From: Stig Agermose <Stig_Agermose@online.pol.dk>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 00:16:21 +0200
Fwd Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 09:37:12 -0400
Subject: Edgar Mitchell On The UFO Cover-Up


[List only]

Source: The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/national/981011/1930047.html

Stig

*******

Sunday 11 October 1998

UFOs: It'S A Coverup

Astronaut Asks Washington To Tell Truth About Aliens

Tom Rhodes Times of London; with files from Tod A. Mohamed

The U.S. Congress should grant immunity to high-level officials
so they can tell the real story about alien visits to Earth,
says a former astronaut.

Edgar Mitchell, who holds a doctorate from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and was the sixth man to walk on the
moon, wants Washington to acknowledge what he believes is
long-standing knowledge of extra-terrestrial life.

Mr. Mitchell says he is 90 per cent sure that many of the
thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded
since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets. Although
some have been delusions and others natural phenomena, too many
remain unexplained, he said at a conference in Connecticut
yesterday.

"This suggests there are humanoids manning craft which have
characteristics not in the arsenal of any nation on Earth. That
is very alarming."

And Mr. Mitchell says he has witnesses -- many of them from
intelligence agencies and the military -- who convinced him that
the American government has covered up the truth about UFOs for
50 years.

"Many of these folks are under high-security clearances, they
took oaths and they feel they cannot talk without some form of
immunity," Mr. Mitchell said. "It takes a brave person to come
out on something like this."

One person who has come out is Graham Hancock, a former East
Africa correspondent for The Economist. He believes that NASA
refuses to acknowledge aliens because of "a lingering Cold War
mentality and a fear that evidence of alien life will have
destabilizing political, economic and social consequences."

His new book, The Mars Mystery, postulates that life once
existed on Mars but was wiped out by meteor impacts, much as the
dinosaurs are thought to have been made extinct on Earth 65
million years ago.

He adds that NASA has done "laughably little" to investigate
extra-terrestrial evidence, and in fact it has an official "duty
to withhold ... information classified to protect the national
security."

"What we see here is a mindset, not a conspiracy," writes Mr.
Hancock.

"And yet to be perfectly honest, we will always have a lingering
suspicion that there could be something ... going on behind the
scenes, something much bigger "

Mr. Hancock and Mr. Mitchell disagree on some aspects of the
theory that life existed on Mars, but both point to the holy
grail of conspiracy theories, the Roswell incident -- the
alleged crash of a flying saucer in New Mexico in 1947 -- as one
piece of a government coverup.

Some claim the object that crashed into a farmer's field in June
of that year contained the body of alien astronauts, but the
U.S. military has offered several alternative accounts.

In Report: Case Closed released last year on the 50th
anniversary of the Roswell crash, the U.S. air force explained
that the 'extra-terrestrials' were actually crash-test dummies
used in high-altitude parachute trials.

In a previous attempt to explain the incident, the air force
reported that the "spaceship" wreckage found by a farmer in a
field was the remains of a balloon used to monitor atmospheric
evidence of Soviet nuclear tests.

"The claim that the bodies were just life-size dummies from
parachute drops is an admission that there was at least
something at Roswell that could be mistaken for alien bodies,"
writes Mr. Hancock.

"What is to be made of statements from several of the witnesses
that one of the 'aliens' survived the crash and was seen
moving?"

Mr. Mitchell says his witnesses can provide the truth about
events such as Roswell and his campaign is bolstering other
"believers."

"There's no doubt in my mind that Ed Mitchell gives us all
credibility," said Walter Andrus, international director of the
Mutual UFO Network, the largest organization of its kind in
America.

But Mr. Mitchell said that until recently he has been leery of
appearing with ufologists, widely regarded as cranks.

"I was very cautious," he said.

Although he acts as a consultant on the X-Files, the cult
television series, he is scornful of "disinformation" about
aliens and flying saucers that emanates from the Internet and
marginal UFO organizations in America.

"The notion that there are structures on Mars or the moon is
bonkers," said Mitchell. "I can attest to the latter -- I've
been there. We saw no structures at the landing site and none
was reflected in my helmet, as has been alleged.

But while gazing at the earth from the command module of Apollo
14, Mr. Mitchell said he did feel " an overwhelming sense of
universal connectedness."

Since leaving NASA he has studied psychic and spiritual
phenomena and submitted luminaries such as Uri Geller, the
Israeli spoon bender, to scientific scrutiny. In his research he
has come to believe in life beyond our skies.

Now, he says, "there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to
warrant a scientific understanding of this area."