(traffic buzzing) - [John] Coming up on "Backroads of Montana."

(bat thwacks) This team's mascot story is out of this world.

- It finally hit him as, "These are flying saucers."

(birds chirping) - [John] In Western Montana, these trees reveal a tribal tradition.

- [Tim] So when I talk about our ancestors doing this, they don't do it lightly.

(tool scrapping) - [Narrator] In Southwestern Montana, we unearth ancient crystals.

- [Peter] We'll see all sorts of different people here.

- [John] And it's a different kind of search for relics from Montana's electrical past.

- [John] Being in nature and being out in the mountains and whatnot, you know, it's fun.

- [Narrator] Keep your eyes straight ahead.

It might be the safer way to watch.

(crowd chattering) - [Announcer] "Backroads of Montana" is made possible with production support from the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans; the Big Sky Film Grant administered by the Montana Department of Commerce; and the University of Montana.

(crowd chattering) ♪ Home is where Montana ♪ ♪ Montana is my home ♪ ♪ From mountain peaks to prairie lands ♪ ♪ The places I have known ♪ ♪ And I'm bound to ramble ♪ ♪ Yes, I'm bound to roam ♪ ♪ And when I'm in off the road now, boys ♪ ♪ Montana is my home ♪ (calm music) - Welcome to "Backroads of Montana," offering stories of the authentic people and places across our state.

I'm John Twiggs.

And on this episode, we're hitting the big screen, taking you to a drive-in movie Montana Style.

- [Staff] Hi there.

(crowd chattering) (lively music) - It's called The Pasture Drive-in, located between the small towns of Amsterdam and Manhattan, just west of Bozeman.

During the show, we'll learn the brief but unique history of this place, see what fun activities happen before the movie starts, and reminisce about some of the Montana drive-in theaters that were part of a longstanding tradition.

Another classic American pastime is the backdrop for our first story.

Let's head to the ballpark in the Electric City, where, today, the team honors notable activity off the field.

(lively music) - Take it out.

Here we go.

- [John] At first crack, this team's mascot may seem a little out there.

- It's not your typical Montana team or not what you imagine Great Falls to be about.

- Sometimes people think it's the voyagers, maybe Lewis and Clark, their voyages on the Missouri, but it actually comes back to an alien UFO sighting.

(eerie music) - [John] In fact, this backstop is the backdrop for that story, a few innings and 3/4 of a century ago, when something strange in the sky sent the team manager running for his camera.

The film clip he captured, still analyzed to this day.

- I'm not a believer and I'm probably more of a skeptic, but there are a few sightings, like the one we're gonna talk about, that are compelling because they don't have an answer for them.

This is what got me started.

- [John] Historian Jon Axline has been fascinated by the saucer story since he was a kid.

As an adult, he's pieced together the play-by-play, starting with the man at the center of the sighting.

- [Jon] Nick Mariana was the general manager of the Pioneer baseball team in 1950.

The team was called the Selectrics for a while because of two things.

One, because it was partially named after Great Falls Select Beer.

- [John] The other part, a nod to the electric power generated from the Anaconda Company's hydroelectric plant just across the river, which happened to be Nick Mariana's go-to wind gauge.

- To see which way the wind was blowing off the stack, it was just habit that he did that.

- [John] But on August 15th, 1950, his routine glance landed on something else.

- He noticed a flash in the sky and saw two objects hovering over the refinery, and he could tell that they were definitely spinning.

So he says, you know, "I didn't know what it was at first.

I though it might have been an airplane or something else."

But it finally hit him as, "These are flying saucers."

(mysterious music) - [John] Five years later, Mariana retold the story for Hollywood.

- They appeared to be of a bright shiny metal, like polished silver.

Both were the same size and were traveling at the same rate of speed which was much slower than the jets which shot by shortly after I filmed the discs.

Suddenly they stopped.

It was then I remembered the camera in the glove compartment of my car.

- He had a brand new 16-millimeter camera.

Yelled for his secretary Virginia Raunig to come out and see this so he had somebody to corroborate what he was seeing.

- The distance from the top of the stairway to my car is about 60 feet, and I must have made that in about six jumps.

I asked my secretary if she saw anything, and she said, "Yes, two silvery spheres."

- So you gotta kinda imagine him standing down in the parking lot down here and filming it as they flew behind that water tower.

- I could not see any exhaust, wings, or any kind of fuselage.

There was no cabin, no odor, no sound, except I though I heard a whooshing sound when I first saw them.

(lively music) - [John] Nick Mariana's eyewitness account came with clout.

He'd earned a journalism degree from the University of Montana, served in the US Army, and by 1950, launched a sports broadcast program called "Nick's Picks."

- Oh, you know, he always was a bit of a ham and a character.

And my mom was in drama, and so they did that sports predicting thing, "Nick's Picks," they did as a tag team, and she was his assistant.

And then he would be in a cap and gown and use a stadium light bulb and, you know, pretend he was looking in a crystal ball to predict scores.

(lively music) - [John] Nick Jr.

's childhood clicked through the camera a few years after the UFOs, but when his dad retold the story, Nick always believed him.

- Yeah, I had no reason to doubt it, no reason to.

He wouldn't make up a hoax like that.

People didn't do that in those days, and he was too honest a guy.

(mysterious music) - [John] But Nick Sr.

knew he'd captured perhaps the first-ever video recording of unidentified flying objects, so he was eager to share it.

- There was advertisements in the paper that he was gonna show his famous flying saucer film at these places.

But at one of the meetings, a friend of his suggested that maybe he ought to have the Air Force take a look at that film.

So Nick Mariana, being a good patriot like he was, loaned the film to the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

- [John] The Air Force responded that the film was too dark to distinguish any recognizable objects, and when Marianna received it back, he noticed something.

- And he said, "Well, wait a minute.

This is missing the first part of the film," and that was the film footage that showed the objects over the refinery and where you could see the spinning going on.

- Ready?

- Ready.

- [John] In 1953, a government panel reviewed the remaining footage and concluded it must have been reflections of F-94 jets known to be in the area.

But other analyses concluded the object's light was too steady to be reflections.

Weather balloons and birds were also ruled out.

(mysterious music) So without an agreed-upon explanation, Marianna's home movie fueled America's flying saucer hysteria, especially when movie theaters prepared to show it in 1956.

- It's, almost becomes a little sensational at that point 'cause see them with your own eyes, you better look fast 'cause it's not going to be on very long.

- [John] Ultimately, the national spotlight was short-lived for Marianna too.

- Back from the dead.

- [John] But back in Montana, his story had staying power.

- [Nick Jr.]

Quite dapper.

- [John] Today, flying discs are never far from Nick Marianna Jr.

He turned his property in the Bitterroot Valley into a frolf course.

(bat thwacking) - [Spectators] Oh.

- [John] And back at the ballpark, 75 years later, the story is still circulating.

- It's a fun thing to embrace.

And kids of all ages, young at heart, you know, it's just a lot of fun to believe in aliens.

(chuckles) - [Spectator] Nice job!

(traffic humming) - Great Falls continues to get more mileage out of the sighting.

The owner of the famous Sip 'n Dip mermaid bar has opened the Atomic Underground Lounge in the building's basement.

The theme celebrates the strange with retro analog-only features, and Nick Marianna's sighting has a prominent placement on the bar wall.

(lively music) The Pasture Drive-In in South Central Montana started in 2020.

The Blanchard family had a son Porter who was in high school and needed a senior project.

It was during the pandemic, and he came up with this idea for an entertainment alternative.

Since then, the family has made many improvements, adding a windmill, the concession stand, a band stage, and most importantly, a new huge 50-foot screen.

It has become a special place for so many.

- Like, it's a little piece of heaven, and other people can feel it and they want it.

That's what makes us keep doing it, is 'cause it's that community feel.

It just, it really does feel like you're, like all the community wants to come together and just see each other and visit.

And that's the fun part of it, I think.

(lively music) - The Pasture Drive-In helps the community celebrate a little piece of nostalgia.

(crowd chattering) Our next story takes us back to a time when there were no back roads, just trails.

For centuries, many Native tribes, including the Bitterroot Salish, traveled the land now known as Western Montana.

They set up encampments beneath a variety of trees, where one tribal tradition left its mark.

(calm music) Deep in the Swan Valley, Tim Ryan is looking for clues on the trees.

- A little bit of Douglas fir, little larches there.

- [John] You will eventually see examples of his ancestors' tradition.

- [Tim] I see a living artifact, an artifact from the past, hundreds of years.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) - [John] As the bird flies, 20 miles to the west, by the Flathead River, Mali Matt is looking for the same thing on trees, but first, she must greet the water that helps them live.

(Mali speaking in foreign language) - Thanks, river.

Thank you.

It's me.

I'm here.

- [John] Those special trees near the water mean one thing to her.

- To me, it means that I'm home.

- [John] What they both see is a scar left over a century ago on trees hundreds of years old.

They're officially called culturally modified trees, but the many elders they both interviewed had a different name for it.

- They talked about trees being fixed and that their elders who they learned from would go over and fix a tree.

(birds chirping) - [John] As part of their seasonal travel, each spring, the Bitterroot Salish searched for an encampment site with ample tree cover and a water source nearby.

Once camp was set, they began looking for suitable trees to have their bark peeled, and one group did the job.

- Women scarred the trees.

The (speaks in foreign language), the scarred tree was definitely women doing that.

Thinking about how it's scarred and how you have to pull that up, pull that bark off, you are strong about it.

And you have to know when to do it.

- [John] The natural world set the schedule.

The tribe would watch for seasonal indicators, the growth of spring, that said the tree's bark was ready.

- [Tim] All the plants are reacting to the longer days of sun, the warming of the earth, (creek burbling) maybe a little spring runoff, and then the trees respond to that.

(gentle music) - [John] Swollen with sap, the tree becomes pliable and ready.

Using their tools, the bark is loosened.

The process continues and eventually that bark is peeled away.

On the backside of what's peeled, there's a thin edible layer called cambium, sweet and rich with nutrients, to help feed the tribe.

And there was more to harvest: a thick, sticky substance called pitch.

- It tastes good.

I always like to try to eat some.

(gentle music) Hmm.

It tastes really sweet to me.

Other people might not think that.

(laughs) But it can be very medicinal.

It's antibacterial.

- [John] While the cambium layer nourished the tribe, it was also critical to the tree's health, so that meant a balance must exist.

- Even the elders knew not to take the bark completely around the tree or you'll kill it.

Don't take more than what you need.

Our elders really stressed that: "If we take from you, we're gonna give you something back."

They said if you don't honor that tree or that plant that you harvest, then it may not be there when you really need that.

- [John] There are several thousand scarred trees still standing.

Some even withstood wildfire.

More than 100 miles south, in the Bitterroot Valley, more tribal travels left unique-shaped scars.

For the people that followed, it became a natural billboard signifying a good campsite might be near.

(gentle music) - Whenever I see a scarred tree, I immediately start looking at the land and think, "What's here that they were doing?

Was it good fishing?

Maybe it was good fishing.

Or is there roots up there?

I'll go look."

(birds chirping) - [John] That relationship with the land went beyond food.

While the Ponderosa pine is a sacred tree to the Bitterroot Salish, there were a variety of trees being culturally modified.

Peeling part of a cedar tree would be less for food and more for constructing containers.

- Cedar is really important to the tribes.

We've got a very typical Salish-Kalispel berry-gathering basket.

This is about the size that they used.

- [John] All those uses confirm the bond with the natural world.

For Mali and for Tim- - [Tim] Oh man.

- [John] These living examples tell a story and provide a link to those who came before them.

- And then we are connected with looking at our (speaks in foreign language), and they tell us that story, the scars tell us.

And to me, there's nothing better.

When I come here, I go to the river and then I come to this right here.

- It means a lot to me that these are still here in the land.

It's kind of a confirmation that my spirit ancestors are still here.

(chuckles) They're still using this place.

(deeply inhales) - Tim says nearly all tribes all over the world practice peeling trees, and Montana has a large number of culturally modified examples.

He says he'd like to see more steps taken to preserve those living artifacts for as long as possible.

(lively music) (crowd chattering) Before the movie even starts, there's plenty of activity at The Pasture Drive-In.

It begins with some good old-fashioned tailgating.

Nearby, the kids have an area to play and hopefully tire themselves out.

Often, there's a fun activity based on that week's movie.

This time it's the movie "Up."

Watch out for that balloon toss.

(crowd chattering) The drive-in also loves to help with community fundraisers.

For this event, the Manhattan High School seniors will get the proceeds from the night.

The students help get everyone what they need before the show starts.

Our next story starts 68 million years ago.

That's when molten rock high in the Pioneer Mountains cooled slowly enough to allow beautiful quartz crystals to form.

The place was aptly named Crystal Park, and by the 1980s, it was eventually open to the public.

We took a tour looking for quartz and highly prized amethyst crystals.

- It's just a beautiful place to drive through.

The scenic highway, getting here is very beautiful.

The parking lot's filling up today, and this is a Thursday.

This weekend it will be overflowing.

There are diehard hobbyists, casual collectors.

People just wanna come out for a weekend with their kids and find crystals.

We'll see, if we walk around, we'll see all sorts of different people here.

I've been collecting rocks since I was 14.

And I have degree in geological engineering, and I have collected minerals literally all over the world.

And this is a wonderful place to dig crystals.

Where are you from?

- [Visitor] Washington State.

- [Peter] Oh, okay.

- [Visitor] Yeah.

- You need a shovel and a screen, and that's really all you need.

- [Digger] I see 'em.

Here's another one.

- [Peter] And good eyesight.

- [Digger] Oh, hold on.

Don't move.

There's another little guy right there.

- [Peter] There the little guy.

There's quartz crystals down 3,000 feet here, but there's amethyst only down a couple hundred feet.

- I actually came up to look for sapphires.

Went to Helena and then over to Gem Mountain and found some sapphires in both places.

That was really fun and exciting.

And then on my way back, I decided to stop here at Crystal Park.

- I don't see anybody digging up here.

Let's cross country here a little bit.

- [Marlowe] So there's a lot of holes here.

There's been a lot of activity, people digging.

- [Peter] I would probably dig down there, get some fresh material and sift through it.

- [Marlowe] Okay.

- You know, it's a certain excitement to find a really nice crystal yourself, you know?

And kids love 'em and people love 'em, and old timers like me love 'em.

(laughs) - We're here digging rocks in Rock Park, I think.

- Crystal Park.

- Crystal Park.

- [Visitor] We found a lot.

- [Interviewer] You found some big ones right now?

- Yeah, they're in our mom's bag.

- [Karla] Nice.

Wow, look at these.

Wow.

Oh, nice.

Look at this one.

Look.

That one's really pretty.

- [Elias] I think there's amethyst actually down there.

(camera shutter clicks) - [Karla] There's really no bad spots, I don't think.

- [Elias] Like, you could come here barehanded and still come back with, like, a bucket of ours.

- I would say this is an excellent, like, family spot.

- There's one in there somewhere, I can't find it, that is probably my best one.

There we go.

I got some water in my backpack.

- [Peter] It's amethyst.

- I'm pretty excited.

There's a lot of stuff here for the inexperienced or experienced.

If I can find something like this, then anybody should be able to come here and find something.

- It is a treasure hunt, very much so.

Curious.

A baby one.

And we do enjoy a treasure hunt.

It's a cute little guy.

Even when you're my age.

A keeper.

Put it in the pocket.

- If you were listening closely, you likely heard elk bugling in the background.

Peter says there's almost always a herd of elk bugling just below Crystal Park, a natural soundtrack of sorts for the treasure hunters there.

(lively music) The Pasture Drive-In, located just west of Bozeman, is part of a long tradition of drive-in movie theaters in Montana.

The memories stretch all across the state, but most of those theaters are gone.

Up in Northeastern Montana, folks in Plentywood used to go to the Sunset Drive-In.

That chain served several cities and towns.

One of the longest running theaters was in Lewistown, the Western Air Drive-In.

Today, there are only a handful of these drive-in theaters to add to the collection of great venues around Montana.

(bright music) We've had our share of collections on "Backroads" over the years, and our final story adds another interesting item to that list.

We follow a working lineman whose hobby grew out of his job.

In Southwestern Montana's Flint Creek Range, old utility lines still leave clues for those who know where to look.

(calm music) (Justin heavily breathing) (birds chirping) (twigs snapping) - [Justin] I'm hoping this gets better.

- [John] Justin Martin is on the hunt for traces of Montana's electrical past.

Like any hunt, this one starts with homework so he knows where to look and where not to cross.

(Justin strains) The signs are easy to miss.

- [Justin] There's a pole.

- [John] But Justin knows what old power lines can leave behind.

- [Justin] So what we found here is the number one provost.

These insulators were used all over the western United States, a lot of mining areas.

They're cool old glass, of course, but sadly these ones are all crashed.

- [John] A whole insulator would be a better find, but broken pieces are still worth a look.

- I enjoy just going out and hunting and looking at old power lines and trying to find them.

And it's fun just, I mean, just to go get out and fart around in the wilderness is fun, you know?

(calm music) - [John] Old glass insulators aren't unusual around Montana homes.

Ask around and a lot of people will say, "Oh yeah, I've got one of those."

Ask Justin Martin and the answer is a little different.

(footsteps shuffling) (door creaking) (birds chirping) - [Justin] So this is the collection.

This is the hoard.

- [John] What started with a few insulators has grown into a collection of several hundred.

- Being a lineman is what kinda got me into the insulator collecting, you know, finding them, you know, at work and bringing them home, and that's how I got into the collecting of insulators for the most part.

Yeah, it's definitely a work-related type hobby.

When I see a glass insulator, I see the history, you know, probably first and then the color and, you know, stuff like that.

But, you know, I really like the history of the stuff.

- [John] Collectors notice differences most people would miss.

Two pieces can be nearly the same shape, but a different color can make one much harder to find.

- These are essentially the same insulator.

These clear ones were used all over the place.

They're pretty common.

This one, actually, I took down by Lewistown a long time ago.

But then these amber ones, these are a lot scarcer and more desirable for the color.

One of the first insulators that made me kinda start collecting is, you know, the Muncie insulator, which is the big mushroom shaped one.

These were used on that original power line that ran from Helena to Butte.

At the time when these were, when it was constructed and built, this was the highest voltage power line in the world.

This is an original pole top that the Muncie insulator would have sat on.

This one came off that line that came from Helena to Butte.

(lively music) - [John] That Montana connection is part of what makes this year's National Insulator Convention in Helena a good fit.

- This is our 57th year of the national show.

This is the first national that's ever been hosted in Montana.

- [John] Collectors, both long time and new, come from places as varied as the insulators themselves.

- Hi, I'm Zoltan.

(Zoltan speaking in foreign language) From Hungary.

- I came from Lancaster, California.

- I came here from the United Kingdom, Scotland.

- We're from Nashville, Tennessee.

We're new to the collecting as of August of last year, but we really, like, invested in it and have a lot of fun going around to the shows.

And it's more about meeting the people and just, like, the hobby all together, so it's a great experience.

This one right here is basically an opalescent type.

It was almost kinda like experimental when they made these.

And it's just a really cool thing.

When you hit them with an uplight, you can see, like, different colors in it and stuff, and it's just a nice collector's piece.

(lively music) - [John] The show has sales tables and rare pieces, but the real exchange is not just about buying and selling.

- There is a tremendous amount of knowledge that is getting exchanged.

There's just a lot of stuff going on other than buying and selling.

- [John] That is what Justin sees.

- Yeah, as I walk around this show hall, yeah, you're always learning something.

A lot of these people are walking encyclopedias.

They're a wealth of knowledge and stuff.

- [John] While the old lines get Justin out into the mountains, the history and the people give him plenty of reason to keep looking.

- I enjoy getting out and I enjoy walking in the mountains looking for 'em.

I enjoy the people that are at the shows.

It's fun.

I like it.

My friend in Helena, Ron Yuhas, his wife always calls us insulator nerds, and, you know, she's not wrong.

(laughs) - For more information, you can plug into the National Insulator Association's website.

They'll have identification guides, show listings, and a place to collect resources.

Well, that's all the time we have for this show.

We'd like to thank the Blanchard family and everyone here at The Pasture Drive-In.

♪ Montana is my home ♪ - They're showing movies most weekends from May through the end of October, so stop by and catch a show.

We'd like to catch one of your good story ideas.

If you've got one, drop us a message on our Facebook page, or you can write to us at "Backroads of Montana," University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, 59812.

We've got more great stories to share and two lanes to travel.

I'm John Twiggs, and we hope to see you out on the back roads of Montana.

♪ And there's a might big sky up above us here ♪ - [Announcer] "Backroads of Montana" is made possible with production support from the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans; the Big Sky Film Grant administered by the Montana Department of Commerce; and the University of Montana.

♪ Montana is my home ♪ ♪ From mountain peaks to prairie lands ♪ ♪ The places I have known ♪ ♪ And I'm bound to ramble ♪ ♪ Yes, I'm bound to roam ♪ ♪ And when I'm in off the road now, boys ♪ ♪ Montana is my home ♪ ♪ Coming in off the road now, boys ♪ ♪ You know I'm heading home ♪ (calm music) (gentle music)