In the Dark of the Night Part 3

The Devil Made Me Do It

by Steven R. Oberst 

AAA Office in Buenos Aires - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Most of the night flying I did during my career was on training missions, but my most infamous night flight and my personal favorite happened on a support mission during my first assignment. Flying in a helicopter rescue unit at a northern plains strategic missile base was seen by many pilots as a bad assignment. Although it is true the primary mission of supporting the missile wing was not particularly exciting, this assignment allowed time for a lot of great flying. It was in this northern plains environment that my fondness for night flying grew. The standard night training missions involved night navigation into the Badlands or Black Hills, landings in remote areas to spots outlined by beanbag lights, and nighttime searches. In addition, there were occasional night missions to support the missile wing.

Most missile support flights were fairly boring, flying something or somebody from point A to point B. The most boring mission of all was flying above a security convoy moving a warhead back to the main base. This involved a tractor trailer loaded with the warhead and several security escort vehicles on the ground, plus a helicopter overhead with armed security police on board. Convoy speeds were typically 25 mph on back roads, 40 mph on paved roads and 50 mph on an interstate. Needless to say, maintaining a position high above the slowly moving convoy was a tedious task.

In 1978, some genius got the idea that moving these convoys at night would provide more security due to not being as visible to the public. As much as I enjoyed night flying, this idea seemed to just move a boring mission from broad daylight to the dark of night. The thought occurred to me that this would also make it harder for us to see the bad guys, but what did I know? I was just a lowly captain.

For these nighttime convoy missions, we would fly the helicopter to the support facility closest to the warhead being moved, arriving at about 10:00 PM. After a briefing with the Convoy Commander, the helicopter crew would wait at the facility until the warhead was loaded and the convoy ready to move, typically about midnight. My first two nighttime convoy missions, although boring, went as scheduled with no problems. It was the on the third mission that things did not go so well for the missile people.

This mission came on moonless night in mid-January. There was a lot of snow on the ground, but the weather that night was clear and cold. The warhead being moved was at the farthest possible missile site from the base, very close to the Wyoming border. It was so cold, we were concerned about temperatures more than it being nighttime. When we arrived at the support facility we were told during the briefing that due to the cold, it would take longer than normal to get the warhead loaded. Sure enough, it was nearly 2:00 AM before the call came that he convoy was ready to move. Within 20 minutes we were flying overhead and waiting for the start of another boring mission. After circling for 10 minutes with no movement on the ground, we contacted the Convoy Commander on the radio. “We can’t get the doors closed on the trailer, the hydraulic system must be frozen.” He replied. After another 10 minutes, the mission was aborted.

As we turned to head home, my co-pilot, 2nd Lieutenant Mike Hotel, commented to me, “Hey, aren’t we near Devils Tower? Wonder what it looks like at night?” Hmmm I thought. I had flown by Devils Tower many times during the day, but never at night. Steven Spielberg used the location in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Since then, a lot of “crazies” came to Devils Tower because they believed it was a place where aliens from outer space would someday emerge. To me it was just a neat looking piece of geography. It would only be a 15 minute detour to fly by it on the way back to the base. “Okay,” I said, “let’s swing by there and take a look see.”

It was so dark we were almost on top of Devils Tower before we saw it. We were flying at about 3,000 feet above the ground and Devils Tower is about 1,300 feet high.  I entered a rapid descent with the intent of making one complete circle around it before heading for home. On the west side of Devils Tower is a parking area where tourists parked. I don’t know what came over me, but I decided to turn on the searchlight and rotate it back and forth as we circled past this area. We had no way of knowing if anyone saw us or not. I merely turned off the light and headed for home.

The next day I heard reports on the radio that a UFO had been sighted up near Devils Tower early that morning. “Oh crap,” I thought, “I was flying the UFO.” The Base Information Office responded to callers by saying there had been no aircraft in the area. This meant there were no B-52s or KC-135s flying that night. Apparently it never occurred to the Base Information people to ask the helicopter unit if they had been flying, and neither Mike or I were about to volunteer this information. That evening the local TV news reporter interviewed Fred Ziegler  an eyewitness to the encounter at Devils Tower. “It came right out of the Tower and landed over there,” as he pointed toward an area just above them. “Then the aliens took my friend Marvin and disappeared.” Needless to say, most locals were skeptical of Fred’s claims and after a few days the story faded from view.

So, Fred, if you are reading this, it was not a UFO you saw at Devils Tower on January 17, 1979. It was me in a helicopter on a sightseeing trip in the dark. And, as to Marvin, I suspect he was so drunk that night he fell out of the back of your pick-up when you raced away from the parking area to report the UFO. I think he changed his name, went to Hollywood and became a famous movie star. Probably voted for Jimmy Carter, too.

Night flying can result in unusual encounters. That being said, I feel much better with this UFO incident off my conscience.  

Mosaic at Volubulis, Morocco - photo by JoAnn Sturman

In the Dark of the Night Part 2

The UFO

by Steven R. Oberst

Great Wall - photo by JoAnn Sturman

A few years before the last odorous adventure, I was a helicopter instructor at Kirkland AFB, New Mexico. During this time period, the Air Force was spending more and more time flying and training at night. Night flying can be challenging, but throw in a pair of night vision goggles while flying a nighttime low-level route and the intensity level maxes out. It presents an extreme challenge of the pilot’s training, skills and reactions. 

I remember one such low level night training flight I was on in 1981.  The mission was a training flight in a UH-1N twin engine helicopter. We departed Kirkland AFB shortly after sunset. A student pilot was flying from the right seat with night vision goggles on and I was the instructor in the left seat without goggles. With the cockpit bathed in a goggle-friendly red light, the student began flying on a low level route near the Puerco River in the northwestern part of the state. As the student struggled trying to stay on course, the last thing on my mind was an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO).

A few minutes into the flight I saw the blur of an object coming at us just before hearing a loud thump as something hit the windshield. Thinking bird strike, I immediately took the controls from the student and directed him to remove the goggles. Starting a slow climb to a safer altitude, I could feel no evidence of any damage to the rotor or flight controls. There was, however, a crack in the windshield and what appeared to be blood. I made a radio call to flight operations alerting them to a possible bird strike. We were directed to proceed with caution to a small airstrip about 25 miles from our location. 

Landing at the airstrip, we got out to inspect the helicopter. The Flight Engineer climbed up to look at the main rotor mast with his flashlight. “Captain,” he said to me, “There is a lot of blood on the mast just below the blades, but I don’t see any damage. Whoa! Here’s a surprise; it looks like hair in the blood, not feathers.” 

Later, a more scientific examination of the evidence verified that it was in fact not a bird strike, but a bat strike. The bat we hit was probably a brown bat with a wingspan of about 12 inches. This was the first of three bat strikes in this area before the Commander wisely closed this low level training area to night flying missions.

Okay, so flying into a bat may not qualify as an encounter with a UFO, but it definitely got my attention. Speaking of UFOs, helicopters flying at night are frequently mistaken for UFOs.

Grand Canyon - photo by JoAnn Sturman

In the Dark of the Night Part 1

Something Spooky in the Air

By Steven R. Oberst

Calavatria Bridge Buenos Aires - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Strange things can happen in the dark of the night. Maybe that is why most helicopter pilots I knew did not like to fly at night. I guess I liked it because it was something different from a normal daytime mission in more ways than just the lack of ambient light. Flying at night meant changing your normal daily schedule. It also meant learning how to navigate and fly without the visual cues pilots are accustomed to using. This made a routine flight maneuver at night a little more intense than the same maneuver in the daytime. You never know what you will encounter in the dark of the night. Here are three night flights with unusual encounters:

I will never forget my last helicopter night flight. It took place in the Florida panhandle on a dark summer night in 1984. This flight was a special operations training mission. I was onboard as the flight evaluator, so I did not sit at the controls, but instead I sat in a jump seat between and behind the two pilots. This check-ride was a simulated combat mission. The objective was the nighttime insertion and recovery of special ops people (appropriately nicknamed “spooks”) behind enemy lines. The flight crew’s job was to locate a remote landing zone (LZ) in the special operations training area and insert a team of three spooks. This area of Florida was heavily wooded with mostly long needle pines. It was hard to navigate there in daylight, so the darkness added to the challenge. Someone in Operations must have been a rock fan, because all of the LZs were named for 80’s rock bands. After inserting the spooks at LZ KISS, the flight crew was to proceed back and refuel behind a C-130. Then they were to loiter until the scheduled rendezvous time and proceed to LZ QUEEN. Meanwhile, the spooks would be doing their thing, simulate blowing something up, and egress to LZ QUEEN for a recovery pick-up. 

It was a hot, cloudy and humid night with thunderstorms to our north, but not in our immediate flight area. The mission briefing, pre-flight and departure all went well. This crew was very professional and it showed. We took off around midnight. Navigating in the dark while flying at low level is challenging and intense. Using night vision goggles, the co-pilot’s task was to identify terrain features in order to keep the pilot on course. The crew successfully found LZ KISS and the spooks rappelled down to the ground and disappeared in the darkness. 

The crew then navigated directly to the C-130 and executed a flawless refueling. It was not until we were flying to LZ QUEEN for the pick-up that the crew encountered its first big challenge. As we left the C-130, the lightning in the thunderstorms 60 miles north started sending flashes of light across the sky that would momentarily shut down the night vision goggles. This was playing havoc with the crew’s efforts to navigate low level to LZ QUEEN. On special operations missions, timing is critical. There was a ten minute window for the pick-up and it took the crew an additional 20 minutes to finally find LZ QUEEN. 

There was no radio contact with our special ops spooks on the ground. If the helicopter was not at QUEEN by 0200 hours, the spooks were to proceed to the alternate LZ, code name STYX. It was 0230 hours and we needed to be at STYX by 0330 hours. We arrived at STYX on time, but there was no visual contact with the spooks. We landed in a nearby clearing and waited with engines running. We could not wait long due to fuel remaining. Suddenly all three spooks were seen running into the clearing. It was only when they were safely on board that we realized something was wrong. “What’s that smell?” asked the pilot from the cockpit.

“Smells like skunk,” I said. Sure enough, while making their way from QUEEN to STYX, the spooks had a close encounter with an angry skunk. All three got sprayed, but the lead guy got the worst of it. Soon the entire crew, myself included, were gasping for air. 

Needless to say, the primary mission now was to get back to base as quickly as possible. It was weeks before the smell dissipated to an acceptable level in that helicopter. To this day, every time I drive by a dead skunk in the road, the smell reminds me of this ‘spooky’ encounter in the Florida woods. 

Foot Bridge Tibet - photo by JoAnn Sturman