The Mariana UFO Incident
Encyclopedia
The Mariana UFO incident occurred in August 1950 in Great Falls
, Montana
. The event garnered national media attention, as the concept of UFOs and alien invasion
was extremely popular amongst Americans at the time. The film footage of the sighting is believed to be among the first ever taken of a UFO.
"Electrics" minor-league baseball
team, and his nineteen-year old secretary, Virginia Raunig, were inspecting the empty Legion Stadium baseball field before a game. The Electrics were a farm club of the Brooklyn Dodgers. A bright flash caught Mariana's eye and, according to his reports, he saw two bright silvery objects, rotating while flying over Great Falls at a speed he estimated to be two hundred to four hundred miles per hour. He believed that they were roughly fifty feet wide and one hundred and fifty feet apart. Mariana ran to his car to retrieve his 16 mm movie camera and filmed the UFOs for sixteen seconds. The camera could film objects in color, but could not record sound. Ms. Raunig also witnessed the objects. The day after Mariana's sighting the Great Falls Tribune
, the city's daily newspaper, described his sighting and the film in an article which was picked up by other media outlets. For several weeks after the sighting Mariana showed his film to local community groups, such as the Central Roundtable Athletic Club.
in Ohio and informed them of Mariana's sighting and film. U.S. Air Force Captain John P. Brynildsen interviewed Mariana at nearby Malmstrom AFB outside of Great Falls. When Mariana and Ms. Raunig both told him that they had seen two jet fighters pass over the baseball stadium shortly after the sighting, Brynildsen felt that perhaps the jets were the objects Mariana had seen and captured on film. With Mariana's permission, Capt. Brynildsen sent the film to Wright-Patterson AFB for analysis. He told a reporter in Great Falls that he had "picked up about eight feet of film from Mariana." However, in his message to Wright-Patterson he said that he was sending "approximately fifteen feet of moving picture film" to the base for study. According to UFO historian Jerome Clark
, this discrepancy was never cleared up.
At Wright-Patterson AFB the film was briefly examined and determined to be the reflections from two F-94
jet fighters that were known to be flying over Great Falls at the time of Mariana's sighting. Lt. Col. Ray W. Taylor returned the film to Mariana with a cover letter stating that "our photoanalysts were unable to find anything identifiable of an unusual nature". However, according to Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt
, who would become the supervisor of the Air Force's Project Blue Book
investigation into the UFO mystery in 1951, "in 1950 there was no interest [by the Air Force] in the UFO, so after a quick viewing, Project Grudge
had written them off as the reflections from two F-94 jet fighters that were in the area". Controversy soon arose when Mariana claimed that the first thirty-five frames of his film - which he said most clearly showed the UFOs as rotating disks - were missing. People in the Great Falls area who had viewed Mariana's film supported his claims. They claimed that the missing frames clearly showed the UFOs as spinning, metallic disks with a "notch or band" along their outer edges. The Air Force personnel denied this accusation, and insisted that they had removed only a single frame of film which was damaged in the analysis. The controversy over the "missing frames" was never resolved.
magazine. Entitled "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax", it debunked the most famous UFO sightings to that date, including Mariana's sighting and film. Claiming that Considine's article implied that he was "a liar, prankster, half-wit, crank, publicity hound and fanatic", Mariana filed a lawsuit for slander against Considine. The lawsuit was eventually dropped in September 1955.
jets - was also ruled out. According to Ruppelt in his memoirs: "The two jets weren't anywhere close to where the two UFOs had been...we studied each individual light and both appeared too steady to be reflections. We drew a blank on the Montana Movie, it was an unknown". In January 1953 the Air Force and CIA convened a committee of prominent scientists to examine the "best" cases collected by Project Blue Book. Called the Robertson Panel
, after its chairman, physicist
H.P. Robertson, it viewed Mariana's UFO film. The scientists judged that the objects in the film were "reflections of aircraft known to have been in the area".
In 1966 the U.S. government established and funded a study of the UFO phenomenon. Located at the University of Colorado at Boulder
, and chaired by Dr. Edward U. Condon, a prominent physicist
, the committee's researchers decided to "reinvestigate" Mariana's UFO film. The Condon Committee assigned two investigators to study the case: Dr. Roy Craig, a physicist who was generally skeptical of UFOs, and Dr. David Saunders, a psychologist
who had long been interested in the Mariana UFO incident. Saunders and Craig soon added a new problem to the case - they were not sure whether the film had been taken on August 5 or August 15, 1950. After interviewing Mariana, the two researchers came to different conclusions about the film. Craig remained skeptical of Mariana's claims that 35 frames had been removed from the footage: "the comment I considered most significant, which Mr. Mariana's ex-secretary made to me during a telephone interview...when I pressed for information or beliefs regarding clipping of the film by the Air Force. The very hesitant comment was, 'What you have to remember in all this is...that Nick Mariana is a promoter'. That comment was adequate to close our conversation". However, David Saunders came to the conclusion that Mariana's film "was the one sighting of all time that did more than any other single case to convince me that there is something to the UFO problem".
Dr. William Hartmann, an astronomer
for the University of Arizona
, analyzed the Mariana UFO film for the Condon Report. His conclusion was that "the [Mariana] case remains unexplained...the images on the film are difficult to reconcile with aircraft or other known phenomena, although aircraft cannot be entirely ruled out".
, making it one of the most active locations for UFO sightings in North America
. In 2008, the minor-league baseball team in Great Falls was renamed the Great Falls Voyagers in honor of the Mariana UFO incident.
Great Falls, Montana
Great Falls is a city in and the county seat of Cascade County, Montana, United States. The population was 58,505 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cascade County...
, Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. The event garnered national media attention, as the concept of UFOs and alien invasion
Alien invasion
The alien invasion is a common theme in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial life invades Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under a colonial system, harvest humans for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.The...
was extremely popular amongst Americans at the time. The film footage of the sighting is believed to be among the first ever taken of a UFO.
The Incident
At 11:25 am on August 5 or August 15, 1950, Nick Mariana, the general manager of the Great FallsGreat Falls
Great Falls may refer to:CommunitiesIn the United States:* Great Falls, Montana* Great Falls, South Carolina* Great Falls, Virginia** Great Falls Park* Great Falls, New Hampshire, previous name of Somersworth, New HampshireWaterfalls...
"Electrics" minor-league baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
team, and his nineteen-year old secretary, Virginia Raunig, were inspecting the empty Legion Stadium baseball field before a game. The Electrics were a farm club of the Brooklyn Dodgers. A bright flash caught Mariana's eye and, according to his reports, he saw two bright silvery objects, rotating while flying over Great Falls at a speed he estimated to be two hundred to four hundred miles per hour. He believed that they were roughly fifty feet wide and one hundred and fifty feet apart. Mariana ran to his car to retrieve his 16 mm movie camera and filmed the UFOs for sixteen seconds. The camera could film objects in color, but could not record sound. Ms. Raunig also witnessed the objects. The day after Mariana's sighting the Great Falls Tribune
Great Falls Tribune
The Great Falls Tribune is a daily morning newspaper printed in Great Falls, Montana. Its Sunday circulation is 36,763, with 33,434 on weekdays...
, the city's daily newspaper, described his sighting and the film in an article which was picked up by other media outlets. For several weeks after the sighting Mariana showed his film to local community groups, such as the Central Roundtable Athletic Club.
Air Force Investigation
After seeing the film, a reporter for the Great Falls Tribune called Wright-Patterson Air Force BaseWright-Patterson Air Force Base
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in Greene and Montgomery counties in the state of Ohio. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wright Field and Fairfield Aviation General Supply Depot. Patterson Field is located approximately...
in Ohio and informed them of Mariana's sighting and film. U.S. Air Force Captain John P. Brynildsen interviewed Mariana at nearby Malmstrom AFB outside of Great Falls. When Mariana and Ms. Raunig both told him that they had seen two jet fighters pass over the baseball stadium shortly after the sighting, Brynildsen felt that perhaps the jets were the objects Mariana had seen and captured on film. With Mariana's permission, Capt. Brynildsen sent the film to Wright-Patterson AFB for analysis. He told a reporter in Great Falls that he had "picked up about eight feet of film from Mariana." However, in his message to Wright-Patterson he said that he was sending "approximately fifteen feet of moving picture film" to the base for study. According to UFO historian Jerome Clark
Jerome Clark
Jerome Clark is an American researcher and writer, specializing in unidentified flying objects and other anomalous phenomena; he is also a songwriter of some note....
, this discrepancy was never cleared up.
At Wright-Patterson AFB the film was briefly examined and determined to be the reflections from two F-94
F-94 Starfire
The Lockheed F-94 Starfire was the United States Air Force's first operational jet-powered all-weather interceptor aircraft. It was a development by Lockheed of the twin-seat T-33 Shooting Star trainer aircraft.-Design and development:...
jet fighters that were known to be flying over Great Falls at the time of Mariana's sighting. Lt. Col. Ray W. Taylor returned the film to Mariana with a cover letter stating that "our photoanalysts were unable to find anything identifiable of an unusual nature". However, according to Air Force officer Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt
Edward J. Ruppelt was a United States Air Force officer probably best-known for his involvement in Project Blue Book, a formal governmental study of unidentified flying objects...
, who would become the supervisor of the Air Force's Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book
Project Blue Book was one of a series of systematic studies of unidentified flying objects conducted by the United States Air Force. Started in 1952, it was the second revival of such a study...
investigation into the UFO mystery in 1951, "in 1950 there was no interest [by the Air Force] in the UFO, so after a quick viewing, Project Grudge
Project Grudge
Project Grudge was a short-lived project by the U.S. Air Force to investigate unidentified flying objects . Grudge succeeded Project Sign in February, 1949, and was then followed by Project Blue Book. The project formally ended in December 1949, but actually continued on in a very minimal capacity...
had written them off as the reflections from two F-94 jet fighters that were in the area". Controversy soon arose when Mariana claimed that the first thirty-five frames of his film - which he said most clearly showed the UFOs as rotating disks - were missing. People in the Great Falls area who had viewed Mariana's film supported his claims. They claimed that the missing frames clearly showed the UFOs as spinning, metallic disks with a "notch or band" along their outer edges. The Air Force personnel denied this accusation, and insisted that they had removed only a single frame of film which was damaged in the analysis. The controversy over the "missing frames" was never resolved.
Lawsuit
In January 1951, Bob Considine, a writer and UFO skeptic, wrote an article for CosmopolitanCosmopolitan (magazine)
Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...
magazine. Entitled "The Disgraceful Flying Saucer Hoax", it debunked the most famous UFO sightings to that date, including Mariana's sighting and film. Claiming that Considine's article implied that he was "a liar, prankster, half-wit, crank, publicity hound and fanatic", Mariana filed a lawsuit for slander against Considine. The lawsuit was eventually dropped in September 1955.
Later Studies
In July 1952, Captain Ruppelt was able to convince Mariana to let the Air Force see the film again for a more detailed analysis. Mariana reluctantly agreed, but only after requiring the Air Force to sign an agreement that they would not remove any frames of the film. The film analysts at Wright-Patterson AFB concluded that the objects in Mariana's film were not "birds, balloons, or meteors". The original conclusion - that the objects were reflections from the F-94F-94 Starfire
The Lockheed F-94 Starfire was the United States Air Force's first operational jet-powered all-weather interceptor aircraft. It was a development by Lockheed of the twin-seat T-33 Shooting Star trainer aircraft.-Design and development:...
jets - was also ruled out. According to Ruppelt in his memoirs: "The two jets weren't anywhere close to where the two UFOs had been...we studied each individual light and both appeared too steady to be reflections. We drew a blank on the Montana Movie, it was an unknown". In January 1953 the Air Force and CIA convened a committee of prominent scientists to examine the "best" cases collected by Project Blue Book. Called the Robertson Panel
Robertson Panel
The Robertson Panel was a committee commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1952 in response to widespread reports of unidentified flying objects, especially in the Washington, D.C. area. The panel was briefed on U.S...
, after its chairman, physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
H.P. Robertson, it viewed Mariana's UFO film. The scientists judged that the objects in the film were "reflections of aircraft known to have been in the area".
The Baker Analysis and Condon Report Analysis
In 1954 Greene-Rouse productions decided to film a documentary-movie about the UFO phenomenon. They asked Nick Mariana for the rights to use his film in the documentary, and Mariana agreed. To analyze the film, they hired Robert M.L. Baker, Jr., a scientist and engineer for the Douglas Aircraft company. Baker completed his analysis of Mariana's film in early 1956. He concluded that the explanation that the objects were simply reflections from the F-94 jets was "quite strained". In 1968 Baker would write in the Journal of Astronautical Sciences magazine that "on the basis of the photographic evidence, the images cannot be explained by any presently known natural phenomenon".In 1966 the U.S. government established and funded a study of the UFO phenomenon. Located at the University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
, and chaired by Dr. Edward U. Condon, a prominent physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
, the committee's researchers decided to "reinvestigate" Mariana's UFO film. The Condon Committee assigned two investigators to study the case: Dr. Roy Craig, a physicist who was generally skeptical of UFOs, and Dr. David Saunders, a psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
who had long been interested in the Mariana UFO incident. Saunders and Craig soon added a new problem to the case - they were not sure whether the film had been taken on August 5 or August 15, 1950. After interviewing Mariana, the two researchers came to different conclusions about the film. Craig remained skeptical of Mariana's claims that 35 frames had been removed from the footage: "the comment I considered most significant, which Mr. Mariana's ex-secretary made to me during a telephone interview...when I pressed for information or beliefs regarding clipping of the film by the Air Force. The very hesitant comment was, 'What you have to remember in all this is...that Nick Mariana is a promoter'. That comment was adequate to close our conversation". However, David Saunders came to the conclusion that Mariana's film "was the one sighting of all time that did more than any other single case to convince me that there is something to the UFO problem".
Dr. William Hartmann, an astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
for the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, analyzed the Mariana UFO film for the Condon Report. His conclusion was that "the [Mariana] case remains unexplained...the images on the film are difficult to reconcile with aircraft or other known phenomena, although aircraft cannot be entirely ruled out".
The Film Today
Six decades after it was filmed, what remains of the Mariana UFO film has become a piece of study amongst UFO buffs. It is still featured in documentaries, television programs, and shared online. Although often-disputed by skeptics, the film is frequently referred to by ufologists as persuasive evidence supporting the existence of UFOs as a "real", physical phenomenon. Since Mariana's sighting, over 100 other UFO sightings have been made in Great Falls, MontanaGreat Falls, Montana
Great Falls is a city in and the county seat of Cascade County, Montana, United States. The population was 58,505 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cascade County...
, making it one of the most active locations for UFO sightings in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. In 2008, the minor-league baseball team in Great Falls was renamed the Great Falls Voyagers in honor of the Mariana UFO incident.
Sources
- Clark, Jerome. The UFO Book: Encyclopedia of the Extraterrestrial. Visible Ink Press, 1998. pgs. 397-401
- Craig, Roy. UFOs: An Insider's View of the Official Quest for Evidence. University of North Texas Press, 1995.
- Ruppelt, Edward J. The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. Doubleday, 1956. pgs. 219-220