GREAT FALLS — The Pentagon’s recent release of files on "unidentified aerial phenomenon" is shining a new spotlight on Great Falls’ own roots in UFO history—from the famous Mariana Event to unusual local legends.
Here in Great Falls, UFO stories have become part of the community’s lore.
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“About everybody in Great Falls has a UFO story where they know somebody who has a UFO story,” says Ashleigh McCann, Collections Curator at the History Museum.
Perhaps the most famous is the Mariana Event. In 1950, Nick Mariana, manager of the Great Falls Electrics baseball team, captured video of two unexplained objects moving across the sky.
The so-called Mariana film quickly became the talk of the town and remains one of the earliest UFO sightings ever caught on camera.
“And then you have like the Mariana film, Nick Mariana, the Electrics baseball manager, who happens to have a video camera and pulls it out and makes a video, and then that becomes a huge sensation,” McCann adds.
Yet, even among UFO enthusiasts, the footage is debated.
“If you ever go and watch the Mariana film, to any of us, you're like - jet aircraft, but in 1950, no one knows that,” explains Troy Hallsell, historian for the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base.
The fascination with the unknown only grew during the Cold War era. Rumors, paranoia, and reports of UFOs mixed with one of Montana’s strangest mysteries—cattle mutilations.
Ranchers in the 1970s discovered livestock with shocking, precise wounds, missing body parts, and no trace of blood left behind. This fueled even more speculation.
Hallsell describes the atmosphere: “There's a paranoia. So I'm not equating, you know, fear of communists with UFOs, but it's a time period in which Americans are hyper aware, hyper vigilant.”
He adds, “Lots of, reports of sightings of cultlike figures in black robes, you know, roaming the prairies, secretive, low flying black helicopters all over the area, conversely, bright hovering lights in the sky. And then at least in one instance, somebody reported an eight-foot tall, hairy creature.”
Now, with the Pentagon’s new UFO disclosure, the debate continues: are we learning something new, or just seeing old mysteries repackaged?
“These released documents, what does it reinforce that we kind of already know? Does it really reveal something brand new that we hadn't considered? You know, to be determined,” Hallsell says.
The Great Falls History Museum encourages anyone with their own stories—UFO-related or not—to come forward and contribute to preserving our region’s unique past.
“UFO or otherwise, if folks have stories about their experiences in North central Montana, we collect that information,” says McCann.
So if you’ve witnessed something unexplained, you could help write the next chapter of Great Falls history.
