In effect, all were subject to the military regulations, and if these regulations were broken, fines and penalties awaited.

It simply wasn’t worth going public in the depths of the Cold War. Today, society is more open, and an increasing number of those ‘who know’ are coming forward with accounts of their knowledge and experiences. (It should also be remembered that the National Security Agency monitors all NASA transmissions and screens all footage taken on missions – another method to prevent information leaking into the public domain.)

Yet, as noted, many credible witnesses have come forward to confirm that something is going on ‘out there’ that cannot be accounted for by natural or terrestrial phenomena.

The story starts in 1951 when former Mercury astronaut Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton (right) claimed that he had observed an unknown object whilst test flying aircraft for the American military. He revealed the following in an interview for the ‘National Enquirer’ in 1979;

"I was testing a P-51 fighter in Minneapolis when I spotted this object. I was about 10,000 feet on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon. I thought the object was a kite, then realised that no kite is gonna fly that high. As I got closer it looked like a weather balloon, grey 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 disc. About the same time, I realised that it was suddenly going away from me – and there I was, running at about 300 miles an 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.

"A couple of days later I was having a beer with my commanding officer, and I thought, ‘what the hell, I’d better mention something to him about it’. I did, and he told me to get on down to intelligence and give them a report. I did and I never heard anything more on it." (1)

The first astronaut to definitely observe anomalous phenomena in orbit around the Earth was Major Gordon Cooper during the May 15th 1963 Faith 7 Mercury flight mission. Whilst making his fourth pass over Hawaii, Cooper claims he heard strange voices transmissions which he described as being "unintelligible foreign language" (2). Later these tapes were analysed, however the garble used could not be identified as any known language. On his final orbit around the Earth whilst over the Muchea Tracking Station near Perth, Australia, Cooper claimed to have sighted a strange looking object approaching him. Over two hundred people at the tracking station also observed this anomaly. Cooper described the object as being of "good size" and claimed "it was higher than I was. It wasn’t even in the vicinity of the horizon". (3)

Cooper (right) further stated, in an interview with Lee Spiegal in the 1980s, that an incident had occurred at Edwards Air Force Base in California in 1957 or 1958 when he was Project Manager of the Test Flight Centre. He described how a flying ‘disc’ hovered over the dry lake "then it slowly came down and sat on the lake bed for a few minutes … There were varied estimates by the cameramen (who filmed the entire incident) on what the actual size of the object was, but they all agreed that it was at least the size of a vehicle that would carry normal sized people in it." Cooper did not witness the event itself, but studied the film footage. "It was a typical circular shaped UFO. Not too many people saw it, because it took off at quite a sharp angle and just climbed out of sight." (4)

In 1994 Cooper gave more details of this incident, stating that the camera crew who were filming the installation of a landing system on the dry lake bed "came running in to tell me that this UFO - this saucer – had come right over them. And as they proceeded to go on over to get a closer shot of it, it lifted up, put the gear in the well, and disappeared at a rapid rate of speed. And so I had to follow my directions as a military; I had to look up the regulations on who I was to call or to report this, which I did. They ordered me to immediately have the films developed, put them in a pouch, and send them by the commanding general’s airplane to Washington, which I did. That was the last I ever heard of the films." (5)

The Mercury missions were followed by the Gemini space flight series, and, according to some researchers, every astronaut in all twelve space missions of this series saw one or more unexplainable objects in space. NASA continued to claim such ‘encounters’ had never occurred.

In fact the closest NASA authorities came to admitting unknowns were actually sighted was in June 1966 after the launch of Gemini IX, a flight that was later cancelled due to what was claimed as ‘interference’ with the radio hook-up. This position was later changed, with NASA admitting that astronauts had seen unidentified flying objects on several occasions.

Major Donald E. Keyoe, former head of the National Investigative Committee on Ariel Phenomena (NICAP), verified NASA’s statement. He claimed that the very first unmanned flight in the Gemini series detected anomalous phenomena, stating that he believed four such objects in orbit had followed the spacecraft. 

Keyoe also claims he received his information from several scientists who were tracing the flight of GT-1 on radar from Cape Kennedy. These scientists reported that the four objects continued to follow the spacecraft, shadowing it for a complete orbit before suddenly streaking off and disappearing.

In June 1965, Major James McDivitt (above) and America’s first space walker, Major Edward White, saw and photographed a glowing egg shaped object (above), which approached the Gemini IV (3rd June –7^th June 1965) capsule in which they were orbiting the Earth.

The following day the astronauts another unknown object from their spacecraft window and reported that the object was first above them and then below. It appeared to be a cylindrical "silvery" light that seemed to be "closing in" on the Gemini craft (left). The astronauts made preparations to take evasive action "to avoid collision" and McDivitt took footage of the object with his movie camera, taking five frames of film which show the object as it made its flyby.

The footage shows an egg shaped structure giving off a fan like glow, with a long tail of light. The following is the actual Mission Control report on the sighting:

"This is Gemini Control. We are now 30 hours and 9 minutes into the mission. Spacecraft Gemini 4 has just completed a pass over the state on its 20th orbit." In voice communication with Gus Grissom, spacecraft communicator, Command Pilot Jim McDivitt reported that he had sighted another object in space. He described it only as an object that appeared to have big arms sticking out. He said he had taken some motion pictures of the object, but was having some difficulty because of the sun." (6)

A few moments later, Grissom (right) asked whether McDivitt was still watching "that thing out there."

McDivitt answered, "no, I’ve lost it. It had been arms sticking out of it… I only had it for just a minute, I got a couple of pictures of it with the movie camera and one with the Hasselblad. But I was in free drift and before I could get the control back, I drifted into the sun and lost it." (7)

Mission control later approached the Space Detection and Tracking System seeking to identify the unknown object, however they were advised that the closest object was more than 1200 miles away. Mission Control later questioned the astronauts about the ‘sighting’:

Capcom: Roger, could you give us an estimate as to how far that satellite was from you yesterday?

Gemini 4: I couldn’t really tell, it looked like quite a large object. It looked like I was approaching it  rather rapidly. I’d say ten miles or so.

Capcom: Ten miles?

McDivitt: That would be only a guess. It was close enough that I could see….

Capcom: See what?

McDivitt: [garbled transmission.]

Capcom: You’re coming off pretty bad there. I couldn’t read that.

McDivitt: OK.

Capcom: That came through good.

McDivitt: All right. I said I got close enough to….

Capcom: Close enough to it … to what? The nearest we can tell, there wasn’t anything that close to you. Pegasus was about 1200 miles away.

McDivitt: No, not that close. That far away.

Capcom: Pretty good eyeball, all right.

McDivitt: I took a picture. I just hope it comes out.

Capcom: So do we. (8)

Gemini VII:      Bogey at 10 o’clock high.

Capcom:         This is Houston. Say again 7.

Gemini VII:    Said we have a bogey at 10 o’clock high.

Capcom:         Gemini VII, is that a booster or is that an actual sighting?

Gemini VII:    We have several, looks like debris up here. Actual sighting. (12)

The Condon report makes the following observation on this sighting. "The general reconstruction of the sighting … is that in addition to the booster travelling in an orbit similar to that of the spacecraft there was another bright object together with many illuminated objects. It might be conjectured that the bogey and particles were fragments from the launching of Gemini 7, but this is impossible if they were travelling in a polar orbit as they appeared to be doing." (13)

The following transmission took place on the Gemini X mission (18th-21st July 1966) of 18th July 1966 when astronauts John Young and Mike Collins photographed a large cylindrical object:

Gemini X:                This is 10, Houston. We have two bright objects up here in our orbital path. I don’t think they are stars – they look like we are going right along with them.

Mission Control:    Roger. 10, Houston.

Gemini X:                  10: 10, go.

Mission Control:      Where are the objects from you?

Gemini X: Roger.

Mission Control:     If you can get us a bearing, maybe we can track them down.

Gemini X:             They just disappeared. I guess they were - guess they were satellites of some kind. (later in the flight…)

Gemini X:             To the east we have an extremely bright object. I believe it’s too bright to be a planet. It’s north of Orion about six or eight degrees. Right now it’s approximately eight degrees. Is it Gemini VIII Agena? Over.

Mission Control: Roger, we copy. Stand by.

Gemini X:         Picture that it makes just about an equilateral triangle with the belt stars in Orion and with Pleides. It’s a…

Mission Control: Do you notice anything moving relative to the stars?

Gemini X:         Possible. I haven’t noticed any movements so far and unfortunately the starts are disappearing now and I can only see this object and one or two other first magnitude … sun starting to come up." (14)

In the following Gemini XI mission between 12th - 15th September 1966, astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon described a cluster of objects next to their craft as ‘large and very bright’.

Two months later, Gemini XII (11^th –15^th November 1966) photographed an object (right) on their second day out, however the NASA Photo Evaluation lab claims that this is actually rubbish that had been discarded from the spacecraft itself. If so, it is remarkably large and bright rubbish!