Edgar Mitchell
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 👤 Person
Contents 7
| Type | Person |
|---|---|
| On the Timeline | 3 events, 1996–2015 |
Edgar Dean Mitchell (17 September 1930 – 4 February 2016) was a U.S. Navy officer and NASA astronaut who, as lunar module pilot of Apollo 14, became the sixth person to walk on the Moon. He later founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences and became the best-known astronaut to say publicly that he believed aliens had visited Earth.[1][2]
Education and Navy career
Mitchell was born in Hereford, Texas. He earned a degree in industrial management from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1952, a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1961, and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964. He joined the Navy in 1952, became a naval aviator flying patrol and jet aircraft, and graduated first in his class from the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School. He retired as a captain in 1972.[1][3]
Apollo 14
Selected as an astronaut in 1966, Mitchell flew on Apollo 14 with Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa. He and Shepard landed in the Fra Mauro highlands on 5 February 1971, spending about nine hours on the surface over two moonwalks. During the mission he privately carried out an extrasensory perception experiment with people on Earth, publishing the results in the Journal of Parapsychology in 1971. On the journey home he had what he described as an overwhelming sense of the connectedness of the universe, an experience later linked to the "overview effect".[1][2]
Noetic sciences
In 1973 Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California to study consciousness and psychic phenomena, serving as its founding chairman.[1]
UFO statements
In later life Mitchell said he believed alien visitors were real and that the government had concealed this. In a 2008 interview with Kerrang! Radio he said the Roswell crash had involved an alien craft, citing conversations with people he said had inside knowledge; NASA responded that it did not track UFOs and did not share his views. In a 2014 interview he said he had never personally seen a UFO.[1][4] After his death, papers associated with him were said to include the disputed "Wilson–Davis notes" about an alleged secret UFO program.
Later life
In 2011 the U.S. government sued Mitchell for trying to auction a camera he had kept from Apollo 14; he settled by returning it to NASA. He died in West Palm Beach, Florida, on 4 February 2016, on the eve of the 45th anniversary of his landing, the last surviving member of the Apollo 14 crew.[1][2][5]
On the UAP Timeline
- Bigelow recruits consciousness experts (1996) (7 January 1996) — Bigelow tells Vallée he is hiring experts on consciousness.
- Wilson–Davis notes (16 October 2002) — Eric Davis allegedly meets Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson about a secret UAP program.
- Bob Fish email on DSP data (6 March 2015) — A former contractor tells John Podesta an Air Force satellite system collects hard UAP data.
References
- Edgar Mitchell — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Edgar D. Mitchell, Sixth Moonwalking Astronaut, Dies at 85", The New York Times (6 Feb 2016) · nytimes.com · archived copy
- Edgar Mitchell, official NASA biography · nasa.gov · archived copy
- Brian Dunning, "The Astronauts and the Aliens", Skeptoid #218 · skeptoid.com · archived copy
- "Prosecutors Settle With Apollo Astronaut Edgar Mitchell", ABC News (2011) · web.archive.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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