There are more than 2,000 missile sites spread across the United States. At Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, there are twenty Launch Control Facilities (LCF) housing Minuteman missiles underground. The Minuteman sites are alphabetically coded, such as "L-1," "K-1," "E-1," and the like, and are distributed over a wide area. One of these sites, K-7, which is located in the Judith Gap region just south of Lewiston, Montana, was the scene of an event which caused a major stir for the United states Air Force.

On November 7,  remote electronic sensors triggered an alarm indicating that something was violating site security. Underground, in the launch control area, two officers noted the signal, but there was no television surveillance topside. The normal procedure for detecting what had violated security was to call for a missile security helicopter to check the area. At the same time, Sabotage Alert Teams (SAT), consisting of four to six men, were also alerted to the fact that a violation was taking place and were ordered to proceed to the site. On this occasion, an SAT team drove down the highway and onto a dirt road which led to the K-7 area. About a mile away, the team could see an orange, glowing object over the area. As they closed to within half a mile, they could now see that the object was tremendous in size. They radioed to the Launch Control Facility that, from their location, they were viewing a brightly glowing, orange, football field-sized disc that illuminated the missile site. The SAT team was ordered by the launch control people to proceed into the K-7 site. However, they responded that they refused to go any farther, clearly fearful of the intimidating appearance of the object. It began to rise, and at about 1,000 feet, NORAD picked up the UFO on radar. Two F-106 jet interceptors were launched from Great Falls, Montana, and headed toward the K-7 area. The UFO continued to rise. At about 200,000 feet, it disappeared from NORAD's radar. The F-106's were never able to get a visual sighting of the UFO.

All members of the SAT team were directed to the base hospital, where they were psychologically tested. It was determined that no one could identify the object that was seen, but that the members of the SAT team obviously had been through a traumatic experience. Meanwhile, targeting teams, along with computer specialists, were brought to the missile site to check out the missile, and specifically, the computer in the warhead that targets the missile. Amazingly, when the computer was checked, they found that the tape had mysteriously changed target numbers! The re-entry vehicle was then taken from the silo and brought back to the base. Eventually the entire missile was changed.

Source: Original: A Strange Harvest; reprinted in Clear Intent, 28.