Gordon Cooper, one of seven original U.S. Project Mercury astronauts to propel humankind into space, witnessed several extraordinary UFO sightings in his long career as a test pilot and astronaut. While I had heard rumors of his sightings, one including a fleet of ‘hundreds” of UFOs, I’ve never heard Cooper himself tell his stories until now.
In the middle of doing some research on the subject I came across an old video, courtesy of Eyes on Cinema, which showcased a short, but succinct interview with Cooper that blew my mind.
Tells All In Plain Words
In this, under 4-minute interview, Cooper tells of his experiences in plain words that only a humble man of his high stature could. It is well worth viewing:
AUTHOR: Chet Dembeck
About Chet Dembeck
Chet is an award-winning print journalist who has covered technology, government and the Pentagon for various news organizations in the Baltimore/Washington corridor for more than a decade. Chet has completed stints as a reporter for the Washington Business Journal, the Federal Times, and the Baltimore Daily Record.
NOTE:
Mercury Seven
The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury. They are also referred to as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1. Their names were publicly announced by NASA on April 9, 1959; these seven original American astronauts were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. The Mercury Seven created a new profession in the United States, and established the image of the American astronaut for decades to come.
All of the Mercury Seven eventually flew in space. They piloted the six spaceflights of the Mercury program that had an astronaut on board from May 1961 to May 1963, and members of the group flew on all of the NASA human spaceflight programs of the 20th century – Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle.
Shepard became the first American to enter space in 1961, and later walked on the Moon on Apollo 14 in 1971. Grissom flew the first manned Gemini mission in 1965, but died in 1967 in the Apollo 1 fire; the others all survived past retirement from service. Schirra flew Apollo 7 in 1968, the first crewed Apollo mission, in Grissom’s place. Slayton, grounded with an atrial fibrillation, ultimately flew on the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975. The first American in orbit in 1962, Glenn flew on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998 to become, at age 77, the oldest person to fly in space at the time. He was the last living member of the Mercury Seven when he died in 2016 at age 95.
