home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ======================================================================
- <<UFONET I>> * 416-237-1204 * PC-Pursuitable * File Requestable * HST
- * 24 Hour Operation * Sysop - Tom Mickus * Toronto * FREE
- ======================================================================
-
- ======================================================================
- NASA.txt - This document is a compilation of material relating
- ^^^^^^^^ to NASA and sightings by astronauts of UFO's. The
- material contained herein is not of an original nature
- but can be found in the sources listed at the end of
- the text. There has been much discussion on astronaut
- sightings in the echos. To help stimulate this and get
- us all up to speed on the topic I thought it would be
- informative to collect all the available material into
- one file. I have attempted to collect the facts and present
- the opinions both pro and con conserning each incident.
- I have only listed sources for which I have actual
- copies in my possession. If you know of other sources
- not listed here which specifically relate to NASA
- encounters, please let me know. You assistance is
- appreciated.
- ======================================================================
- ======================================================================
- If you have further information not included here let me know.
- Grudge 13 & the DULCE PAPERS are of great interest to me. If
- you have any information to share on these topics I would be
- most interested in corresponding with you. I can be reached
- via the UFONET BBS network.
-
- Harvey S. Stewart (12/05/89)
- ======================================================================
- ======================================================================
- If you were on a mission to study the inhabitants of the planet we
- call earth would you not be interested in the primitive attempts at
- early space travel. It seems that UFO's have been especially
- interested in following our space program. Just what do our astronauts
- know that they aren't talking about? What did we find when we went to
- the moon? The astronauts that returned from the moon seemed to be
- profoundly changed by the experience. Why did we seemingly abandon
- our space program following the lunar landings? Why did the Russians
- not even attempt to go to the moon? Was being second so bad or were they
- warned away from that goal. These are all profound questions which I
- cannot attempt to answer. But let's examine the evidence that has been
- collected and then each come to our own conclusions.
-
-
- MERCURY 7 May 24 1962 (Scott Carpenter)
-
- A ufo was rumored to have been seen and photographed during this flight
- He did in fact take a picture of a tracking ballon which was ejected
- from the capsule. This picture which was enlarged and photographed
- through a smeared window in the glare of sunlight has been misrepresented
- as a UFO.
-
- MERCURY 8 October 3, 1963 (Wally Schirra)
-
- Rumored to have seen a UFO and coined the term "Santa Claus" as a
- code word for UFO. He reported seeing glowing masses over the Indian
- ocean which were in fact night time lightning clouds. These lights have
- been taken out of context as being a UFO sighting.
-
- MERCURY 9 May 16, 1963 (Gordon Cooper)
-
- On his final orbit Cooper radioed Muchea tracking station near Perth
- Australia that he was being approached by a greenish object moving
- east to west. This is unusual in that it is the opposite direction
- from most manmade orbits. More than 100 persons saw the object on
- tracking gear. Following the mission newsmen were informed that they
- would not be allowed to question Cooper on this aspect of the flight.
-
- It is also reported that a voice transmission was picked up on a
- special frequency which could not be correlated with any known language.
-
- It should be noted that Cooper has publically denied having seen
- any UFO in connection with this flight. He did confirm that he saw
- the Aurora Australis which was multi-colored and may have been taken
- by some as a UFO sighting.
-
- GEMINI I April 1964 (unmanned)
-
- During the first orbit of this unmanned spacecraft it was joined by
- four apparently controlled objects. The tracking station observed
- two objects take up station above Gemini I, with one behind and one
- below. These relative positions were maintained for one orbit after
- which they sped off into space.
-
- GEMINI IV June 4, 1965 (James A. McDivitt, Edward White)
-
- With White asleep McDivitt reports an unidentified object. He manages
- to take some footage of the object on a movie camera that was mounted
- inside the capsule. The object was first spotted over the Hawaiian Islands.
- Later over the Caribbean both astronauts report seeing two more objects.
- One of the movie frames was released to the press and has been reprinted
- in many books including Frank Edward's book "Flying Saucers Serious
- Business". The photo shows an egg shaped object with a comet like trail
- or glow coming out of it. The movie camera was using 16mm Eastman
- color film shooting at 6 frames per second. The object was yellow -
- white in color. In the transcript that follows McDivitt is reporting
- to the Capsule Communicator.
-
- 29 40 45 C . . . Hawaii . . .
- 29 52 09 CC Gemini 4, Guaymas CAP COM
- 29 52 12 C Go ahead. Guaymas. Gemini 4.
- 29 52 14 CC Roger. We've got you green, how are you doing up there?
- 29 52 17 C Fine. I just saw something else up here with me, but
- just as I was getting close enough to take a good
- picture the sun got in the way and l lost it.
- 29 52 26 CC Roger. We got some flight plan changes for you.
- Want to stand by to copy?
- 29 52 29 C Yes. Stand by and let me see if I can find this thing again.
- 29 52 45 C . . . and there are a great number of thunderstorms
- around at the present time. Lightning is actually
- lighting up the interior of the spacecraft... activity ...
- thunderstorms . . .
- 29 53 35 C Okay. ,Go ahead. It doesn't look like I'm going to see him
- again.
- 29 57 09 CC That's affirm --- you still looking at the thing up there?
- 29 57 12 C No I've lost it. It had big arms sticking out of it, it
- looked like. I only had it for just a minute. I got a
- couple of pictures with a movie camera and one with the
- Hasselblad; but I was in free drift, before I could get
- the control back I drifted and lost it.
- 29 57 29 CC Good show.
-
- McDivitt has publicly denied having seen a aliencraft and states that the
- released picture was not the object that he saw. The released picture
- was a light reflection off the copilot's window. McDivitt believes that
- what he saw was a manmade satellite which was probably not acknowledged
- for defence security reasons. Unlike many of the astronauts McDivitt
- has been willing to speak about his incident with the public and
- press.
-
- GEMINI V August 21 - 29 1965 (Leroy Gordon Cooper, Charles Conrad)
-
- 03 04 57 21 CC Gemini 5, Gemini 5, this is Houston. Over.
- 03 04 57 26 C . . . Houston, Gemini 5.
- 03 04 57 29 CC Roger, Gemini 5, this is Houston. Be advised that we
- tracked another object with you on your pass across
- the States. Range was 2 to 10,000 yards from the
- spacecraft. You might look around and see if you can
- see anything. Unfortunately, I can't tell you which
- direction to look.
- 03 04 57 53 C What time is this?
- 03 04 57 57 CC Did you say what size or what time?
- 03 04 58 00 C Time.
- 03 04 58 02 CC Well, it seems to be going right along with you. So
- we're tracking it right with you.
- 03 04 58 13 C Roger.
- 03 04 58 21 CC We're going to lose you here shortly but if you see
- anything, why don't you let us know at the next station.
- 03 04 58 27 C Okay.
- 03 04 58 31 CC The radar return was approximately the same as yours
- as far as magnitude.
- 03 04 58 38 C Roger.
-
- GEMINI VII December 4, 1965 (Frank Borman, James Lovell)
-
- During this flight Borman describes what he calls a "bogey at ten
- o'clock high" The object was slowly tumbling and was at first thought
- to be their booster rocket. But this was ruled out when the astronauts
- also saw the booster simultaneously with the bogey.
-
-
- C Bogey at 10 o'clock high.
- CC This is Houston. Say again 7.
- C Said we have a bogey at 10 o'clock high.
- CC Is that the booster or is that an actual sighting?
- C We have several, looks like debris up here. Actual
- sighting.
- CC .... Estimate distance or size?
- C We also have the booster in sight. . .
-
- Lovell is reported to have taken some magnificent photographs of
- two mushroom shaped UFO's on December 4. The pictures seem to show
- the glow of a propulsion system on the underside. The pictures were
- taken at a range of several hundred yards. Some believe this picture
- to be a blatant forgery accomplished by airbrushing a picture of
- light reflecting off the nose of the spacecraft.
-
- GEMINI IX June 3, 1966 (Stafford, Cernan)
-
- It is reported that the capsule was accompanied from takeoff by UFO's
- seen from the ground as well as the capsule.
-
- GEMINI X July 19, 1965 (Michael Collins, John Young)
-
- During the flight the crew reported seeing five objects travelling
- together in orbit.
-
- GEMINI XI September 12, 1966 (Richard Gordon, Charles Conrad)
-
-
- A long object was reportedly observed over Madagascar. NORAD indicated
- that it was Soviet PROTON 3 but it turns out that that satellite would
- have been over 350 miles away at the time of observation.(Bruce Maccabee)
- Three pictures of the object were taken which enlarged have been widely
- publicized. The pictures are fuzzy and dont look at all like what the
- astronaughts described having seen with their eyesight.
-
- GEMINI XII November 1966 (James Lovell, Edwin Aldrin)
-
- On November 12 both astronauts are reported to have spotted 2 UFO's
- approximately 1/2 mile from the spacecraft. They were observed for
- some period of time and photographs were taken.
-
- Apollo 8 Dec. 1968 (Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, William A. Anders)
-
- During this flight as the command module emerged from behind the moon
- Lovell transmits "We have been informed that Santa Claus does exist!".
- As this occurred on christmas day 1968 it is deemed by many to have
- been Lovell's sense of humor for the kiddies watching the broadcast.
- Some speculate that it is the use of the code word originally employed
- by Walter Schirra on the Mercury 8 flight. On Christmas eve Borman
- and Lovell are reported to have seen a UFO.
-
- It is reported that an unidentified language was picked up on one of
- the NASA frequencies used during the mission.
-
- Apollo 10 May 1969 (Thomas P. Stafford, John W. Young, Eugene E. Cernan)
-
- UFO's were reportedly spotted during orbit around the moon and on the
- homeward bound flight.
-
- Apollo 11 July 1969 (Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin)
-
- Supposedly two ufo's hovered overhead as Armstrong prepared to step
- down the ladder of the LEM at the Sea of Tranquility. Aldrin is
- reported to have taken several pictures of them. Modern People
- magazine published what they claim to be some of these photographs
- in their June 1975 issue. They claim to have gotten the pictures
- from a Japanese source.
-
- Thats interesting because I recall watching the broadcast of this
- historic event on the Canadian network coverage. You know I seem to
- recall them discussing at some point a light which kept appearing
- while the astronauts were actually on the surface. I recall thinking
- that it was really interesting and then it just seemed to be dropped.
- I dont think that I am that senile yet . Do any of you reading this
- have similar recollections. If so please let me know.
-
- One explanation for the halo's seen around or near some of the Appollo
- astronauts was that it was gases being vented from their backpacks.
- I have one picture which was reported to be something unusual
- in close proximity to one of the astronauts. It would clearly
- appear to be coming from the backpack when observed closely.
-
- Timothy Good writes that HAM radio operators receiving the VHF signals
- directly picked up the following message which was screened by NASA from the
- public.
-
- 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 space craft out there... lined up on the
- far side of the crater edge... they're on the moon
- watching us.
-
- Good uses "SAGA UFO SPECIAL #3" as a source for this quote.
- The following is an excerpt from the transcript of the Apollo 11 technical
- debriefing.
-
- Aldrin: The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out
- or something pretty close to the moon. It had a sizeable
- dimension to it, so we put the monocular on it.
-
- Collins How'd we see this thing? Did we just look out the window
- and there it was.
-
- Aldrin Yes, and we weren't sure but what it might be the S-IVB. We
- called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6,000 miles
- away. We had a problem with the high gain about this time,
- didn't we?
-
- Collins There was something. We felt a bump or maybe I just imagined
- it.
-
- Armstrong He was wondering whether the MESA had come off.
-
- Collins I don't guess we felt anything.
-
- Aldrin Of course, we were seeing all sorts of little objects going
- by at the various dumps and then we happened to see this one
- brighter object going by. We couldn't think of anything else
- it could be other than the S-IVB. We looked at it through the
- monocular and it seemed to have a bit of an L shape to it.
-
- Armstrong Like an open suitcase.
-
- Aldrin We were in PTC at the time so each of us had a chance to take
- a look at this and it certainly seemed to be within our
- vicinity and of a very sizeable dimension.
-
- Armstrong We should say it was right at the limit of the resolution of
- the eye. It was very difficult to tell what shape it was.
- And there was no way to tell the size without knowing the
- range or the range without knowing the size.
-
- Aldrin So then I got down in the LEB and started looking for it in
- the optics. We were grossly misled because with the sextant
- off focus what we saw appeared to be a cylinder.
-
- Armstrong Or really two rings.
-
- Aldrin Yes.
-
- Armstrong Two rings. Two connected rings.
-
- Aldrin Yes.
-
- Collins No, it looked like a hollow cylinder to me. It didn't look
- like two connected rings. You could see this thing tumbling
- and, when it came around end-on, you could look right down
- in it's guts. It was a hollow cylinder. But then you could
- change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by
- this open book shape. It was really weird.
-
- Aldrin I guess there's not too much more to say about it other than
- it wasn't a cylinder.
-
- Collins It was during the period when we thought it was a cylinder
- that we inquired about the S-IVB and we'd almost convinced
- ourselves that's what it had to be. But we don't have any
- more conclusions than that really. The fact that we didn't
- see it much past this one period --- we really don't have
- a conclusion as to what it might have been, how big it was,
- or how far away it was. It was something that wasn't part of
- the urine dump, we're pretty sure of that.
-
- In his book "RETURN TO EARTH" Colonel Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. writes the
- following on pages 223-224. I quote directly.
-
- In the middle of one evening, Houston time, I found myself idly
- staring out the window of the Columbia and saw something that
- looked a bit unusual. It appeared brighter than any star and not
- quite the pinpoints of light that stars are. I pointed this out to
- Mike and Neil, and the three of us were beset with curiosity. With
- the help of the monocular we guessed that whatever it was, it was
- only a hundred or so miles away. Looking at it through our sextant
- we found it occasionaly formed a cylinder, but when the sextant's
- focus was adjusted it had a sort of illuminated "L" look to it. It
- had a shape of some sort -- we all agreed on that -- but exactly
- what it was we couldnt pin down. We asked Houston some casual
- questions: "How far away is the Saturn third stage?" The response
- was in the vicinity of six thousand miles. That wasn't it.
-
- It could possibly have been one of the panels of the Saturn third
- stage which fly off to expose the LM and cannot be traced from earth.
- We could see it for about forty-five seconds at a time as the ship
- rotated, and we watched it on and off for about an hour. We debated
- whether or not to tell the ground we had spotted something, and
- decided against it. Our reason was simple: The UFO people would
- descend on the message in hordes, setting off another rash of UFO
- spottings back on earth. We concluded it was most likely on of the
- panels. Its course appeared in no way to conflict with ours, and it
- presented no danger. We dropped the matter there.
-
- In his book "Carrying The Fire" astronaut Michael Collins the command
- module pilot makes no mention of this incident.
-
- Apollo 12 November 14, 1969 (Conrad, Gordon, Bean)
-
- On day out on the earth moon leg of the trip the astronauts radioed
- Mission Control that two flashing lights had appeared off the bow .
- of their capsule. After rejecting the possibility that the objects
- could be spinning pieces of the Apollo booster rocket the capcom
- suggested that they could be the jettisoned protective panels. One
- of the astronauts replied " Gee that could be, but one of those
- lights just shot out of here at tremendous speed ".
-
- James Oberg writes concerning this the following explaination
- which certainly sounds reasonable.
-
- Take the Apollo 12 case. In this famous incident the initial
- reports are indeed true, as the astronauts jokingly asked the
- earth about some flashing lights. When told that they were
- probably tumbling pieces of space debris (which do in fact
- accompany the Apollo in the vacuum of space on the way to
- the moon), the crew accepted this and began discussing how
- far away they would be. When asked how fast the pieces had
- broken off the rocket the previous day, the astronauts replied
- that when they had turned their Apollo around some pieces were
- flying off at a very fast velocity. That had been the day
- before! The flashing lights out the window didn't go anywhere
- but gradually faded out as the day went by. What happened
- was that UFO researchers ( I use the term loosely) had
- simply misunderstood the space jargon and had completely
- missed the gist of the conversation from Apollo, and had
- then (probably quite honestly, with good intentions and
- closed minds) reworded the phrases to make them "clearer"
- to the general public. In fact they had totally altered
- the meaning.
-
- In this incident it should be trivial to get to the root of
- the matter. All we need is the tape of the actual conversation
- or the true unaltered transcript. We could then see if Olberg is
- right on the money or not.
-
- Apollo 13 May 1969 (Thomas P. Stafford, John W. Young, Eugene E. Cernan)
-
- There has been a lot of speculation that the ill fated Apollo 13
- Mission was carrying a small nuclear explosive device for the purpose
- of seismic testing of the moon. The story goes that the aliens fearing
- damage to their lunar bases caused the accident that ultimately
- caused the aborting of the mission.
-
- Apollo 17 December 7-19, 1972 (Cernan, Evans, Schmitt)
-
- Reported to have seen UFO's near earth, on route and around the moon.
-
- SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY March 1989
-
- 03/14/89 6:42 EST
-
- "Uh Houston, this is Discovery. We still have the alien spacecraft
- under (observance)????" (note last word difficult to make out on
- tape)
-
- The previous statement was recorded by Baltimore resident Donald
- Ratsch (MUFON member) from a HAM radio rebroadcast between the
- space shuttle Discovery and Houston ground control. The HAM broadcast
- was direct from the shuttle without going through the delayed filter
- used on the officail NASA public feed. The NASA select audio channel
- did not contain this one way broadcast from the shuttle to ground
- control. The HAM station making the rebroadcast was WA3NAN Goddard
- Amatuer Radio Club in Greenbelt, MD transmitting on 147.450 MHZ.
- Preliminary analysis shows that the voice could be either Michael
- Coats (Commander) or John E. Blaha (pilot). The recording was sent
- for further expert voice analysis the results of which are unknown
- at this time to the author.
-
- Gordon Cooper
- -------------
- Gordon Cooper was one of the best trained US astronauts
- having flown on Mercury 9 and Gemini 5. Yet he was not selected to fly
- an Apollo mission. It is speculated that Cooper did not play the game
- correctly when it comes to the UFO situation. It is interesting that
- Cooper has developed an interest in ancient civilizations and in fact
- participated in an expedition to South American that discovered the
- remnants of a very old and advanced civilization dating back over 5000
- years. One is tempted to ask why the sudden interest on the part of a
- former astronaut in "ancient astronaut" type endevours.
-
- A fellow officer once said of Cooper. "We all knew where Gordon
- was going to end up in ten years. He was going to be Chairman of
- The Joint Chiefs of Staff. (what happened that he didn't?)
-
- In July 1960 Cooper was interviewed by Yvonne S. Durfield and had
- this to say about UFO's. "I don't take UFO's seriously. I would be
- very skeptical." In March 1978 Cooper stated to the National Enquirer
- "UFO's are definately real" It is interesting that his two flights
- into space occurred between the dates of the two interviews. Cooper
- went on to make a written statement to the United Nations supporting
- Grenada's Prime Minister Eric Gairy proposal that the UN establish
- a UFO agency.(1979?)
-
- In his book MJ12 & THE RIDDLE OF HANGER 18 Beckley quotes Cooper
- as saying "UFO's are, I believe, very likely travellers from some
- other planet; visitors from some other world that is hundreds of
- thousands of years more advanced than we are, and they certainly
- have a far more efficient sytem of propulsion than we have."
-
- During an interview on the Merv Griffin Show, Merv asked the
- following of Gordon Cooper. "There is a story going around, Gordon,
- that a spaceship did land in middle America and there were occupants,
- and members of our government were able to keep one of the occupants
- alive for some period of time. They've seen the metal of the aircraft
- and know what the people look like -- is that a credible story?
- To everyones surprise Cooper answers with a straight face
- "I think it's fairly credible. I would like to see the time when all
- qualified people could really work together to properly investigate
- these stories and either refute or prove them." Later the next
- morning Lee Spiegel a UFO researcher and aquaintance of Cooper talked
- to Cooper on the phone. During this conversation Cooper admitted that
- he could have revealed further information on the Merv Griffin Show
- but did not because he did not want to raise too many official
- eyebrows.
-
- Why Did it End So Quicky ?
- --------------------------
-
- The solar system held no limits, we were bound for the
- stars. The plaque read "HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH SET FOOT
- UPON THE MOON ...... WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND" We said that
- this was "One small step for a man....one giant leap for mankind"
- Then shortly thereafter it all came to a screeching halt. What had
- been a burning ambition was now just a smoldering ember. Had we
- shot the whole wad on one quick try. Why did not only the US but also
- the Soviet Union cancel its ambitious moon plans. Why did both
- nations suddenly limit themselves to relatively low orbit missions.
- Did Apollo find something totally unexpected out there that made us
- change our grand plans ?
-
- SOURCES
- -------
-
- Aldrin, Edwin RETURN TO EARTH, Random House, 1973
- Beckley, Timothy MJ-12 AND THE RIDDLE OF HAMGER 18,Inner Light, 1989
- Chatelaine, Maurice OUR ANCESTORS CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, Dell, 1979
- Collins, Michael CARRYING THE FIRE, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974
- Edward's, Frank FLYING SAUCERS SERIOUS BUSINESS, Bantam Books, 1966
- Emenegger, Robert UFO'S PAST PRESENT & FUTURE, Ballantine Books, 1974
- Leonard, George SOMEBODY ELSE IS ON THE MOON, Pocket Books, 1977
- Steckling, Fred WE DISCOVERED ALIEN BASES ON THE MOON,G.A.F, 1989
- Good,Timothy ABOVE TOP SECRET, Sidgwick & Jackson Limited, 1987
- Moore, William THE ROSWELL INCIDENT, Berkley Books, 1980
- Story, Ronald D. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF UFO'S, Doubleday, 1979
-
- MUFON UFO JOURNAL #252 April 1989
- MUFON UFO JOURNAL #256 August 1989
- SAGA UFO SPECIAL #3
- TRUE FS & UFO QUARTERLY #6 Summer 1977
- IDEALS UFO MAGAZINE #4 December 1978
- IDEALS UFO MAGAZINE #6 June 1979