The 1952 Mariana Sighting

Nick Mariana was the general manager of the Great Falls, Montana Electrics minor league baseball team back on August 15th, 1950. He also became one of the first people to capture UFOs on film that fateful day.

Mariana and a team employee were inspecting the Electrics Legion Stadium before a game scheduled later that day. At 11:25am, they both witnessed two bright objects rotating across the sky. Mariana quickly retrieved a 16 mm camera from his car and was able to shoot about sixteen seconds of footage of the two objects hurtling across the Montana skies. Below is a still-frame from that film.

 

 

 

 

 

The initial Air Force explanation was that Mariana had filmed two F94 jet interceptors that were flying toward nearby Malmstrom AFB. Project Blue Book's Captain Edward J. Ruppelt eventually dismissed that explanation, stating that those jets weren't "anywhere close to where the two UFOs had been". The film has been studied several times since. There has never been a universally-accepted, conclusive explanation for what Nick Mariana captured on film. Jets? Meteors? Swamp gas? Extraterrestrial craft? No one is certain.

 

The Electrics changed their team name to The Voyagers in 2008 to commemorate the 1952 encounter.

 

Copies of this UFO film currently reside at the National Archives and the footage is often used in UFO documentaries.