Ellsworth AFB unidentified-object report — November 16, 1977

The Ellsworth “Lima Nine” story is a fabricated-document case, not an established encounter. An anonymous mailing reached the National Enquirer on 9 February 1978, containing a purported military report about events dated 16 November 1977 near Nisland, South Dakota. It named security personnel and claimed that green-uniformed intruders, a saucer and missing nuclear components were involved. Reporter Bob Pratt helped investigate the mailing and published his findings in the January 1984 MUFON UFO Journal. The team interviewed the people named, inspected the location and obtained security desk logs. Pratt found more than twenty errors in names, roles, numbers and physical layout. The claimed escape route did not match the site. Wayne Raeke showed no alleged injuries; investigators also established that he had been attending his grandfather’s funeral in Indiana on the stated date. Pratt’s conclusion was that the incident never happened. Later discussions associate the paper with wider forged-document controversies, but the decisive distinction here is between an actual anonymous document and its invented narrative. The Atlas preserves the case because the hoax circulated in UFO literature. Its plate shows a research desk with a fictional illustration of the claims, rather than presenting intruders or nuclear theft as historical fact.