Harland Bentley
Harland F. Bentley is a UAP whistleblower who claimed to have witnessed a UFO crash and recovery operation in May 1958 near a Nike Ajax missile site outside Washington, D.C., and to have subsequently overheard communications between Houston Mission Control and the Apollo 8 crew describing an encounter with a saucer-like craft. Bentley stated he held an electrical engineering degree with graduate work in nuclear engineering and served as a private first class in the U.S. Army as a radar operator. He first appeared publicly at Steven Greer's 2001 Disclosure Project event. UAP Gerb was unable to verify Bentley's military records or educational credentials, requiring his claims to be evaluated on their own merit.
| Role | UAP whistleblower, US Army veteran, electrical engineer |
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1958 Nike Ajax Missile Site UFO Encounter
Bentley claimed to have been stationed at a Nike Ajax missile facility north of Washington, D.C., near Olney, Maryland — likely either Site W-92 (Gaithersburg) or W-93 (Olney). The Nike Ajax program, spearheaded by Bell Labs, deployed surface-to-air missile systems across the U.S. and NATO during the Cold War to defend against enemy bomber aircraft.
At approximately 6:00 a.m. in May 1958, Bentley claimed to observe a disc-shaped craft — roughly 30 feet in diameter, with circular ball-like pulsating lights cycling between orange, red, and white, and a cake-like structure on top — collide with the ground in a civilian cornfield roughly 2,000 yards from his position, then immediately take flight again. This regaining of flight capability is noted as unusual in crash retrieval accounts. Metallic debris was left at the impact site, including a washing machine-sized piece glowing white hot. Shortly thereafter, US Air Force personnel in radiation protection suits arrived with long poles and a lead-lined truck to collect the material. Bentley did not learn where the debris was taken.
The following evening, a nearby Gaithersburg facility contacted Bentley's site reporting 12 to 15 UFOs of varying shapes hovering 50 to 100 feet off the ground. The M-33 radar system at Bentley's facility tracked the objects; all signatures departed simultaneously in a single sweep. Based on the M-33's 33.33 RPM scan rate and an analog computer calculation, the objects would have been traveling in excess of 177,000 mph. A presiding general debriefed the men, attributing the contacts to Navy-Army-Air Force maneuver training exercises — an explanation Bentley found implausible and for which UAP Gerb found no supporting documentation.
A contextually relevant case occurred in October 1958, fewer than 50 miles from Olney: the Loch Raven Reservoir incident, documented in J. Allen Hynek's The UFO Experience, in which two men's car stalled within 75 feet of a 100-foot egg-shaped UFO hovering over a bridge, they were struck by a white light beam, and were subsequently treated for sunburns. A separate case from September 29, 1958, at the W-93 Nike Ajax site describes Private Jerome Scanland observing a teardrop-shaped object land approximately 1.5 miles away, with broken branches and scorched earth found at the site.
Apollo 8 Communication Claim
Bentley claimed that while conducting classified NASA contracting work at a California facility in approximately 1967–1968, he overheard Houston Mission Control communicate with the Apollo 8 crew about a "bogey coming in at 11:00." The crew requested and received permission to perform collision avoidance. The unidentified craft was described as saucer-like, paralleling the capsule, with visible portals and internal movement suggesting occupants. The crew reportedly stated "they are now paralleling our course" before the craft departed. A colleague immediately told Bentley: "You did not hear anything."
This claim intersects with a separate thread investigated by UAP Gerb: a Disclosure Project witness (number 101179), identified as Elaine Boder, who claimed to have seen an uncut NASA film depicting six UFOs descending onto the lunar surface taken by astronaut Frank Borman during Apollo 8. Bentley's account and Boder's claim are treated as parallel but unverified and unconnected threads.