On April 12, 2026 NUFORC received a report from a retired Air Force radar maintenance tech about a high-speed (~5,000 mph) radar return tracked by the 780th Radar Squadron at Fortuna AFS in spring 1967. While several anomalous events involving UFOs around nuclear missile have been previously reported and investigated, this particular incident appears to be previously unknown.

Original Witness Report

I was in radar maintenance on the FPS-26. When we verified the craft I tried to manually pick up the craft on our height finder. I was unable to because the craft was flying too fast at 5,000 mph. The next day or two we were interrogated by a team from Malmstrom AFB about our event. To me it was rather unusual that they basically told us we didn’t see anything. We all knew what we saw. There were several people at the operations that witnessed it. Just recently I have seen some videos about Minot and Malmstrom AFB silos being shut down by UFOs during my sighting time frame. They had to be connected. Now I know why the interrogators were putting the pressure on us.

Investigation

Jim Clarkson, a NUFORC investigator with 40 years of experience, dug into the case. Here is his report:

On 04/16/2026 I began communicating by email and phone with the reporting witness. He communicated numerous details that have been checked with other sources and found consistent and credible.

The reporting witness is a highly articulate 80-year-old Michigan resident. He enlisted in the United States Air Force in 1965 and was honorably discharged 4 years later. Then he worked for General Motors for 42 years in a variety of engineering positions. After his enlistment he completed basic training and then he attended a 1-year training program in Biloxi, MS to train him in radar maintenance.

His first assignment after graduating from his advanced training was the Fortuna Air Force Base which was in the far upper northwest corner of the state near the Canadian border and the border with Montana. The base was part of the 78th Air Defense Command. The Fortuna AF Station was part of the SAGE (Semi-Automated Ground Environment), a network of radar installations and computers linked together as part of the Cold War efforts to detect and intercept Soviet bombers that might be launched against the USA.  The witness was trained to operate and maintain a height finder radar known as the AN/FPS 26. This radar operated in conjunction with a search radar known as the AN/FPS 35. This was a massive radar unit with a dish 128 feet across. The witness provided the photo below, that was taken after the radar “sail” was blown over in a windstorm.

The witness arrived in October 1966. He was there until December of 1967 when he received a reassignment to Port Austin AFS, a radar station in Michigan because his father had a heart attack. I am including these details because with the available information, it isn’t possible to provide an exact date for the event, which is the focus of this report.  The witness and I have gone over his recollections repeatedly, and there is no way of determining the exact date. He is certain, however, that the event occurred in Spring of 1967.

When he was off duty, the witness would play cards with the other maintenance technicians and the radar operators, also known as “scope dopes.” The key event occurred during a card game; he believes it was very early in the morning. He believes that it was still dark. He believes this is right because there was only minimal staffing in the Operation Center where he and some of his fellow airmen were playing cards.

The phone rang. Lenny Kemp, one of the “scope dopes” as they were nicknamed, answered the phone by putting on a headset. He recalls that he got a call from their counterparts at Minot located to the southeast of Fortuna. Kemp looked at the scope and then yelled, “What is that?” He was looking at an unknown target on the radar that was moving way too fast to be anything conventional moving in a north-northwest direction. The witness could hear one side of the conversation.

The witness said that conventional aircraft will make steady progress in a line across the scope. Whatever the object was, it was moving across the scope in jumps as the radar picked it up on its next pass. The main radar had a range of 200-250 miles. It made a sweep every 12 seconds.

He left right away to take the short walk to the height finder radar. He turned the antenna to where the object should have been picked up. It was going too fast. He couldn’t get the unit to lock in on the target. He tried leading the target and that didn’t work either.

There were further communications with Minot AFB and Opheim AFS located near Opheim MT about 150 miles to the west of Fortuna. The object was estimated to be going 5,000 miles per hour moving North-Northwest. The witness explained that normal aircraft will move in a line across the scope which is refreshed every 12 seconds as the radar dish rotates. When he looked at the radar scope, the unknown object hopped across the screen; no conventional aircraft would appear that way on the radar scope. There were also calls to Opheim AFS located about 150 miles west of Fortuna in Montana. Whatever the object was, it was quickly out of range and gone.

The very high velocity return on the radar was very strange, but what made the story stick in his mind is what happened the next day. A team of officers from AFOSI, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, arrived. They may have been from Minot. He remembers that there was a captain in charge and they were very serious. They arrived at Fortuna to talk with them about the UFO that had been captured on the radar. The witness said this was an interrogation, not an interview. By that he meant the officers from OSI only cared about ordering everyone involved to never speak about what had happened. There was no further discussion of the incident after that.

The witness maintained the secret until a couple of years ago when he saw a YouTube video about nuclear missiles being shut down by UFOs at Minot AFB, and he thought whatever they caught on the radar scope in Fortuna in the spring of 1967 must be related.

In trying to assess why the Air Force OSI might visit a Radar Station(s) to suppress any discussion about an unidentified radar return, there are two dates in March of 1967 that may be connected to this UFO Radar Case. (From NICAP.org files)

March 5, 1967 – Minot AFB

Description of Event Copied from: https://www.nicap.org/reports/670305minot_report.htm

Ray Fowler:
On March 5, 1967, just 15 days prior to the Malmstrom AFB incident, the 91St Strategic Missile Wing at a sister base also had an unwelcome visitor. Aerospace Defense Command radar tracked an unknown target descending over the Minuteman missile installations at Minot AFB, North Dakota. Strike teams were alerted and sighted a metallic disc- shaped craft ringed with bright flashing lights moving slowly over the supersensitive area.

Three armed teams in fast trucks pursued the alien vehicle as it maneuvered and finally stopped and hovered 500 feet off the ground. The strike teams held their fire. They had orders to capture it undamaged if it should land. Then abruptly it began moving once again and circling directly over a launch control facility. Back at Minot, F-106 fighter planes were awaiting orders from the North American Air Defense Command to launch an attack. Base operations became impatient and had just decided to scramble the jets without confirmation. Suddenly the UFO climbed straight up and streaked away at incredible speed.

March 16, 1967 – Malmstrom AFB

Description of Event Copied from: https://www.nicap.org/CATEGORIES/10-Nuclear_Connection_Cases/670316malmstrom_dir.htm

Fran Ridge:
What could be more interesting and important than an incident involving UFOs and our strategic defenses, especially where there appears to have been a direct relationship between the incident and the failure of vital missile targeting systems, ten missiles at one site and ten at another, 35 miles apart! “Some signal had been sent to the missiles which caused them to go off alert status.” What most people do not understand is, this was not just an unfounded rumor. The incident has been confirmed. Although it is normal for authorities to “explain away” almost all UFO incidents, this one is not that easy. This is the story of extraordinary events that happened in 1967 to Strategic Air Command Missile Combat Officers; Missileers assigned to operate the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, an essential part of America’s Cold War strategic nuclear deterrent. Our thanks to Joel Carpenter for locating the image of what he suspects is the LCC capsule that was apparently targeted by the UFO.  And, most importantly, our thanks to Jim Klotz and Robert Salas for the official reporting of this incident to the world. And now, their book, “Faded Giant”, tells the full story. (See link below). Also see a page from the Colorado Project Trip Notes, dated 2/13/68, where the comment is made “It cannot be ruled out that UFOs were the cause…” *

Brad Sparks:
In the 1967 Malmstrom incident 10 Minutemans DID get knocked out, but the investigation was conducted not by NSA but by the missile contractor Boeing, which issued a SECRET classified “Report of Engineering Investigation of Echo Flight Incident, Malmstrom, Mont – 16 Mar 1967.”  The trick was that the UFO “rumors” were denied so that the missile disabling could be investigated and reported as if unrelated to the UFO’s (which WERE sighted, contrary to the flimsy denials).  No satisfactory explanation for the missile disabling was found. (See below) Presumably whenever these kinds of national security UFO incidents occurred that affected military equipment there were investigations by contractors who built or maintained the equipment, and the UFO aspects were compartmented off.  At a higher level these reports could be read by someone cleared to know about the UFO details, and they could ignore the perfunctory denials of UFO activity written into the contractor studies.

Conclusion: This is a high credibility RADAR case. It is highly likely that this event is related to the famous UFO – Nuclear Missile Interference Cases at Malmstrom or Minot Air Force Bases from March 1967. Taken in that context, it is further corroboration of highly significant and well documented Close Encounter II (CE2) cases where multiple nuclear missiles were rendered un-launchable by UFO interference. These events directly contradict the Air Force assertion that no UFO has ever posed a threat to national security.

James E Clarkson
NUFORC Board Member & Investigator
April 25, 2026