Astronauts reveal UFO encounters

Rumors have persisted for years that the astronauts -- nearly all of whom are military officers susceptible to being silenced under orders -- may have seen something more on the Moon than rocks and dust. According to transcripts of the technical debriefing following the Apollo 11 mission, astronauts Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins told of an encounter with a large cylindrical UFO even before reaching the Moon," U.S. investigative journalist and researcher Jim Marrs documents Mr. Aldrin further officially presented his encounters with apparent Extraterrestrials on CNN's Larry King Show. Jim Marrs further presents that Mr. Aldrin said, "The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out or pretty close to the Moon. It had a sizable dimension to it". Aldrin said the Apollo crew at first thought the object was the Saturn 4 booster rocket (S-IVB); but, he added, "We called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6,000 miles away." Mr. Aldrin described the UFO as a cylinder, while Armstrong said it was "really two rings" Two connected rings". Collins also said it appeared to be a hollow, tumbling cylinder. He added, "It was a hollow cylinder. But then you could change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by this open-book shape. It was really weird." Even more strange was the experience of Mr. Aldrin and Mr. Armstrong, after they reached the Moon.

According to an Associated Press story of July 20, 1969 published in the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, the astronauts sighted eerie lights inside a crater near the point on the Moon where their lunar lander was due to touch down the next day. On their first sweep around the Moon, Armstrong described a mysterious bright light on the inner wall of the crater Aristarchus, located north of their flight path. "It seems to have a slight amount of florescence to it. The area in the crater is quite bright," he reported. "That area is definitely brighter than anything else I can see. There doesn't appear to be any color involved in it. It looks like an eerie sight," confirmed Aldrin. Two astronauts who appear to have broken ranks are Dr. Edgar Mitchell and Gordon Cooper. On The Oprah Winfrey Show on 19 July 1991, Mitchell hinted that all information regarding UFOs has not been released, saying, "I do believe that there is a lot more known about extraterrestrial investigation than is available to the public right now [and] has been for a long time... It's a long, long story. It goes back to World War II when all of that happened, and is highly classified stuff."