File 26172 · August 15, 1950
Great Falls Montana Film
Great Falls, United States
Opened 9/9/2026
Sighting photograph. Image pulled from the public post. — National Archives / Project Blue Book
Standing
Unidentified
On the public record, and still open. A claim, paper, or film — not a finding that it was ours, and not a finding that it was not.
Great Falls Montana 1950 Film (related archival clip)
U.S. National Archives
Original tape · original language kept
English writing · original voice kept
English writing of the original tape. Great Falls Montana Film — U.S. National Archives. The voice on the recording is left as it was spoken.
16mm color film stills of two bright objects.
What was claimed
Nick Mariana filmed two bright objects maneuvering near an Air Force base using 16mm color film; the footage was reviewed by the Air Force and later the Robertson Panel.
What is on the record
This file is a working record — a report, not a verdict. Official paper, if any, is linked where we have it.
Nick Mariana, general manager of the Great Falls Electrics baseball team, was at the Legion Ball Park when he and his secretary observed two bright, silvery objects flying in formation over the city. Mariana retrieved his 16mm movie camera and filmed the objects as they moved across the sky near Malmstrom Air Force Base. The film shows two round, bright objects that appear to rotate or reflect sunlight. The footage was submitted to the Air Force, investigated under Project Grudge/Blue Book, and reviewed by the CIA's Robertson Panel in 1953. Initial explanations included reflections from F-94 jets in the area, though Mariana maintained they were not aircraft. The film is one of the earliest well-documented motion picture records associated with official UFO investigations.
Could this have been ours?
The known sky, that night.
Before Sputnik the known lights were planets, meteors, aircraft, and balloons. No station. No Starlink.
Always
Aircraft, balloons, meteors
Landing lights, flares, lanterns, reentries, fireballs. They are on the known sky. They do not close a file by themselves — they are what a serious look has to hold the claim against.
Orbit · Space — the desks for lights that are already named.
Sources
Related files
Same craft, same place, same years. A neighbor in the catalogue — not a conclusion.
Same craft · Same country · 14 August 2026
Car-sized object over Shagawa Lake, Ely
Ely, Minnesota · United States
Unidentified
An adult and three children at Semers Beach independently described a car-sized object with two round lights over the lake.
Same craft · Same country · January 21, 2015
GIMBAL
Off the East Coast (Atlantic Ocean) · United States
Unidentified
U.S. Navy F/A-18 ATFLIR footage showing a rotating unidentified object tracked during operations from the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Cockpit audio captures pilot reactions to the object's apparent rotation and flight characteristics.
Same craft · Same country · 7 November 2006
Chicago O’Hare disk
O’Hare International Airport, Chicago · United States
Unidentified
United Airlines ramp workers and pilots saw a dark disk hovering under an overcast, then shooting up through the cloud and leaving a hole.
Same craft · August 6, 2026, evening
Disk shoots across sky leaving trail, photographed
Poway, California · USA
Unidentified
While photographing an unusual storm, the witness and family saw a disk zoom across the sky at hypersonic speed with no sound. The long-exposure photo captured the metallic disk with a visible trail and possible greenish cloud/wormhole above it.
Same craft · May 2026 (circulated September 2026)
Glowing disc over a bowling-alley lot, Argentina
Argentina · Argentina
Unidentified
Young people outside a bowling alley later found a luminous disc in their night video; Argentine researchers circulated the clip in September.
Same craft · Mid-April 2013
Collahuasi Mine Disk Photos
Collahuasi Copper Mine, Tarapacá Region · Chile
Unidentified
Multiple mine workers observed and photographed a bright, flattened silvery disk performing vertical and horizontal maneuvers at about 600 meters altitude for roughly two hours in clear skies. CEFAA analyzed the images and concluded it was a genuine UFO after ruling out conventional explanations.