MINOT.
“On the night of October 24, 1968, a US Air Force B-52H Stratofortress, on a training mission near Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, was vectored toward an unidentified radar target by air traffic control as it returned to base.”
The crew, including Aircraft Commander Major James Partin and copilot Captain Bradford Runyon, observed a brilliant light to one side of the aircraft and watched as the unknown object paced their flight path for several minutes.
Simultaneously, members of the Minuteman ICBM security force on the ground at multiple Minuteman launch facilities — including Oscar-1, November-7 and Juliet-2 — reported seeing a glowing object hovering low above their facilities. The Minot AFB ground radar (RAPCON) tracked an unknown target near the B-52 throughout the encounter. The B-52's onboard radar also acquired the target. Photographs were taken from one of the ground sites.
The B-52's intercom recorded portions of the crew's communications during the encounter; transcriptions of the recordings have been preserved in declassified Project Blue Book records. The B-52 landed safely at Minot. Project Blue Book investigated the case and listed it as "Unidentified" in its formal records. Researchers Tom Tulien, James Klotz and Robert Salas have collected additional witness statements from former Minot security personnel through the Sign Historical Group's Minot AFB project.
The Minot 1968 case is among the most multi-witness, multi-sensor military UFO events in the Project Blue Book archive. It combines aircrew testimony, multiple radar tracks, ground witnesses at multiple separate ICBM facilities, and a recorded intercom transcript. It is also one of several documented cases in which a UFO was reported in the immediate vicinity of US strategic nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
Independent editorial summary. An unidentified report does not by itself establish an extraterrestrial origin. Map locations may be approximate.