Nick Mariana

Nick Mariana served as manager of the Great Falls Electrics, a minor league baseball team based in Great Falls, Montana. On August 15, 1950, while inspecting the baseball field at Legion Stadium, Mariana filmed two bright, rotating disc-shaped objects over Great Falls using a 16mm home movie camera. The resulting 16-second footage depicted the objects as bright silvery discs moving at an estimated speed of 200 to 400 miles per hour.

This 16-second Mariana footage, known as the Great Falls UFO film, was subsequently analyzed by the United States Air Force, which initially confiscated the film and reportedly removed the clearest frames. The film was studied by the Robertson Panel in 1953 and later analyzed by independent analysts. Considered one of the earliest and most significant UFO films, the Great Falls UFO film underwent multiple investigations that yielded inconclusive results, with independent analysts concluding that the objects could not be identified as aircraft or birds.