Loring WSA: Part 2 of 3 - Little Green Men, or Canadian Drug Smuggers?

Two sets of two aircraft approach nuclear weapons stores, 24 hours apart, on the northern border of the US within days of an identical incident in Michigan, and the official story is that a couple of Canadians that were smart enough to rent/fly a helicopter, but stupid enough to try to smuggle drugs in it and ultimately get lost over a top secret nuclear weapons dump for the USAF two nights in a row, 24 hours apart?

Did the 'drug smugglers' in the official story just happen to have the perfect blend of idiocy and luck to have a run in with the US Air Force and escape toward Canada unscathed despite the outlandishness of the whole situation? Is that supposed to be believable?

On the other hand, a UFO or two buzzing around top secret research facilities is a very well explored trope (nuclear wessels, anyone?) But how many times have you seen that trope played out in your (proverbial) back yard? There are always two ways of looking at the unexplained: as something that is the result of a set of rational conditions, or extrapolated into a fantastical tale involving the manifestation of the fear du jeur.

Loring's purported history with unidentified flying objects goes back to 1964, two to three years after the occurrence at North River Depot that caused the "vamp house" building to be sealed (semi) permanently. An Air Force Veteran named Gary L. Ames spoke with UFO researcher Robert Hastings in 2006 about an early 60s encounter with an unidentified flying object. Normally, I'd have an excerpt here, but Mr Hastings would prefer people to visit his site, see his CG artwork about UFO's, and read the full story of the 1964 UFO sighting at Loring. Let's just say it includes a lot of details, and a reference to an airmen emptying a clip into a snowbank because he thought he saw "something" near one of the loaded Operation Headstart B-52s.

Separate from the 1964 sighting claim, there exists evidence of a verified mid 1970s UFO encounter over old Site Easy/Loring WSA. Below is a sample from a document cache linked later, and following that is a timeline I've patched together between (the rather colorful) BeforeItsNews , NICAP, as well as the Bangor Daily News. 

• 10/27/75
• 19:45 - MP's identify aircraft over base's northern perimeter and the base is put on lockdown as the comes within 300' of the weapons stores. The base is put on Security Alert 3.
• BeforeItsNews states a member of the 2192'd Communications squadron painted the craft with radar. 
• Rense.com reported that the craft could not be detected with radar.
• NICAP & the Bangor Daily News state the tower attempted radio contact. 
• 20:45 -  Loring's tower identifies another object on radar, circling the WSA for 0:45. Air support requested, but no bases within range were able to comply. The Air Force summons Maine State Police and the FAA to help. The craft(s) took off toward New Brunswick before they could be intercepted or identified.
• 10/28/75
• 19:45 - 24 hours after the first incident, an aircraft is spotted 3000 feet out with aircraft style amber/white running lights. NICAP describes its behavior as helicopter like and paintable by radar. 
• BIN states this craft hovered over the WSA, and another craft that was "cigar-shaped", "about four car lengths long" and "hovering 5' off the ground" was alleged to have traveled the flight line from the runway to the northern perimter of the base. Bangor Daily News also reprints a similar account.
• 23:14 (BIN) - a service member sees another object, near the bases east gate - flying east to west.
• 10/29/1975
• NICAP reports a Huey with National Guard, USAF, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Maine State Police personnel aboard were working in conjunction with a crew on the ground to chase down sightings of the unidentified aircraft and could not spot the craft from the air from as close as 100 feet. 
• 10/30/1975
• NICAP reports the Huey was replaced with an Air Force helicopter.

There exist other theories that the aircraft incident was the result of antiwar radicals attempting to steal an atomic bomb, using a rented helicopter that they parked near Moosehead lake. Note that Vietnam was over by 1975 and the local anti-nuclear activist group (that shall remain nameless) nearby didn't even organize until the late 1980s. The "official" story is that the USAF and RCMP agreed to track and identify but not to apprehend whomever it was that was flying around out there because they believed it was related to drug smuggling in the area. Now might be a good time to repeat my header:

Let that sink in for a moment. Two sets of two aircraft approach nuclear weapons stores, 24 hours apart, on the northern border of the US within days of an identical incident in Michigan, and the real story is that a couple of Canadians happened to be stupid enough to rent a helicopter to smuggle drugs in and managed fly over a top secret nuclear weapons dump for the USAF two nights in a row, 24 hours apart? Is that supposed to be believable? About.com highlights the story very well. UFO gets spotted, UFO gets painted w/ radar and hailed. Upon non-receipt of a response and movement of the craft to the nuclear weapons stores, the base goes into lockdown and air support gets requested. Upon ground and aerial searches, nothing is found.

Considering that Loring was the most forward Strategic Air Command base in the US, complete with a shut-down and sealed-up top secret (at the time) nuclear weapons research facility cum storage facility, an incident proximate to this site was a very big deal. Fortunately, Loring Remembers has been able to produce a cache of declassified documents, available for all. What's interesting about the documents provided by Loring Remembers, is that they show the October 1975 incidents were a string in a pretty long line of incidents with UFO's across air force bases in the US from late 1975 into early 1976. The Loring crew made off pretty well, with a quick explanation about drug smugglers whereas KC-135 crews in Montana in a similar incident in 1976 actually took small arms fire....

What actually happened in the fall of 1975 over Loring AFB is whatever we're told. The "Little Green Men" accounts are inconsistent and feature extraneous detail, but the official explanation would require a superhuman feat of dumb luck that wouldn't even be believable on The Trailer Park Boys. Regardless, it was one of a string of several incidents that are still unexplained.