Gordon Cooper: Revisited

Hello ATS,

After a thorough(ish) search about this man here on ATS, here are a few threads relating to Gordon Cooper:
2004 thread.

2008 thread.

2012 thread.

So more about Gordon:: en.wikipedia.org...

Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. (March 6, 1927 – October 4, 2004), also known as Gordon Cooper, was an American aeronautical engineer, test pilot and one of the seven original astronauts in Project Mercury, the first manned space program of the United States.
Cooper piloted the longest and final Mercury spaceflight in 1963. He was the first American to sleep in space during that 34-hour mission and was the last American to be launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission. In 1965, Cooper flew as command pilot of Gemini 5.

Fair to say this is a well accomplished man, here are a few of his Awards and Decorations::

Cooper received many awards including the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf clusters, the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, the Collier Trophy, the Harmon Trophy, the DeMolay Legion of Honor, the John F. Kennedy Trophy, the Iven C. Kincheloe Award, the Air Force Association Trophy, the John Montgomery Trophy, the General Thomas D. White Trophy, the University of Hawaii Regents Medal, the Columbus Medal, and the Silver Antelope Award. He was a Master Mason (member of Carbondale Lodge 82 in Carbondale, Colorado), and was given the honorary 33rd Degree by the Scottish Rite Masonic body, see List of Notable Freemasons.
Cooper was a member of several groups and societies including the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Astronautical Society, Scottish Rite and York Rite Masons, Shriners, the Rotary Club, Order of Daedalians, Confederate Air Force and Boy Scouts of America.
The Gordon Cooper Technology Center in Shawnee, Oklahoma is named after Cooper.

His UFO claims::

Most of us all know about his claims, and most of us know about every other astronauts testimony's on the UFO phenomenon, but for me, Gordon's stand out the most.
(From wiki)

Cooper claimed to have seen his first UFO while flying over West Germany in 1951, although he denied reports he had seen a UFO during his Mercury flight.[7]
In 1957, when Cooper was 30 and a Captain, he was assigned to Fighter Section of the Experimental Flight Test Engineering Division at Edwards AFB in California. He acted as a test pilot and project manager. On May 3 of that year, he had a crew setting up an Askania Cinetheodolite precision landing system on a dry lake bed. This cinetheodolite system would take pictures at one frame per second as an aircraft landed. The crew consisted of James Bittick and Jack Gettys who began work at the site just before 0800, using both still and motion picture cameras. According to his accounts, later that morning they returned to report to Cooper that they saw a "strange-looking saucer" like aircraft that did not make a sound either on landing or take-off.
According to his accounts, Cooper realized that these men, who on a regular basis have seen experimental aircraft flying and landing around them as part of their job of filming those aircraft, were clearly worked up and unnerved. They explained how the saucer hovered over them, landed 50 yards away from them using three extended landing gears and then took off as they approached for a closer look. Being photographers with cameras in hand, they of course shot images with 35mm and 4×5 still cameras as well as motion picture film. There was a special Pentagon number to call to report incidents like this. He called and it immediately went up the chain of command until he was instructed by a general to have the film developed (but to make no prints of it) and send it right away in a locked courier pouch. As he had not been instructed to not look at the negatives before sending them, he did. He said the quality of the photography was excellent as would be expected from the experienced photographers who took them. What he saw was exactly what they had described to him. He did not see the movie film before everything was sent away. He expected that there would be a follow up investigation since an aircraft of unknown origin had landed in a highly classified military installation, but nothing was ever said of the incident again. He was never able to track down what happened to those photos. He assumed that they ended up going to the Air Force's official UFO investigation, Project Blue Book, which was based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
He held claim until his death that the U.S. government is indeed covering up information about UFOs. He gave the example of President Harry Truman who said on April 4, 1950, "I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exist, are not constructed by any power on Earth." He also pointed out that there were hundreds of reports made by his fellow pilots, many coming from military jet pilots sent to respond to radar or visual sightings from the ground.[8] In his memoirs, Cooper wrote he had seen other unexplained aircraft several times during his career, and also said hundreds of similar reports had been made. He further claimed these sightings had been "swept under the rug" by the U.S. government.[5] Throughout his later life Cooper expressed repeatedly in interviews he had seen UFOs and described his recollections for the documentary Out of the Blue.

So this very credible man of whom should be taken seriously in my opinion, never was listened too,why? Agenda against him? Cover-up? Was he telling porky's? You decide, my choice is chosen.

So some memoirs from his book:
"Leap of Faith: An Astronaut's Journey into the Unknown", by USAF Colonel L. Gordon Cooper (Ret.) recounts how he chased UFOs over Germany in his F-86. Following this experience, Cooper was very open minded about UFOs. He writes, "I knew an Air Force master sergeant assigned to a team that received an emergency call-out from Washington D.C., to the Pacific southwest (not Roswell.) He told me they reached a canyon and found a wreckage at the site. According to his friend -- and I had been around him enough to consider him a reliable guy -- a metallic disk-shaped object had crashed, and sitting atop the wreckage were two very human-looking fellows in flight suits, waving at them. They were hustled away, and the sergeant never found out who they were or what happened to them."

As a captain stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on May 3, 1957, he became aware that a metallic, saucer-shaped craft had landed (silently) sometime after 8:00 a.m. on base property. He alleges that the event was filmed by a startled technical film crew on assignment 50 yards away, the craft zooming out of sight when the photographers tried to approach it for a better camera shot. Cooper writes that, upon learning of the incident, he telephoned appropriate Pentagon officials, who ordered him to have all the film developed (but not printed) and to ship it immediately to the Pentagon. He adds that, before complying, he chose to peek at some of the negatives, which confirmed the existence of the "saucer" as described to him by the film crew.
More to come..

Cooper notes that he heard nothing more about the film or the results of any investigation.

Here is a vid of his claims, although I'm sure most have seen it:


Now this man has put forward to the world what he has seen, and even landed, yet I rarely see anything to disregard any of claims, why is this?
Surely this mans word means either ET was/is visiting?,
Or we're being lied to about how actually advanced our technology was/is?
Especially after he has seen the negatives from a film, of a saucer landing on a dry lake bed near a military base!.

Thanks and

reply to post by skyblueworld


S&F - great post about a truly great man whose deeds and *integrity* distinguish him from so many others.

I wish everyone involved in the various space programs would take a lesson from him.

It's time to trust people with the knowledge that is rightfully theirs. Bought & paid for with their sweat, blood and tax dollars.

Hope springs eternal....

Good and credible testimony...that's what I like to see!


- SN

In July 1960 Cooper was interviewed by Yvonne S. Durfield and had this to say about UFO's. "I don't take UFO's seriously. I would be very skeptical."

reply to post by JimOberg


That's because he still had a career to finish, he chose his answer well didn't he, or the Mercury missions would of been a no no for him.

JimOberg
In July 1960 Cooper was interviewed by Yvonne S. Durfield and had this to say about UFO's. "I don't take UFO's seriously. I would be very skeptical."

Hi Jim - nice to see you. I didn't realize you were a member of ATS, but I am not surprised. Great info here - regardless of your beliefs or positions.

In any event, I agree with skyblueworld. You have to take into account the context and timing of the quote, to say nothing of how he chose his words.

He clearly felt otherwise as evidenced by his later comments - no?

skyblueworld
reply to post by JimOberg

 

That's because he still had a career to finish, he chose his answer well didn't he, or the Mercury missions would of been a no no for him.

Isn't that a leeeetle too convenient? He says something you don't want to believe and so you invent a justification for him lying?

I've never seen any reason to suspect deliberate deception in anything he's been saying. I think the more serious question is, here's a guy of unquestioned integrity and intelligence, do his stories show any patterns of subconscious elaboration and dramatic improvement over the years? It's not like this isn't a very common human narrative-drift effect.

So I'd suggest the first step with assessing Cooper's stories is to figure out why HIS later versions of the Edwards story were so different from his earlier versions AND from the version reported by James McDonald to congress in 1968.

Wouldn't it also be proper to search out other potential witnesses to the 1951 Germany story and the 1957 Edwards story? But aside from mcDonald, has anybody heard of ANYBODY ever doing that? Is there a potential problem in validation requirements, here?

Riffrafter
He clearly felt otherwise as evidenced by his later comments - no?

Is it possible the way he felt changed over his lifetime, and the situation he found himself in after he left NASA might have been an equally if not more powerful influence on the kinds of stories he was telling?

Seems a fair hypothesis to me -- as the idea that in 1960 he might have reported false beliefs about UFOs, to his career's benefit, should also open the possibility that in the late 1970s he began reporting false beliefs about UFOs, for his career's benefit?

Goose sauce and gander sauce, maybe?

BTW, here's a shot of him even before his first space flight, standing next to a tall thin AFROTC cadet, me.

files.abovetopsecret.com...

JimOberg

Riffrafter
He clearly felt otherwise as evidenced by his later comments - no?

Is it possible the way he felt changed over his lifetime, and the situation he found himself in after he left NASA might have been an equally if not more powerful influence on the kinds of stories he was telling?

Seems a fair hypothesis to me -- as the idea that in 1960 he might have reported false beliefs about UFOs, to his career's benefit, should also open the possibility that in the late 1970s he began reporting false beliefs about UFOs, for his career's benefit?

Goose sauce and gander sauce, maybe?

BTW, here's a shot of him even before his first space flight, standing next to a tall thin AFROTC cadet, me.

files.abovetopsecret.com...

edit on 24-9-2013 by JimOberg because: edit in URL

Fair points Jim. What makes it more difficult is the fact that there are a pretty large number of people who have said very different things "later" as opposed to comments/quotes made during their service in the various space agencies. Therein lies the goose/gander sauce.

I guess we mere mortals have to continue to wrestle with these questions until there is iron-clad proof either way. And the proof would probably have to be on the pro UFO side as it's almost impossible to "prove" a negative.

I'm sorry - where were we?

Great pic btw!

Riffrafter
I guess we mere mortals have to continue to wrestle with these questions until there is iron-clad proof either way. And the proof would probably have to be on the pro UFO side as it's almost impossible to "prove" a negative.

I'm sorry - where were we?

I don't think such fatalistic passivity is necessary. We can do things to assess the best evidence, to make sure it's as sturdy as possible, for future reference by those who may have more pieces of the puzzle and so can rely on thoroughly-vetted 'classic' material.

Whomever gets 'proved right' probably won't live long enough for any victory dance. But if all of us, or a lot of us, develop tighter standards and do the legwork for independent verification, they will lay foundations for the future.

The point I'd like to raise here, is that even in such a major case as this, everybody seems satisfied merely with one man's opinion, and nobody yet has expressed any dismay over the lack of any corroboration.

Where I suggest there's one case, James McDonald's study, only a decade after the event, that reveals shocking disparities with Cooper's much later version, has anybody gone out looking for it?

One other reason for disappointment -- if you decide that one man's unverified recollection is good enough for one set of his stories, don't you sorta have to apply that same acceptance level to ALL his stories?

And Cooper told some doozies. Read 'Leap of Faith', his autobiography.

I would be highly suspicious of anyone selling books based on a story that is impossible to validate.

Astronaut or not, he still likes to buy things.

People still fall for it though.

There´s also the letter that Gordon Cooper sent to Grenada embassador at the United Nations (1978).

Here:

www.ufoevidence.org...

meaningless333
There´s also the letter that Gordon Cooper sent to Grenada embassador at the United Nations (1978).

Yes, and other sincere stories that he has told.

But the question I'm raising doesn't deal with his stories. It's to ask why, for decade after decade, the UFO community not only didn't WANT to look for verification, they seemed to actively want to NOT know of any problems with his stories that were -- and ARE -- too useful for public relations purposes? So to avoid the risk of the run-of-the-mill misperception rate [>>90%], do NOT take the chance of discovering anything inconvenient.

Is that REALLY the attitude that authentic investigators can use successfully?

reply to post by FireMoon

If you want to dip your toe in the dangerous waters of psychology

Your post reads (well read) like a psych 101 text book example of psychological projection. So what is it about Oberg that gets your goat?

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by FireMoon

 

If you want to dip your toe in the dangerous waters of psychology

Your post reads (well read) like a psych 101 text book example of psychological projection. So what is it about Oberg that gets your goat?

I dont see a Firemoon above your post? Is my browser ignoring some posters or is your post in the wrong place?

always liked our original astronauts and all the others that followed. when those like cooper had the courage to speak out what they were actually seeing up there took courage. great article!

if you are interested in other things about our astronauts, here is an old thread that is interesting.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

VoidHawk

ZetaRediculian
reply to post by FireMoon

 

If you want to dip your toe in the dangerous waters of psychology

Your post reads (well read) like a psych 101 text book example of psychological projection. So what is it about Oberg that gets your goat?

I dont see a Firemoon above your post? Is my browser ignoring some posters or is your post in the wrong place?

ETA: I see the threads just been updated!

FireMoon

Click here for more information.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I rather enjoy Mr. Cooper's interviews and feel that he comes across as both truthful and sincere in them. The quote taken from him in 1960 was just a bit absurd. Why wouldn't he put himself out there and inform the public on this topic at the height of his career? Probably because he knew it would be the END of his career in the budding American space program, like duuuhh!

Sorry, Jim. You sure seem to be a pretty smart cookie, but my gut tells me that Mr. Cooper was nothing but honest in his interviews. I, like many others, believe him. In fact, he's one of the very few individuals I actually believe is telling the truth when it comes to this topic. The fact that you feel the need to post quotes from 1960 and debunk his claims REALLY makes me believe he was telling the truth!

RIP Gordon Cooper.