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Somewhere in America, there are more than 7,000 nuclear warheads poised at the ready.

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The possibility that any one of these sleeping giants might be compromised is unthinkable.

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But think again, there is evidence that someone, or more accurately,

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something has tampered with our nuclear capability.

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And that something may not be of this world.

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In the event of a nuclear attack, this is what's supposed to happen.

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But on March 16, 1967, America's first line of defense was tampered with.

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It started at a missile launch site, codenamed November, near Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana.

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For several hours, missiles loaded with nuclear warheads switched off, and no one could figure out why.

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Robert Salas was deputy crew commander that day,

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one of a two-man team inside one of the missile control bunkers, 60 feet underground.

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I've got a call from one of my security guards upstairs.

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He said that he and other guards had seen UFOs flying over the area.

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I didn't think he was serious, and basically we hung up.

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When the stakes are global thermonuclear war, only men and women of the highest physical and mental standards need apply.

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Salas had made the grade, but now he had to begin questioning those around him.

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About five minutes later, he calls back, and this time he's agitated.

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He's obviously frightened.

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He said that there was a UFO hovering just outside the front gate.

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And it was glowing red. It was saucer-shaped, and he was very frightened.

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Within a minute or two of the second call, the missiles started shutting down or going off alert.

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We were basically shocked to see our missiles going no-go sequentially.

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In other words, bing, bing, bing, bing, it just started going down.

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The only thing I could think was, oh my god.

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Just 12 hours later, at another launch site codenamed Echo, 20 miles away,

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launch commander Don Crawford learned that the 37-ton Minuteman missiles under his command also went down.

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We just looked at each other and said, I don't understand this. How could this happen?

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There is no command in the capsule to turn them off.

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There was no switch, no off switch. They did not break. They just never broke.

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And I never saw an off alert missile in the three and a half years I was equipped with.

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Three weeks earlier, Crawford had also taken a panicked phone call from a security guard

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who claimed to have seen a UFO over the silo.

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He was a very terrified young man, and he could not identify what he was seeing.

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In other words, this was not an airplane. It was way too low and too close, and it also didn't go away.

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I guess I finally convinced him that if whatever it was came inside the fence, he had my authority to shoot.

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Which made him feel really good, but he said, sir, I don't really think that will do much good.

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Then, more than three hours after the missiles went offline, with no repair work having been done,

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the missiles simply came back on as though nothing had ever happened.

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It just started back up normally like they had installed it from the factory.

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And so they found no broken pieces, no broken cables, no, you know, nothing like that.

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It just started back up.

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Incredibly, neither Robert Salas nor Don Crawford were ever told what had happened at the other's launch site

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and wouldn't compare notes for nearly 30 years.

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When they did, the mystery only deepened.

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Two launch sites, a dozen missiles, and unidentified flying objects.

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They had all the contractors involved in these studies, and they couldn't figure out what had happened.

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The system designers couldn't figure out what had happened.

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Nobody could figure out what happened.

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It lends credibility to the fact that something very, very unusual happened.

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From the day he filed his official and top secret report,

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Robert Salas has had nagging questions about what exactly happened on that March day in 1967.

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30 years later, Salas still wants answers, and has enlisted the help of people like Jim Klotz,

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who was an expert in the procurement of previously classified military documents.

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Just recently, they struck Paytirt with this report.

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It is the Air Force's official and now declassified investigation of the Echo and November incidents.

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The strategic missile wing history that we obtained specifically lists what was eliminated,

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and it concludes that they were mystified.

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They looked at faults in the computers or the guidance systems of the missiles themselves.

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They looked into electromagnetic pulse, which is really what they believe was the cause.

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As far as I know, the documents show the capability of introducing such a pulse in the shielded cable system.

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It didn't exist at that time.

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There's one section in the report that says they interviewed security guards and they denied the UFO incidents.

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I know, for example, that I briefed my commander on the UFO incidents.

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The Echo flight crew not only briefed their commander, but had to brief SAC headquarters on the entire incident,

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and they had logs, and so I know for a fact that those statements in that historical document are false.

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Some researchers believe that the shutdown may have been a training exercise to test the metal of the launch crews.

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Retired Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Rowles says no way.

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It's just beyond any comprehension that they would do that because of the detriment to the deterrence factor.

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You don't degrade your ability to fight a war or a war game exercise.

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And says Rowles, who is an expert in military procedure, the integrity of the security force on duty that day would have been impeccable.

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The young Air Force Security Police at all times in association with the security of these silos were given lethal control where they could go ahead and use lethal force if need be.

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So they had to be very stable themselves.

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Robert Salas has also tracked down Ray Fowler.

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In 1967, he was working for Sylvania, one of the companies that built the Minuteman system.

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All I know is that our people and the Boeing people went out to the site and tried to simulate what had happened,

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but they were never able to trace the reason for the flight going down.

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Robert Salas wrote an article about the Echo incident.

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Former Launch Commander Don Crawford read it and realized he was not alone.

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And then, sightings brought them together for the first time in three decades.

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He's been doing it for 30 years.

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I remember you now.

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Finally, Crawford and Salas could talk freely on a subject they had once sworn to keep secret.

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Then, Salas shared his research.

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You know, that's interesting that you get to get something from the Air Force that specifically says it happened.

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Both men agree that the two silo incidents must continue to be investigated.

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Thomas, scientist, I think when you know something, you tell it. You write it down.

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For a number of years, we couldn't have done that.

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It was classified.

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Now that it's not classified, there's no reason not to put it public.

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It's certainly if the UFO, whatever it is, has the capability of shutting down our missiles as they did.

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It's in the public interest to make this an open debate as to what it all means.

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Bob Salas' testimony is an important first step.

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But more people who were in the military, people who were there, need to come forward

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before the whole truth can be known about what really happened March 16, 1967.