Have you ever heard of the UFO that allegedly shot down a nuclear missile in 1964? If not, you’re not alone. This is one of the most intriguing and controversial cases in UFO history, and yet it remains largely unknown to the public.
The story begins on September 15, 1964 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where a team of US Air Force officers conducted a test launch of an Atlas F rocket. The missile was unarmed, but was designed to simulate a nuclear warhead.
One of the officers involved in the test was Lieutenant Bob Jacobs, who was in charge of filming the rocket’s flight using a special high-speed camera. He was stationed in Big Sur, about 160 miles from the launch site.
Another officer was Major Florenze Mansmann, the optical instrumentation officer at Vandenberg. He was responsible for analyzing the film footage after the test.
What they saw in the film would change their lives forever.
According to Jacobs and Mansmann, the film showed a saucer-shaped object flying near the rocket after it separated from the booster. The object then emitted a beam of light that hit the rocket, causing it to tumble and malfunction.
The object then circled the rocket and fired another beam before flying away at high speed.
Jacobs and Mansmann were stunned by what they had seen. They had no idea what the object was, or what its purposes were. Was it trying to prevent nuclear war? Did it test its own weapons? Was it just curious?
They never had a chance to find out. Shortly after watching the film, two men in civilian clothes arrived in Vandenberg and confiscated it. They claimed to be from the CIA, and they warned Jacobs and Mansmann not to talk about what they had seen or they would face dire consequences.
The film was never seen again.
For decades, Jacobs and Mansmann kept silent about their meeting, fearing for their careers and their safety. They did not emerge until the 1980s, when they were approached by Robert Hastings, an author and researcher who had been investigating UFO sightings at nuclear facilities.
Hastings had heard about the incident from other sources and wanted to confirm it with Jacobs and Mansmann. He also wanted to know if there was any chance of getting the film back.
To his surprise, he discovered that there might be a copy of the film somewhere in the Pentagon. He learned this from Luis Elizondo, a former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), a secret Pentagon program that studied UFOs and other aerial phenomena.
Elizondo told Hastings said he had seen the film himself and that it was stored in a secure safe at AATIP’s offices. He also confirmed the details of what Jacobs and Mansmann had described, saying the object was clearly not of human origin.
However, Elizondo could not give Hastings access to the film because he had left AATIP in 2017 and no longer had permission. He also said that AATIP was threatened with closure by skeptical officials who saw no value in studying UFOs.
Hastings has been trying to obtain the film ever since, but has faced many obstacles and delays. He believes the film is still in the Pentagon somewhere, but doesn’t know if it will ever be released to the public.
He hopes that one day the truth will come to light about what happened on September 15, 1964 and what it means for humanity.
Until then, we can only wonder: what was that UFO? And why does it zap a nuclear missile?
