*Not everything here can be confirmed by evidence but to the best of my knowledge it is all true.

Although there have been many sightings of ufos over the years, it would be much harder to believe them if credible, professional people didn't see them also. Many pilots have reported ufos and many more have seen them but have kept quiet because of fear of ridicule, or even job loss. After all, most airlines don't want pilots who see ufos. They are afraid of the public perception that they are flying with an airline who employs pilots that are nuts, for lack of a better word.

But pilots, because of the nature of their work, are more likely to see ufo than us ground pounders, although many of us have seen them. But there is a whole new class of individual who have seen these ufos and have talked about their experience. I am talking about the astronaut corps. Yes astronauts might be more likely than pilots to see ufo, since they go into space. It seems they have been seeing ufos since they first began to take space flights. Even on the first Mercury flights, ufos were sighted.

Project Mercury
Picture Source: NASA

Major Gordon Cooper was one of the original Mercury Astronauts. On May 15, 1963 he and his capsule began to orbit the earth. He had twenty two orbits to complete his mission. After completion of twenty one orbits it happened. A glowing, greenish object lay dead ahead of him. He called in to the tracking station at Muchea, Australia. They could see the object on radar. This was not Cooper's first sighting however, about ten years before he had seen a ufo while he was flying his F-86 Sabrejet over Germany. Cooper was invited to testify before the United Nations had here is a small portion of what he said, "I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets. Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs." "I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, generally from east to west over Europe."

But Cooper was not the only Mercury Astronaut to see a ufo. Donald Slayton stated that he was flying a P-51 fighter in 1951 and thought he saw a weather balloon. When he got closer he realized it was a flying saucer. When he got close to it, it accelerated and took off. This astounded Slayton at the time because he was traveling over 300 mph.

Many people believe that NASA has first hand information on the existence of ufos but is keeping it close to the vest. A man named Maurice Chatelain is often cited as having been the head of communications at NASA. The story is that he was the one that received a communication from Neil Armstrong that there were ufos on the rim of a moon crater. Unfortunately this is probably false since it seems Mr. Chatelain was not the head of communications at NASA at the time but may have been an engineer for one of the subtractors and as such may not have been privy to that communication. Of course this in itself does not prove that NASA is not aware of ufos.

Scott Carpenter is said to have stated, "At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone: there was a constant surveillance by UFOs." This is a very profound statement. Many think that every rocket launch is being watched and not all of our failures are due to malfunctions.

Gemini 6 and 7 Rendezvous
Picture Source: NASA

Two Gemini astronauts reported a ufo while orbiting the Earth. They were James Lovell and Frank Borman. When they radioed to Houston that an unidentified craft was in sight they were told it was their booster rocket. Lovell replied he could see the booster but had several other objects in sight.

This subject gets more intriguing with the sightings of Neil Armstrong on the moon. It is said that a ham radio operator picked up a message from Arnstrong to NASA. It supposedly contained a statement by Armstrong saying ufos were lined up on the far side of a crater. He commented that they were huge. The story goes on to say that Armstrong spoke to a professor (unknown name) and that professor stated that Armstrong told him that the aliens warned us not to go back to the moon. The professor stated that the only reasons we conducted missions after that was not to panic the public and the missions were relatively fast.

Are American astronauts the only space travelers to see ufos, of course not? Lets not forget the Russian Cosmonauts. Michael Hesemann interviewed several Russian Cosmonauts at the International UFO Congress in Laughlin/NV on March 6, 2002.

Shuttle Docking with Mir
Picture Source: NASA

Cosmonaut Musa Manarov was on Mir in 1991. He said that he was looking out the great portal, watching a rocket dock. But he noticed something drifting downward. At first he thought something broke loose from the rocket, but it looked strange like some sort of structural part or ariel, but it wasn't. Later they looked for the object but it was nowhere to be found.

Cosmonaut Gennadu Strekhalov was also on Mir but in 1990. While looking down at Newfoundland a sphere appeared. Strekhalov describes it as looking like a Christmas tree decoration. The sphere was visible for about 10 seconds then disappeared.

Cosmonaut Major General Vladimir Kovalyonok. In 1981 Kovalyonok was on the Saljut VI mission. When Saljut was over South Africa on May 5, 1981, he saw a strange object through the porthole. The object flew with the Saljut and in a few seconds erupted into a golden light. A couple of seconds later another explosion happened and two spheres appeared that were golden and beautiful. The spheres disappeared when Saljut entered the Earth's shadow.

By the way, Kovalyonok also said that many cosmonauts have seen strange things but have not talked about them. So what have we here? Are ufos the figments of our imaginations? If one was to classify all people who have witnessed a ufo as insane or stupid or imagining things, then one would have to disregard the sightings by some very famous stable people, like Jimmy Carter the ex president or Kenneth Arnold. For gosh sake, I even know people who have seen a ufo, and not just one person but several. One family I know, believe me there is nothing wrong with these people, came out of their house when it suddenly got dark only to see a huge ufo hovering over their home and blocking the light. It was so low they could see all the formations on the bottom of the craft. It remained for a while, silently, and then took off. Another couple I know were riding home on the Taconic Parkway, in New York State, one night when they noticed many cars pulled over on the side of the road. The people were out of their cars and looking up to the sky. They pulled over and got out. To their amazement there was a flight of several ufos in the sky.

So I ask the question again, is everyone who sees a ufo crazy? Are they ALL mistaken and really looking at balled lightning? Can ALL these ufos be conventional aircraft when they do maneuvers that would kill any Earth pilot inside?

There ARE ufos and they are more than likely to be of alien origin and maybe someday the government will decide that we are grown up enough to tell us the entire story.