A former security guard for one of America’s most sensitive nuclear weapons bases claims he once witnessed a massive UFO land right in front of him.
In 1977, Mario Woods was a Staff Sergeant with the United States Air Force Security Police, assigned to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. He was responsible for guarding the launch silos that formed part of the US’s nuclear deterrent.
In an interview with The Disclosure Team podcast, Woods recounted his experience at a control center outside the main base when he saw a huge, eerily silent luminous object hovering outside the base perimeter. “I just happened to look to my east in the direction of Ellsworth Air Force Base, about 55 miles away, and I see this light in the sky,” Woods told the podcast.
“I thought, what is that? Is that a helicopter? A B-52 bomber?” B-52s sometimes flew training sorties at night, practicing attack runs at low levels over the prairie. But whatever Woods saw was so large that he initially thought it had to be two giant Cold War bombers flying in close formation.
Shortly after, Woods’ team received an alarm signal indicating that someone or something had breached the base perimeter. Along with a colleague named Michael Johnson, Woods was dispatched to investigate.
Driving into the pitch-black night for several minutes, they eventually saw an unexplained object floating about a mile away with pulsating lights beneath it. “You could see this pulsation … these orange, red, and white colors. It was the strangest thing,” Woods said. “I said, ‘Michael, that’s that object, man.’ He said, ‘Whatever,’ but I think it scared him to death.”
As they drove closer, they found the source of the mysterious pulsing lights. Woods described it as “the size of a Walmart building, and as long as an aircraft carrier.” He claimed it was the largest aircraft he had ever seen, comparing it to the C5 Galaxies he had flown on, which were minuscule by comparison. “There was no noise, but it was only sitting 10 feet off the ground.”
“The circumference of this craft was so large that it was almost directly above our truck. I often wonder what would have happened had I gotten out and gone directly up under it, but I was too afraid.”
A powerful light suddenly shone from the massive object, illuminating the entire area like a welder’s light. At the same time, Woods and Johnson felt as if they were being lifted out of their seats by some powerful force that also exerted pressure on their chests, making it difficult to breathe.
Then, what might today be called a drone appeared—a ball about four to five times the size of a beach ball, hovering just inches above the hood. “The word drone or anything like that was not used then. We didn’t have drones, but it appeared to be some type of a drone,” Woods explained. “It had vents on it—like the cooling fins on a motorcycle cylinder head. This thing shot around like a ping pong ball for three or four seconds and then suddenly flew off.”
The encounter grew even stranger when Woods saw four beings—three small and one tall—about 20 feet away. “They weren’t walking; they were all just moving at the same time, coming toward me. The small one on the right side of the tall one had a wand or some type of rod with a yellow tip that glowed,” Woods recalled.
Transfixed with terror, Woods then “heard” the beings speak to him in a way he couldn’t explain: “Do not fear.” He described it as a voice that communicated through his body rather than through his ears. After closing his eyes for a second, he opened them to find all the bizarre phenomena had disappeared, leaving him in complete darkness.
Woods then realized they were nowhere near where he had seen the massive object; they were parked on a dam some 10 miles away. “The strangest part was the vehicle was facing the only direction in which it could leave, and there were no tire tracks coming in,” he said.
Disturbingly, it was about five hours later than he expected. Upon returning to base, Woods was interrogated by his superiors. He shared everything except the part about the strange beings, fearing that mentioning them would end his career.
