Edgar Mitchell, who was part of the Apollo 14 crew and was the sixth man to walk on the moon, said that extraterrestrial life not only exists, but also helped prevent a nuclear war between Russia and the US during the height of the Cold War.
A decorated Navy pilot who received Distinguished Service Medals from both the US Navy and NASA, was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and who is also a member of both the Space and Astronaut Hall of Fame, Mitchell told the UK newspaper The Mirror that he saw a UFO flying over the White Sands military base in southern New Mexico.
He explained in an interview that aliens visited the base, where the first nuclear bomb had been detonated in 1945, because they “wanted to know about our military capabilities”. A native of the region, he added, “You don’t know the area like I do. White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons – and that’s what the extraterrestrials were interested in.”
“My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth,” Mitchell also said in the interview, telling the newspaper that other military officials told him that aliens had shot down test missiles.
Experts call Mitchell’s claim ‘far-fetched’
According to Gizmodo and other media reports, Mitchell has been outspoken in his belief that extraterrestrials have visited Earth since returning from the moon in 1971. Said to be one of the top figures in the global UFO community, Mitchell said he believes that aliens came here on a mission to prevent the Americans and Soviets from engaging in an all-out nuclear war.
The Mirror asked former UK Ministry of Defense UFO researcher Nick Pope about Mitchell’s claims, and he said the former astronaut was “an honorable and truthful man”, while noting that most of his claims were based on “things he’s been told by others”, not “things he’s experienced himself”. Mitchell would not name his sources, the newspaper noted.
Pope added that the “idea that peace-loving extraterrestrials are here to warn humanity about our destructive ways” was “a nice thought” and was “almost exactly the plot of the classic 1951 sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still”. He concluded that “if we’re being visited, it’s unlikely we’re dealing with a civilization just a few hundred years ahead of us, so stories of aliens managing to disrupt a few of our weapons tests are far-fetched.”
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