Close encounters: Top 5 locations in the U.S. for UFO sightings

UFO – Montana – Mariana Incident – Courtesy of National Archives

2. Montana- Mariana UFO Incident (1950)

When Nick Mariana showed up on August 15, 1950 to look at his minor league baseball team’s field in Great Falls, Montana, he thought it was going to be an ordinary day. He was wrong. While he was tending to his business, he noticed two “bright, silvery objects” flying at incredible speeds.

To his naked eye, the UFOs appeared to be 50 feet across. Not wanting to let this moment pass, he retrieved his 16mm movie camera and began filming the activity for 16 seconds.

After the incident, the Great Falls Tribune published his story and from there things escalated and he was picked up nationwide on the wire by other outlets. It wasn’t long before the Air Force got involved because a reporter at the paper called Wright-Patterson AFB which was the home of Project Grudge which later became Project Blue Book.

Of course, after studying Mariana’s footage, they deemed it to be “reflections off of two F-94 jet fighters.” Upon receiving his film again, Nick noticed that there were missing frames which the Air Force denied stating that they only removed a single frame due to being “damaged in analysis.”