Malmstrom Air Force Base
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 📍 Place
Contents 6
| Type | Place |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Malmstrom AFB, Malmstrom |
| On the Timeline | 5 events, 1974–2022 |
Malmstrom Air Force Base is a U.S. Air Force base next to Great Falls, Montana, home of the 341st Missile Wing and one of three bases operating Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. It is famous in UFO history for the 1967 incident in which ten nuclear missiles went off alert, which some former officers linked to UFOs.[1][2]
Second World War
Construction of Great Falls Army Air Base began on 8 June 1942, and the first B-17 bomber landed on 30 November 1942. During the war the base was a key point in the Lend-Lease programme: aircraft were flown from it through Alaska to the Soviet Union, about 8,000 of them in 21 months, until shipments ended in September 1945.[1]
Name
The base is named after Colonel Einar Axel Malmstrom, a Second World War prisoner of war and former senior officer at the Stalag Luft I camp, who was killed when his T-33 trainer crashed on 21 August 1954. It took his name in 1955–56.[1]
Missile wing
The 341st Strategic Missile Wing became operational on 3 July 1963 with 150 Minuteman I missiles, and a fourth squadron with Minuteman II missiles was added in 1967, giving it 200 missiles spread over about 61,000 km² (23,500 square miles) of Montana — at the time the largest missile field in the United States. Minuteman III missiles replaced the older ones from the 1990s. The wing is now part of Air Force Global Strike Command.[1]
The 1967 incident
On 16 March 1967 all ten missiles of the base's Echo Flight lost alert status almost simultaneously. The Air Force traced the cause to an electronic fault and said rumours of UFOs were disproved. In 1996 former launch officer Robert Salas said a glowing object had hovered over his facility as missiles went offline, and the story became central to claims that UFOs interfere with nuclear weapons. In 2025 The Wall Street Journal reported that Pentagon investigators linked the shutdown to a secret test of equipment simulating a nuclear electromagnetic pulse. See Malmstrom missile incidents.[2][3]
On the UAP Timeline
- Malmstrom Romeo-29 incident (1974) (March 1974) — A large glowing object hovers over a Minuteman launch facility at Malmstrom AFB, Montana.
- Samuel Stratton and the SAC base overflights (20 December 1978) — Rep. Samuel Stratton raises concerns over unknown aircraft flying over Strategic Air Command bases.
- UFOs and Nukes press conference (27 September 2010) — Former military officers hold a press conference about UAP at nuclear weapons sites.
- Fergus County sheriff's log sightings (2012) (19 September 2012) — A sheriff's log records a report of two silent V-shaped UAP near a Montana missile site.
- 2022 House UAP hearing (17 May 2022) — Rep. Mike Gallagher asks a Pentagon official about the 'Admiral Wilson memo' at a hearing.
References
- Malmstrom Air Force Base — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Malmstrom UFO incident — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America's UFO Mythology", The Wall Street Journal (Jun 2025) · wsj.com · 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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