Mario Woods incident at Ellsworth AFB (1977)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Date | November 1977 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Crashes & retrievals (topic), Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Remote viewing & psi (topic) |
| People | Mario Woods, Robert Hastings |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 82 |
| Year | 1977 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1977 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 3 |
Mario Woods, a former U.S. Air Force missile security policeman, told researcher Robert Hastings that in November 1977, near a Minuteman missile site in South Dakota, he and his partner encountered a huge glowing sphere and lost nearly four hours. Hastings published the account in September 2017; no Air Force record of the incident has been released.[1]
Background
Woods served with the 44th Security Police Squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base from 1975 to 1979, as part of a security alert team based at the November Flight launch control facility near Newell.[1]
The sighting
About two weeks before Thanksgiving 1977, Woods said, he saw a bright, pulsating light about 30 degrees above the horizon and signalled it several times with the facility's spotlights; the light went out and came back brighter and closer. Later that night he and his team leader were sent to launch facility November-5, where an alarm had gone off. They saw a silent, reddish-orange sphere with swirling colours, which he described as roughly as wide as a Walmart store, hovering 15–20 feet above the site.[1][2]
Missing time
Woods recalled pressure on his chest, a glow around his partner, voices telling them not to be afraid, and small figures led by a taller one, before blacking out. He said he came to when the radio sounded, feeling that only a minute had passed, but was told nearly four hours had gone by and that six backup teams had searched for them. A backup team found their vehicle parked in mud beside a road past the Newell Lake dam, miles from the launch facility, after triangulating their radio signal.[1]
Aftermath
Woods said he filled out an Air Force sighting report and was interviewed by the 44th Missile Wing's commander in the presence of a man in civilian clothes he took to be from the Office of Special Investigations, and that skin samples and a urinalysis were taken. His partner, he said, was removed from duty and transferred about a month later. He reported puncture-like marks on his body that he cannot explain.[1]
Assessment
Hastings obtained Woods's discharge papers confirming his service at Ellsworth in 1977, considered his recollections credible but incomplete, and tried to locate other witnesses. He also arranged hypnotic regression sessions, a technique widely criticised as unreliable for recovering memories. The partner's statements, the debriefing and the sighting report are known only through Woods.[1]
People and topics
- Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
- Mario Woods — Air Force security policeman who described a 1977 encounter at an Ellsworth AFB missile site.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Robert Hastings — Researcher who has collected accounts of UFOs at nuclear weapons sites, author of UFOs and Nukes.
On the Timeline
- Daniel Sheehan and the Blue Book photos (1977) — Attorney Daniel Sheehan says he was shown classified Blue Book material at the Library of Congress.
- Carter request and NASA's UFO decision (1977) (13 December 1977) — A NASA safety chief writes that a possible UFO fragment was studied at Los Alamos.
See every 1977 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Robert Hastings, "Former USAF missile security policeman tells of apparent UFO abduction at ICBM site" (Sep 2017) · ufohastings.com · archived copy
- "Air Force sergeant says he saw a UFO the size of a Walmart", BroBible · brobible.com · archived copy
- ufohastings.com · ufohastings.com · archived copy
Further reading
- U.S. congressional hearings on UFOs — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 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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