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Apollo 14 Moonwalker Claims Aliens Exist

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the truth-is-out-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Former NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell — a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission — has stunningly claimed aliens exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions — but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'"

52 of 1,268 comments (clear)

  1. Space Madness! by FatSean · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think he just had a case of the space madness.

    --
    Blar.
    1. Re:Space Madness! by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      And how many times have YOU been in space? This guy has BEEN there. He knows the facts on the ground.

    2. Re:Space Madness! by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's ridiculous. That's like saying an airline pilot knows about the latest top secret fighter plane designs. Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that a civilization is smart enough to travel interstellar distances but too stupid to use basic camouflage.

      --
      http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
    3. Re:Space Madness! by tritonman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Unfortunately, all the UFO buffs who would be delighted to hear this information are also the same people who believe that the moonwalks were a sham, so they won't believe a word he says.

    4. Re:Space Madness! by SpleenVenter · · Score: 5, Informative

      > when I claim that Cthuluh is controlling the internet.

      That was not supposed to be revealed. A nasty tentacle is on its way to claim your mortal husk.

    5. Re:Space Madness! by j00r0m4nc3r · · Score: 5, Funny

      or Space Herpes

    6. Re:Space Madness! by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I hope that we're not alone. The idea that this is the only planet with sentient life anywhere in the Universe isn't just a waste of space. It chills me to the core to think that there's no Others out there. I hope they're waiting for us. "Hey, humans, you made it! We thought you'd never get out of that singularity."

      Let's also assume that they have different physics and that FTL travel is possible and routine.

      If there were aliens that were aware of our existence, it's likely that they would watch us to see what we would want them to do.

      "Hmm. There's genocide here and here, 40 000 of their offspring starve to death each day. They do not interfere. We should not interfere with their development.

      "They are afraid of things which are different. We are different. We should not show ourselves."

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    7. Re:Space Madness! by KillerBob · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe they're just fetishists... we have some pretty messed up fetishes among the human population, so why is it so hard to believe that aliens might get off by sticking things in your bum?

      --
      If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
    8. Re:Space Madness! by Forcepath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just because they're advanced doesn't mean the have the same notions of importance as we as human being do. Add in language, cultural, and technological barriers, and it isn't so strange at all that aliens could do some really dumb things by human logic. Perhaps aliens use biotechnology we haven't dreamed of, or have never heard of radio waves, etc etc.

      --
      this .sig for sale
    9. Re:Space Madness! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Or land their crates safely after traveling for billions of miles, or at least crash somewhere else but in the middle of nowhere, midwest USA.

      If you were an alien, where would you land your craft? In the middle of nowhere, where there is no one around to mess with you or your stuff, or in the right in the middle of Central Park, where the Bloods or the Crips might gank you and jack your ride?

      One could imagine that they're either more subtle when they try to remain under cover than leaving mutilated cattle and anally probed people lying around after their departure

      Mutilated cattle may be an entirely different phenomenon than aliens (see el chupacabra, for instance, for a weirder, but alternate explanation), but as far as anally-probed people -- well, again, if you were going to anally probe people, would you anally probe the President or some celebrity or would you pick some poor schmuck whom no one is ever going to believe?

      Why not land in the middle of the Superbowl finals

      I assume they also wouldn't want to get involved in local conflicts.

      C'mon, try to see it from the alien's perspective.

      --
      My blog
    10. Re:Space Madness! by Reapy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think people think too much with their 5 senses when thinking about alien life forms. What's to say there isn't a whole world existing in the same space as us, and we just cant perceive it.

      But step back from that philosophical stuff, and imagine that why would there be another species similar humans? I think people think aliens, they think human with different features with similar concepts of life, death, morals, social "revealing" ( would they even understand what that is? ) rather then something so foreign, we couldn't even begin to understand it, nor its motivations, if it has those?

      Sci fi is fun because we graft human behavior on something different, and its fun for us to say ooh look they are just like us. But in the end it is just the human ego projection our emotions on something else.

      I watched wall-e the other day. I was amazed at how well pixar could make a box with eyes utterly human. Our minds see patterns, shapes, and behavior in the right spot, and we fill in the blanks with the emotions. This is the same thing people do with the idea of "aliens". I think it is limiting, egotistical, and utterly human. We just need to remember to keep open minds about what we see, or "alien" life, because in reality it just seems like we are looking for life "similar" enough to what we know, to call it life.

      For any geeks out there, orson-scott card's ender books (the later ones) deal with this a bit, as they try to discover whether a virus is actually a species, and wiping out a really smart virus is in fact genocide.

      Just interesting stuff, but we have to remember to stop grafting our humanism on top of alien things we do not understand.

    11. Re:Space Madness! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Attempts to expand Godel's incompleteness theorems to anything beyond their original scope are foolish. From the Wikipedia article you cited: Authors such as J. R. Lucas have argued that the theorems have implications in wider areas of philosophy and even cognitive science as well as preventing any complete theory of everything from being found in physics, but these claims are not generally accepted. Don't make poor Godel into a sociologist!

    12. Re:Space Madness! by Jay+Clay · · Score: 5, Funny

      Score: 5, >> INFORMATIVE It's the little quirks in Slashdot that entertain me so.

    13. Re:Space Madness! by muellerr1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm not sure what's funnier: your response, or the fact that your telling somebody that a tentacle is on its way to claim their mortal husk was modded +5 Informative!

      --
      steampunk web design
    14. Re:Space Madness! by herriojr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why would they feel the need to "reveal" themselves to us? When biologists study wildlife, they try to stay as hidden as possible. Who's to say that we're not wildlife to them? And seriously, just like rogue biologists, there could be rogue aliens that try to get closer than they are supposed to.

    15. Re:Space Madness! by Wooky_linuxer · · Score: 5, Funny

      You mean you would believe Bush if he went on TV to say he was anally probed by aliens, which during the process told him there were WMD in Iraq?

      --
      Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
    16. Re:Space Madness! by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you have the technology to handle the incredibly, stupidly huge energies needed to travel between the stars, all the missiles on Earth don't mean a thing to you.

      I disagree. A modern supersonic F-22 Raptor Fighter Jet armed with missiles, bombs, 20mm rotary canon, etc is orders of magnitude beyond say, a 1000 year old trebuchet. The jet utterly dominates and controls every aspect of the engagement... its just absurd to contemplate such a 'battle'.

      Yet even so, if the pilot were to land the jet within range of the trebuchet to say hi to the locals, a barrage of 300lb rocks crashing into it is still going to break it.

      Point is: just because something is fantastically advanced technology doesn't automatically mean it can't be smashed by a big rock.

  2. Huh. by AltGrendel · · Score: 5, Funny

    "little people who look strange to us."

    Well, maybe we look strange to them, too. Ever think of that?

    --
    The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

    - Douglas Adams

    1. Re:Huh. by ByOhTek · · Score: 5, Funny

      Look strange?

      Alien 1: They reproduce HOW?
      Alien 2: *repeats explanation*
      Alien 1: That's... Revolting!

      --
      Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
    2. Re:Huh. by Ngarrang · · Score: 5, Funny

      "little people who look strange to us."

      Well, maybe we look strange to them, too. Ever think of that?

      Hush, you ugly bag of mostly water.

      --
      Bearded Dragon
    3. Re:Huh. by Svippy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know what is confusing me about these aliens? Why do they always contact governments when they come to Earth so they can cover it up?

      I can only applaud our governments, they are doing an excellent job. If they are capable of covering up moon hoaxes, 9/11 plans and aliens crash landing, I'd just wish they were able to do their job just as fine with, say, the war in Iraq?

      This is what always gets me about these people, they talk as if the government is a body of competent people. Last time I checked, they aren't! Private corporations could run most countries better.

      A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned.

      --
      Clicked pie.
    4. Re:Huh. by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think you would greatly enjoy "They're Made out of Meat" by Terry Bisson.

      http://www.setileague.org/articles/meat.htm

      --
      http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
    5. Re:Huh. by sm62704 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I don't buy the "space alien" story for the simple reason that the "Area 51" aliens look too much like us. Bipedal, five fingers, five toes, two eyes, one two holed nose, one mouth. Look at the diversity of life on earth, with hooved animals, pipedaal animals with feathers, squids, six legged insects and eight legged spiders, no legged snakes. And all of these creatures presumably evolved from the first earthly protolife, as we've never seen life sponaneously appear since, nor have we been able to cause it to spontaneously appear.

      Plus, how would they have found us? Our radio waves are incredibly weak. Even nuclear blasts are weak on a cosmic scale, and nobody farther than fifty light years away could have detected them yet.

      If in fact they are aliens, they must be time aliens, not space aliens; a species that evolved from humans and travelled through time to do a bit of archaeology. Considering that humans have only been here a hundred thousand years (and look at how we have progressed since), imagine what our descendants ten million years in the future will be like? We will be less than chimpanses by comparison.

      I can believe time travel before I believe faster than light travel.

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
    6. Re:Huh. by Admiral+Ag · · Score: 5, Funny

      Of course they do. Aliens have a sense of humour. That is why they only ever contact/abduct drug abusers, lunatics or drunks staggering home at night from the pub.

      The common thread here is that they will only reveal themselves to people who the general population will never believe. That's why they have no problem revealing themselves to our governments.

      --
      "by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
    7. Re:Huh. by sentientbeing · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Did you know it had been turned into a short film?
      http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/made_meat/

      (The guys own site : )
      http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html

      --

      ------
      beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
    8. Re:Huh. by geekoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, they can't.
      If you actually research it, you would find that Government agencies are almost always on target.

      There are three things to remember.
      1)I corporation can fail at 99 project, and succeed at one. No one will talk about the failures, and they will hype the success. Where as with a government agency they can do 99 projects right, and miss one and that one gets hyped all through the media.

      2) Go to the library and look at the fiscal records, almost all projects are done on time and within budget.

      3) Government agencies have for more accountability then corporation.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    9. Re:Huh. by sm62704 · · Score: 5, Informative

      We've found life in the freezing cold depths of the ocean where light doesn't penetrate. We've found life on the edges of volcanos.

      And all of it is related, and all evolved from the same source. When life began there was no oxygen on the planet.

      We've mixed together chemical soups and watched life erupt out of it.

      If we have, this is the first I've heard of it. Have you any reputable links?

      Obviously, life isn't a unique and special thing, but something that naturally erupts into existence all over the place.

      Again, as far as we know it only started once on this planet, and although there may be or have been life on Mars or Europa we have never found proof of it. The only place we've ever found hints of life are right here.

      Therefore, there must be life all over the universe, and not just here on Earth.

      Your conclusion is based on a false premise, but despite that I think it highly unlikely that in the vast reaches of our galaxy, let alone the unimaginably huge number of planets in the universe, that we are alone. If life arose independantly here from non-life, it must have risen independantly elsewhere. But if it did, it is absurdly improbable that it would look anything like us.

      The universe doesn't tend towards entropy. It tends towards life. We are walking, talking evidence of this fact.

      Life is part of entropy.

      --
      mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
  3. Art Bell Guest Spot? by Homer's+Donuts · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will he be on Coast to Coast AM soon?

  4. old news by sohp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dr. Mitchell has been saying this about aliens for many years now. He's always had a bit of a pseudo-scientific bent. During his Apollo 14 flight to the moon, he secretly conducted ESP experiments with friends back on Earth.

    1. Re:old news by Sen.NullProcPntr · · Score: 5, Funny

      During his Apollo 14 flight to the moon, he secretly conducted ESP experiments with friends back on Earth.

      And how did that go?

      Most likely no better than when the same experiments were conducted in the next room.

    2. Re:old news by eln · · Score: 5, Funny

      How can you not know that? He transmitted the results all over the world via ESP! Didn't you get them?

    3. Re:old news by BitHive · · Score: 5, Interesting
      It gets better--

      In The New York Times of June 22, 1971, he verified that rumor, and reported that his experiment had produced results "far exceeding anything expected" but in almost the same breath, he described those results as only "moderately significant."

      Mitchell told the Times that he had made arrangements that four persons stationed in different cities would attempt to determine through ESP the order of a home-made deck of standard Zener cards. These are the familiar symbol-cards (circle, plus mark, wavy lines, square, five-pointed star) that are used by parapsychologists. Astronaut Mitchell said that 51 out of 200 of the guesses made by the four subjects, were successful. Chance would call for 40 correct.

      In among all the enthusiastic statements made by Mitchell to the reporters, we discover that the experimental conditions through no fault of his had turned out to be less than ideal. He had intended to perform these experiments every day during the Apollo mission, but changes in the schedules meant that he could only work on four of those days, two on the way to the Moon, and two on the way back. But and this is very significant the psychics back on Earth, it turned out, since they were not aware of the schedule change, had written down their impressions of what Edgar Mitchell was thinking about, the40 minutes before he had begun! So, any apparent success in the experiments must be attributed to precognition, not to telepathy.

      From: http://www.randi.org/jr/05-31-2000.html

  5. He's got to be right by k_187 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If its as well covered up as he says it is, why did they let him talk? They're obviously allowing him to go public so he'll appear as a crackpot and give credibility to the opposing view.

    --
    11 was a racehorse
    12 was 12
    1111 Race
    12112
    1. Re:He's got to be right by Anonymous+Monkey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well oblivious they KNEW he would look like a crackpot so we would obviously not believe him. On the other hand they KNEW that we would think that we know they think he wants to look like a crackpot so we would obviously not believe NASA. However, we know that he has been on the moon, so he might have gone mad, so obviously we can not believe him. However knowing he has been on the moon means he was privy to a lot of highly classified information so we obviously can not believe NASA. However only a great fool believe in what has no proof so we can obviously not believe him. On the other hand NASA knows the slashdoters of the world are not great fools, and they were counting us not foolishly believing him, so we can obviously not believe them. INCONCEIVABLE!

      --
      We are the Borg...
    2. Re:He's got to be right by Poohsticks · · Score: 5, Funny

      Truly your intellect is dizzying.

      --
      "The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been wide
  6. Strange to us.... by TypoNAM · · Score: 5, Funny

    'little people who look strange to us.'
    Tom Cruise and the scientologists?

    --
    This space is not for rent.
    1. Re:Strange to us.... by Floritard · · Score: 5, Funny

      Clearwater, Fl here. Tom Cruise is an anomoly. The scariest part about regular scientologists is that they look just like us!

  7. "During the three-day journey... by cosmocain · · Score: 5, Informative

    back to Earth aboard Apollo 14, Mitchell had an epiphany while looking down on the earth from space. "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly," here

    Who would have thought that he'd go totally nuts one day.

  8. The requisit... by Deathdonut · · Score: 5, Funny

    little people who look strange to us.

    I for one welcome our new Danny DeVito overlords.

  9. Documentary by wile_e_wonka · · Score: 5, Funny

    In that case, I'll tell my wife that the new X-Files movie is a documentary.

  10. Yes, There are aliens... by Bullfish · · Score: 5, Funny

    And they are out there right now...

    Mowing my lawn and trimming my hedge

  11. Crackpottery abounds by snarfies · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Tom Cruise worships L. Ron Hubbard.
    Jim Carey think vaccinations give you autism.

    Just because you're famous doesn't mean you can't be a total crackpot. Its too bad this time its somebody more science-related.

  12. Conspiracy Theories by aaronfaby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I find it impossible to believe that the government is capable of keeping conspiracies secret. They couldn't keep 5 guys breaking into the DNC office a secret (Watergate), but somehow they can orchestrate an elaborate conspiracy involving thousands of people over the course of 6 decades and not a single shred of credible evidence has been leaked. I'm sorry but deathbed confessions don't count.

  13. Back in the good old days by farbles · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Back in the good old days people who leaked a big conspiracy disappeared. Ever since the first Kennedy assassination, the Powers That Be have discovered that the best way to deal with leaks is to just have more and more leaks and bury the truth in a million similar sounding lies.

    Suppose Mitchell's right and there really is a big alien contact conspiracy that's being covered up? We've all seen so many photos of streetlights coming from crazy/misguided people that the best policy from the conspiracy's point of view would be to let him yammer on and throw out a lot of phony alien contact crap. They don't have to discredit him, we'd all do that for them.

    All they need to do is keep him from getting at any legit relics storage so he can't go public with an alien tricorder or something that people can verify as ET in origin and the world will just think he's a loon.

    That's the trouble with real earth-shaking truth, it sounds almost indistinguishable from lunacy. You gotta wonder if there is a percentage of our locked-away crazies who are telling us the truth and we're just too thick to see it.

  14. what to do? by mattwarden · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am so conflicted. In order to believe this support for one of my favorite conspiracy theories, I have to accept that this guy is credible. In order to accept he is credible, I have to ignore one of my other favorite conspiracy theories about the moon landing. Maybe this situation is presented to me as a test to see whether my brain is harvestable.

  15. Extraordinary claims... by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    require extraordinary proof. Regrettably, there is none.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  16. Re:You coveteth my ice cream bar! by eaeolian · · Score: 5, Funny

    BACK OFF, Man! Don't force me to use this!

  17. Re:You coveteth my ice cream bar! by QRDeNameland · · Score: 5, Funny

    If the guy brought back a few missing left socks from the mission, he'd be more credible.

    --
    Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
  18. Re:Why Do You All Doubt So Much? by AdamTrace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You sound so... sincere.

    The reason that logical, rational people dismiss alien contact is there simply isn't any evidence that is bulletproof.

    It's FAR, FAR more likely that people:

    1) play hoaxes on the public
    2) misremember or misinterpret natural events
    3) hallucinate due to drugs/alcohol or mental illness
    4) lie for attention

    You're right, though, to a certain degree. As we accumulate more and more anecdotal evidence, we SHOULD keep our eyes and ears open. But we must also remember that we're very fallible creatures, so we shouldn't accept any evidence unless it is truly convincing.

    So far, no truly convincing evidence has been found.

    Adman

  19. finally a sane comment! by whopub · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're absolutely right. It works the other way around too. If I saw a really hot female alien I'd want to probe her every hole too. And sci-fi is full of really hot alien chicks! If we get something like Spielberg's ET though, that's a different story. There's no hole there worth probing. But hey, his flat head and small height would probably make him perfect to hold the TV remote. No probing required.

    1. Re:finally a sane comment! by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nah,I think if they are out there that in all likelihood they are tourists. Which would also explain the not bothering to hide bit,as you want the animals to get closer to the vehicle for your paying customers so they can get a good look. And I imagine some little green pitchman is sitting in the front going "LOOK,look at the crazy monkeys! Look as they fight and kill each other for fluids that come out of the ground! Look as they poison themselves with their primitive machines and factories! For those that pay an extra 40 flurb we will actually catch a male and female monkey and you can poke at them! Get a close look at the strange creatures! Tell all your friends you got to poke a monkey!"

      And why would they bother hiding anyway? Would WE hide from a race that was stone knives and bearskins while we have F18s and nuclear powered aircraft carriers? While I'm sure some of our scientists would scream about contaminating the environment of a primitive peoples,most would be "Look at them! They are so silly looking! Can we get a souvenir?" Because when compared to any race that could travel across the universe at FTL speeds we would be the stone knives and bearskins. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  20. Re:You coveteth my ice cream bar! by Myrddin+Wyllt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Odd socks don't go 'missing', they crawl into dark wardrobes and, after a short larval stage, emerge as fully-formed wire coat-hangers.

    --
    [ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be