Helena, MT - Diamond

Diamond Shaped UFO Blocks USAF Runway This is a second hand story.

My brother, who still wishes to remain anonymous, was a USAF sergeant and air traffic controller of the Strategic Air Command from approximately 1958-1963 when this event occurred.

I do not know what time of the year it was but suspect December 1962-February 1963. He worked in the tower at night at a very busy SAC Air Base during the height of the Cold War. I believe that the base may have been Maelstrom as he lived with his family in Helena, Montana, and may have been home to a fighter wing, MATS wing and perhaps a refueling wing. I think that their primary SAC aircraft were B52's.

In a moment when we were alone in 1986, upon my questioning about UFO's and his time in the USAF, he related this story: He said that at night while awaiting the return of a flight of nuclear-armed (They always were then) SAC bombers a diamond-shaped group of flashing colored lights, semi-solid, settled into a hover just some feet off of the threshold of the primary landing runway as a squadron of returning bombers approached making landings impossible.

While the bombers were rerouted, the security force "surrounded" the object with their armored vehicles and men, training their weapons on it but maintaining hold-fire discipline. He described the object as "big as a house". I do not recall the length of the event but believe it was an hour or more. Apparently the Air Police could not stop spectators from appearing from all corners of the base. The base was completely off-line and all work halted except of course by the Security Force.

My brother was privy to all internal radio communication from his position in the tower.

After the object departed (I do not recall his description of that if he gave it.), their aircraft were called back from their havens and the base made an attempt to achieve normalcy. Evidently they had difficulty in this, as within a few days my brother, a sergeant with a good record, was dismissed from the highly regarded Strategic Air Command and given only days to pack up his family and leave for his new assignment with Training Command (He taught an entire generation of USAF and Army air controllers.), where his career languished for ten years. His only "crime" seems to have been being a witness to this event. He said that many others received the same treatment and that he never saw anyone from that base again and believed that was the USAF's intention.

He further stated that his marriage broke up as a result of this transfer and some further USAF harassment that he did not specify. He felt that to some degree, perhaps intentionally, the Air Force intentionally encouraged the dissolution of his marriage.

He returned to the active Air Force ten years later, still a controller this time in the Tactical Air Command and finished his 30 year career as a Master Sergeant. He then worked perhaps fifteen years as a contract controller at the NASA base (Elington Field or Elington AFB) in Houston. He is clearly a quality witness to this event and is highly regarded in his field as demonstrated by both his USAF career and length of time employed at Elington Field (NASA) and though now fully retired he will not discuss this matter further.


((NUFORC Note: Date is approximate. PD))