QuantumFog

August 1, 2006

Alex, I'll take "whattahellzat" for a hundred

A few years ago, I had one of those occasions when ya run across a piece of information that makes the prefrontal cortex go "hmmm". This was in a bookstore at one of the malls, where I enjoy skimming through any book that appears interesting. I happened to be working my way through the science section, starting with "astronomy", when my eye fell upon a small autobiography written by NASA astronaut Donald Slayton.

For no particular reason, I picked it up and thumbed through the pages. I stopped at a page that said something like, "...I'm going to say this once, and I don't want to talk about it any more...". Its been a while since I read it, but the words were to that effect.

He then describes flying a P51 fighter in the Minneapolis area during a routine flight. On the way back to base, he spots a weather balloon. Now, just like any regular guy will tell you, the first thing you think of is "Aha, a target!" Slayton thought no different and set a trajectory to intercept the balloon.

As he approached the target, it changed shape from "spherical" to "disk". Maybe it rolled over. Dunno. What he knows for certain is, it suddenly took off on a 45 degree climbing turn, sped away and disappeared. Guess you would call that a UFO.

Last week, on one of the UK's television channels, astronaut Buzz Aldrin makes an appearance. Buzz is the second man to walk on the moon. On the show he mentions for the first time an Apollo 11 encounter with a UFO when they were about 200,000 miles from Earth. According to Buzz, the crew couldn't make sense of the object, but they didn't want to report it because so many people were listening. Instead, they inquired about the location of the last booster stage, just in case it managed to follow their flight pattern. Houston said it was 6,000 miles away.

Buzz says this object was a lot closer.

Which takes us to another astronaut, Gordon Cooper, who describes having seen unknowns outperforming conventional aircraft in Germany back in 1951. In fact, Gordon testified before a United Nations assembly regarding the need to investigate these objects.

There is a supporting remark attributed to Eugene Cernan, the commander the Apollo 17 flight and the last man on the moon. However, I've been unable to come up with a decent confirmation of what he said.

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell is the sixth person to walk on the moon. He's a retired Navy Captain who's been awarded several medals from the President, the Navy and NASA. Has a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT. As another who says they're here, he tells us "...a few insiders know the truth..."

These guys are given psyche evaluations and get tested every way imaginable. Nutcases are weeded out early. Given such information by a group of five experts, what is one expected to believe?

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