======================================================================
<<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
