Minot Air Force Base UFO incident
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🛸 Case
Contents 7
| Type | Case |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Minot AFB UFO incident, Minot B-52 UFO incident |
The Minot Air Force Base UFO incident took place early on 24 October 1968 around Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Missile security staff on the ground reported a large glowing object, and the crew of a B-52H bomber tracked an unidentified target on radar that appeared to pace their aircraft. The pilots later flew over a glowing object on or near the ground. Project Blue Book attributed the sightings to a plasma similar to ball lightning and to bright stars.[1][2]
The base
In 1968 Minot was a Strategic Air Command base hosting two wings: the 5th Bombardment Wing, with 15 B-52H bombers, and the 91st Strategic Missile Wing, which looked after 150 Minuteman nuclear missiles in underground silos spread over more than 8,500 square miles.[1]
Ground sightings
Early that morning a security team at the missile site Oscar-6 reported a large glowing object that seemed to go down near some trees. At about 2:30 a.m. a two-man maintenance team on the way to the site November-7 reported a bright light that appeared to follow their vehicle and then circled to the south. The base operations dispatcher set up an open line to the radar approach control centre (RAPCON) and kept a log over the next two hours. Sixteen ground observers at several sites eventually reported sightings. They described a very large, bright object that changed from white to amber and green, hovered, accelerated quickly and changed direction suddenly. Guards at three launch facilities said they saw the object split in two and come back together.[1]
The B-52 radar encounter
At about 3 a.m. a B-52H returning from a ten-hour training flight was asked by controllers to look out for orange glows, because "somebody is seeing flying saucers again". At 3:52, as the bomber turned near a navigation point about 35 nautical miles northwest of the base, controllers said the object was also showing on weather radar three miles from the aircraft. The B-52's own radar picked up a target at the same altitude, which stayed about three miles away through the turn.[1]
As the bomber began its descent, the target suddenly appeared to jump to about a mile away within one sweep of the radar, under three seconds, and then kept pace with the aircraft off its left wing for about 20 miles. At the same moment both of the bomber's UHF radios stopped transmitting. The navigator, Capt. Patrick McCaslin, filmed the radar screen, and the target eventually vanished, after which the radios worked again.[1] In 2008 McCaslin, by then a retired science teacher, told a reporter that he still did not know whether the target had come from outer space or somewhere closer to home, and he dismissed as nonsense a suggestion he attributed to the Air Force that the crew had been looking at the star Vega.[3]
The visual sighting
On the landing approach the crew was asked to go around and fly over a stationary glowing object about 16 miles north-northwest of the base. Maj. James Partin, a pilot on board, compared it to a small sun sitting on the ground. The copilot, Capt. Bradford Runyon, said he saw a huge egg-shaped object glowing a dull red, with a tube-like section and a crescent-shaped part that glowed greenish-yellow. He put its size at about 200 feet long. The radios again failed to transmit during the closest approach. The B-52 landed at 4:40 a.m.[1]
At 4:49 a.m. security alarms went off at the missile site Oscar-7. A security team found the front gate unlocked and an access hatch open, but no sign of intruders.[1]
Blue Book's evaluation
The base informed Project Blue Book the same day, and six ground observers and Maj. Partin filled in Air Force sighting questionnaires. Blue Book investigators did not interview the rest of the B-52 crew.[1] Early in November, after consulting a radar specialist at the Foreign Technology Division, Blue Book chief Lt. Col. Hector Quintanilla wrote that the object seen on the B-52's radar and from the air was most probably a plasma of the ball-lightning class, which he said could show on radar and affect electronics. He thought the ground observers had seen bright stars magnified by an inversion layer and haze, and he did not connect the open missile site with the sightings. Blue Book adopted the plasma explanation in its final case report on 13 November 1968.[2]
Later research
The B-52 crew did not speak publicly about the incident for more than 30 years. Around 2000 Runyon filed a sighting report with the Center for UFO Studies. Researcher Thomas Tulien and the Sign Oral History Project then found 145 pages of primary documents in Blue Book's declassified files, including logs, transcripts of radio traffic, an overlay map and 14 photographs of the B-52's radar screen, and interviewed more than 30 witnesses. Their findings were published online in 2011.[1][2] Radar analyst Martin Shough studied the radar photographs and found none of the ordinary explanations convincing, while French space agency scientist Claude Poher contributed a speculative study of the object's apparent performance.[1]
Skeptics have offered other views. Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer told a newspaper in 2008 that the radar contact was interesting but proved nothing, and suggested that one branch of the military might not have told another what it was doing.[3] The case was featured in ABC News's 2005 special Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing.[1]
References
- Thomas Tulien, "Introduction", The Minot AFB UFO Case (Sign Oral History Project) · minotb52ufo.com · archived copy
- Thomas Tulien, "Investigation of UFO Events at Minot AFB on 24 October 1968, Section 6: Project Blue Book Evaluation" (2011) · minotb52ufo.com · archived copy
- David Olson, "'68 UFO run-in at North Dakota air base still unresolved", The Forum (23 Oct 2008), via Duluth News Tribune · duluthnewstribune.com · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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