Sighting record / 1966
July 6, 1966. Evening on the high plains of Meade County, South Dakota. Out in the Minuteman missile field run from Ellsworth AFB, Airman William D. Offord and others saw a red object just above the western horizon. It sank out of sight. They moved. It was there again. There were five objects in all. A leader like an oblong saucer, pulsing white and green light. A steady red light behind it. Three smaller ones darting away and coming back. Airmen at the Golf One launch control facility watched too. A helicopter lifted off from Ellsworth with the Base Commander and a photographer aboard. The Project Blue Book file survives. What the Air Force concluded is still an open question.
In the summer of 1966, the grasslands north of the Black Hills held a field of Minuteman missiles. They belonged to the 67th Missile Squadron, 44th Strategic Missile Wing, Ellsworth AFB. One launch control facility, Golf One, stood 45.3 miles from the base. About 12 kilometres to its west-northwest lay Fairpoint, a small unincorporated community whose post office closed that same year.