- Home
- Current Issue
- »Past Issues
- Subscribe
- »Shop
- Online Columnists
- »Hilly Rose Show
- »Links & Resources
- »Advertise
- About FATE
- »Contact
Order your FATE Directory listing here!
Stay up-to-date on Mystical Products, Aquarian Events & Alternative Healing Services
The Paracast
Paranormal Radio
Free Book Catalog!
|
Trial Subscription
|
 |
| FATE Newsletter
News and updates, exclusive special offers and more! Enter your email address below to sign up for the free FATE newsletter.
|
|
FATE Store
|
|
Upcoming Events
|
|
Mass Monster Mash
Oct 17 Watertown, MA Website Burlington Vortex Conference Oct 30-Nov 1 Burlington, WI Website View More Upcoming Events |
Have Our Astronauts Seen UFOs?
by Stuart G. Nixon
FATE | June 1974
Three events that occurred in 1969 profoundly affected the course of the UFO controversy. The Condon Report debunked UFOs; the air force closed Project Bluebook, as if to say officially UFOs do not exist; and men landed on the moon.
If you wonder why I include the moon landing, think back to the flight of Apollo 11 in July 1969 and your own thoughts about what man might find when he touched the lunar surface for the first time. Didn't you wonder whether astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin would discover that other visitors already had been there? So many persons did, that when the Apollo explorers found no such evidence, belief in the reality of UFOs and the likelihood of extraterrestrial visitation nose-dived. Perhaps this reaction is not particularly logical but it reflects a rather widespread assumption that if UFOs are alien spacecraft astronauts will encounter them.
During the last six or seven years we have read numerous reports of alleged sightings by astronauts, some of them rather spectacular. A recurring theme in such articles is the notion that NASA has sworn the astronauts to secrecy concerning their UFO sightings. It is true that the astronauts have been reluctant to comment on the UFO question and to admit they have seen anything unusual in space but in my opinion the reasons for this reluctance have little to do with the hinted-at "conspiracy"—for there is no evidence that NASA is covering up reports of strange encounters in space.
From the beginning, when astronauts saw things they couldn't explain, NASA put its technicians to work to find explanations. For example, on the first manned orbital mission John Glenn observed a cluster of yellow-green particles surrounding his spacecraft. He said they looked like "fireflies." In his flight report to NASA he noted, "I observed these luminous objects for approximately four minutes each time the sun came up."
The particles eventually were identified as surface material flaking off Glenn's Mercury 6 spacecraft. Scott Carpenter, who flew the mission after Glenn's, produced the flakes by banging on the wall of his capsule.
Similar experiences occurred on later space flights. In November 1966 following the flight of Gemini 12, James Lovell commented during a debriefing that he and Edwin Aldrin "saw four objects lined up in a row and they weren't stars...." It turned out the men were seeing four pieces of equipment they had discarded earlier in the flight— three storage bags and a life support system.
On Gemini 11 Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon spotted a tumbling object that seemed to be "flying wing on us." Conrad radioed Mission control, "We had him in sight, I'd say fairly close to us (but) I don't know, it could depend on how big he is." NASA later reported that the object had been identified as the Soviet satellite Proton III.
However, NASA has not been able to explain everything the astronauts have seen. One of the earliest and most interesting of these enigmas occurred during the Gemini 4 flight in June 1965. James McDivitt, the sole witness, told this story in November 1973 when he appeared on the Dick Cavett Show:
"I was flying with Ed White. He was sleeping at the time so I don't have anybody to verify my story. We were drifting in space with the control engines shut down and all the instrumentation off (when) suddenly (an object) appeared in the window. It had a very definite shape—a cylindrical object... It was white; it had a long arm that stuck out on the side. I don't know whether it was a very small object up close or a very large object a long ways away. There was nothing to judge by. I really don't know how big it was.
"We had two cameras that were just floating in the spacecraft at the time so I grabbed one and took a picture of (the object) and grabbed the other and took a picture. Then I turned on the rocket control systems because I was afraid we might hit it. At the time we were drifting—without checking I have no idea which way we were going—but as we drifted on up a little farther the sun shone on the windshield of the spacecraft. The windshield was dirty; just like in an automobile, you can't see through it. So as soon as the sun shone on the window the object disappeared. By then I had the rocket control engines going again and moved the spacecraft so that the window was in darkness again... The object was gone. I called down later and told them what had happened and they went back and checked the records of other space debris that was flying around, but we were never able to identify what it could have been....
"The film was sent back to NASA and reviewed by some NASA film technicians. One of them selected what he thought was what we talked about, at least before I had had a chance to review it. It was not the picture; it was a picture of a sun reflection on the window. And I reviewed the film myself a week or so later, frame by frame, and there was never anything that I saw in the pictures that looked like what I saw in space. The cameras were not set properly or the lighting wasn't right or something."
