Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries (62 page)

After landing, the film from Gemini 4 was flown back to Houston immediately, whereas Ed White and I stayed on the aircraft carrier for three days. During this period of time a film technician at NASA evaluated the photographs and selected what he thought was the photograph of this particular object. Unfortunately, what he selected was a photograph of sunspots [flares] on the window and had nothing whatsoever to do with the object that I had seen. The photograph was released before I returned and had a chance to point out the error in the selection. I, subsequently, went through the photographs myself and was unable to find any photograph like the object I had seen. Apparently, the camera settings were not appropriate for the pictures.

I do not feel that there was anything strange or exotic about this particular object. Rather, only that I could not identify it. In a combination of both Gemini 4 and Apollo 9 I saw numerous satellites, some of which we identified and some of which we didn't. ... I have seen a lot of objects that I could not identify, but I have yet to see one that could be identified as a spaceship from some other planet. I can't say that there aren't any, only that I haven't seen any. I hope this helps Tim.
with whatever settings the camera had at that to be relatively close and I went through the time. The trouble of

control system in case I needed to take any evasive

Neither Gordon Cooper nor Dick Gordon replied to Scott's letter, it seems, and I have never been able to receive a reply from Cooper, althought he has spoken publicly of his interest in the subject. In fact, interest in UFOs was one of the reasons that inspired him to become an astronaut. "I . . . had the idea that there might be some interesting forms of life out in space for us to discover and get acquainted with," he wrote in 1962. "As far as I am concerned there have been far too many unexplained examples of unidentified objects sighted around the earth ... the fact that many experienced pilots had reported strange sights did heighten my curiosity about space . . . This was one of the reasons, then, why I wanted to become an Astronaut."

In 1978 Cooper attended a meeting of the Special Political Committee United Nations General Assembly in order to discuss UFOs. Later that year a letter from Cooper was read at another UN meeting:

... I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which are obviously a little more advanced than we are here on earth.

I feel that we need to have a top-level, coordinated program to specifically collect and analyze data from all over the earth concerning the type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion.

Also, / did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation ... flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, from east to west over Europe. [Emphasis added.]

Cooper said that most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs "due to the great numbers of people who have indiscriminately sold fake and forged documents abusing their names and reputations without hesitation." But he added that there were "several of us who do believe in UFOs" and who have had occasion to see a UFO on, around, or from an aircraft. "There was only one occasion from space which may have been a UFO," Cooper's letter revealed, without elaborating.

A UFO seen on the ground by an astronaut? The only reference I have to such an incident is contained in an article which the late Lou Zinsstag translated from the French for me in 1973. Unfortunately, I have neither the name of the paper nor the date, but the article was written by J. L. Ferrando, based on an interview with an astronaut at a congress in New York in mid-1973, tape-recorded by Benny Manocchia. The name of the astronaut? None other than Gordon Cooper! The following extracts are highly significant—if true:

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 the authorities did just about everything to keep this incident from the press and TV, in fear of a panicky reaction from the public.

I immediately wrote to Cooper at Aerofoil Systems Inc., Cape Canaveral, Florida, asking if there was any truth to these statements. "If the whole story is a hoax," I said, "somebody ought to be sued." But there was no reply from him, even when I sent reminders and a stamped addressed envelope. I then wrote to Scott Carpenter, asking if he would forward it to Cooper, and this he promised to do. To this day, I have heard nothing.

In the same letter to Scott I asked for the complete story of the photograph he took during his flight in Mercury 7 on 24 May 1962. According to a commentator on BBC TV in 1973, Carpenter had been withdrawn from duties as an astronaut for wasting time taking pictures of "sunrise." I thought this was rather unlikely, especially since Scott's friend, Andre Previn, told me that Scott had not been allowed in space again owing to a slight heart murmur. The released photograph shows what some have interpreted as a UFO, others as a lens flare, ice crystals, or the fabric and aluminium balloon that was deployed at one stage. I wanted the facts.

When I reminded Scott of my request a year later, he replied that he resented

. . . your continuing implication that I am lying and/or withholding truths from you. Your blindly stubborn belief in Flying Saucers makes interesting talk for awhile, but your inability to rationally consider any thought that runs counter to yours makes further discussion of no interest— indeed unpleasant in prospect—to me. I have sent your letter to Gordon Cooper without comment other than a copy of this letter to you. Let's do be friends, Tim, but let's talk about such things as music and SCUBA diving where maybe both of us can learn something.

I have never insisted that Scott Carpenter photographed a UFO, but because of the rumours surrounding the incident I wanted to know the truth. To me, that seems reasonable. In any event, my friendship towards, and respect for Scott remains undiminished.

An anonymous source with secret clearance claims that Carpenter told him that at no time when the astronauts were in space were they alone: there was constant surveillance by UFOs. And Dr Garry Henderson, a senior research scientist for General Dynamics, has confirmed that the astronauts are under strict orders not to discuss their sightings with anyone. Dr Henderson says that NASA "has many actual photos of these crafts, taken at close range by hand and movie camera."

In November 1979 Lou Zinsstag and I received an unofficial invitation to visit the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston. The invitation came from Alan Holt, a physicist and aerospace engineer whose main work at that time centered on the development of the astronaut and flight controller engaged spacecraft, and has long been involved in an unofficial NASA UFO study group called Project VISIT (Vehicle Internal Systems Investigative Team). I asked about photographs and films of UFOs allegedly taken by astronauts and was simply told that the National Security Agency screens all films prior to releasing them to NASA.

It may be coincidental that a former Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of the CIA, Lew Allen, was appointed head of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in June 1982. JPL runs NASA's unmanned planetary space programme, whose phenomenal achievements include the landing on Mars by the Viking probes and, more recently, the Voyagers which transmitted such spectacular pictures of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Allen had also been the USAF Chief of Staff, and as one of the pioneers of aerial espionage served as deputy director for Advanced Plans in the Directorate of Special connaissance Office, and later director Systems. NRO—America's most secret intelligence agency—liaises closely with the CIA, NSA—and of course NASA.

In an interview in 1986, Lew Allen stated that up to a third of JPL's work was funded by the Department of Defense, but gave details of various fascinating civilian projects. "One of the most exciting of these future programs, called Cassini," he said, "is an investigation of Saturn's moon Titan. Its atmosphere was too dense for the Voyagers to give us any clues about what lies beneath. The Cassini mission . . . would probe this atmosphere . . . we've concluded that it is very similar to what the earth's must have been at the earliest stages of its evolution."
training programs associated with the Spacelab. He is also

in theoretical research into advanced types of propulsion for

Projects of the National Reof the NRO's Office of Space

Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA communications systems, claims that all the Apollo and Gemini flights were followed at a distance and sometimes quite closely by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin, but Mission Control ordered absolute secrecy. Chatelain believes that some UFOs may come from our own solar system—specifically Titan.

During a BBC radio interview in December 1972, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot on Apollo 14, was asked by a listener if NASA had made any provisions for encountering extra-terrestrials on the Moon or nearby planets. He replied in the affirmative. When the interviewer intervened and suggested that, if and when we ultimately come into contact with other civilizations, it would only be via radio-astronomy, Mitchell emphatically disagreed, making a point of recommending Allen Hynek's book, The UFO Experience, which contradicted official policy on the subject.

I wrote to Dr. Mitchell and asked him to elaborate on this and another statement he made on the programme, to the effect that there had been no concealment of UFO sightings either in transit to or on the Moon, and that such information was open to all. Mitchell's assistant, Harry Jones, replied: "Dr. Mitchell asked me to write and tell you that to his knowledge there have been no unexplained UFO sightings. All unexplained sightings have subsequently been explained. Dr. Mitchell personally attests that there has never been any lid of secrecy placed on any NASA astronaut that he is aware of." [Emphasis added.]

Although puzzled by this contradictory reply I did not pursue the matter further, since the publicity from UFO reports in 1973 led to a number of positive statements by some other astronauts. "I'm one of those guys who has never seen a UFO," said Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17, at a press conference. "But I've been asked, and I've said publicly I thought they were somebody else, some other civilization."

In 1979 former Mercury astronaut Donald Slayton revealed in an interview with Paul Levy that he had seen a UFO while test-flying an aircraft 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 realized that no kite is gonna [sic] 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 disc.

About that same time, I realized that it was suddenly going away from me—and there I was, running at about 300 miles an 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.

A couple of days later I was having a beer with my commanding officer, and I thought, "What the hell, I'd better mention something to him about it." I did, and he told me to get on down to intelligence and give them a report. I did, and I never heard anything more on it.

DID APOLLO 11 ENCOUNTER UFOS ON 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. I remember hearing one of the astronauts refer to a "light" in or on a crater during the televized transmission, followed by a request Nothing more was heard.

According to former hams with their own VHF receiving facilities that by-passed NASA's broadcasting outlets picked up the following exchange:

from mission control for further information.

NASA employee Otto Binder, unnamed radio

MISSION CONTROL: What's there? Mission control calling Apollo 11. APOLLO 11: These babies are huge, sir. . . enormous. . . .

Oh, 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... .

The story has been relegated to the world of science fiction since it first appeared, but in 1979 Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA communications systems and one of the scientists who conceived and designed the Apollo spacecraft, confirmed that Armstrong had indeed reported seeing two UFOs on the rim of a crater. "The encounter was common knowledge in NASA," he revealed, "but nobody has talked about it until now." Soviet scientists were allegedly the first to confirm the incident. "According to our information, the encounter was reported immediately after the landing of the module," said Dr. Vladimir Azhazha, a physicist and professor of mathematics at Moscow University. "Neil Armstrong relayed the message to mission control that two large mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the moon module. But his message was never heard by the public—because NASA censored it." According to another Soviet scientist, Dr. Aleksandr Kazantsev, Buzz Aldrin took color movie film of the UFOs from inside the module, and continued filming them after he and Armstrong went outside. Dr. Azhazha claims that the UFOs departed just minutes after the astronauts came out on to the lunar surface.