from Hacker News

The Pentagon disinformation that fueled America's UFO mythology

by Jerry2 on 6/8/25, 5:17 PM with 3 comments

  • by throwaway886214 on 6/8/25, 7:22 PM

    > In 1967, Robert Salas, now 84, was an Air Force captain sitting in a walk-in closet-sized bunker, manning the controls of 10 nuclear missiles in Montana.

    > He was prepared to launch apocalyptic strikes should Soviet Russia ever attack first, and got a call around 8 p.m. one night from the guard station above. A glowing reddish-orange oval was hovering over the front gate, Salas told Kirkpatrick’s investigators. The guards had their rifles drawn, pointed at the oval object appearing to float above the gate. A horn sounded in the bunker, signaling a problem with the control system: All 10 missiles were disabled.

    > Salas soon learned a similar event occurred at other silos nearby. Were they under attack? Salas never got an answer. The next morning a helicopter was waiting to take Salas back to base. Once there he was ordered: Never discuss the incident.

    > When activated, this device, placed on a portable platform 60 feet above the facility, would gather power until it glowed, sometimes with a blinding orange light. It would then fire a burst of energy that could resemble lightning.

    So:

    - They built at least one 60 foot tower in close proximity a control panel for 10 nuclear missiles and didn’t tell the guards to be ready for it.

    - They used a novel directed energy weapon on multiple silos that shot lightning, this worked, was never declassified, and we’ve never heard of it since.

  • by mkfs on 6/8/25, 10:25 PM

    That's what makes me so optimistic about the current revival of interest in UFOs/UAPs, up to the point that you have congressional hearings, news coverage by CNN, and "whistleblowers" being treated as credible--the US military industrial complex must be cooking up some pretty impressive stuff to need this kind of cover.
  • by raincom on 6/8/25, 7:26 PM