HELENA — Montana has long been part of the UFO phenomenon with sightings across the state.
Some people are convinced UFOs are craft from another world. “I realized a long time ago that these are not our craft, they don’t belong to human beings,” said Richard O’Connor of Montana City.
For example, Malmstrom Air Force Base near Great Falls is famous in UFO lore for a sighting in March of 1967 that allegedly resulted in the shutting down of nuclear warheads. “One of the guards saw a light in the sky and later they saw a red light at one of the gates of the control center and all of these missiles shutdown,” said Cameron Logan of Kalispell, who hosts the "My Alien Life" podcast.
O’Connor was friends with Jesse A. Marcel, who was the son of Maj. Jesse Marcel - the man credited with finding crashed wreckage near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, that some people believe was an alien craft. Marcel said his father showed him a piece of the crash.
“Getting to know Dr. Marcel as I did over quite a few years, I grew to understand that his story could not be false,” said O’Connor.
In 2012, O’Connor opened a library in Clancy named after Dr. Marcel just a year before Marcel died. It has books on the subject and offers a place to talk about the subject. “Really every town needs to have a place like this where people who have had these experiences can go and can tell other people about, discuss it without having to hold all that in all the time,” said O’Connor.
Logan, who grew up in the Hi-Line area, said people there have been living with these strange phenomena for so long it’s become commonplace.
“Different ranches out there had cattle mutilations, but nobody, after a while into the mid-80s nobody really paid much attention to that it just kind of was a part of life and people would see things in the sky and really wouldn’t mention it anymore, it was just the way it was up there,” said Logan.
The government is expected to release a report on UFOs on June 25th. It’s not known yet whether the government’s going to admit these things exist or not, but those in the UFO community are just glad that they’re taking the subject seriously.
“I think you know there’s probably some plans in place to bring out more information in the future and I hope we don’t end up waiting another 75 years to year additional good vetted information about the phenomenon from people who know,” said O’Connor.
The library website states: "The Jesse A. Marcel Library ( the "JAML") opened in May, 2012 and serves as both a UFO library and, more importantly, as a safe-space meeting place for those who desire to learn more and engage in open discussion about the UFO (UAP) phenomenon, and other possibly-related phenomena happening in our world today."
Area near Deer Lodge is a hotspot for paranormal and UFO activity:
