NARRATOR: Lue Elizondo is on
his way to interview a former US
Air Force officer willing to
speak about his UFO sighting
for the first time.
The alleged sighting took
place at an Air Force base
with nuclear weapons and a long
history of strange encounters.
 My name is Daniel Gibson.
I'm a retired Air Force major.
LUE ELIZONDO:
Major Gibson, thank
you very much for
taking your time to come
and speak with us here today.
I'd like to start by asking
you, what inspired you to come
here today, and why now?
 In the fall of
1995, I was stationed
at Malmstrom Air Force base
in Montana, right outside
of Great Falls.
Malmstrom is primarily
a ICBM missile base.
NARRATOR: Since the 1960s,
Malmstrom Air Force base
has housed hundreds of
intercontinental ballistic
missiles with nuclear
warheads capable of destroying
entire cities.
During the Cold War,
the base was a key part
of America's
nuclear arsenal that
provided a protective arc across
the nation's northern tier.
CHRISTOPHER MELLON:
Launch trajectories
from the Soviet Union
come over the poles
across Alaska and Canada.
A ring of bases were established
across the northern United
States to house both ICBMs
and strategic bombers.
And they were the bedrock
of our strategic deterrence
and our security and safety.
MAN (ON RADIO): Maintain
alert with war plan bravo.
NARRATOR: In the fall of 1995,
Gibson was on board a KC-135
as it conducted
mid-air refueling
for a fleet of B-1B
strategic heavy bombers,
which can carry nuclear
payloads anywhere in the world.
DANIEL GIBSON: Once
the refueling was done,
we started our trip
back to Malmstrom.
I moved forward
to the flight deck
to enjoy the Aurora
Borealis above us.
NARRATOR: Flight paths for
these refueling missions
often included
views of the Aurora
Borealis, or Northern Lights.
 All of a sudden, there was
just this very bright light.
The antiaircraft commander
and the co-pilot,
they saw it first.
Time kind of froze for us, but
it was probably a good minute
that it was there.
This light, we watched it all
the way down into the Aurora,
where it stopped.
And you could actually see the
Aurora flowing around it just
as if you would see
a bow wave going
around the front of a boat.
The longer the object
stayed in the Aurora,
the brighter the object got.
And then it just shot
straight up and was gone.
LUE ELIZONDO: So some
people would say,
you're obviously confused.
You saw a planet or a star.
DANIEL GIBSON: We had
no doubt in our mind
that it was not a
star or a planet,
because it entered
our atmosphere.
It was in the Aurora
Borealis itself,
and then it shot
straight back up.
I've seen the International
Space Station.
It moves at a very fast clip.
This was moving 10 times plus.
We all had the same reaction.
It was almost a stunned silence.
None of us had seen
anything like that before.
 Some folks will
say, well, you know,
it could be a Russian
first stage booster
rocket coming in on reentry.
 Well, initially, we thought
it was a shooting star.
But then we saw the speed
at which it was descending,
and then it stopped.
NARRATOR: According
to Gibson's account,
the object possessed three
of the five observables--
instantaneous acceleration, the
ability to accelerate instantly
from a standstill; hypersonic
velocity, speeds of 3,700 miles
per hour or more; and
trans-medium travel,
the ability to move through air,
water, and the vacuum of space.
LUE ELIZONDO: You're going
from an atmospheric environment
to potentially a
vacuum environment.
I don't know of any
object in our inventory
that has the capability to stop
mid-reentry, stay in position,
and then, once it's
done, accelerate
back out of the atmosphere.
The G-forces would
kill a human being.
NARRATOR: To Elizondo,
Major Gibson's
sighting is part of a pattern.
While working with AATIP, the
Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace
Threat Identification
Program, Elizondo
says investigators
researched multiple UFO
sightings around northern
tier nuclear bases
during the Cold War.
These sightings were
part of a recently leaked
500-page
government-funded report
detailing dozens of alleged
Cold War UFO encounters.
MAN (ON RADIO):
--presently in DEFCON four.
NARRATOR: Investigative
journalist, Tim McMillan,
has studied the report.
TIM MCMILLAN: There's a chart
that showed the number of UFO
sightings within proximity to
different nuclear facilities
that house weapons systems.
There is a distinct
correlation that these objects
appear to be encroaching upon
airspace of the northern tier.
If you look at just those
numbers alone, it's alarming.
NARRATOR: One of the most
remarkable Cold War-era
sightings also
occurred near Malmstrom
Air Force Base, 28 years
before Gibson's experience.
In 1967, several
Air Force personnel
reported seeing a glowing red
object flying over the base.
The object appeared
to move rapidly
and was able to make
sharp 90 degree turns,
stop abruptly, and reverse
course, much like the movements
described by Major Gibson
nearly 30 years later.
LUE ELIZONDO: Both the UFOs
had this incredible ability
to take off and basically
go from a very low velocity,
almost a complete hover,
to an incredible speed
in the instant of time.
NARRATOR: And there is
one more detail that
concerns Elizondo and his team.
Reportedly, moments
after the sighting,
10 of Malmstrom's
nuclear warheads
were suddenly,
inexplicably, turned off.
TIM MCMILLAN: These weapons
systems had been shut offline
so they couldn't be fired.
If these were Russian aircraft,
if these were someone else's
antiaircraft, the idea that
something could possess
the technology that could
fly within proximity
and take these systems offline,
that's a terrifying capability.
LUE ELIZONDO: Is this some
sort of US secret technology
or perhaps some sort
of adversarial secret,
you know, weapon
system or platform?
There is a definitive link
to nuclear technology,
whether on the battlespace
or in time of peace.
That, I think, is becoming
more and more clear.
The question is, why?
What is the connection?
