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Mario Woods

Former U.S. Air Force security police member who described a 1977 encounter at an Ellsworth missile site
Mario Woods
Aerial view of a Minuteman II launch facility at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota
Aerial view of a Minuteman II launch facility at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota. Illustrative only: this is not the “November 5” site. Image: Robert Lyon, HAER/Library of Congress, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Died16 October 2026[11]
Cause of deathAcute myeloid leukemia[11]
NationalityUnited States
CategoryWitness
Known for
RolesRetired U.S. Air Force staff sergeant, security police (Ellsworth AFB); later U.S. Department of Energy nuclear-facility security inspector
Notable claimReported a 1977 close encounter and missing time while responding to an alarm at a Minuteman missile launch facility near Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota
Associated withMichael Johnson (claimed second witness); Jesse Michels; Linda Moulton Howe
StatusUnverified single-witness accountSecond witness claimed, not yet documented

Mario Woods was a retired U.S. Air Force staff sergeant, a member of the security police, who became known in the UFO/UAP community for his account of a 1977 encounter at a Minuteman missile launch facility near Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. Woods said that he and a fellow airman, Michael Johnson, were sent to investigate an alarm at a site code-named “November 5” and encountered a large, glowing object, lost several hours, and later underwent a base medical examination.[1][2]

Woods told the story publicly over a number of years, in interviews with researchers and podcasters, and said he also described it to the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in a long recorded interview.[1][4] In August 2026, filmmaker and podcaster Jesse Michels said his team had located Johnson, a development that drew wide attention but that, as of this writing, has not been backed by released service records or an independent investigation.[5][6] Woods died on 16 October 2026 after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, according to an update posted by his family.[11]

Background

According to published biographical summaries based on Woods’s own statements, he served in the U.S. Air Force from 1975 to 1983, assigned to a security response team at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, South Dakota, as part of the base’s missile security force (identified in some accounts as the 44th Missile Security Squadron).[1][3][7] He is generally described as a retired staff sergeant, though a few outlets give other ranks and his service branch is sometimes mislabeled in online discussion; these details rest on Woods’s own account rather than published service records.[8]

After leaving the Air Force he reportedly worked for the U.S. Department of Energy in nuclear-facility security. The accounts list a security inspector post at the General Electric Neutron Device facility in Largo, Florida; guard duty protecting a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory; and work at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the K-25 gaseous diffusion facility. He is said to have held a Q clearance and to have left the department in 1986 during downsizing.[2][3]

The 1977 Ellsworth encounter

The account below is Woods’s own, as reported by secondary outlets and podcasts. No Air Force record of the incident has been made public.

Woods’s account

Woods has said that on a night in 1977, at about 10:45 p.m., his security team received a breach alarm from a Minuteman launch facility designated “November 5.” He and Michael Johnson, who is described in some accounts as his team leader and in others as his partner, drove out to investigate.[1][3] He described an eerie glow and a large, rounded object hovering a few feet off the ground, bigger than a building and without visible edges. He said the air felt thick, that Johnson became unresponsive, and that he lost consciousness himself after shining a flashlight toward the object.[1][3]

Woods said he came to when the base radioed for a unit and found their truck miles away near Newell Lake, with no tire tracks that would explain how it got there. Accounts differ on how much time was missing: some sources say about four hours, while more recent coverage of the Michels interviews describes nine lost hours.[1][6][7] Several accounts, including recent coverage of the reunion, place the incident in November 1977.[7]

Aftermath

Woods said he was questioned by senior officers at the base and examined by a flight surgeon, who found burns on his face and hand and took a skin sample whose results he says he was never told.[1][6] He said Johnson visited about two weeks later and that the two did not meet again for decades.[3] Years afterward, Woods said, he underwent hypnotic regression to recover the missing time. In an Earthfiles interview with Linda Moulton Howe, he described a black sphere, smaller beings in gray uniforms and a taller being with bluish-gray skin, and a rapid “life review.”[3] A separate write-up of one of his interviews adds that he felt a message of “do not fear” conveyed as vibration rather than sound.[10]

Public profile and testimony

Woods’s story circulated through UFO podcasts and conference talks before reaching a wider audience. A podcast show-notes page says his 1977 case was featured in 2020 on the television program Unidentified, and that he appeared on a UFO radio and video show in June 2023.[2] On 17 January 2025 he was the subject of a long-form episode of Jesse Michels’s American Alchemy podcast, in which he described the encounter and said he hoped to reconnect with Johnson.[4] A catalog entry at Anomaly Archives lists further video appearances, including interviews from 2024 and early 2025.[8]

Claimed AARO interview

Woods said he gave sworn testimony to AARO about the incident in an interview lasting 4 hours and 19 minutes. According to one summary of his remarks, he said he could not name the interviewer or repeat the questions because of a non-disclosure agreement, and that the questions did not change his account. He also disputed the then-AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick’s public statement that there was no correlation between UFOs and nuclear weapons.[1] A later review of the case notes that no AARO transcript or official case record has been identified.[5]

The second-witness claim (2026)

On the Joe Rogan Experience in late August 2026, Jesse Michels said his team had located Michael Johnson, and that the two men had been reunited and recorded comparing memories. Michels reportedly described their accounts as “very similar but not perfectly identical.”[5] A subsequent American Alchemy episode released on 7 September 2026 presented the reunion. In it, Johnson says he was frozen at the steering wheel, recalls a bright light and figures that glided toward the truck, and says the Air Force treated him harshly afterward; the episode description says the two men were separated and one was discharged.[6] On 6 September 2026 the American Alchemy team also launched a fundraiser to support both men, which had raised well over $100,000 by the time the page was reviewed.[12]

Commentators noted that this does not by itself corroborate the case. Johnson’s account is being made public decades later and after exposure to published versions of Woods’s story; no duty rosters, alarm logs, medical records or contemporaneous investigative files had been released; and the comparison interview itself had not been published when the claim was first made.[5]

Death

Woods was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in the autumn of 2026 after a sudden illness and hospitalization, according to a fundraising page organized by his daughter. Complications during treatment included pneumonia and a serious fungal lung infection.[11] The family wrote in an update that he died peacefully at 12:34 a.m. on 16 October 2026, with his wife, son and daughter at his side. The news was also circulated the same day by Pavel Ibarra Meda and others in the UFO community.[9][11]

Assessment

What is documented is limited. Woods spoke publicly and consistently about the 1977 incident for years, and in 2026 a second man identified as Michael Johnson came forward through a prominent podcaster to say he remembered the event. What is not documented is almost everything else: there are no released Air Force records of the alarm, the investigation, the medical examination or the alleged discharge, no public record of the AARO interview, and the key Woods–Johnson comparison interview was not available to outside reviewers at the time of the claim.[5][8]

Readers should treat the encounter, the lost time and the beings described under hypnosis as unverified personal testimony. Skeptical explanations include misidentification of an object at a heavily alarmed site, fatigue or stress during night duty, and memory contamination over decades. The case is cited by researchers who argue for a link between UFO reports and nuclear installations, a pattern also discussed in the Malmstrom AFB incident and Minot AFB incident, but Woods’s account remains a single-witness narrative until records or a published second account can be examined.

See also

Further reading

References

  1. ^ “Ret. USAF Testified His Terrifying Alien Abduction With Tall Being & UFO Encounter To Pentagon AARO.” Journal News Online. journalnews.com.ph
  2. ^ “Show #563 Notes: Mario Woods.” Podcast UFO, posted 26 June 2023. podcastufo.com
  3. ^ “Ret. USAF Mario Woods Testified To Pentagon’s AARO: Alien Abduction & Encounter With Tall Beings.” UFO Secret, 2 May 2025. ufosecret.net
  4. ^ “Meet The Nuclear Base Employee Abducted By Aliens.” American Alchemy with Jesse Michels, 17 January 2025. Apple Podcasts
  5. ^ “Jesse Michels’ Team Says It Found a Second Witness to Mario Woods’ 1977 UFO Account.” Measured Unknown, 28 August 2026. measuredunknown.com
  6. ^ “Air Force Veterans Abducted By Aliens Reunite After 50 Years [EMOTIONAL].” American Alchemy with Jesse Michels, 7 September 2026 (transcript). podscripts.co
  7. ^ “NOVEMBER 5th.” The Political Saucer (Substack), 12 September 2026. politicalsaucer.substack.com
  8. ^ “Woods, Mario.” Anomaly Archives. anomalyarchives.org
  9. ^ Pavel Ibarra Meda, post on X announcing the death of Mario Woods, 16 October 2026. x.com
  10. ^ “Crazy story for you guys today.” The Mysteries of Occultum (Substack), 14 May 2025. occultum.substack.com
  11. ^ “Support my dad and our family while he battles Leukemia.” GoFundMe, organized by Lexie Woods; update of 16 October 2026. gofundme.com
  12. ^ “Mario & Michael.” GoFundMe, organized by American Alchemy, 6 September 2026. gofundme.com
Categories: United States Witness Military Witness

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