MALMSTROM.

He received a phone call from his topside security guard reporting strange lights over the launch facility. Moments later, the security guard called back, audibly shaken, reporting a glowing red oval craft hovering directly over the facility's gate.

While Salas and the on-duty commander, Captain Frederick Meiwald, were on the phone with the security personnel, the missile readiness panel began registering "no-go" status on missile after missile until all ten Minuteman ICBMs in the Echo flight had gone offline. According to Salas, additional reports indicated similar shutdowns at the Oscar flight, although the second event has been more controversial in the documentary record.

Salas filed an immediate report through the chain of command. The Strategic Air Command and the missile contractor Boeing conducted a full engineering review. According to Salas, Boeing engineers were never able to identify a fault that could cause the entire flight to go offline simultaneously. Salas was instructed not to discuss the events for decades. After his retirement, he obtained partial declassification of related documents and went public.

In September 2010, Salas was one of seven former US Air Force officers who held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington DC, organised by researcher Robert Hastings, declaring under oath that they had personal knowledge of UFO incursions over US strategic nuclear weapons sites. Hastings's 2008 book UFOs and Nukes documents these incidents in detail, including the Malmstrom event, parallel cases at Minot and F.E. Warren AFBs, and Soviet counterparts. The Malmstrom case remains one of the most cited nuclear-UFO events on the public record.