Mario Woods

Early Military Service

Mario Woods served as a Staff Sergeant in the United States Air Force Security Police, assigned to guard duty at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, South Dakota, one of the Strategic Air Command's critical nuclear missile installations during the height of the Cold War. His role placed him among the most security-vetted personnel in the U.S. military—individuals responsible for defending intercontinental ballistic missiles and maintaining the nuclear deterrent.

The 1977 Encounter

On a night in 1977 while on duty guarding nuclear missile silos, Woods and his partner witnessed what he describes as an extraordinary encounter. According to Woods, he observed a massive spherical craft approximately the size of a Walmart, which descended toward the military facility. The object featured flashing lights that illuminated the night sky in ways he described as incompatible with conventional aircraft.

Most dramatically, Woods reported seeing four non-human beings emerge or become visible—three of smaller stature and one tall figure, estimated at approximately 20 feet in height, positioned roughly 20 feet away from where he stood. Woods reported experiencing intense paralysis induced by a bright light emanating from the craft, though he claims the beings communicated with him telepathically to alleviate his fear. The encounter left him with physical burns on his body and periods of missing time he could not account for, consistent with abduction narratives common in UFO literature.

Immediate Aftermath and Discrepancies

Following the encounter, military medical personnel examined Woods and documented the burns and other physical marks on his body. They reportedly extracted skin samples for analysis, establishing a contemporaneous medical record of physical evidence from the incident. Woods claims he was instructed to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the event, which remained classified or restricted for decades. The involvement of military medical personnel and documented physical evidence distinguishes his account from purely anecdotal UFO reports, lending credibility to his assertion that military authorities took the incident seriously enough to document it.

However, the precise nature of Woods' experience remains contested. His account includes elements characteristic of abduction narratives—missing time, telepathic communication, and physical marks—features that skeptical scientists often attribute to false memory, sleep paralysis, or psychological factors rather than literal extraterrestrial contact. The 1977 timeframe also places his encounter during the post-Condon era, when mainstream scientific interest in UFO investigation had significantly declined following the negative conclusions of the 1968 Condon Report.

Later Testimony and Media Presence

Woods remained relatively private about his encounter for decades until public disclosure movements accelerated in the 2010s and 2020s. He eventually came forward with his testimony, appearing in multiple forums including podcasts such as "AREA52: DEBRIEFED with Chris Ramsay" and others, where he discussed his encounter with consistent details. His account gained broader mainstream visibility when he was featured prominently in The Age of Disclosure, the 2025 documentary directed by Dan Farah (released November 21, 2025), which compiled testimonies from 34 senior U.S. officials and military veterans regarding alleged government cover-ups of non-human intelligence.

In addition to documentary appearances, Woods has testified to the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), providing his account to the U.S. government's official UAP investigation office. His participation in government briefings suggests that his testimony has been deemed significant enough by official channels to warrant inclusion in formal investigations, though the classified nature of AARO's work means full details of his testimony remain restricted.

Contemporary Significance

Woods represents an important category of UAP witnesses: credible military insiders with security clearances, stationed at sensitive facilities, whose encounters involve physical evidence and contemporaneous military documentation. His prominence in The Age of Disclosure places him among the most visible Cold War-era military witnesses to come forward in recent years. Whether his experience constitutes literal extraterrestrial contact, advanced human technology misidentified under night conditions, or psychological/neurological phenomena remains a point of significant disagreement between proponents and skeptics within the UFO research community.