Loring Air Force Base Weapons Storage Area

The memorandum is dated October 29, 1975, at 6:05am, and signed by a Marine brigadier general at the National Military Command Center in Washington. "At 290200 EST AFOC informed NMCC that an unidentified helicopter, possibly two, had been sighted flying low over Loring AFB Maine, in proximity to a weapons storage area." An Army National Guard helicopter went up to look and saw nothing. A summary attached to the memo records "one helicopter landing briefly in proximity to a weapons storage area" and notes that the sightings "were limited to security guards."

Loring was the Strategic Air Command's easternmost base in the continental United States, with B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers on nuclear alert. Its weapons were kept in earth-covered igloos inside a fenced storage area on the northern edge of the base.

October 27 and 28, 1975

At 7:45pm on October 27, Staff Sgt. Danny K. Lewis of the 42nd Security Police Squadron, on duty at the storage area, saw an aircraft flying low along the northern perimeter with a red navigation light and a white strobe. That timeline comes from Lawrence Fawcett and Barry Greenwood's 1984 book Clear Intent. The NMCC memo places the first incident "during the early morning of 28 Oct 75." The control tower tracked an unknown on radar 10 to 13 miles east-northeast of the base, and calls on military and civilian frequencies went unanswered. A teletype to Washington said the aircraft "definitely penetrated the LAFB northern perimeter and on one occasion was within 300 yards of the munitions storage area perimeter."

The commander of the 42nd Bomb Wing, Col. Richard E. Chapman, put the base on Security Option 3. Requests for fighter cover to the NORAD regions at Hancock Field, New York, and North Bay, Ontario, were both refused. Radar lost the contact near Grand Falls, New Brunswick, about 12 miles away.

At 7:45pm the next evening, Lewis and two other security policemen, Sgt. Clifton W. Blakeslee and Staff Sgt. William J. Long, saw lights approach from the north. Chapman came out and saw a flashing white light and an amber light himself, according to Clear Intent, though the NMCC summary says the sightings were limited to security guards. The NMCC's updates put an unidentified helicopter 150 feet up, 200 to 500 meters from the storage area, at about 1am on October 29, and over the storage area at 3am. The Guard helicopter responded both times and could not find it.

In a later account, Sgt. Steven Eichner, a B-52 crew chief, described driving with his crew toward a silent, reddish-orange object shaped like a stretched-out football, hovering near the road to the storage area. The crew did not report it at the time, because they had driven into a restricted area.

What the documents called it

An operations report from the base concluded that "the unknown helicopter has demonstrated a clear intent in the weapons storage area, is smart and a most capable aviator." A NORAD document read: "Information indicates that the A/C is a helicopter. However, the A/C remains unidentified." Canadian officials gave permission to follow it across the border. It did not return on the evening of October 29, and the Air Force arranged a helicopter from Plattsburgh Air Force Base for the nights after.

On November 11, 1975, NORAD's commander in chief sent a confidential message that began: "Since 28 Oct 75 numerous reports of suspicious objects have been received at the NORAD COC." The message named Loring, Wurtsmith in Michigan, Malmstrom in Montana, Minot in North Dakota, and Canadian Forces Station Falconbridge in Ontario.

The paper trail

In 1977, NORAD answered a Freedom of Information request with extracts from its command director's log. One entry describes "an unknown helicopter landing in the munitions storage area at Loring AFB, Maine. Apparently this was second night in a row for this occurrence." The entry is dated October 19. It sits among entries for October 31 and November 1, and its time, 0630 Zulu, is 1:30am in Maine, half an hour after the NMCC's time for the October 29 sighting.

According to Clear Intent, the National Enquirer sent the Air Force questions about Loring on October 31, 1977. The Air Force answered that the overflights "were not identified as helicopters," and that the helicopter assumption rested on "the sound and light perceptions of the eyewitnesses." The New York Times Magazine printed the November 11 message on October 14, 1979, and reported that Air Force investigations at Loring "did not reveal a cause for the sightings." Fawcett and Greenwood's book Clear Intent followed in 1984.

The storage area now

Loring closed in 1994. In 1998, the Air Force transferred 4,700 acres to the US Fish and Wildlife Service for the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge, which took in the storage area. The refuge's 3-mile Auto Tour Route ends at the storage area, among the remaining bunkers.

The refuge is open every day of the year, from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset. The headquarters on Refuge Road is about 2.5 miles south of the storage area.

The Auto Tour Route that ends at the storage area opens seasonally, and the refuge does not publish fixed dates. The office, at (207) 328-4634, is staffed Monday through Thursday from 8am to 4:30pm and can confirm whether the route is open. The speed limit is 20 mph, and bikes are allowed only on the Auto Tour Route. About 13 miles of foot trails cross the rest of the refuge, and parts of it are a wildlife sanctuary closed to the public.

Hunting, fishing, camping, open fires, and overnight parking are not allowed. Black flies, mosquitoes, and deer flies are thick from May through September.

The Loring Air Museum, on the former base, opens Saturdays from 11am to 3pm and Sundays from noon to 3pm, from late May to mid-October. Its 2024 open house included a bus tour of the storage area. No open house is planned for 2026, and one is planned for 2027. The museum asks visitors to stay off the flight line, which is active again.