By Kenneth Williams-
Six decades after a U.S. Border Patrol officer reported seeing an unidentified flying object near Donnybrook, the Minot area’s unusual UFO history continues to draw interest as the federal government releases previously classified records.
On Aug. 19, 1966, Don Flickinger, then a Border Patrol officer based in Minot, reported seeing a disc-shaped object near Donnybrook. Flickinger, who now lives in Billings, Montana, said the experience changed his views about UFOs and eventually led him to investigate similar reports.
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“I was not a believer before I had this sighting up there near Donnybrook, but after that, you bet I’m a believer,” Flickinger recently told The Minot Daily News.
The sighting also attracted the attention of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer and Northwestern University professor who became one of the country’s best-known scientific authorities on UFO reports.
Hynek served as a scientific adviser to the U.S. Air Force’s UFO investigations, including Project Sign, Project Grudge and Project Blue Book. He later founded a research organization devoted to UFO investigations and served as a technical adviser for Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
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Hynek travelled to Minot after Flickinger’s sighting and stayed at Flickinger’s home for several days. Flickinger said he took Hynek to the Donnybrook site, where they examined three circular impressions in the ground.
“Each marking was a round, kind of like a hole in the ground maybe 4 or 5 inches deep,” Flickinger recalled. “There were three marks in a triangular position.”
Also, in a March 1969 Minot Daily News report, Flickinger described the object as approximately 40 feet wide and said it rose from the ground, hovered briefly and then disappeared at high speed.
He said he had been travelling with two prisoners and could not immediately investigate the site, but returned the following day and found three large impressions where the object apparently had rested.
Flickinger subsequently became chairman of the Dakota Aerial Phenomena Organization in Minot, a subcommittee of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. He told the Minot Lions Club that his group investigated witnesses before submitting reports and said many witnesses avoided publicity because they feared ridicule.
The Donnybrook sighting was not the only unusual report associated with the Minot region during the 1960s. Military personnel reported additional incidents around Minot Air Force Base and the surrounding missile fields.
On Aug. 25, 1966, an Air Force officer at the underground Mike Flight launch control center reportedly experienced radio interference while personnel above ground reported seeing unidentified objects.
Another incident was reported in September at November Flight in the Mohall area. Retired Air Force Capt. Dave Schindele has said personnel were told not to discuss an incident in which a large object with bright lights was reportedly observed near the launch control center and the 10 Minuteman missiles under its control became unavailable.
Schindele later researched the events and published “It Never Happened, Volume I: U.S. Air Force UFO Cover-up Revealed” in 2017. He has continued to argue that military personnel were instructed to remain silent about what they witnessed.
Other reports followed, including an October 1968 incident involving military personnel and a B-52 crew that reportedly observed unidentified objects near the Minot missile field.
The Minot Daily News itself said they documented the controversy at the time. A Dec. 6, 1966, front-page headline referred to a Minot launch control center “saucer” as one indication of possible visitors from outer space.
Today, the terminology has changed. The federal government increasingly uses the term UAP, or unidentified anomalous phenomena, rather than UFO. The release of government records has renewed public interest in decades-old cases, although the existence of an unexplained sighting does not by itself establish an extraterrestrial explanation.
The issue remains very personal for Flickinger. He left the Border Patrol in 1970, later joined the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and retired in 1995. He said he is no longer as active in UFO investigations as he once was, but still believes greater transparency would benefit the public.
“I think it should have been done a long time ago,” Flickinger said of the release of government files. “We can handle it.”
Sixty years on, the reports surrounding Donnybrook, Minot Air Force Base and the missile fields remain part of the region’s history — a collection of unexplained events that continue to invite investigation, debate and questions about what witnesses saw in the North Dakota sky.
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