1950: UFO Caught on Camera in Baseball Stadium

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1950: UFO Caught on Camera in Baseball Stadium
Posted On: June 15, 2022

The year is 1950, the place, Great Falls, Montana. The general manager of a minor-league baseball team captured film footage of what came to be known as an unidentified flying object, this incident is credited as being the first sighting caught on camera. The footage was investigated by the US Air Force, who predictably covered the whole thing up and offered false conclusions. To this day, the film continues to be debated.


This encounter was brief, but shocking nonetheless. On August 15, 1950, at 11:29 AM, Nick Mariana, the general manager of the Great Falls minor-league baseball team, and his nineteen-year-old secretary, Virginia Raunig, were inspecting the Legion Stadium before a game. It was empty, at the time, there’s wasn’t anyone around but them. A sudden, bright flash caught Mariana’s attention, and he claims there was two brilliant, silvery objects, rotating in the air as they soared through the sky at an estimated speed of two hundred to four hundred miles per hour. Unlike most UFO encounters of the time, the manager had proof. Running as fast as he could, Mariana rushed to his car, retrieving his 16 mm movie camera. He managed to film the UFOs for a solid sixteen seconds.


The camera was able to catch the objects in colour, but couldn’t record any sound. Raunig also witnessed the UFOs. Now, the pair barely had any time to process what was happening, but the sixteen seconds of captured footage would prove to have a massive impact on the media and government. The following day of the alleged incident, Mariana went to the Great Falls Tribune, the city’s daily newspaper, which described his sighting and film in the article. This was picked up by other media outlets across the country, and talks of these silvery flying became quite the sensation. For several weeks, the manager showed film to basically anyone who would listen, and frequently shared it with local community clubs, including the Central Roundtable Athletic Club.


I think it’s assume the government wasn’t happy with all the attention this guy was stirring up. After seeing the film, one reporter called Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and informed them of Mariana’s sighting, although it’s likely they already knew about what happened. Air Force Captain John P. Brynildsen interviewed Mariana at Malmstrom Air Force Base just outside of Great Falls.


The manager and his secretary both told him they’d seen two jet fighters pass over the baseball stadium shortly after the sighting, and the captain suggested those were the objects he captured on film. If you ask me, the jets were dispatched to investigate the UFOs. With Mariana’s permission Brynildsen sent the footage to Wright-Patterson for further analysis. The captain told a Great Falls reporter that he picked up about eight feet of film from Mariana. However, in his message to Wright-Patterson, he said that he would be sending fifteen feet of film to the base for study. This odd discrepancy was never cleared up.


The footage was examined, and was quickly concluded to be the reflections from two F-94 jet fighters that were flying over Great Falls at the time of the man’s sighting. Lieutenant Colonel Ray W. Taylor returned the film to Mariana, stating that "our photo analysts were unable to find anything identifiable of an unusual nature". According to Air Officer Edward J. Ruppelt, however, who would become supervisor of the Air Force's Project Blue Book investigation into the UFO mystery in 1951, made a statement of his own. "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".


Anger and controversy arose when Mariana claimed that the first thirty-five frames of his film, which had most clearly shown the UFOs as rotating disks, were missing. Intriguing, it seems the Air Force does have an interest in the case after all. People through the Great Falls area who had seen the video supported his claims, saying that the missing frames depicted the UFOs as spinning, metallic disks with a “notch or band” along the outer edges.  Air Force officials denied these accusations, and insisted that they had only removed a single frame of film, which was damaged in the analysis. The UFOs and F-94s were too far apart from each other, making the “official” conclusion impossible.


A couple years past, and the incident was brought up again. In July of 1952, Captain Ruppelt convinced the bitter Mariana to allow the Air Force to see the film again for a more detailed analysis. He reluctantly agreed, on the condition that they wouldn’t remove any more frames. The analysts at Wright-Patterson concluded the objects shown in the footage weren’t birds, balloons, or meteors. Their original, ridiculous statement that the captured objects were reflections of jets was also ruled out. In January of 1953, the Air Force and CIA convened a committee of well-known scientists to examine the "best" cases collected by Project Blue Book. The Robertson Panel, led by physicist H.P. Robertson, viewed Mariana’s film. Predictably, their conclusion wasn’t anything significant, and said that the silvery objects in the film were “reflections of aircraft known to have been in the area.”


Copies of the baseball manager’s film currently reside in the National Archives, and is still featured in documentaries, television programs, and shared online. The footage continues to be debated, and since Mariana’s sighting, over 100 other encounters have been reported in the Great Falls area, making it one of the most active locations for UFO sightings in North America. In 2008, the minor-league baseball team was renamed to the Great Falls Voyagers in honor of the incident.


The Air Force behaved suspiciously throughout the aftermath of this encounter, making up conclusions that simply couldn’t be true. Lying, debunking, and confiscating, that’s what they’ve been doing for decades. Nick Mariana was saw something that day, and it wasn’t just F-94s. What do you think?



[BACK]
1950: UFO Caught on Camera in Baseball Stadium
Posted On: June 15, 2022

The year is 1950, the place, Great Falls, Montana. The general manager of a minor-league baseball team captured film footage of what came to be known as an unidentified flying object, this incident is credited as being the first sighting caught on camera. The footage was investigated by the US Air Force, who predictably covered the whole thing up and offered false conclusions. To this day, the film continues to be debated.


This encounter was brief, but shocking nonetheless. On August 15, 1950, at 11:29 AM, Nick Mariana, the general manager of the Great Falls minor-league baseball team, and his nineteen-year-old secretary, Virginia Raunig, were inspecting the Legion Stadium before a game. It was empty, at the time, there’s wasn’t anyone around but them. A sudden, bright flash caught Mariana’s attention, and he claims there was two brilliant, silvery objects, rotating in the air as they soared through the sky at an estimated speed of two hundred to four hundred miles per hour. Unlike most UFO encounters of the time, the manager had proof. Running as fast as he could, Mariana rushed to his car, retrieving his 16 mm movie camera. He managed to film the UFOs for a solid sixteen seconds.


The camera was able to catch the objects in colour, but couldn’t record any sound. Raunig also witnessed the UFOs. Now, the pair barely had any time to process what was happening, but the sixteen seconds of captured footage would prove to have a massive impact on the media and government. The following day of the alleged incident, Mariana went to the Great Falls Tribune, the city’s daily newspaper, which described his sighting and film in the article. This was picked up by other media outlets across the country, and talks of these silvery flying became quite the sensation. For several weeks, the manager showed film to basically anyone who would listen, and frequently shared it with local community clubs, including the Central Roundtable Athletic Club.


I think it’s assume the government wasn’t happy with all the attention this guy was stirring up. After seeing the film, one reporter called Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and informed them of Mariana’s sighting, although it’s likely they already knew about what happened. Air Force Captain John P. Brynildsen interviewed Mariana at Malmstrom Air Force Base just outside of Great Falls.


The manager and his secretary both told him they’d seen two jet fighters pass over the baseball stadium shortly after the sighting, and the captain suggested those were the objects he captured on film. If you ask me, the jets were dispatched to investigate the UFOs. With Mariana’s permission Brynildsen sent the footage to Wright-Patterson for further analysis. The captain told a Great Falls reporter that he picked up about eight feet of film from Mariana. However, in his message to Wright-Patterson, he said that he would be sending fifteen feet of film to the base for study. This odd discrepancy was never cleared up.


The footage was examined, and was quickly concluded to be the reflections from two F-94 jet fighters that were flying over Great Falls at the time of the man’s sighting. Lieutenant Colonel Ray W. Taylor returned the film to Mariana, stating that "our photo analysts were unable to find anything identifiable of an unusual nature". According to Air Officer Edward J. Ruppelt, however, who would become supervisor of the Air Force's Project Blue Book investigation into the UFO mystery in 1951, made a statement of his own. "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".


Anger and controversy arose when Mariana claimed that the first thirty-five frames of his film, which had most clearly shown the UFOs as rotating disks, were missing. Intriguing, it seems the Air Force does have an interest in the case after all. People through the Great Falls area who had seen the video supported his claims, saying that the missing frames depicted the UFOs as spinning, metallic disks with a “notch or band” along the outer edges.  Air Force officials denied these accusations, and insisted that they had only removed a single frame of film, which was damaged in the analysis. The UFOs and F-94s were too far apart from each other, making the “official” conclusion impossible.


A couple years past, and the incident was brought up again. In July of 1952, Captain Ruppelt convinced the bitter Mariana to allow the Air Force to see the film again for a more detailed analysis. He reluctantly agreed, on the condition that they wouldn’t remove any more frames. The analysts at Wright-Patterson concluded the objects shown in the footage weren’t birds, balloons, or meteors. Their original, ridiculous statement that the captured objects were reflections of jets was also ruled out. In January of 1953, the Air Force and CIA convened a committee of well-known scientists to examine the "best" cases collected by Project Blue Book. The Robertson Panel, led by physicist H.P. Robertson, viewed Mariana’s film. Predictably, their conclusion wasn’t anything significant, and said that the silvery objects in the film were “reflections of aircraft known to have been in the area.”


Copies of the baseball manager’s film currently reside in the National Archives, and is still featured in documentaries, television programs, and shared online. The footage continues to be debated, and since Mariana’s sighting, over 100 other encounters have been reported in the Great Falls area, making it one of the most active locations for UFO sightings in North America. In 2008, the minor-league baseball team was renamed to the Great Falls Voyagers in honor of the incident.


The Air Force behaved suspiciously throughout the aftermath of this encounter, making up conclusions that simply couldn’t be true. Lying, debunking, and confiscating, that’s what they’ve been doing for decades. Nick Mariana was saw something that day, and it wasn’t just F-94s. What do you think?



1950: UFO Caught on Camera in Baseball Stadium

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