On March 16, 1967, Captain Robert Salas was stationed in an underground launch control capsule at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana when security guards reported a glowing red object hovering above the front gate. Within minutes, all ten Minuteman nuclear missiles in his flight went offline simultaneously — an unprecedented and supposedly impossible event given the missiles' independent targeting systems. A separate incident at Echo Flight that morning saw all ten of its missiles also go offline. Salas testified before Congress about the incident. The Air Force investigation found the cause was an 'electronic noise pulse' but could not explain its origin. A 2025 Pentagon report attributed the incident to a classified EMP device test.