Robert Hastings

Robert Hastings is an American researcher who has spent over four decades documenting a specific and narrower thesis within ufology: that UFOs have repeatedly been reported interfering with, or appearing near, nuclear weapons facilities and missile installations in both the United States and the former Soviet Union, sometimes coinciding with reported temporary malfunctions of missile guidance and launch systems. Beginning his research as a college student in the 1970s, Hastings has interviewed several hundred former U.S. Air Force officers, missile launch officers, and security personnel who served at nuclear missile bases, compiling their testimony in UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites (2008). His most publicized moment came in 2010, when he organized a National Press Club event at which several retired Air Force officers publicly testified to having witnessed or been briefed on incidents in which UFOs allegedly disabled nuclear missiles, an event that drew significant media coverage and lent institutional weight to a claim previously circulated mostly within UFO subculture circles. Critics note that Air Force explanations attribute most reported missile malfunctions to electromagnetic pulse effects or equipment issues unrelated to any aerial object, and that Hastings's case relies heavily on decades-old personal recollection. His research nonetheless remains the most systematically documented body of testimony connecting UFOs to nuclear security concerns.