UFO Sightings by Astronauts

DONALD SLAYTON
Minneapolis, 1951

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."

NASA PILOT JOSEPH A. WALKER
May 11, 1962

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." - Joseph Walker

To date none of those films has been released to the public for viewing.

MAJOR ROBERT WHITE
July 17, 1962

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!"

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 publicly 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.

Major Gordon Cooper

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.

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.

Major Cooper was a firm believer in UFOs. Ten years earlier, in 1951 he had sighted a UFO while piloting an F-86 Sabrejet over Western Germany. They were metallic, saucer-shaped discs at considerable altitude and could out-maneuver all American fighter planes.

Major Cooper also testified 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 indentions 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."

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.

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 alien craft 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 defense security reasons. Unlike many of the astronauts McDivitt has been willing to speak about his incident with the public and press.

GEMINI X
July 19, 1965 - Michael Collins, John Young

During the flight the crew reported seeing five objects travelling together in orbit.

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 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 don't look at all like what the astronauts 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
December 1968 - Frank Borman, James Lovell, William 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 Stafford, John Young, Eugene 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.

That's 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 don't 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 Apollo 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 occasionally 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 couldn't 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 one 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

One 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 explanation 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
April 1970 - Lovell, Swigert, Haise

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.

In a Los Angeles Times article in 1973 Eugene Cernan said, about UFOs:

"...I've been asked (about UFOs) and I've said publicly I thought they (UFOs) were somebody else, some other civilization."

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 official 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 Amateur 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 America 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 endeavors.

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 definitely 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 Eighteen Beckley quotes Cooper as saying "UFO's are, I believe, very likely travelers 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 system 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 everyone's 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 acquaintance 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 Quickly ?

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 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?

NASA's Maurice Chatelain

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?

NASA's Scott Carpenter

"At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone: there was a constant surveillance by UFOs."