As the Monty Python crew liked to say, "And now for something completely different." The existence of nuclear weapons and the dangers of nuclear war are weighty subjects upon which I have blogged many times. Since the 1950s, the world has lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation. The U.S. and the Russians still have thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at each other ready to launch on a moment's notice. There have been accidents, errors and confrontations that have brought us to the brink of World War III at least a dozen times but somehow we managed to escape destruction. There are those who think that it may not have been just luck.
Edgar Mitchell was the sixth person to walk on the moon. He was part of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. He has said that on the return flight from the moon, he had a transcendental experience. He published an article in 1971 about the experience and other explorations of paranormal phenomena. Mitchell retired from NASA in 1972. In 1973, Mitchell and several other people formed the Institute for Noetic Sciences. The Institute " conducts research on such topics such as spontaneous remission, meditation, consciousness, alternative healing practices, consciousness-based healthcare, spirituality, human potential, psychic abilities, psychokenesis and survival of consciousness after bodily death."
Mitchell has said that he is "90 percent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets". Mitchell claims that he has spoken to officials from several countries who say that they personally met extraterrestrials. He thinks that the U.S. government is not only aware of the extraterrestrial visitors but that they keep secret the fact that they have wreckage of alien spacecraft and alien bodies. They have even received technology from aliens. In an interview in 2014, Mitchell admitted that he had never seen a UFO, had never been threatened over his claims about UFOs and has no concrete evidence of a global conspiracy to cover up governments' knowledge of UFOs.
Mitchell has also claimed that UFOs piloted by alien races had made regular visits to our planet during the Cold War to help prevent the start of a nuclear war. He claims that many Air Force officers have told him that they worked with aliens at U.S. missile bases during the Cold War. He told a British tabloid that aliens had visited the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico because they were interested in the nuclear bomb tests being conducted there. He went on to say that the human staff of our missile facilities had often seen UFOs overhead and that the UFOs had often disabled U.S. missiles. He said that officers from the Pacific Coast bases said that UFOs had often shot down test missiles. NASA and the U.S. government dismiss all such claims by Mitchell.
In 1956, a short story titled "The Far Look" was published by Theodore L. Thomas in Astounding magazine. From a comment on the story, "Essentially, astronauts returning from a duty at the Lunar Station, all had The Far Look which gave them not just a wider perspective on all things, but also deep powers of perception about life, the universe and everything, much more than everyone back on Earth." Travelling to the Moon and back obviously had a profound effect on Edgar Mitchell. It is an open question whether he actually achieved "deep powers of perception about life, the universe and everything." I doubt that aliens have been helping to prevent World War III, but it is a nice thought.
Edgar Mitchell:
