Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 0 14 NUFORC, 77.47 out of every 100,000 Montanans have taken the time and effort to report a UFO sighting. The number of people who didn't bother to report one would likely significantly increase that number. If you live in Montana, there's a good chance that you've either seen something strange in the sky or that you've heard a story about one from someone you know. While nearly all UFO sightings are the result of some misidentified natural or man-made phenomena, there remains a stubborn minority that are infuriatingly resistant to scientific interrogation. Military investigations in the past have revealed as much, and that fact hasn't seemed to change at all over time. It is an axiom in UFO lore that 5% of sightings cannot be explained by any known natural phenomenon. Montana is not new to UFO lore, and indeed has been central to the phenomenon since the modern UFO era began, right around the time that the United States exploded the first atomic bomb in the high desert in New Mexico. A glance through the blurry telescope of history reveals that Montana has been a UFO hotspot going back to at least 1950; as the world becomes more connected, the trend only seems to be increasing. In 1950 in Great Falls, Nick Mariana made a 16-mm recording of two circular UFOs. Mariana and his film would go on to become a legendary case to believers and skeptics alike. Seventeen years later in 1967, at nearby Malmstrom Air Force Base, Robert Jamison, a retired USAF nuclear missile targeting officer, reported that UFO sightings were regular occurrences on the base. The sightings, he said, would frequently deactivate the air force's Minuteman missiles, requiring manual intervention. Just this year, the navy updated its guidelines to encourage pilots to more thoroughly report what they now call UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). They have recently declassified Department of Defense footage from navy fighter jets tracking objects on their radars that are moving at speeds far in excess of any known human technology. The objects often perform maneuvers that would liquefy any biological life within the object. Also this year, and in conjunction with the DoD footage and seem- ingly at the encouragement of the navy, several fighter pilots have come forward to give public reports of UFOs they had encountered and tracked in the skies over the U.S. These events accompanied a peculiarly subdued announcement by the navy that it has been documenting and studying UFOs. Most branches of the U.S. military have long histories with UFOs that, while persistent, are most often blurry and distorted by an ocean of misinformation, confusion, and derision. While various branches of the military have launched several official inquiries and studies of the subject over many decades, they have never made any conclusive pronouncements on the topic. By nature, the military is secretive, and secrecy is always an accelerant for conspiracy theories. Discover footage of UFOs over The Big Sky Malmstrom Air Force Base in the 1960s www.distinctlymontana.com/ufo202 DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL UFO sightings were regular occurrences on the base and would frequently deactivate the air force's Minuteman missiles!

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