November 16, 1977 — A saucer-shaped object rises from near Lima 11, a Minuteman missile site at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, as two Security Alert Team members watch from their positioned truck. The object departed at extreme speed over the eastern horizon. Anonymous account reportedly obtained via FOIA; source chain unverified.
THINK ABOUTIT UFO|UAP SIGHTING REPORT
1977: UFO Incident at South Dakota Missile Field
On the night of November 16, 1977, a USAF Security Alert Team member and his partner were ordered to back their truck onto a Minuteman missile site designated Lima 11 in the Ellsworth Air Force Base complex of western South Dakota and watch to the west — an instruction that struck them as absurd until, at approximately 8:15 p.m., a large object rose from the ground near their position, accelerated at extraordinary speed, and vanished over the eastern horizon in seconds. The witness did not tell his family about the incident for more than 35 years.
Date: November 16, 1977
Sighting Time: Approximately 8:15 p.m. (20:15 hours per witness account; page header listed 09:00 PM but witness text specifies 20:15)
Day/Night: Night
Location: Lima 11 missile site, Ellsworth Air Force Base missile field, South Dakota
Urban or Rural: Military — USAF ICBM missile site, rural western South Dakota
No. of Entity(‘s): None reported
Entity Type: Not Applicable
Entity Description: Not Applicable
Hynek Classification: CE-I (Close Encounter of the First Kind) — Object observed rising from ground level within estimated 500 feet of the witness position
Duration: Approximately 4 seconds (object observation from rise to disappearance over horizon)
No. of Object(s): 1
Description of Object(s): Large object, bright white across the bottom; body detail indeterminate due to brightness and brevity of observation
Shape of Object(s): Saucer-shaped (per witness description)
Size of Object(s): Approximately 30 feet across
Color of Object(s): Bright white on the underside; body color not determined
Distance to Object(s): Estimated within 500 feet (object rose from near the missile site where the witness was positioned)
Height & Speed: Rose from ground level to high altitude at what the witness described as “super speed,” disappearing over the eastern horizon within seconds
Number of Witnesses: 2 (the SAT member and his partner)
Special Features/Characteristics: Military nuclear weapons site; witnesses were pre-positioned at the site under orders to watch in a specific direction, suggesting command-level awareness of expected anomalous activity; extreme acceleration from ground level; object departed over eastern horizon
Case Status: Insufficient Data
Source: Reportedly obtained via the Freedom of Information Act; witness identity not disclosed; published through Vanguard Sciences / Warren York compilation
Summary/Description: A USAF Security Alert Team member stationed at Ellsworth AFB reports that he and his SAT partner were ordered to position their truck at Lima 11, a Minuteman missile site, and observe to the west. At approximately 20:15 hours, a large saucer-shaped object, bright white on the bottom and roughly 30 feet across, rose from the vicinity of the missile site and departed at extreme speed over the eastern horizon. The witness called the Launch Control Facility afterward and asked if the sergeant believed in UFOs. He did not disclose the incident to his family for over 35 years.
Related Cases: 1977 Ellsworth AFB L-9 Incident (Same Date) | 1953 Ellsworth AFB Radar-Visual Pursuit | 1976 Milbank, SD — Repeat Encounters
Detailed Report
The available account of this incident is extremely brief, consisting of a short first-person narrative reportedly obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The witness identifies himself only as a SAT (Security Alert Team) member assigned to an Ellsworth Air Force Base missile security unit.
According to the account, the witness and his SAT partner received orders to drive their security vehicle to Lima 11 — a Minuteman missile launch facility within the Ellsworth AFB missile field in western South Dakota — and back the truck onto the site with instructions to watch toward the west. The witness notes that this directive struck both men as unusual and seemingly pointless at the time.
They complied. At approximately 20:15 hours (8:15 p.m.), they observed a large object rise up from the direction they had been ordered to watch. The object ascended rapidly and departed at what the witness describes as “super speed,” disappearing over the eastern horizon. The entire visual event lasted only seconds. The witness estimated the object at roughly 30 feet across, saucer-shaped, with a bright white underside.
After the object’s departure, the witness called the Launch Control Facility and asked the on-duty sergeant whether he believed in UFOs — an exchange that suggests both the witness’s shock and his awareness that what he had observed fell outside normal operational parameters. The witness states that he did not discuss the incident with his family for more than 35 years, indicating a sustained reluctance to disclose that is common among military personnel reporting UAP encounters.
The account provides no further detail regarding the object’s surface features, sound characteristics, or effects on equipment. No formal incident report, security log, or additional witness testimony has been publicly associated with this specific account.
Significantly, this event shares its date — November 16, 1977 — and general location — the Ellsworth AFB missile field complex — with the separately documented L-9 incident, which involved an alarm activation at a different missile site, entity encounters, weapons fire, radiation readings, and an alleged nuclear-component removal. Whether the Lima 11 and L-9 accounts describe two separate events on the same evening, two perspectives on a single event, or represent unrelated narratives that share a date by coincidence cannot be determined from the available evidence.
Researcher’s Notes
The Lima 11 Account — Ellsworth 1977 and the Limits of Anonymous FOIA Testimony
- Source Chain Assessment — Unverifiable Provenance: This account is attributed to the Freedom of Information Act but lacks the standard markers of a verified FOIA release: no document control numbers, no agency letterhead, no redaction patterns, and no witness identification. The text was disseminated through Warren York and the Vanguard Sciences network — a private research channel, not an official declassification pipeline. While FOIA has been used to obtain legitimate UFO-related military documents (including many from the same era and installation), the absence of verifiable provenance for this specific account means it cannot be authenticated as a genuine government record. It should be treated as an unverified testimonial claim.
- The Pre-Positioning Detail — Orders to Watch: The most analytically interesting element of this account is not the sighting itself but the claim that the SAT team was ordered to position at Lima 11 and observe to the west — implying that command-level personnel anticipated anomalous activity at or near the missile site. If true, this suggests prior awareness of UAP intrusions into the Ellsworth missile field, which would be consistent with the broader pattern of repeat nuclear-facility encounters documented across the USAF missile wing system during the 1970s. However, this detail also raises authenticity questions: it could represent a genuine recollection of unusual orders, or it could be a narrative embellishment designed to heighten the story’s significance.
- Same-Night Correlation — The L-9 Incident: The most important contextual factor is the shared date with the far more detailed (and far more controversial) L-9 incident at the same Ellsworth missile field complex. The L-9 account, documented on a separate page in this archive, describes entity encounters, weapons fire, radiation contamination, and nuclear warhead component removal — claims of extraordinary magnitude that have never been independently verified and are widely regarded as probable fabrication. The Lima 11 account, while far more modest in scope, gains neither credibility nor suspicion simply by sharing a date. The two accounts should be evaluated independently. If the Lima 11 event is genuine, it may represent the actual kernel of anomalous activity that night — a brief, unexplained sighting at a missile site — around which the more dramatic L-9 narrative may have been constructed.
- Nuclear Facility Pattern — ICBM Corridor Encounters: Regardless of this specific account’s authenticity, it fits within a well-documented pattern of UAP activity at ICBM installations across the northern Great Plains during the 1960s and 1970s. Incidents at Malmstrom AFB (Montana, 1967), Minot AFB (North Dakota, 1968), and multiple other Minuteman facilities are supported by declassified documentation, named witnesses, and in some cases, confirmed missile-system anomalies coinciding with UAP reports. The Ellsworth complex, housing Minuteman II missiles, would be a logical inclusion in any pattern of interest directed at the U.S. nuclear deterrent force.
The Lima 11 account is what it is: a brief, anonymous, unverified claim of a sighting at a nuclear missile site, potentially correlated with a far more dramatic (and far more suspect) incident on the same night. Classified as Insufficient Data, it exists in the archive as a placeholder — a data point that can be elevated if independent corroboration emerges, but that cannot currently carry evidentiary weight on its own terms.
