The Malmstrom Silo Disc

Security teams called it a glowing disc the size of a football field, bright enough to light up the silo beneath it. It climbed until it left NORAD radar, and later reports say the missiles' targeting data had been changed. That was the peak of a flap that ran through October and November 1975 across the missile field of Malmstrom Air Force Base. On 7 and 8 November sensors tripped at the K-7 launch site near Judith Gap. NORAD tracked a target and F-106 interceptors were scrambled from Great Falls.

What is on the record

The archive's one video names two claimants: a witness called Chuck Pinson and the Strategic Air Command sabotage alert teams at the missile sites. The second entry is a group rather than a person.

The archive's telling covers the wider wave. It describes objects hovering over the silos and cattle mutilations in the same area. It says the story was covered heavily by the Montana press but reached the National Enquirer only in 1977 and the New York Times in 1979. Published catalogues do record mutilations in the area, including one near Great Falls on 16 November.

The paper trail outside the archive is strong. NORAD Command Director logs and Air Force Air Command Center reports from 8 November 1975 were released under freedom of information and set out in Lawrence Fawcett and Barry Greenwood's Clear Intent in 1984. The archive does not yet hold those logs. The one document linked to the case is a file from the UK Ministry of Defence's UFO papers, classed as reporting.

This is a separate event from the 1967 missile shutdowns at Malmstrom, which have their own page. No explanation for the November objects has been put on record.

Why it sits where it does

For now the case sits at L3 on its claimants, which reflects what the archive holds today. The government logs exist, and when they enter the archive through the document pipeline this case is a candidate for the document-corroborated tier. What hung over the K-7 silo is not resolved here.