Aliens and the Astronauts: Convincing Cases of Aliens That Might Just Be True

Are extra-terrestrials and UFOs real, or just the stuff of science fiction?

In the decades after the first lunar landing, many have wondered why we have never returned to the moon. After all, surely the great Space Race between the USA and the USSR was about more than just proving a point? Why is it that we have never tried to build a Moon Base?

The answer to this question may lie with those very people who took to the stars. Many highly-qualified astronauts and scientists from both Russia and America have made the sensational claim that UFOs from an unknown civilization regularly visit us and monitor our space exploration.

Major Gordon Cooper, an American aerospace engineer and Air Force pilot, was one of the first astronauts in space as part of the Mercury programmes. During one of his space flights, he claims to have sighted a glowing, green object moving rapidly towards his space capsule before moving away. Astonishingly, this sighting was authenticated by an Australian tracking station that had seen the object on their radar. Later, Cooper would go on to testify under oath to the United Nations.

“I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on earth.”

In Russia, cosmonaut Major General Vladimir Kovalyonok, a member of the Salyut VI mission in 1981, has stated that:

“Many cosmonauts have seen phenomena which are far beyond the experiences of earthmen.”

His own particular inexplicable encounter involved witnessing a strange object which exploded into two interconnected pieces. The cosmonaut was able to reproduce a sketch of what he saw. Without an explanation, the object had to be classified as unidentified. When back on Earth, Kovalyonok learned that specialists had recorded a considerable radiation emission from space on the day of his sighting. Later on, he would describe the event as impossible according to the laws of Physics.

However, one of the most remarkable cases occurred during the celebrated 1969 Apollo 11 mission. In fact, researchers claim that this mission was riddled with UFO sightings. The earliest sighting of a UFO on the mission was purportedly made by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin during the lunar voyage.

Aldrin was asking about the final stage of the rocket, which had been jettisoned a whole two days before. However, his words supposedly hid a more otherworldly meaning. According to Aldrin, he and the two other members of the mission witnessed an unidentifiable object travelling alongside of them on their journey to the moon.

“I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us”

With Mission Control unable to confirm that it was the final stage of the rocket (a whole 6000 nautical miles away), Aldrin could not confirm what it was they were seeing. At the time, they did not report the sighting to Mission Control, for fear of the mission being cancelled.

Furthermore, in recent years, Aldrin is recorded as having made bizarre claims about the need for “lunar ambassadors”.

In another radio transmission from the Apollo 11 mission, recorded soon after the team had first set foot on the moon, commander Michael Collins reported seeing a strange white object. He provided co-ordinates of the object, believing it to be on the "southwest wall of a small crater", but was unable to positively identify what it was he was seeing.

According to a former NASA employee, Otto Binder, there were further extraordinary reports apparently recorded by amateur radios, this time from Armstrong to Mission Control. He is supposed to have reported seeing two, unidentified objects watching the team at a distance from the edge of a crater.

NASA: What's there? Mission Control calling Apollo 11...

ARMSTRONG: These "Babies" are huge, Sir! Enormous! OH MY GOD! You wouldn't believe it! I'm telling you there are other spacecraft out there, lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They're on the Moon watching us!

The details of this exchange are thought to have been concealed by two minutes of radio silence during the moon landing, which NASA attributes to a technical fault.

In the years after his history-defining moonwalk, Armstrong became notoriously reclusive, choosing to shun the majority of interviews. By the time of his death in 2012, the man who had performed the impossible by being the first to walk on the lunar surface had gained infamy because of his silence. Whatever Neil Armstrong knew – if anything – we never will.

Ten years after the Apollo 11 mission, Maurice Chatelain, a NASA communications engineer, corroborated the story. He confirmed that Neil Armstrong had indeed seen two large UFOs on the rim of a crater.

"The encounter was common knowledge in NASA [...] but nobody has talked about it until now."

Chatelain has also suggested that radio transmissions from the Apollo 11 mission were interrupted on several occasions by NASA, in order to conceal news from the public.

Soviet scientists have also confirmed the event.

Dr. Vladimir Azhazha, a physicist and professor of Mathematics at University of Moscow, claims that soon after the landing he and other scientists were made aware that Neil Armstrong had sent a message to Mission Control stating they were being watched by two mysterious objects. According to Azhazha, the public never heard this message because NASA had censored it.

There are further discrepancies surrounding NASA’s handling of the Apollo 11 mission.

In order to be broadcast live, televised footage of the moon landing had to be degraded. As such, the iconic “small step for man” moonwalk footage was inferior to the raw footage that the ground station received from the moon. Since 1969, the higher quality, telemetry tapes has never been released. In fact, NASA claims that all raw, higher quality footage from most of the Apollo missions “no longer exist”. Therefore, the official tapes are not – and have never been – in the public domain. Surely the USA would want to feverishly protect and preserve arguably its greatest contribution to civilisation?

The credibility of eye-witness testimonies of UFOs from those who have their livelihoods and reputations completely invested in the field of astronautics is hard to dispute. After all, why would these highly-qualified men jeopardise their professional reputations by reporting false sightings of objects of extra-terrestrial origin? And, arguably even more importantly, why has the public never had access to the original high quality footage of such a legendary lunar mission?

These questions add to the need for further investigation. It is easy to get lost in the minefield of misinformation and bad research available in the world. However, it should not be forgotten that there is a very real sense that there is more to the history of mankind's space exploration than what we are aware of. Every corner that is investigated brings up more questions. Every lie unveiled, every truth discovered... is always half done. As such, there is no complete answer, because there is no complete research.