David D. Schindele

David D. Schindele is a retired U.S. Air Force Captain who served as a missile combat crew commander at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota during the 1960s. During his service, he oversaw a flight of nuclear-armed Minuteman I missiles and was stationed at the base during a specific incident that occurred in 1966.

While on duty, Schindele reported experiencing unexplained failures of ten nuclear-armed Minuteman I missiles that coincided with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) activity observed by base security. The UAP reportedly hovered outside the main gate of the facility, and these failures rendered the missiles unlaunchable. Following the incident, Air Force officials instructed Schindele that the event "It Never Happened" and ordered him never to speak of it.

Schindele maintained the classified status of his experience for decades before eventually coming forward publicly and authoring a book on the matter. In 2017, he published "It Never Happened, Volume 1: U.S. Air Force UFO Cover-up Revealed," which documents his personal experience and the culture of secrecy surrounding UAP events at nuclear sites. His account contributes to a documented pattern of UAP-nuclear weapons interactions that occurred at Malmstrom, Minot, and other ICBM bases during the Cold War.