Cooper

(CNN) -- Leroy Gordon Cooper, one of the nation's first astronauts who once set a space endurance record by traveling more than 3.3 million miles aboard Gemini 5 in 1965, died on Monday, NASA said. He was 77.

Cooper died at his home in Ventura, California.

"As one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper was one of the faces of America's fledgling space program. He truly portrayed the right stuff, and he helped gain the backing and enthusiasm of the American public, so critical for the spirit of exploration," NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said on the space agency's Web site.

Cooper, an Oklahoma native who entered the Marine Corps after graduating from high school in 1945, later became an elite Air Force test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he became fascinated with the space program.

By April 1959, Cooper was named as one of the Project Mercury astronauts, following grueling physical and mental tests each candidate had to endure.

At the news conference naming the future of America's space program, Cooper was joined by Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, M. Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra Jr. and Deke Slayton.

On May 15 and 16, 1963, Cooper piloted the Faith 7 spacecraft on a 22-orbit mission that concluded the operational phase of Project Mercury.

A little more than two years later, he would set a new space endurance record, serving as command pilot of the eight-day, 120-revolution Gemini 5 mission, which began August 21, 1965.

It was on this flight that he and Charles Conrad traveled a distance of 3,312,993 miles in 190 hours and 56 minutes. Cooper also became the first man to make a second orbital flight.

During his two space flights, Cooper logged 225 hours, 15 minutes and 3 seconds. He served as backup command pilot for Gemini 12 and as backup commander for Apollo X.

In an interview with CNN in 2000, Cooper said in-house politics kept him off the moon flights.

"I would have liked to have gone to the moon. I would have liked to have been one of the crew that landed on the moon but it just didn't work out that way. And I don't, I certainly don't harbor any bitterness or anger."

In addition to his space flights, Cooper logged more than 7,000 hours flying time in jets and commercial aircraft. He retired from the Air Force and NASA in 1970 with the rank of colonel.

After leaving NASA, Cooper served on the boards of directors as a technical consultant to a number of companies in the aerospace, electronics and energy fields. He also was the vice president for research and development for Walter E. Disney Enterprises Inc., from 1974-1980.

In his post-NASA career, Cooper became known as an outspoken believer in UFOs and charged that the government was covering up its knowledge of extraterrestrial activity.

"I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets, which obviously are a little more technically advanced than we are here on Earth," he told a United Nations panel in 1985.

"I feel that we need to have a top-level, coordinated program to scientifically collect and analyze data from all over the Earth concerning any type of encounter, and to determine how best to interface with these visitors in a friendly fashion."

He added, "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists and astronauts. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us."

Gordon Cooper was one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and the last American to fly into space alone. In his testimony he recounts how he observed UFOs flying in the same formation as his fighter group over the skies of Germany These UFOs made maneuvers that could not be done by conventional fighters. He felt they must have be under intelligent control to communicate with one another due to the type of maneuvers they were mimicking. At another time, while filming conventional aircraft performing precision landings, a saucer flew directly overhead and landed ahead of them on a dry lakebed. The entire event was filmed including detailed close-ups. The film was sent back to Washington and was never returned.

GC: These objects [UFOs] kept coming over flying in the same kind of formation that we fly in our fighters while we were flying in Germany. We were flying F-86’s. They would come over and do the same maneuvers that we made except every once in a while one of them would go zip, and make a maneuver that you can’t do in a conventional fighter.

What started it was that the weatherman was tracking a weather balloon and he saw these objects with his binoculars. That started people getting out and looking at them and we decided to put some airplanes out and see what they were. But we couldn’t get to them. They were higher and faster. So we couldn’t tell whether they were large and far away or smaller and closer in. It was difficult to gauge exactly what their size was.

[Astronaut Gordon Cooper and the others know what weather balloons resemble and these UFOs were not “weather balloons”, as the absurd government claims have maintained for over 50 years. SG]

JF: Do you think the Russians had that kind of technology back then [that could do this]?

JF: You definitely determined that they were objects that were under intelligent control?

GC: Well, yes. They weren’t just random. They were flying fighter formations very definitely under control.

GC: They were just typical saucer shaped, double saucer shaped, and metallic looking. I think they were definitely piloted vehicles. Each one of them had a pilot in it. I think they were very definitely in communication with one another because they would make a turn such that they had to be in communication to be coordinated.

Later at Edwards Air Force Base I was having some of the cameramen film precision landings and we were right on the edge of a dry lake. A saucer flew right over them, put down three landing gears, and landed out on the dry lakebed. They went out there with their cameras … towards the UFO. It lifted off, put the gear back in the well, and flew off at a very high rate of speed and disappeared.

So while I was going through all of the regulation books and finding out the number to call in Washington to report this, I had the cameraman go over and develop the film. By the time they got back with the developed film I had higher and higher and higher level officers talking to me. Finally, a Colonel told me that when the film arrived on my desk to put it in a courier file. There would be a courier there at my office and they would arrange for him to fly in our base airplane back to Washington with these films. [The Colonel said] to not run prints, etc., etc., etc. So we stuck them in the courier packets.

GC: We didn’t have a chance to run it. I had a chance to hold it up to the window to look at it. It was certainly good film.

GC: About the same shape. Double inverted saucer shape. It didn’t have wings on it or anything. It was pretty much the same shape [as the ones we saw in Germany].

Well, at the time this happened I was involved in research and development and doing very classified projects at the task center. I knew that we didn’t have any vehicles [like that] at that time. I am 99.9% sure that the Russians didn’t have any of that type either. At that point in time there was no doubt in my mind that it was made someplace other than here on Earth.

But you send it [the evidence] on just like you are told to do and you do what they tell you to do. At the time I was working on a little program that nobody knew about and we weren’t allowed to discuss it with our family or anybody. That was the U-2 program. It [this event] was in the same category [of secrecy] really.

I don’t know why [it is kept so secret]. In my opinion, I think they were worried it would panic the public if they knew that someone had vehicles that had this kind of performance way back right after WWII. So they started telling lies about it. Then I think they had to cover it with another lie, tell another lie to cover their first lie and now they don’t know how to get out of it. Now it is going to be so embarrassing to admit that all of these administrations have told a lot of untruths. It will be embarrassing to get out of it.

GC: I think that basically each and every President would probably like to get out of it, come clean on the deal and not have to continue to tell untruths. Eventually something is going to happen that will make all of them have egg all over their faces and they are going to have to admit that they haven’t been truthful at all.

GC: Well, somebody has kept it pretty secret for quite a while, haven’t they?

[When asked about meeting with the United Nations Secretary General about UFOs in the 1970s, Gordon Cooper says:] Kurt Waldheim was really interested in the subject and he thought that it would be a good idea to form a committee and to do the investigation at that level [of the UN] but nothing ever got done. It was typical of the U.N. They talked a good game but they never get around to doing anything about it.

By NASA’s own figures there are some 400,000 other planets out there that could be habitable. I just can’t believe that God would inhabit this one planet and then leave all of those others bare. In my personal opinion, I just feel that we are out here in the hinterland of all of the galaxies. We are way out in the sticks. All of these other galaxies are closer to one another. I think they probably have a lot of travel to and from one another. Once in a while we will get a few travelers or stragglers or come through from distant other galaxies.

I wrote a letter [to the UN] suggesting that we form a group at the U.N. level and start gathering information around the world and let it be handled and coordinated at that level. There were a lot of countries that had information. There are a lot of countries like Russia is now. The government of Russia right now works directly with the civilian UFO groups. You have differences from country to country to country. But we should have all of this information come together and be correlated in one place.

Just think about what we could do from a technical point of view: some of them may be remotely operated. They may be radio-controlled so to speak like what we call unmanned or unpiloted vehicles. I think that some of them undoubtedly have crews in them and in my opinion I think those people are probably very similar to us.

I think definitely there was something other than a weather balloon that crashed at Roswell.

GC: I think the truth has been very submerged in all of the lies that have been told.

GC: Very likely. I would like to think that they reverse-engineered it, did something of benefit with it. That would be the logical thing to do.

JF: Did you know where that footage went of the flying saucer that landed on the tarmac?

GC: How would I keep in touch with anybody? There is no way in the military or within the government of keeping track of something that is classified unless you are directly involved in it and I was not. I had no way of knowing what happened.

GC: No, it was not. And that was one of the complaints that I had about Project Blue Book. In my opinion, Project Blue Book was totally a whitewash.

[Other high level witnesses such as Colonel Brown and Dr. Wood have concluded the same: Blue Book was a PR whitewash while the real research went on elsewhere. SG]

There were a number of other things that I had occasion to know about that were not included in the Blue Book either.

In my opinion, I think they are coming from some other planet. There is no doubt in my mind. I think they are for real and I think that eventually we will find out that there is regular travel to this Earth from other planets.

Who was flying these vehicles we saw? I think there were extraterrestrial pilots flying them, no doubt about it.

[When asked about ‘black’ or invisible projects, Gordon Cooper says:] That was one reason that we did the U-2 Program the way we did it. We had put no classifications on that program because when you classify a program then a Congressman or a Senator thinks they can go out and tell all of the details. They are privileged to be able to do that. They trample all over security and tell the details to whomever they want to. We didn’t classify it at all until Gary Powers was shot down. The world really didn’t know about the U-2. At least in the United States we didn’t know about them.

[Cooper and others have told me of projects beyond classification and Colonel Corso spoke of the E. T. projects as being conveyed ‘brain to brain’. Extremely tightly held unacknowledged projects such as those dealing with UFOs really are beyond top-secret and access is blocked to Congress and the public. SG]

I think we have a lot of potential learning from them [the extraterrestrials]. If we can just set up the schedule of how to go about doing it. They can come land in my backyard anytime. If they want to come land in my backyard I would welcome them.

I think they are just the same as we are just a little higher, a little better, and a little faster.

I have a good friend who is a commercial airline pilot and he has had about three different occasions where a UFO has pulled up right alongside his wing and stayed in formation with him. He is in a major airline. The airline has a policy that their crews aren’t allowed to talk about UFOs.

Astronaut Gordon Cooper was one of the brave men who dared to expose the government cover-up of UFOs. The below article on his life and death in CNN is amazing in that it mentions his passion for lifting the secrecy on UFOs. In the final paragraph, he states, "For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists and astronauts. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us."

USA Today's article on Cooper included this in the final paragraph, "Cooper also authored the 2000 book Leap of Faith, in which he discussed NASA's early days, his experiences on the Mercury and Gemini missions and his belief in extraterrestrial intelligence. Cooper in the book said that as an Air Force pilot in 1951 that he chased UFOs while based in Germany."

The Los Angeles Times included this quote, "In the book, Cooper also embarrassed some of his old NASA colleagues with tales of UFO encounters and conspiracy theories. Claiming that film that he shot from Gemini 5 had been confiscated, he quoted President Johnson telling him, "Son, I ordered it classified."

I highly encourage you to read our summary of the UFO cover-up at www.WantToKnow.info/ufocover-up which includes the testimony of astronaut Cooper, the former chief of the British Royal Navy, a former director of the CIA, two generals, and other highly respected government and military officials. These testimonies were videotaped and can be ordered through www.disclosureproject.org The fact that CNN, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and others reported this information is a significant shift from the past lack of reporting on UFOs. It is time for us to prepare the people of this planet to become a part of the galactic community. They are waiting for us to stop trying to kill each other before they invite us to join the community. Take care and have a great day!