This article was published in the daily newspaper Rapid City Journal, of Rapid City, Dakota, USA, September 24, 2004.
RAPID CITY -- In 1967, Robert Hastings was involved in a UFO sighting at an Air Force missile base in Montana. It was an experience that inspired him to begin collecting evidence of an official government cover up of unidentified flying object activity.
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology invites the community to attend a free lecture by Hastings at 7 p.m. Monday in Surbeck Center Ballroom.
In 1967, Hastings was a self-described "16-year-old Air Force brat" who knew several air traffic controllers on base.
He was in the tower that March, when five unidentified aerial targets suddenly began to be tracked on multiple radar scopes.
"On the night in question, it was immediately apparent to these gentlemen that the objects they were tracking on radar were neither conventional aircraft nor helicopters," Hastings has told audiences. "For approximately a 30-minute period, these aerial objects were observed on radar at times to hover; at other times, they performed high speed aerial maneuvers.
"At one point during the radar tracking, two jets were launched to attempt an intercept of these objects, whereupon they were observed to ascend in unison at an extreme rate of speed."
Hastings said the five objects were maneuvering near nuclear missile silos southeast of the base.
Since then, Hastings has collected thousands of pages of previously classified documents that he believes prove that the U.S. government has hidden the existence of UFOs from the public.
Hastings will speak about that evidence during his lecture at Tech.
The event is sponsored by Tech Activities and Programs, the university's student programming board.
