Overview
A former U.S. Border Patrol officer is revisiting a 1966 UFO sighting near Donnybrook, North Dakota, an account that continues to draw attention nearly six decades later. Don Flickinger, who was stationed in Minot at the time, says he observed an unidentified flying object on Aug. 19, 1966, during a period when public fascination with unexplained aerial encounters was rising across the region and the country. Today, the government uses the term UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena, to describe such incidents.
Flickinger recently reflected on the episode in an interview with The Minot Daily News, saying he supports the ongoing release of long-classified UFO files. “I think it should have been done a long time ago,” he said. “They’re creating more harm than they are doing any good by holding all that stuff back.” He added that, in his view, the public can handle the information and deserves greater transparency about what authorities know.
The Donnybrook sighting and Hynek’s visit
According to Flickinger, the 1966 sighting drew the attention of the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer and Northwestern University professor who became one of the best-known scientific figures associated with UFO research. Hynek served as scientific adviser to the U.S. Air Force’s official investigations, including Project Sign, Project Grudge and Project Blue Book, and later helped bring academic credibility to the study of aerial anomalies. Flickinger said Hynek traveled to Minot, stayed at his home for a couple of days and accompanied him to the site near Donnybrook.
Flickinger described physical markings he said were visible on the ground at the location. “Each marking was a round, kind of like a hole in the ground maybe 4 or 5 inches deep,” he recalled. “There were three marks in a triangular position.” He estimated that, if the marks were connected in a circle, they would have spanned roughly 30 feet in diameter. In a 1969 presentation reported by The Minot Daily News, Flickinger said the disc-shaped object he observed lifted from the ground, hovered briefly, and then sped away. He estimated the craft measured about 40 feet wide.
Flickinger also said that when he returned the following day, he found what appeared to be three large “feet” impressions and grass bent over at the site, suggesting that something substantial had rested there. At the time, he was also chairman of the Dakota Aerial Phenomena Organization in Minot, a subgroup of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, or NICAP, which was one of the leading civilian UFO research organizations in the United States.
Broader context and enduring questions
The Minot-area case was not isolated. Flickinger told the Lions Club in 1969 that other sightings in the region, including reports near Harvey and film footage from Westhope, were also being reviewed by researchers. He noted then that many witnesses chose not to identify themselves because of fear of ridicule, and he emphasized that many of the people reporting these events were, in his words, “highly reputable.” He said his group verified both witnesses and sightings before forwarding reports to NICAP.
Flickinger also pointed to what he viewed as physical indicators beyond eyewitness testimony, including odors, heat sensations, electromagnetic interference, radio activity and radar returns. Those details mirror the kinds of evidence that have long fueled debate in UFO research: whether some incidents can be explained by conventional causes or whether they point to technology not yet understood. While no definitive conclusion has ever been established in the Donnybrook case, the account remains part of the broader historical record of North Dakota sightings and the long-running public interest in unexplained aerial phenomena.
