The recent buzz around the “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Us” meme may have fizzled, but it reminded us that the sky isn’t the limit when it comes to secretive military sites. In fact, the U.S. Navy finally confirmed the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, ending decades of official denial. That admission has reignited curiosity about the many bases that have long been linked to strange lights, alien encounters, and mysterious technology – all far from the famed Nevada desert complex. Below, we count down the top 10 military installations that have hosted UFO activity, each with its own eerie tale.
What Makes These Top 10 Military Sites So Mysterious
10 Malmstrom Air Force Base
Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles near Great Falls, Montana, has a chilling 1967 incident. Security patrols and maintenance crews reported a luminous object hovering over one of the missile silos, after which each of the ten missiles inexplicably shut down, one by one. Declassified records confirm the missiles went offline, yet the UFO explanation remains unverified. The base’s UFO lore stretches back further to 1950, when Nick Mariana, manager of a minor‑league baseball team, captured a brief 16‑second color film of two silver discs streaking over Great Falls. Mariana later claimed the Air Force returned his footage with 35 frames missing—frames that allegedly showed the discs rotating at incredible speed.
9 Carswell Air Force Base
The legendary 1947 Roswell incident may have taken place in New Mexico, but its after‑effects reached Texas. Operations officer Robert Shirkey observed aluminum‑like material with mysterious characters being loaded for a flight bound for Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth. Flight crewman Robert Porter noted the crates were astonishingly light, almost as if empty. Subsequent years saw more sightings: a T‑shaped craft hovered at 4,000 feet over the nearby airport in 1954, shimmering in blue, green, and white; and in 1965, a triangular UFO with three illuminated points was logged by the Mutual UFO Network. The base continues to be a hotspot for unexplained aerial activity.
8 Wright‑Patterson Air Force Base
Captain Oliver W. “Pappy” Henderson, a senior pilot stationed at Roswell during the infamous incident, later flew a secret mission to Wright‑Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. For over three decades he kept silent under a security clearance, but in 1977 he finally revealed that he had transported wreckage from the Roswell crash site, along with small alien bodies. He showed a piece of metal that looked like aluminum yet was lighter and far stiffer. The story resurfaced in 1982 at a reunion, and other veterans, including Marine Lt. Col. Marion M. “Black Mac” Magruder, corroborated the tale—Magruder recalling that the alien he saw was oddly “squiggly.”
7 Fort Dix
Major George Filer, chronicled in John Guerra’s “Strange Craft,” recounts a 1978 encounter at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where a military policeman chasing a low‑flying aircraft encountered a four‑foot‑tall, grayish‑brown creature with long arms and a bulbous head. The officer fired upon the being, and the remains emitted a strong ammonia odor. Filer, a member of the Disclosure Project, argues that the Pentagon’s 2017 release of naval footage showing an advanced aerial vehicle validates his description of the alien encounter.
6 29 Palms
Deep in California’s Mojave Desert, the Marine Corps base at 29 Palms hosted a massive multi‑regimental live‑maneuver exercise in October 2019. The installation appears in Project Redbook, a database cataloguing alleged subsurface alien activity sites. According to researcher Val Valerian, recovered extraterrestrial technology is examined in underground facilities beneath the base. UFO sightings have peppered the area since the 1950s, with a notable worm‑like object hovering over the town in May 2019.
5 Fort Meade
Dan Sherman’s “Above Black: Project Preserve Destiny” reveals a covert Air Force program called “Greys” that placed him at Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1992. Trained as an “Intuitive Communicator,” Sherman claims he was tasked with speaking to Grey aliens—beings first encountered at Roswell. He describes receiving “abduction data” while seated in a communications van, and later decoding a radio transmission from outer space, a project later declassified by the National Security Agency headquartered at the same base.
4 Edwards Air Force Base
President Dwight Eisenhower may have met extraterrestrials at Edwards Air Force Base, according to ex‑dentist Dr. Michael Salla. The story goes that the president, either on a secret evening trip or while visiting the base for dental work, encountered two blue‑eyed aliens with colorless lips and white hair on February 20 1954. The Associated Press briefly reported Eisenhower’s death that day, only to retract the story minutes later. Eisenhower’s great‑granddaughter, Laura Magdalene Eisenhower, publicly supports the claim that her grandfather was in contact with alien beings.
3 Kirtland Air Force Base
In 1980, guards at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico reported UFOs over the Coyote Canyon area, coinciding with a six‑hour radar jam. Physicist Paul Bennewitz had been documenting strange lights in the sky since 1979, capturing over 2,600 feet of film and recording low‑frequency transmissions he believed originated from alien sources. He even built a computer program to translate the signals, later claiming the extraterrestrials were manipulating people through electromagnetic devices.
2 Holloman Air Force Base
Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico sits at the heart of several UFO mysteries. Project 1947, an archival effort covering sightings from 1900‑1965, documents a 1950 incident where electronics engineer Cliff Booth and a colleague used an Askania theodolite to photograph a cigar‑shaped UFO. Though the images were blurry, the men were convinced they’d witnessed a genuine extraterrestrial vehicle. Later, filmmaker Robert Emenegger was urged by the Air Force to produce a UFO documentary, but the agency reneged on promised footage of a 1971 landing at Holloman, which allegedly showed three UFOs and three alien beings emerging from one of them.
1 Dobbins Air Force Base
Michael Hitt’s “Georgia’s Aerial Phenomenon 1947‑1987” chronicles 234 UFO sightings in the state, many involving Dobbins Air Force Base personnel. In 1952, airmen reported a streaking object that vanished, yet radar traced it traveling at 1,200 mph—twice the speed of a typical aircraft. Tower operator Bruce Beach noted that the frequency of sightings in the 1950s was so high the control tower installed a 3D camera, a rarity at the time. The phenomenon persisted, with a massive, black, Boeing 727‑sized UFO reported near the base in January 2019.