Cronkite’s alleged experience was not the only time a UFO had been witnessed destroying or disabling a missile. In 1964, Professor Robert Jacobs served as a Lieutenant with the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Vandenberg Air Force base. He was responsible for filming the test of an Atlas missile. He captured on film the following incident:

"...we were testing ballistic missiles that were to deliver nuclear weapons on target...my duty [was] to supervise the instrumentation photography of every missile that went down in that western test range...and into the frame came something else. It flew into the frame and shot a beam of light at the warhead.  Now remember, all this stuff is flying at several thousand miles an hour.  So this thing [UFO] fires a beam of light at the warhead, hits it and then it [the UFO] moves to the other side and fires another beam of light, then moves again and fires another beam of light, then goes down and fires another beam of light, and then flies out the way it came in.  And the warhead tumbles out of space.  The object, the points of light that we saw, the warhead and so forth, were traveling through subspace about 60 miles straight up.  And they were going somewhere in the neighborhood of 11,000 to 14,000 miles an hour when this UFO caught up to them, flew in, flew around them, and flew back out. 

Jacobs experience along with other incidents of UFOs interfering with nuclear missiles and facilities is covered in a book by Robert Hastings, UFOs and Nukes.

Cronkite ultimately choose not to include his own UFO experience in his 1973 CBS Special. While Cronkite, according to Knell, told a few friends and researchers about the UFO incident, he never made a public statement about it. Cronkite’s passing away on July 17, 2009 will be mourned by many. Something else to consider is that he perhaps took to the grave one of the most remarkable UFO incidents ever witnessed by a U.S. reporter.

[UPDATE 7/18/09 - DISCLAIMER]: I have received very critical emails and comments from people claiming that Bill Knell is a known liar, cheat, that he made up his story about meeting Walter Cronkite, and that I am presenting as fact something that is merely the claim of a known fraud. Some also argue that my article is directing traffic to Knell's website where innocent visitors will be taken advantage by his unscrupulous and criminal activities. Some have even asked me to pull the article. At this stage I choose not to reject Bill Knell's claim regarding Cronkite's UFO experience for three main reasons.

1. To date there has been no clear refutation on Knell's story of meeting Cronkite and participating in the 1973 CBS special despite his claims first going public in 1998. If Knell made up his claim of being on Cronkite's CBS UFO special for a few minutes, then this would be relatively simple to disprove.

2.  It is consistent with many other reports concerning the behavior of UFOs near nuclear facilities and missiles. These incidents are well documented and make Knell's account plausible.

3. Cronkite's UFO experience is presented as a possibility rather than a fact.  If Cronkite did carry a UFO secret to the grave, that is news and does deserve closer scrutiny. 

In conclusion, this story is based on the claims of Bill Knell who many people believe to be a fraud and liar. I have contacted Mr Knell and have yet to hear from him in response to these accusations. I will investigate whether he did appear in the 1973 Cronkite UFO special as he claims. At this stage, I recommend caution in accepting as true the claims of Knell whose past activities have brought the opprobrium of many who have worked or purchased products from him. I have therefore revised the above article accordingly.]

There has been quite a lot of controversy about this article and some of the sources that Salla qutoes.-AS