Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin
Scott Carpenter
Commander Eugene Cernan
Maurice Chatelain
Major Gordon Cooper
John Glenn
Dr. Jerry Linenberger
James Lovell and Frank Borman
Edgar Mitchell
Walter Schirra
Donald Slayton
Joseph A. Walker
Ed White and James McDivitt
Major Robert White
You can read from many sources:
"One of the original Mercury astronauts and the last American to fly in space alone. On May 15, 1963 he shot into space in a Mercury capsule for a 22 orbit journey around the world. During the final orbit, Major Gordon Cooper told the tracking station at Muchea (near Perth Australia) that he could see a glowing, greenish object ahead of him quickly approaching his capsule. The UFO was real and solid, because it was picked up by Muchea's tracking radar."
And:
"Cooper's sighting was reported by the National Broadcast Company, which was covering the flight step by step; but when Cooper landed, reporters were told that they would not be allowed to question him about the UFO sighting."
And you can read in his book "Leap of Faith:" [1]
"Only one problem with these "reports:" this never happened to me."
Major Cooper is totally convinced that UFOs do exist and that some of them are of extraterrstrial origin, and does not keep this secret [4]; but not because he had seen them personnaly in space. Ten years earlier, in 1951, he had sighted UFOs while piloting an F-86 Sabre jet over Western Germany. They were metallic, saucer-shaped discs at considerable altitude and could out-maneuver all American fighter planes. He knows many pilots who witnessed UFOs. He heard Air Force personnal tell him they have filmed the landing of a UFO. [1]
Major Cooper testified of this before the United Nations:
"I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets... Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs."
"I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, generally from east to west over Europe."
And according to a taped interview by J. L. Ferrando, Major Cooper said:
"For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists in astronautics. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us. And there are thousands of witness reports and a quantity of documents to prove this, but nobody wants to make them public.
Why? Because authority is afraid that people may think of God knows what kind of horrible invaders. So the password still is: We have to avoid panic by all means."
"I was furthermore a witness to an extraordinary phenomenon, here on this planet Earth. It happened a few months ago in Florida. There I saw with my own eyes a defined area of ground being consumed by flames, with four indentations left by a flying object which had descended in the middle of a field. Beings had left the craft (there were other traces to prove this). They seemed to have studied topography, they had collected soil samples and, eventually, they returned to where they had come from, disappearing at enormous speed... I happen to know that authority did just about everything to keep this incident from the press and TV, in fear of a panicky reaction from the public."
Sources:
In June 1965, astronauts Ed White (first American to walk in space) and James McDivitt were passing over Hawaii in a Gemini spacecraft when they saw a weird-looking metallic object. The UFO had long arms sticking out of it. McDivitt took pictures with a cine-camera. Those pictures have never been released.
But the images have been investigated, and lead to an interesting conclusion.
Associated Press release, PHOENIX - A former astronaut who walked on the moon says he think aliens have crash-landed on Earth. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, said he believes some military and other planes use technology derived from alien spacecraft that have been captured and disassembled. The purported secret project has been going for decades under a parallel government administration, separate from the president and the highest-ranking members of the Pentagon, Mitchell said. On Saturday, Mitchell called for congressional hearings on whether the United States has captured alien craft and studied them to produce new technologies.
"We know all that the UFOS are real. Something arrives to us up there. You acquire a total conscience, a general orientation, a dissatisfaction of the state of the world and an irresistible desire for curing it."
Edgar Mitchell is quite active about the UFO phenomenon. Here some insight on his current concerns, and some of his comments related to the Roswell incident.
Video, Edgar Mitchell interview.
In December 1965, Gemini astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman also saw a UFO during their second orbit of their record-breaking 14-day flight. Borman reported that he saw an unidentified spacecraft some distance from their capsule. Gemini Control, at Cape Kennedy told him that he was seeing the final stage of their own Titan booster rocket. Borman confirmed that he could see the booster rocket all right, but that he could also see something completely different.
During James Lovell's flight on Gemini 7:
Lovell: BOGEY AT 10 O'CLOCK HIGH.
Capcom: This is Houston. Say again 7.
Lovell: SAID WE HAVE A BOGEY AT 10 O'CLOCK HIGH.
Capcom: Gemini 7, is that the booster or is that an actual sighting?
Lovell: WE HAVE SEVERAL... ACTUAL SIGHTING.
Capcom: ...Estimated distance or size?
Lovell: WE ALSO HAVE THE BOOSTER IN SIGHT...
According to the NASA Astronaut Neil Armstrong the Aliens have a base on the Moon and told us in no uncertain terms to get off and stay off the Moon.
According to hitherto unconfirmed reports, both Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin saw UFOs shortly after that historic landing on the Moon in Apollo 11 on 21 July 1969. Some of us remember hearing one of the astronauts refer to a "light" in or on a crater during the television transmission, followed by a request from mission control for further information. Nothing more was heard.
According to a former NASA employee Otto Binder, unnamed radio hams with their own VHF receiving facilities that bypassed NASA's broadcasting outlets picked up the following exchange:
NASA: What's there? Mission Control calling Apollo 11...
Apollo11: These "Babies" are huge, Sir! Enormous! OH MY GOD! You wouldn't believe it! I'm telling you there are other spacecraft out there, Lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They're on the Moon watching us!
A certain professor, who wished to remain anonymous, was engaged in a discussion with Neil Armstrong during a NASA symposium.
Professor: What REALLY happened out there with Apollo 11?
Armstrong: It was incredible, of course we had always known there was a possibility, the fact is, we were warned off!(by the Aliens). There was never any question then of a space station or a moon city.
Professor: How do you mean "warned off"?
Armstrong: I can't go into details, except to say that their ships were far superior to ours both in size and technology - Boy, were they big!...and menacing! No, there is no question of a space station.
Professor: But NASA had other missions after Apollo 11?
Armstrong: Naturally - NASA was committed at that time, and couldn't risk panic on Earth. But it really was a quick scoop and back again.
According to a Dr. Vladimir Azhazha - a Russian ufologist widely considered a liar:
"Neil Armstrong relayed the message to Mission Control that two large, mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the moon module. But this message was never heard by the public - because NASA censored it."
According to a Dr. Aleksandr Kasantsev, Buzz Aldrin took color movie film of the UFOs from inside the module, and continued filming them after he and Armstrong went outside.
Armstrong confirmed that the story was true but refused to go into further detail, beyond admitting that the CIA was behind the cover-up.
Donald Slayton a Mercury astronaut revealed in an interview he had seen UFOs in 1951:
"I was testing a P-51 fighter in Minneapolis when I spotted this object. I was at about 10,000 feet on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon. I thought the object was a kite, then I realized that no kite is gonna fly that high."
As I got closer it looked like a weather balloon, gray and about three feet in diameter. But as soon as I got behind the darn thing it didn't look like a balloon anymore. It looked like a saucer, a disk.
About the same time, I realized that it was suddenly going away from me -- and there I was, running at about 300 miles per hour. I tracked it for a little way, and then all of a sudden the damn thing just took off. It pulled about a 45 degree climbing turn and accelerated and just flat disappeared."
On July 17, 1962 Major Robert White reported a UFO during his fifty-eight-mile high flight of an X-15. Major White reported:
"I have no idea what it could be. It was grayish in color and about thirty to forty feet away."
Then according to a Time Magazine article, Major White exclaimed over the radio:
"There ARE things out there! There absolutely is!"
On May 11, 1962 NASA pilot Joseph Walker said that one of his tasks was to detect UFOs during his X-15 flights. He had filmed five or six UFOs during his record breaking fifty-mile-high flight in April, 1962. It was the second time he had filmed UFOs in flight. During a lecture at the Second National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space Research in Seattle, Washington he said:
"I don't feel like speculating about them. All I know is what appeared on the film which was developed after the flight."
To date none of those films has been released to the public for viewing.
In 1979 Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems confirmed that Armstrong had indeed reported seeing two UFOs on the rim of a crater. Chatelain believes that some UFOs may come from our own solar system - specifically Titan.
"The encounter was common knowledge in NASA, but nobody has talked about it until now."
"...all Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin - flying saucers, or UFOs, if you want to call them by that name. Every time it occurred, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence."
"I think that Walter Schirra aboard Mercury 8 was the first of the astronauts to use the code name 'Santa Claus' to indicate the presence of flying saucers next to space capsules. However, his announcements were barely noticed by the general public. It was a little different when James Lovell on board the Apollo 8 command module came out from behind the moon and said for everybody to hear: 'PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS.' Even though this happened on Christmas Day 1968, many people sensed a hidden meaning in those words."
The rumors persist. NASA may well be a civilian agency, but many of its programs are funded by the defense budget and most of the astronauts are subject to military security regulations. Apart from the fact that the National Security Agency screens all films and probably radio communications as well. We have the statements by Otto Binder, Dr. Garry Henderson and Maurice Chatelain that the astronauts were under strict orders not to discuss their sightings. And Gordon Cooper has testified to a United Nations committee that one of the astronauts actually witnessed a UFO on the ground. If there is no secrecy, why has this sighting not been made public?
"At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone: there was a constant surveillance by UFOs."
Note: source [1] also reports that Scott Carpenter denied that he ever said that. Author Tim Good comments that the denial means that he regretted having said that because he should have kept it secret. I rather comment that he simply never said that, it does anyway not correspond to the situation according any other Astronaut (none says there was a constant UFO presence). I did not check if sources [2] and [3] also quote the denial.
Carpenter is also said to have seen and photographed a UFO during his Mercury - Aurora 7 flight of May 24, 1962, and that the photo never turned up after the film was processed. I have not find a reliable source about this.
The following story circulates the Internet:
"In 1962, Scott Carpenter was saved by the Extraterrestrials. He said initially by radio: "It is true, they exist. They are here, let Glenn know". During the same flight, when he used manual control, he made an error of four hundred kilometers, with the radio off. It was believed he had disintegrated. When he finally landed on sea, and as the exit opened, he shouted: "Who are you? Where do you come from?" Then, returned at the base, he explained: "the entry in the atmosphere was soft, I did not feel any heat. The capsule was surrounded by a green halation which flickered and which disappeared at the entry in the atmosphere."
I found no reliable source for this story.
In April 2001 he tells to a Cincinnatti newspaper journalist: [4]
"UFOs absolutely do exist, but flying saucers do not," said Mr. Carpenter, who believes there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. "Fifty percent of UFOs are deliberate hoaxes, another 45 percent are (phenomena) from this planet not understood by the viewing public, and that leaves just 5 percent. We have no hard evidence of visitation" from other planets.
Sources:
Scott Carpenter was born on May 1, 1925 in Boulder, Colorado. He attended the University of Colorado and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering, then participated in the Korean war flying antisubmarine missions. He became a Navy test pilot and was assigned to the Electronics Test Division of the Naval Air Test Center where he flew multi and single engine jet and propeller driven fighters, attack planes, patrol bombers, transports, and seaplanes. He was assigned as Air Intelligence Officer to the Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. HORNET. He then joined NASA on April 2, 1959, piloted his Aurora 7 spacecraft through three revolutions of the earth, with a duration of 0.21 days and left in 1967.
Numerous sources report that:
"February 20, 1962: John Glenn, piloting his Mercury capsule, saw three objects follow him and then overtake him at varying speeds."
Actually, the above account is authentic but misleading when, as in its publication in [1] it is not followed by the remainder of Glenn's account of Glenn. He continues [2] by stating that the objects become very numerous, moved very slowly, resembled fireflies, had the apparent size of stars and are particularly illuminated by the setting sun. NASA suspected later than they are particles coming from the capsule itself. This was later clearly established during following spaceflights, and particularly when Carpenter on board Mercury 7 [3]: accidentally hitting the capsule's wall, he inadvertently started the take-off of the same fireflies. Thereafter other astronauts would do this for fun.
Debunker James Oberg wrote with justified reasons [4] that this was fraud by omission in [1], reporting that Hynek was against the publication of Fawcett's unverified listing of astronauts' sightings in the book, while Vallée wanted to publish it to raise the interest of the researchers and the public about astronauts observations, also with the intention to show that UFOs are too much variable in their aspect to me "mere extraterrestrial spacecraft."
Sources:
During his five months stay on the MIR Russian space station, NASA astronaut Dr. Jerry Linenger saw unidentified objects in space several times, according to his own statement. In November 2002, four years after his stay on MIR, he said on the Bur Juman Retail Conference in the Emirate Towers Hotel in presence of journalists:
"I have been asked that question so many times. In five months in space, I have seen unidentified flying objects for sure.
"Sometimes I looked out of the window and I could see a metallic thing like a spoon flying methodically. The biggest problem in space is that it is very hard to judge distance. It could have been a spoon or a space ship thousands of miles away.
"Let me tell you one thing, I have never heard someone knock at the door and say - Hey Jerry let me in!"
Source:
Astronaut Walter Schirra on abord Sigma 7 flight MA-8 on October 3, 1962, reported a faint luminosity of a patchy nature while south of Madagascar, looking in the general direction of India as follows: [1] [2]
"A smog-appearing layer was evident during the fourth pass while I was in drifting flight on the night side, almost at 32° south latitude. I would say that this layer represented about a quarter of the field of view out of the window and this surprised me. I thought I was looking at clouds all the time until I saw stars down at the bottom or underneath the glowing layer."
"Seeing the stars below the glowing layer was probably the biggest surprise I had during the flight. I expect that future flights may help to clarify the nature of this band of light, which appeared to be thicker than that reported by Scott Carpenter." [2]
The Condon Report explained the phenomenon as a "tropical airglow" without clearly explaining how this large faint glowing patch could be above stars. It is noted that this "airglow" phenomenon is at 250 km above the surface of the Earth. Although the phenomenon is quite undoubtfully natural, the explanations seem of little scientific value.
In contradiction with the Condon Report explanation, debunker James Oberg wrote that Schirra [3] "was referring to lightning-lit cloud masses over the ocean a hundred miles below." This is simply not a correct rendition of what Schirra reported.
Walter Marty Schirra Jr. was born on March 12, 1923 at Hackensack, New Jersey. He flew 90 combat missions during the Korea war as US Navy fighter pilot, then was a US Navy test pilot, he joined NASA on April 2, 1959. He made 3 space flights for a total of 17 days, 7 hours, 12 minutes and left NASA in 1969.
Sources:
