
sought out, eventually found, and contacted Colonel (Retired) Frederick
Meiwald for himself. Unfortunately, Colonel Meiwald insists that he does
not remember the incident very well, although he does agree that there
seem to be a lot of discrepancies in Salas’ discussion of the events he
allegedly witnessed. As for what he has or has not confirmed, he is
somewhat less confident. “Did this situation involve ‘UFOs’? I don't
know. I personally have never seen one and really have doubts about
their existence, but who am I to question others' ‘observations’?” This,
unfortunately, is not the satisfactory conclusion many investigators
into matters like this generally insist upon. In answer to a later
request for more information, Meiwald was again very congenial, but
insisted that “Trying to remember events of over 40 years ago is not my
forté
.” As a result, no questions were answered, and no explanations were
offered. This last communication was in September 2009. Clarity, it
seems, is still a need that has yet to be fulfilled by the
only
 witness to these events that has even come
close
 to confirming the story Salas tells.  According to Salas, Meiwald also
verified that it was the crew of Echo Flight who had called him on March
16, 1967, after which the commander told Salas, "the same thing had
happened at their flight." Everything seems to have fallen neatly into
place for Salas very nicely, a result he happily documented:

 
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“I was able to locate and speak with both crew members of Echo, the
commander of the Echo relief crew, and my own commander. “As a result of
these conversations, more information was revealed. The Echo MCCC
related to me that prior to the shutdown of all his missiles he had
received more than one report from security patrols and maintenance
crews that they had seen UFOs. One was directly above one of the LFs in
Echo Flight. The Echo crew confirmed that they had spoken to my
commander that day and told him of their incident. They also told me
that they were flown to SAC headquarters, Omaha, Nebraska the next day
and had to brief CINCSAC (Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command)
about their incident. The Echo DMCCC also informed me that he had
written an extensive log of the Incident and turned that over to staff
officers at SAC headquarters. They certainly did report the UFO
sightings and their guards and maintenance personnel were interviewed
about their sightings by Air Force investigators. The MCCC of the crew
that relieved the Echo crew also confirmed that the Echo crew had spoken
to him about the UFO sightings during the time immediately preceding
their shutdown incident.” In other words, a UFO was responsible for the
both the Echo Flight Incident referred to in Nalty’s
USAF Ballistic Missile Programs 1967-1968
 
and
 for the incident at November Flight that Salas and Meiwald supposedly
remember – an incident that
also
 occurred on March 16, 1967, but had never been mentioned by
anybody
, either officially or unofficially, prior to Salas’ claims made to
Raymond Fowler nearly 30 years later in 1996. There are, however, some
very significant problems with the story that Robert Salas has told that
are unrelated to the alleged confirmation he received from Colonel
(Retired) Frederick Meiwald: (1) The original documents Salas received
state only that "Rumors of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) around the
area of Echo Flight during the time of fault were disproven.” The loss
of the ten missiles that went off of strategic alert was very well
documented, as was the investigation that followed, but there has been
no mention anywhere that a UFO was reported until Salas’ own claims were
made public. There is also no mention of any similar loss of missiles at
any other flight on March 16, 1967, or, for that matter, at any other
time discussed in any other document published since. (2) The Echo
Flight MCCC, Captain (Retired) Eric D. Carlson, insists that he received
no
 reports of UFOs from
anybody
, before or after the missiles were taken off of strategic alert. In a
September 2010

 
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statement issued well before the press conference of September 27
organized by Hastings and Salas, Carlson strongly reaffirmed this,
adding that he said the same thing to a news reporter in Great Falls,
Montana who questioned him about Salas’ claims in 1996, and to the
producer of “Sightings”, a cable television series about the UFO
phenomenon that featured a discussion of Salas’ claims that was
originally aired in March 1997. Carlson has, in fact, been
extraordinarily consistent in his claims regarding the Echo Flight
Incident, having insisted for years that no UFOs were involved,
reported, or investigated in relation to Echo Flight. In a series of
email messages that Salas sent to Raymond Fowler in 1996, he mentions
both interviews with Carlson, but tells Fowler that Carlson
confirmed
 his UFO claims. In this same correspondence, Salas is very insistent
that a member of the Echo Flight crew was required to give the episode
of “Sightings” the necessary veneer of credibility. Unfortunately, while
he admits to Fowler that Carlson both confirmed the UFO aspect of the
story and was willing to be interviewed for that particular episode, he
insists as well that the producer of the show did
not
, for some reason, feel that Carlson would be a very good witness. As a
result, the March 1997 episode was forced to air interviews with only
Salas, James Klotz, and Don Crawford, the DMCCC of the crew that
relieved
 Carlson and Figel a few hours
after 
 the incident. Carlson believes that the producer refused to interview
him because he insisted that UFOs were
not
 involved. His claims, in fact, are
completely
 contrary to Salas’ own, so the fact that Salas has publically insisted
otherwise, as recently as the press conference of September 27, 2010, is
not exactly reassuring for anybody desiring to know exactly
what happened
 in March 1967. It is, in fact, extremely difficult to get past this
incessant suggestion that Salas
lied
 to Raymond Fowler on more than one occasion in 1996, at the very
beginning of his UFO-oriented vocation. It should be mentioned that
Raymond Fowler’s support at this very early stage of Salas’ mission to
establish his claims as factual would have been considered quite an
accomplishment by anybody. Fowler is considered to be something of a
legend in the UFO-proponent communities, having worked closely with
well-known and respected individuals like Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who lauded
Fowler’s dedication and attention to detail in his 1972 book
The UFO Experience: A Scientific Enquiry
. (3) Both Captain (Retired) Eric D. Carlson and the DMCCC of Echo
Flight, Colonel (Retired) Walter Figel, Jr., insist that they did
not
 communicate with
any
 of the LCC crews, let alone November Flight’s commander, because they
were far too busy to do so once the Echo Flight missiles started going

 
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off of strategic alert. Carlson and Figel reiterated their claims both
verbally and in writing in September 2010. In addition, November Flight
was manned by another missile squadron, the 490
th
 SMS, making it SAC’s responsibility to inform them about
anything
, not Echo Flight’s. There would have been no reason for
anyone
 at Echo Flight to call
anyone
 at November Flight, and this very routine communications protocol has
been a consistent aspect of U.S. military structure and authority since
before World War Two. This, of course, calls into question Salas’
insistence in 1996-97 that Meiwald spoke to the MCCC of Echo Flight, and
then told Salas that "the same thing had happened at their flight." In
subsequent versions of this story, Salas has stated that the phone call
came from another LCC, but
not
 Echo Flight, the phone call came from SAC, the information was passed
after
Meiwald
 called SAC to report the missile failures, the information was passed
to Salas by an unnamed individual
after 
 his watch ended and therefore had nothing at all to do with Meiwald,
and, most recently, that he didn’t find out about the events at Echo
Flight until a week later, and then it was passed to him by an unnamed
individual after his watch ended and he had slept until the following
day. Inconsistency is, in fact, an integral part of Robert Salas’
claims, and one cannot help but wonder once again:
what exactly does Meiwald confirm?
(4) Neither Carlson nor Figel were flown to SAC headquarters the next
day to brief
anybody
; their actions before and during the incident were a matter for the
investigation team, and all such interviews remained on that level. Both
men reaffirmed this as well in September 2010, with Carlson insisting
that, “The only conversation I ever had was with the senior controller
and that was by phone.” (5) Both Carlson and Figel insist that their
watch turnover to the relieving crew did not include any mention
whatsoever of UFOs, because UFOs were not involved in the incident, nor
were any reported. Both officers also reaffirmed this in September 2010,
with Figel adding that his turnover included everything that was written
in the logbook: there was “a hand written log from me that was turned in
just like all the other logs that I wrote over several years”, and,
according to Figel, that handwritten log contained no mention of UFOs at
all. (6) There were no reports by
anybody
 about
anything
 preceding the Echo Flight shutdown incident, which both Carlson and
Figel reaffirmed in September 2010 as well. In 2006, Robert Salas and
Robert Hastings adjusted their claims somewhat, asserting that the first
report of a UFO came in
after 
 the missiles had already started to go off strategic alert, not
before
, basing this change on an interview

 
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conducted with Colonel (Retired) Walter Figel, Jr. Both Carlson and
Figel, however, have very clearly insisted that
this
 version of the story is
also
 wrong; both officers insist that UFOs were
never 
 reported. This confusion is a result entirely of Robert Hastings’
insistence that the mere mention of the word “UFO”, in the context of a
weak joke told by a maintenance technician who was asleep when the
missiles started going offline, qualifies as an official UFO report.
This theory has no merit whatsoever, primarily because an actual UFO
report would have been forwarded as the signed testimony of the witness
for further investigation by the Malmstrom AFB UFO officer, Colonel
Lewis D. Chase, as regulations demanded. This did
not
 occur, so very obviously, no report was made. In 1999, Robert Salas
readjusted his version of these events once more, insisting that he was
not
 at November Flight when the missiles were taken off of strategic alert,
presumably as Meiwald had confirmed three years earlier, but at
Oscar Flight
. He still asserted, however, that UFOs were reported at
both
 missile sites -- E-Flight
and
 O-Flight – on March 16, 1967, although no UFO sightings were recorded
in the region by anybody on that date. There is also no mention anywhere
of numerous missiles failing at any time at November Flight
or 
 Oscar Flight, whether the result of UFOs or anything else. It’s
apparent that Salas was now making claims that had never been
convincingly confirmed by
anybody
. It should be noted as well that the 341
st
 Strategic Missile Wing and Combat Support Group History that the USAF
sent to Salas as a result of his original FOIA request states that “All
LFs in E-Flight lost strategic alert nearly simultaneously. No other
Wing I configuration lost strategic alert at that time.” Since both
November Flight
and
 Oscar Flight were Wing I stations, this is a decidedly peculiar
declaration to include in the official history of a USAF command if it
was, in fact,
untrue
, as Salas insisted for the next five years. By December 2000, when
Salas was interviewed in conjunction with the
Disclosure Project
, a number of further discrepancies in his various claims had already
been noted by critics. In 1997, for example, he states that the event he
remembers took place sometime in the morning, and that the MCCC of Echo
called Meiwald and told him about the missiles and the UFO that was
noted at Echo Flight. This plainly indicates that the Echo incident
occurred
before
 the November-Oscar incident. Salas even wrote Fowler in 1996 in
reference to the “rapid response of the maintenance crews to our site”
that “I believe they had already been dispatched to Echo before our
shutdown.” And yet, the
Disclosure Project
 interview states that it “was still dark out” when the Oscar Flight
incident took place. The Echo Flight

 
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Incident, however, started at 0845, about two hours after sunrise. In
other interviews, both before and after December 2000, Salas made the
same claim, repeatedly insisting that it was dark outside, or that it
was very early in the morning, a condition that would enable the
security guards in his story to observe the “lights” making odd
maneuvers that an aircraft was not capable of making. These are
descriptions that go back to his original claims, even while he was
still declaring that he had been on duty at Echo Flight. Details of this
sort make it difficult to believe that he even bothered to
read
 the documents he received from the USAF. In February 2006, Robert
Hastings, author of
UFOs and Nukes
, wrote an article for NICAP that included a discussion of Oscar Flight:
“When Salas and Klotz published their article … some years ago, they
believed that the two shutdown incidents had occurred within the same
24-period, on March 16, 1967. As my article points out, Klotz still
believes that. However, Salas now agrees with me that they probably
occurred on two separate days. This alternate time-line is based on the
testimony of my source, Bob Jamison. In light of that, I propose that
the Oscar Flight shutdown probably took place on the night of March
24/25, 1967 – the same night as the Belt, MT incident.” And suddenly,
witness testimony turns into a
group effort.
In the American justice system, evidence of this sort is routinely
dismissed as unduly prejudicial. When such evidence is used by civil
authority, it’s considered prosecutorial misconduct and can be used to
dismiss all related charges. In American UFOlogy, it’s considered by
some to be a clearly stellar bit of investigative analysis. In any case,
after
ten years
 of asserting the primary facts of an incident that were clearly
impossible, Salas had finally accepted a solution that could explain
discrepancies in the time frame, as well as the command history’s
insistence that “No other Wing I configuration lost strategic alert at
that time.” He still insisted, however, that UFOs were sighted over
both
 flights, contradicting the claims of the entire Echo Flight crew that
no UFOs were sighted, reported, or investigated in connection with that
event. And if a UFO
had
 been reported, USAF regulations would have
required
 Colonel Chase, the base UFO officer, to investigate. The fact that
there was no such investigation indicates that there was no UFO
reported. When asked about it later, Chase was adamant that UFOs were
not
 reported or investigated at Echo Flight. The combined efforts of Salas
and now Hastings had made any discussion of actual
history
 unnecessary, almost as if “history” was no longer important; the only
thing that mattered was trying to

 
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keep the participation of UFOs involved in the Echo Flight Incident,
because it was the
only
 incident these UFO “investigators” could even
hope
 to verify. After all, if common wisdom could place UFOs at Echo Flight
on March 16, 1967, the creation from
absolutely
 
nothing
 of a new event at Oscar Flight on March 24-25, 1967 would at least seem
possible
, if extremely unlikely. Salas’ insistence that both Carlson and Figel
“certainly did report the UFO sightings and their guards and maintenance
personnel were interviewed about their sightings by Air Force
investigators” has not been confirmed by
anyone
, while Carlson and Figel have
both
 denied that UFOs were involved, making Salas’ claims somewhat
problematic. There is also no evidence to suggest that “guards and
maintenance personnel were interviewed about their sightings by Air
Force investigators.” There are no records of such interviews, and
nobody has ever come forward in the intervening 43 years to confirm
them. It appears that Salas’ claims regarding Echo Flight cannot be
supported in any way. Even with Meiwald’s confirmation, enough doubts
have been raised to show that this entire UFO incident was very
carefully constructed from little more than Robert Salas’ imagination
and Robert Hastings’ inability to differentiate between said imagination
and reality. After all, the only witness is Salas, and contrary to his
claims in 1996, he had never even
served
 at Echo Flight. In 2008, as a result of the author’s insistence that
Figel’s previous testimony could not be used to verify the existence of
a UFO at Echo Flight, Robert Hastings re-interviewed Colonel (Retired)
Walter Figel, Jr. In the course of this interview, Figel described an
incident involving a maintenance team that had been encamped at one of
the LFs associated with Echo Flight. There were actually
three
 maintenance teams with security escorts encamped overnight at three of
the LFs, a condition confirmed by the command history documents. Figel
told Hastings that he believed these teams were encamped in order to
complete normal pre-scheduled maintenance. Numerous records and FOIA
documents establish, however, that the Minuteman force had many problems
related to the guidance and control modules and to the diesel generators
that were used for emergency power in the event the civil power grid
went down. It was estimated, however, that the repairs necessary could
not be completed by late 1968, so they were rescheduled in conjunction
with normal maintenance procedures. It seems likely that this was indeed
the case, as Figel reported that at least one of the three LFs
undergoing maintenance was on diesel power at the time. In his 2008
interview with Hastings, Figel also discusses how one

 
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member of the maintenance team, upon being awakened at Figel’s command
by the security escort after the missiles started going off strategic
alert (not
before
 as originally claimed by Salas), was ordered to confirm the status of
the missile. Figel reports that the maintenance team member checking the
status called him on the SIN telephone at the LF to inform him that the
missile was indeed off alert with a VRSA channel 9 No-Go indication. At
the same time, the maintenance tech stated “It must be a UFO hovering
over the site. I think I see one here.” Hastings does not mention that
this maintenance technician could not have seen
anything
 from where he was, because the SIN telephone that he was using was 6-10
feet underground in the lower equipment room adjacent to the LF silo.
Nor does he mention that it takes a
minimum
 of 30-45 minutes to open the blast doors and get down to the equipment
room in order to check the missile status, as Figel had ordered. During
this entire procedure, the security escort who had awakened the
technician was required to monitor a 2-way radio on which he had already
established an open communications link with Figel and Carlson; he
reported nothing unusual either to Figel and Carlson inside the capsule
or to his direct superiors in the command post. Hastings neglects to
take any of this into consideration, and as a result insists that this
mention of a UFO was an
actual report
, when it was very clearly nothing more than an offhand comment made in
a joking manner. In March 2010, Figel confirmed this scenario, insisting
that it was stated as a joke and interpreted as a joke,
exactly as he told Robert Hastings during the original interview
. Hastings still insists, however, that it qualifies as an actual UFO
report, although the known facts suggest otherwise. Both Figel and
Carlson disagree strongly with Hastings’ analysis; neither the
maintenance technician nor his security escort has ever come forward to
offer statements of their own. In addition to their reports regarding
Echo Flight, both Carlson and Figel are equally confident that there
were no incidents of missile failures at November Flight
or 
 Oscar Flight in March 1967, and that Robert Salas was never involved in
any
 incidents involving numerous missile failures – a decidedly difficult
impression for Salas to convincingly deny. Figel and Carlson are certain
that had such an incident occurred, they would have heard about it, just
as the missileers in every other squadron attached to Malmstrom AFB
heard about the ten missile failures at Echo Flight.

 
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 A significant portion of Salas’ argument relies on the command history
he originally acquired in response to his FOIA requests. He has claimed
that no cause for the failures could be found by the field investigation
team assigned to the case, and page 38 of the FOIA documents published
by Salas and James Klotz of CUFON appears to support this conclusion:
“The only possible means that could be identified by the team involved a
situation in which a coupler self test command occurred along with a
partial reset within the coupler. This could feasible [sic] cause a VRSA
9 and 12 indication. This was also quite remote for all 10 couplers
would have to have been partially reset in the same manner.” On the
basis of a personal letter from Bob Kaminsky, a member of the field test
investigation team that first responded to the missile failures, Salas
and Klotz have also insisted that the investigation was unable to reach
any significant conclusions whatsoever in regard to a possible cause.
Neither of these suppositions, however, is technically accurate, as a
simple examination of the pages Salas and Klotz
neglected
 to publish makes clear. On page 42 of the same command history used by
Salas and Klotz to support their UFO claims, it clearly states that "the
only common item determined in this investigation was the LCC. The LCC
power fault transmitted to the LFs on the hardened cable was considered
the only power fault capable of causing the Echo Flight incident." This
is a pretty significant conclusion to reach, especially in light of
Kaminsky’s insistence 30-years later that
no useful conclusions
 were reached by his team. The command history is very clear that the
field team was tasked to examine
only the LFs
, so their conclusion that the power fault must have originated in the
LCC is indeed
very
 significant. It also explains why the only cause Kaminsky’s team could
identify was one considered to be “quite remote”. This is because their
conclusion applies
only
 to the LFs.
They were never tasked to examine the LCC
. That responsibility went to another team entirely, a condition that
both Salas and Klotz must have been well-aware of, because it is
mentioned on those pages of the command history they had copies of, but
neglected to publish. Once again on page 42, it states, "The
investigation teams at Malmstrom were unable to determine a logical
cause for the incident. Further investigation in the area of shutdown
results will be conducted in an effort to determine a possible cause of
this incident. These studies will be conducted at the contractors [sic]
facility and will be included in the next history." Even if Salas and
Klotz never received any excerpts from the following quarterly history,
there's no excuse for their claims of the past fifteen years that no
cause for the shutdown could be determined, when they were
 
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perfectly aware that the overall investigation of the incident was still
in progress. Additionally, the fact that they neglected to publish any
pages of the document suggesting the true scope of the investigation is
not one that instills confidence in their research methods, nor in the
conclusions they arrived at.  Also contrary to Kaminsky’s claims, the
commentary on pages 36-37 asserts a couple of tremendously important
conclusions as to the ultimate cause: "Channel 50 data was extracted
from sites E-7 and E-8 immediately after the shutdown of the entire
flight. Analysis of this data determined that both sites were shutdown
as a result of external influence to the G&C, no No-Go's were detected
by the G&C." This is followed up by "As stated earlier, all 10 launch
facilities shutdown with a VRSA channel 9 and 12 (G&C No-Go and Logic
Coupler No-Go) recordings. Because of this consistency considerable
investigation was expended in the Logic Coupler area. In the channel 50
analysis it was shown that the guidance section [also called G&C -
guidance and control] did not experience a No-Go and therefore, it was
felt that the VRSA channel 9 report was not valid. It is possible,
however, for the Logic Coupler to generate both of these No-Go
indications." This means that all ten LFs shutdown with VRSA channel 9
and 12 indications reported at the LCC. However, only VRSA channel 9 was
reported at the 10 launch facilities, an indication verified by the
channel 50 analysis. Only the Logic Coupler error being reported in the
LCC could possibly account for both the VRSA channel 9 and 12
indications at the LCC,
and
 the channel 9 No-Go indications noted at the LFs; it’s plain that the
original fault must have occurred there as well. These conclusions have
been omitted
entirely
 from Salas’ discussion of the Echo Flight Incident, even after
Hastings’ interview with Colonel (Retired) Figel in 2008 confirmed that
only VRSA channel 9 indications were reported at the LFs. The discussion
regarding the cause of the Echo Flight Incident continues in the 341st
Strategic Missile Wing and Combat Support Group Command History covering
April-June 1967. "During testing at Boeing, a 30 micro sec Pulse (-10 to
0 volt square wave) was placed on the Self Test Command (STC) line at
the C-53P Coupler Logic Drawer interface (STC). Seven out of 10 separate
applications of a single Pulse, would cause the system to shut down with
a Channel 9 & 12 No-Go. "Subsequent testing at Autonetics has resulted
in the following explanation of what probably happens in the Coupler
Logic Drawer. The Pulse inserted is long enough to initiate the Coupler
Self test sequence within the C-53P. However, it is not of long enough
duration to enable control lines to the

 
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computer to place the computer in a Coupler test loop Mode. This causes
the Coupler to issue a sequence error due to lack of coincidence between
G&C and Coupler Modes. This sequence error, together with the action of
two other flip flop outputs (M-17 & M-20), is sufficient to initiate the
Coupler and G&C No-Go shut down. "The effort at Boeing NRA was to
determine the source and most likely path of noise Pulse to the Logic
Coupler. The results of the Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) testing at the
LF and Wing IV indicated that the Sensitive Information Network (SIN)
were susceptible to noise of the type that could have caused the
problem. "The SIN lines go only from the LCC to all of the LF's in the
flight, which could explain the flight peculiar aspect of the problem."
Had a UFO been involved with this incident, the many months of
experiment and procedure by USAF personnel, Boeing Corporation and
Autonetics scientists and technical representatives would have hardly
been necessary. The documents at all levels of the chain of command very
plainly establish that the cause of the missile failures was an
electronic noise pulse that entered the Logic Coupler within the LCC and
shut down all of the LFs from that central location. In July 1967,
message traffic from SAMSO, Norton AFB, in California to OOAMA, at Hill
AFB, Utah updates recipients on efforts by the Malmstrom  AFB Echo
Flight investigators to determine the "singular cause." These messages
state right up front that it could not yet be determined; it adds,
however, that several follow-on actions
had
 been identified. When dealing with the effects of transient, random
signals, this is very often the most anyone could reasonably expect,
especially in 1967 when the effects of such signals on the
microcircuitry in use was not fully understood. One of these follow-on
actions requested of OOAMA was the "further investigation of the status
of the Wing I power system to determine whether commercial power
switching of the ten LF's simultaneously to diesel and subsequently
returning simultaneously to commercial power could have caused a load
transient creating the anomalous turn-off." Two observations should be
immediately evaluated at this point: (1) investigators were certain that
they were looking for a
transient signal
 that caused a "normal, controlled shutdown” from within the LCC, and (2)
would any of this discussion be taking place at all if a UFO had been
involved?
 The same messages request further susceptibility tests be conducted on
C-53P logic couplers, and that consideration be given to the

 
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incorporation of a force mod cable pulse suppression fix. The only
reason a cable pulse suppression fix would
even
 be considered would be to correct a problem caused by an internal
signal traveling along the interior cable, not an external signal
somehow affecting already shielded equipment, such as the UFO theorized
but otherwise unsupported by Salas and Hastings. ICBM histories
maintained as TOP SECRET NOFORN documents until 2004 confirm that
measures to correct the susceptibility of the Logic Coupler to
electromagnetic interference of this type were already scheduled in
force modernization orders for the Minuteman II systems across the
entire nation. These included the installation of electromagnetic
filters at the incoming junctions of the guidance and control systems of
Minuteman II. The same filters were expected to work equally well with
any electromagnetic pulse travelling along the same lines, so the USAF
rewrote the force mod orders to include the Minuteman I systems.
That solved the problem.
Salas, Hastings and a number of other researchers have repeatedly
insisted that the USAF investigation of the Echo Flight Incident was
unable to determine either the cause or the exact pathway and origin of
the signal that shut down the missiles, suggesting that this great
mystery points to an unearthly source. They fail to note, however, that
the investigation
did
 determine the cause, and upon placing that cause – an electronic noise
pulse – within the LCC, the necessity to determine pathway and origin of
the signal dropped off
significantly
. A noise pulse is a random electromagnetic event, so the origin is
going to vary, and due to this characteristic, it is rarely necessary
information to prevent the damage such phenomena may ultimately be
responsible for in the future. The pathway of the signal was important,
but it was also fairly easy to determine once they established that the
noise pulse originated within the LCC. The LCC is a very limited and
enclosed environment. In order to affect all ten LFs, no pathway other
than the SIN lines was possible, and this is very clearly stated in the
documents Salas was sent by the USAF in response to his FOIA request.
The one question that the USAF wanted answered above all others was how
to prevent the incident from
recurring
. And that was a fairly easy question to answer once they knew what
component of the system was affected, and what degree of susceptibility
to noise was characteristic of that component. Determining that degree
of susceptibility was the whole point behind the months of experimenting
that took place at the contractor facilities. Once those questions were
answered,

 
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preventing any recurrence was as simple as extending the scope of force
modernization orders intended for Minuteman II that were already in
effect. The investigation team determined the cause, the susceptible
component, and knew how to prevent it from happening again, and that’s
all that was required of them. A full investigation to figure out the
exact pathway and origin of the signal would have required taking down
the LCC, and in 1967,
nobody was going to do that.
This solution seems prosaic enough, yet it fails to account for most of
the rumors regarding UFO interference at Echo Flight. And how are we to
explain the alleged events at Oscar Flight and the UFO sightings on
March 24-25 without simply dismissing them as having no merit? In
Timothy Good’s
 Above Top Secret
, his reference to NICAP investigator Raymond Fowler’s early research
mentions a UFO reported by above ground personnel at Malmstrom AFB
“during the week of 20 March 1967.” According to Good, Fowler asserts
that radar at Malmstrom AFB confirmed the presence of this UFO, and that
it was coincident to an event during which all ten missiles failed at a
single flight. All command histories and the highly classified ICBM
histories agree, however, that the only incident in which so many
missiles were taken off of strategic alert at one time was at Echo
Flight on March 16, 1967. On page 36 of the command history obtained by
Salas, it states very clearly that the “801
st
 Radar Squadron, Malmstrom AFB, gave a negative report on any radar or
atmospheric interference problems related to Echo Flight.” This
establishes that the event could
not
 have been the Echo Flight Incident. But if the event Fowler refers to
that took place “during the week of 20 March 1967” was
not
 the Echo Flight incident, what incident was it? Could it have been the
November-Oscar Flight incident described by Salas that so many other
witnesses insist
never 
 occurred? In 1995, one-time Condon Committee UFO investigator, Dr. Roy
Craig, published his memoirs of the many months he worked with Condon in
a book entitled
UFOs: An Insider’s View of the Official Quest for Evidence
. In this book, Craig discusses his own account of the Echo Flight
Incident: “In one such instance, the integrity of a major weapon system
was brought into doubt by a failure which
rumor attributed to the presence of one or more UFOs in the vicinity
 [emphasis added]. It is easy to understand why the information that
such a failure had occurred would be closely guarded, for if a potential
enemy knew that a major defense system could be made inoperative, the
deterrence value of that system would be lost.

 
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"In this instance, the ability to launch a flight of ten Minuteman
missiles near Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana had been lost.
Recipients of the report that a UFO had been sighted over the area were
certain the UFO was responsible for destruction of the control system.
Upon receipt of this secret information, I arranged a trip to Malmstrom,
ostensibly to talk with the chief of the operations division, Lieutenant
Colonel Lewis D. Chase, about his earlier UFO encounter. Discussion of
Colonel Chase's experience was one reason for the trip, but the timing
was due to the very secret Echo Flight incident." With the entire matter
being highly classified, of course, Chase refused to discuss it. What’s
most interesting, however, is the fact that the date Dr. Craig used when
describing the incident to Chase was
not
 March 16, 1967, as all records indicate, but March 24-25, 1967.
 And his source for that information was NICAP investigator Raymond Fowler.
 This allows us to reach a couple of interesting conclusions contrary to
those discussed by both Robert Salas and Robert Hastings in their
publications. First, Raymond Fowler very obviously did
not
 know the actual date of the Echo Flight Incident. This supports the
conclusion other analysts have reached that Fowler did not have the
security clearance necessary to examine the Echo Flight materials. If he
did
 have such a clearance, it’s reasonable to assume that he would have
told Craig the correct date; it’s also likely that he would not have
referred to the incident in his own research as occurring “during the
week of 20 March 1967”, as described in Timothy Good’s
 Above Top Secret
, It’s far more likely that Fowler had heard
rumors
 regarding Echo Flight’s missile failures coincident to a UFO sighting,
and simply assumed that the date was the same as that of the only UFO
sightings recorded in March 1967 in Montana: the March 24-25 sightings
over Malmstrom AFB and at Belt, Montana, about 15 miles to the east.
This is also supported by Robert Salas, who published an article in
October 2009 stating, “Fowler has told me that he only mentioned the
rumors of the Echo Flight shutdown of 10 Minuteman missiles to Craig
with some trepidation of losing his job and security clearance.” He even
refers to the Echo Flight Incident as “rumors”, an odd choice of words
for someone discussing an already acknowledged historical incident.
Fowler clearly knew far less than he
thought
 he knew. Interestingly enough, Fowler’s 1996 communications with Robert
Salas also prove completely that Salas was very much aware of the
contents of Dr. Craig’s book very early in the evolution of his
own
 claims. Unfortunately, he seems to have decided against discussing
those claims with Craig in any attempt to reconcile their differences, and
 
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absolutely
refused
 to discuss Craig’s assertions openly, at least not until after Dr. Roy
Craig had
died
, at which point Salas very publically eviscerated the man’s memory and
accused him of numerous “crimes” involving ill-advised investigative
conduct,
none
 of which can be supported. Second, if Fowler didn’t have the clearance
to know the
date
 on which the incident happened, which is apparent, Salas’ assumption
that Fowler’s position on the Sylvania Minuteman Board was enough to
allow him an insider’s view of this UFO event is
false
. This is also supported by the fact that Sylvania is not mentioned
anywhere in the Echo Flight documents as having any role in the
investigation, contrary to Salas’ claims in October 2009. Sylvania’s
only connection to Malmstrom AFB at all was due to the contract they
picked up to complete the ground electrical grid for the 564
th
 Squadron, the only Minuteman II system on Malmstrom AFB; it was located
on the west side of Malmstrom AFB over two-hundred and twenty miles away
from Echo Flight, which was to the east. Raymond Fowler’s position on
Sylvania’s Minuteman Board was close enough to the events that took
place that he was made aware of the missiles failing, probably in the
context of a
rumor 
, exactly as Salas describes it. But without having the clearance for
information access, he wasn’t privy to any of the details characterizing
the event. All he could say was that the incident had
occurred
. He didn’t know the date, he didn’t know any details, but since he
did
 work with Minuteman missiles he picked up on the
rumors
 of the incident itself, and the fact that an entire flight of missiles
had been taken off of strategic alert. That information alone was
classified, and as Salas points out, he was well aware of that little
detail, but it didn’t stop him from disclosing it to Dr. Roy Craig, who
had no clearance, and who should not have been made aware of anything at
all regarding the incident, which was still under investigation. Fowler
has since admitted to passing classified information to other
individuals as well who also lacked the security clearance needed for
access, including a newspaper reporter. There is no doubt at all that
his discussion of this event with Dr. Craig added
substantially
 to the UFO rumors that have been wrapped around the Echo Flight
Incident since its occurrence. We should note as well that the trip
Craig made in order to discuss these matters with Colonel Chase was in
October 1967, well after Kaminsky’s role in the investigation had ended,
and well after Salas’ determination of “no cause” had allegedly been
reached
 by Kaminsky’s team. Dr. Craig is very clear that the investigation into
Echo Flight was still ongoing even at that late point, proving that Salas’

 
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summary of the investigation’s findings and Kaminsky’s supposed
agreement regarding those findings were overly hasty at best, as none of
the conclusions reached during the investigation had yet been determined
or published. This scenario is also supported by all of the FOIA
documents regarding the Echo Flight Incident thus far published – over
80-pages worth, 90% of which have been ignored by Robert Salas, James
Klotz, Robert Hastings, Raymond Fowler, Timothy Good, and, most
recently, Leslie Kean, all of whom have discussed this case as a UFO
incident, ignoring in the process the testimony of the
only actual witnesses
who have ever come forward: Captain (Retired) Eric D. Carlson, the
commander of Echo Flight, and Colonel (Retired) Walter Figel, Jr., the
deputy commander of Echo Flight. For the record, Chase refused to
correct Dr. Craig’s error regarding the date, because he was not
supposed to discuss it at all, not because he was trying to mislead Dr.
Craig, as Salas has since inferred. He
did
 inform Craig, however, that the incident was
not
 related to UFOs at all. This was not a violation of classified
materials protocol, because any mention of UFOs in connection with the
Echo Flight Incident was UNCLASSIFIED from the very beginning, as the
original documents relied upon by Salas and Klotz very clearly
establish. In addition, Dr. Craig left Chase completely confident that
although the Echo Flight Incident
was
 highly classified, it had
no
 relevance to any discussion of UFOs. “Since Colonel Chase was the last
man I would doubt when he conveyed this information, I accepted the
information as factual, and turned review of Major Schraff's report over
to Bob Low, who had received security clearance to read secret
information related to the UFO study." Captain James H. Schraff was the
actual head of the Echo Flight Incident investigation team, not Bob
Kaminsky, as both Salas and Hastings have repeatedly insisted. Robert
Low, Craig’s colleague on the University of Colorado UFO Study headed by
Condon, was also refused access to the investigation team’s report,
because although he had a SECRET security clearance, like Raymond
Fowler, he also lacked the necessary
need-to-know
, like Raymond Fowler. For Low, however, need-to-know was based on
“information related to the UFO study.” As a result, if the information
he requested did
not
 concern UFOs, he was
not
 granted access to examine it. This was very simply a matter of
well-enforced security protocols
alone
 – protocols that have been well-defined and in use since World War Two
– and had nothing at all to do with the high-level cover-up of a UFO
incident that Robert Salas, Robert Hastings, and Raymond Fowler have all
insisted was well underway by this time.

 
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 An examination of Fowler’s original notes – the source, presumably, of
Timothy Good’s information – suggests even more remarkable revelations.
The original source for the information Fowler admitted to both Salas
and Good was another Sylvania employee name Ivar Dahlof. Like Fowler,
Dahlof would not have had the necessary clearance to examine the Echo
Flight materials either. Nobody at Sylvania did. Dahlof nonetheless,
according to Fowler, associated a UFO event at Malmstrom AFB, during
which time the UFO was radar-visible, and jet fighters at Malmstrom AFB
were scrambled in pursuit, with the Echo Flight Incident. He suggested
that these two events occurred at the same time during the week of March
20, 1967. More importantly, however, an email that Robert Salas sent to
Raymond Fowler in July 1996
 states that, upon contacting him, Dahlof was “not very helpful.” Salas
told Fowler that Dahlof
"had no recollection (he said) of the radar visuals or sighting of the
UFOs at Malmstrom." So, once again, a presumably reliable witness had
turned out to be
“not very helpful” in establishing the story that Salas wanted to tell.
It should be noted that the March 24-25, 1967 UFO sightings reported
were
 
radar-visible,
 although there is no confirmation that fighters were scrambled to
intercept them. The absence of an appropriate security clearance for
access to more accurate information suggests that Dahlof, followed later
by Fowler, had confused the Echo incident of March 16 with the March
24-25 UFO sightings, a conclusion supported by Fowler’s disclosure to
Dr. Craig that the Echo Flight Incident occurred on March 24-25, 1967.
Dahlof, and then Fowler, may have picked up on rumors of a UFO
associated with Echo Flight as a result of the maintenance technician’s
offhanded mention of a UFO to Figel, but since the only UFO sightings
reported were on March 24-25, they associated
those
 sightings with the E-Flight failures. Any examination, however, of
either the statements released by the officers manning Echo Flight on
March 16, or the actual documents related to that event insist that a
UFO was
not 
 involved. The UFOs reported on March 24-25, however, seem to fit fairly
well the descriptions attributed by Fowler to Ivar Dahlof.
 Although this analysis establishes Dahlof’s and Fowler’s probable
responsibility for the excessive rumors about UFOs at Echo Flight, there
is still the question of an Oscar Flight incident occurring March 24-25,
1967. After all, the absence of UFOs at Echo Flight does not necessarily
indicate that there were

 
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no UFOs at Oscar Flight, since Salas and Hastings now associate that
incident with the March 24-25 time frame. Fortunately, there is more
than enough evidence to show that this event as well could not have
occurred as Salas and Hastings have insisted. Oddly enough, that
evidence also involves the burden placed upon USAF investigators by
unfounded UFO rumors
. Fortunately for the integrity of the investigative process,
“operations chief” at Malmstrom AFB was only one of the responsibilities
that Colonel Lewis D. Chase had been assigned; he was also the Malmstrom
AFB UFO officer. As such, it was his responsibility to investigate all
UFO reports made to the command in order to determine whether any
further action needed to be taken. As a result of this, when numerous
reports of a UFO sighted over Malmstrom AFB started coming in on March
24-25, he found himself automatically on duty, a duty in which he
ultimately found himself in Belt, Montana taking statements from the
town sheriff a couple of hours after a truck driver and a traffic cop
reported a light descending into a nearby ravine. Surprisingly enough,
the general characteristics, descriptions, and testimonies that Chase
recorded during the course of his investigation are not really that
important in relation to the events Salas associated with them some
forty years later. Only three points really need to be mentioned: (1)
all of the sightings reported were clustered around the administrative
area of Malmstrom AFB and regions south and to the east of the base as
far as the town of Belt, Montana; there were no reports at all between
Belt and the eastern missile sites, which included Echo Flight, November
Flight, and Oscar Flight, all of which were about 120 miles from the
main base; (2) the sightings reported from Malmstrom AFB
were
 confirmed on radar for a fairly extended period of time; and (3) the
sheriff of Belt told Chase that the extensive radio reports discussing
the UFO sightings had persuaded
hundreds
 of listeners all over the state to go outside and actively search for
UFOs; there were so many people outside hunting for UFOs that the
supposed landing spot, just off of the road leading into Belt, Montana
was compromised
completely
 before Chase could even examine it. There are newspaper accounts
describing how one woman removed a number of branches from the scene
that she claimed were “freshly broken, and appeared to have been broken
in a whirling fashion” – definitive evidence indeed, but never actually
examined because she had
removed
 them, broken them off herself and took them away for whatever forensic
assessment she may have been capable of.
Not one
 of the individuals actively searching the skies reported
anything
 between Belt and the three eastern missile flights referred to. Chase
filed his

 
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report shortly thereafter and sent it up his chain of command, which, as
a result of his position as UFO officer, included Project Blue Book, the
facility tasked with investigating UFOs reported to or by the USAF.  As
a member of NICAP, Raymond Fowler was very well aware of this. In
addition, the sightings were the only area reports of UFOs detailed in
local newspapers. Over the course of the next four months, while the
investigation of Echo Flight was still underway, a number of rumors
regarding the UFO sightings of March 24-25, 1967 made their way to the
Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Because it
was their responsibility to investigate such matters, they drafted a
memorandum requesting further details from the onsite investigator at
Malmstrom AFB, Colonel Lewis D. Chase, the command operations chief,
and
 the UFO officer: “Our office has been informed that during the
sightings there were equipment malfunctions and abnormalities in the
equipment. One individual stated that the USAF instructed both military
and civilian personnel not to discuss what they had seen as it was a
classified government experiment. Request information on the validity of
such statements. If some type of experiment did occur on or about 24
March 1967, please advise.” In other words, they had picked up on a
number of rumors regarding equipment failures coincident to the UFO
sightings of March 24-25, suggesting that the report they had previously
received may have been incomplete. Naturally, they wanted an
explanation. Colonel Chase responded immediately: “This office has no
knowledge of equipment malfunctions and abnormalities in equipment
during the period of reported UFO sightings. No validity can be
established to the statement that a classified government experiment was
in progress or that military and civilian personnel were requested not
discuss what they had seen.” Very simply put, the original report was
complete, there were no equipment failures, and we don’t know anything
about such an experiment being conducted.
 And if there were no equipment failures on March 24-25, 1967, as Chase
clearly states, than there was no Oscar Flight incident on March 24-25,
1967, as Salas and Hastings insist.
 Robert Salas has written that Colonel Chase simply
lied
 to the Foreign Technology Division, and since Colonel Chase passed away
some years ago, he cannot defend himself against such libel; the charge,
however, is
absurd
. Before 1961, when the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson
 AFB became the “Foreign Technology Division”, it was called the
 Air Technical Intelligence Center 
 (ATIC), and was considered one of the most powerful and important
intelligence hubs in the U.S.
 
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Department of Defense. It would later become the
National Air and Space Intelligence Center 
. When captured MIGs were taken apart and rebuilt so the Air Force could
learn as much about them as possible, it was the Foreign Technology
Division that was responsible for the job. But that was only one of its
responsibilities. The Foreign Technology Division was in charge of a lot
of aerospace intelligence missions. As ATIC, it was in charge of
Projects Sign and Grudge, the importance of which most UFO historians
will immediately recognize. As the Foreign Technology Division, it was
in charge of Project Blue Book, the office tasked with investigating
UFOs for the USAF. By the spring of 1967, well after the Headquarters
Research and Technology Division staff was consolidated with Air Force
Systems Command, all of the high technology research and development
laboratories were interconnected all the way to the top of the Air Force
authority structure with the Foreign Technology Division running
everything
 having to do with UFOs. They were also in charge of investigating new
technology being used against USAF weapons systems, new technology that
might
 be used against USAF weapons systems, and new technology used against
the USAF’s or other nations’ weapons systems that might in turn be
adopted or modified for use by U.S. military forces. In its role as the
direct superior office to Project Blue Book they represented Colonel
Chase’s direct authority chain of command due to his position as the UFO
officer of Malmstrom AFB, an authority that no one at either Malmstrom
AFB or SAC had the authority to circumvent. The Foreign Technology
Division represents the very
last
 military authority that Chase would have knowingly lied to, and doing
so would have been considered a very serious infraction. Colonel Lewis
D. Chase conducted his investigation in accordance with AFR 80-17 (Air
Force Regulation), written orders which went into effect in September
1966. Any review of that regulation immediately notes: “FTD [Foreign
Technology Division], Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, will prepare a final
case report on each sighting reported to it after the data have been
properly evaluated. If the final report is deemed significant, FTD will
send the report of its findings to AFSC (SFCA), Andrews AFB, Wash D.C.
20331, which will send a report to HQ USAF (AFRDC), Wash D.C. 20330. …
All Air Force activities will cooperate with UFO investigators to insure
that pertinent information relative to investigations of UFO are
promptly obtained. When feasible, this will include furnishing air or
ground transportation and other assistance.” These are not
optional
 orders. Refusing to obey them is grounds for court martial, and Robert
Salas is very well aware of this.

 
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Colonel Chase did
not
 lie to FTD, and even raising the issue is an unwarranted attack on a
USAF officer whom Dr. Roy Craig described as “the last man I would
doubt.” Chase’s well-established honesty puts Salas in a somewhat
uncomfortable position, because no equipment failures on March 24-25,
means no Oscar Flight incident on March 24-25. And that means that after
fifteen years of constantly being forced to backpedal, changing the
location of his story twice, changing the date to fit the biased and
ill-advised commentaries from Robert Hastings, and
never 
 being in agreement with the only actual witnesses to the Echo Flight
Incident, Robert Salas now has nothing believable to stand up for, and
the fictional claims he has been asserting since 1995 have once again
been proven
false
. The UFO rumors that found their way to FTD, forcing that office to
query Chase regarding his earlier report, are nonetheless interesting.
They assert that “One individual stated that the USAF instructed both
military and civilian personnel not to discuss what they had seen”, so
the origin of those rumors should be discussed. This analysis, moreover,
has already discussed “one individual” who was definitely responsible
for similar rumors as a result of his disclosure of classified
information to individuals who had no security clearance. This same
individual was also one of the very
few
 men who happened to possess knowledge of the Echo Flight missile
failures, knowledge of the UFO sightings on March 24-25, including the
added detail that those sightings were confirmed on radar, and seems to
have believed very early in the investigative process that the Echo
Flight Incident and the March 24-25 UFO sightings occurred at the same
time:
Raymond Fowler 
, the NICAP investigator who didn’t even know the date of an event he
continued nonetheless to discuss with uncleared personnel. He certainly
qualifies, and he obviously didn’t mind theorizing about an event he
didn’t know half as much about as he
thought
 he knew. And he was certainly trying to get people to take note of the
UFO aspect of the Echo Flight case, even though he was unable to provide
any evidence whatsoever to support such claims. And there could not have
been very many people at all who were aware of the equipment failures
represented by the Echo Flight Incident, but believed they had occurred
on March 24-25, 1967, in connection with the UFO incident investigated
by Colonel Chase. When asked outright whether or not he was responsible
for the UFO rumors surrounding this case, Raymond Fowler declined to
answer.
But he didn’t deny it either.
What Fowler
did
 do, however, and this is a credit to the man’s integrity as an
investigator, is to forward all of his personal notes regarding his UFO
investigations at Malmstrom AFB to the author of the

 
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current analysis. These documents contain handwritten notes Fowler wrote
indicating that a contact of his in Seattle, named Russ Lawson, an
employee of the Boeing Corporation, had told him on April 12 that a
"bright round white object circling MAFB missile site in up & down
motion" was seen by many USAF personnel. He told Fowler that the USAF
had issued a memorandum stating that this UFO was part of a "highly
secret govt. testing project" that was not to be publicized, adding that
a local operator of a commercial radio station was instructed "not to
elaborate on [the] sighting." On another page of these notes, Fowler has
written that the sighting occurred in the
afternoon
. With the exception of this last detail, which fits
none
 of the incidents that have been discussed, UFO-related or not, the
overall description seems to coincide nicely with the rumors that had
made their way to FTD shortly thereafter. In FTD’s memo to Chase they
report that “One individual stated that the USAF instructed both
military and civilian personnel not to discuss what they had seen as it
was a classified government experiment.” Raymond Fowler’s notes state
"USAF issues a memo stating it is a highly secret govt. testing project
not to be publicized -- said local opr. at commercial radio station
asked by USAF not to elaborate on sighting." Setting aside the complete
absence of any actual witnesses supporting Lawson’s claims, his
statement can probably be dismissed on the grounds that the USAF does
not issue memorandums that cannot be documented, the “many USAF
personnel” mentioned have never come forward, and cannot be ascertained,
and the operator of a local radio station has never been tracked down,
although the number of radio stations that can be called “local” cannot
possibly be such a large number that such an important witness would
simply disappear. As for the UFO itself, the fact that FTD was unaware
of it, associating it with the only UFO sighting they had to go on,
speaks volumes regarding its supposed authenticity. It has already been
established that Raymond Fowler was aware of both the Russ Lawson
statements of April 12, 1967 discussing “a classified government
experiment” and believed as well that the March 24-25 UFO sightings were
associated with the missile failures at Echo Flight. The odds that
anybody else on the entire planet meets those requirements must be
insurmountable
, under the circumstances. Most of this information was, after all,
highly classified in 1967. It’s probably safe to say, therefore, that
the rumors that eventually reached FTD originated with Raymond Fowler,
NICAP investigator,
extraordinaire
.

 
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 As a result of this, it’s also a sure bet that Colonel Lewis Chase was
not
 conducting a high-level cover-up of a UFO-related incident and was
therefore being completely truthful when he told the Foreign Technology
Division that there were no equipment failures on March 24-25, 1967. And
that
 means there was no Oscar Flight Incident as Robert Salas and Robert
Hastings and a fairly large number of other UFO “investigators" and
“researchers” have assumed since Salas first discussed the matter in
1995. One loose end is left to cut away. In Timothy Good’s book
 Above Top Secret
, he refers to a “nearly identical event” that occurred at Malmstrom AFB
the previous year, insisting that while neither of these incidents were
confirmed UFO reports, he sees “no reason to doubt” them. It should be
possible to account for this as well, if there is any truth to it,
particularly if Raymond Fowler is the original source as Good indicates.
After all, Fowler has been lamentably
used
 by Salas for many years, but he has not knowingly
lied
 about any of the cases he has discussed. He has also shown himself
completely willing to share as much information as he could possibly
provide, even to someone considered by many to be skeptical of UFO
claims. It is apparent, however, that he has also been unable to step
back a bit from his original analysis in order to see the obvious
fallacies to the arguments that have been made by Salas and Hastings.
Whether this is due to his unsupported belief that UFOs were involved at
Echo Flight, or because he desperately wants to affirm a “classified
government experiment” is unknown; what
is
 known, however, is that he is basically an honest man. His
long-standing investment in the outcome of this particular case is
simply too great to enable a more even-handed approach. In any case, as
a result of Fowler’s basic honesty, it should be possible to substantiate
something
 about the “nearly identical” case that Timothy Good, as a result of
Fowler’s original research, mentions in his book. The 80-pages of FOIA
documents discussing the Echo Flight Incident are very clear in regard
to this as well. On pages 39-40 of the same document used by Salas and
Klotz in support of their UFO claims, pages that they neglected to
publish or otherwise account for in the many years during which they
have publically discussed this case, it states: “In reviewing the
maintenance history of the Wing, it was discovered a similar incident
occurred at Alpha Flight in December 1966. On 19 December 66, A-Flight
had some of its LFs shutdown (A-6, A-7, and A-10). The similarity
between the two flights was: The same capsule crew, adverse weather
conditions, and commercial power failure after the facilities shutdown.

 
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"Since weather condition and capsule crew have been eliminated as causes
of the incident, investigation of electrical failure was started." In
other words, this
incident
 at Alpha Flight was “nearly identical” to the event at Echo Flight, and
took place
only
 
three months
 before. The investigation team noted the similarity between the two
events, because it was useful; it enabled them to reach their conclusion
that the cause was a Wing I peculiar problem. The same combination of
errors they reported had never been recorded at Wings II through V, so
the comparison was an important diagnostic tool by the maintenance
technicians involved in the immediate troubleshooting related to the
incident. This interpretation of the event is also supported in Raymond
Fowler’s original 1967 notes, referred to by Timothy Good, which record
the contents of a phone call Fowler received from Jim Pompelli. Pompelli
was another Sylvania employee who only worked on the Minuteman II
system, and therefore lacked the necessary clearance to examine any of
the actual documentation. In other words, like Fowler himself, he could
only discuss the “rumors” he had picked up. Specifically, Fowler’s notes
indicate that Pompelli “Phoned to tell me that he heard ‘A’ Flight had
gone down as well during this same period but had no exact date.” On
another page, Fowler wrote, "'A' Flt went down / Strike Team out & saw
UFO / Paper said AF had on radar / Jim Pompelli". This is the first and
only time this particular event has
ever 
 been associated with UFO interference by
anybody
 who worked anywhere near the flight itself, and it was
never 
 confirmed. These notes were sufficient, however, to be referenced as an
actual UFO incident in Timothy Good’s
 Above Top Secret
. There was no associated newspaper report for the Alpha Flight missile
failures event, as Pompelli stated. There
was
, however, such an article reporting on the events of 24-25 March, 1967,
illustrating the sometimes confusing course that a rumor can take in its
eventual evolution into an unconfirmed UFO incident that a
well-respected UFO investigator might find “no reason to doubt.”  And
so, with a simple
snip
 of all loose ends, we see that not only were
no
 UFOs involved at Echo Flight or any other flight of missiles taken off
of strategic alert at Malmstrom AFB in March 1967, it is highly probable
that questions of UFO intervention would not have been raised by
anybody
, had it not been for the investigation conducted by Raymond Fowler, a
NICAP investigator who didn’t know anywhere near as much about UFOs at
Malmstrom AFB as he thought he did. In closing, it should be

 
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stressed as well, that -- in contrast to Timothy Good’s opinion that
although the UFO aspects of these events were unconfirmed, he sees “no
reason to doubt” them –
any
 claims of UFO interference with
any
 of the four missile flights discussed in this analysis is
completely
 unsupportable –
and we see no reason to believe them.
 
The following pages contain illustrations and copies of referenced
documents

 
Page
36
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43
 
This is the first page of a report forwarded to Condon’s University of
Colorado UFO Project discussing the March 24-25, 1967 UFO sightings at
Malmstrom AFB; this is the incident that Raymond Fowler thought was
coincidental to the Echo Flight missile failures; it was another
incident entirely, but his confusion provided Salas the means to claim
that Echo Flight was caused by a UFO; it wasn’t, and there were no other
missile failures on March 16, as Salas once claimed, nor on March 24-25
as Salas and others have attempted to document since about 2005.

 
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This is the letter Colonel Chase sent to the commander of the Foreign
Technology Division denying knowledge of equipment failures coincident
to March 24-25, 1967 UFO reports; this proves that there were no missile
failures at all on March 24-25, 1967, as Salas and others insist. Note
that the date of Chase’s original investigation report was forwarded to
FTD on April 3, well before the date that Fowler was first told about a
secret government experiment by Russ Lawson.

 
Page
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43
 
This is the SECRET message sent out by Malmstrom AFB notifying necessary
commands about the Echo Flight Incident on March 16, 1967; there is no
mention of a UFO, and the message was not addressed to Foreign
Technology Division as required for all UFO incidents in 1967.

 
Page
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43
 
This map of Malmstrom AFB shows all of the missile sites discussed; Echo
Flight is between quadrants 11 and 12 (mostly in 12), November Flight is
in quadrant 14, and Oscar Flight is between quadrants 12 and 14 (mostly
in 12); the main administrative area of Malmstrom AFB is in quadrant 6;
the blackened circles represent the launch control facilities (LCF),
also called the launch control centers (LCC); the 564
th
 Squadron LCCs are located to the extreme northwest of the main
administrative area of Malmstrom AFB.

 
Page
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43
 
This is a copy of the letter written by Colonel (Retired) Frederick
Meiwald that has been used by Robert Salas and Robert Hastings as a
confirmation of the missile shutdowns incident Salas has described for
Oscar Flight, on March 24-25, 1967. Note that there is no mention at all
of any missile failures having occurred coincident to the UFO discussed.
There are, in fact, no confirmations at all regarding the Oscar Flight
event proposed by Salas and Hastings.

 
Page
41
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43
 
This is the original page of Raymond Fowler’s notes discussing the
information passed to him regarding a UFO and associated USAF activities
by Russ Lawson, a Boeing Corporation employee in Seattle, Washington.
This represents part of the UFO rumors that so concerned FTD that they
requested additional information from Colonel Chase, the UFO officer at
Malmstrom AFB.

 
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This is the second page of Fowler’s notes discussing Russ Lawson’s
report of the white UFO moving up and down and in circles around a
missile site sunk into the earth of the Montana plains as a result of
the secret government testing project that didn’t exist.

 
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This is the handwritten note Fowler took upon being told by Jim Pompelli
that a “nearly identical” incident had supposedly occurred the previous
year at Alpha Flight. The
rumors
 Pompelli told Fowler about were the result of the numerous similarities
noted by the Echo Flight Incident investigation team, not any actual
interference by UFOs. Pompelli’s mention of this incident to Raymond
Fowler is the first and only time this particularly incident has ever
been associated with UFOs. It was sufficient, however, for Timothy Good
to include it as an actual UFO incident in his book
 Above Top Secret

.