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Sept. 9, 1999 - Art Bell
01:13:35
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Gordon Cooper - NASA Career and UFOs
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Gordon Cooper was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Bet you didn't know that.
Attended the University of Hawaii.
Graduated USAF Institute of Technology with BS in Aeronautical Engineering.
He has 11 years of graduate level training in Space Technology, Space Mechanics, Lunar Geology, Spacecraft Design, and Flight Testing with NASA.
Also a graduate of USAF Jet Pilot School.
USAF Experimental Test Pilot School, USAF Jet Engine Rebuilding School, United States Navy Underwater Demolition Team, and USN Helicopter School.
That's a lot of school.
Served as Experimental Flight Test Project Manager and Test Pilot at Edwards Air Force Base 1956 through 1959.
Selected As a Mercury astronaut in 1959, one of four surviving space pioneers from the days when there was indeed a pretty good possibility of cataclysmic booster failure or even being stranded in space.
Today, Gordon Cooper lives in Ventura, California.
He's president of Galaxy Group, Inc.
A highly experienced engineering design group and engaged generally in modification of existing aircraft and design and manufacture of new aircraft on the drawing board based partly on his own experience with UFOs is a design for Phanteks 2000, a vertical lift craft with saucer shaped wings attached to a fuselage.
Gordon thinks the saucer shape is the way we should have been going with aircraft design for a long time, and plans to build this vehicle complete with four vertical lift fans.
He flew the last Mercury mission in 1963, 22 times around the Earth, 32 hours, still, by the way, the U.S.
record for longest solo spaceflight.
On this flight, at one point, You may recall, if you're old enough, he lost all electronics and then, therefore, was the first man to manually control re-entry from space.
Here is Gordon Cooper.
Gordon, welcome to the program.
Thank you, Art.
Good to be here.
Our phone connection is not the greatest in the world, Gordon, so you're probably going to have to try and scream at me if you can.
Okay.
That's better.
You are now in your seventies, aren't you?
Yes, I am.
I'm seventy-two.
Seventy-two.
Did you, uh, did you think, you know, as you think back on it, you were a test pilot.
I mean, a lot of test pilots died testing airplanes.
Did you ever figure to make it to your seventies?
Well, of course, I'd always hoped to, right?
Of course, in those days, seventies sounded pretty old.
That's right.
That's right.
But I mean, many times during your career you must have thought, you know, I'm going to roll the dice, I'm going to roll the dice, and I'm going to roll the dice, and one of these times it's going to come up the wrong way.
Well, I think most, particularly fighter pilots and test pilots, have become kind of fadeless.
You know, they figure when it's your time to go, you're going to go.
No sense in jumping out in front of the truck, but on the other hand, when it's your time, you'll go.
Then the next question might be, why be a test pilot?
In other words, my passion is radio.
Lord God, I'm consumed by it.
I have been all my life, and I would presume your answer would be pretty much the same way, consumed by aircraft and flying.
Is that it?
Well, that's right, and when you really look at it, the fatality rate among test pilots and certainly among space fliers has been pretty good.
We have worse fatalities out on the highways.
Actually, that's quite true, isn't it?
You were on some of the, on top, as a matter of fact in the right stuff, I think toward the end, right at the end of the right stuff, it showed you on top of the booster, this booster.
And running through your mind at a moment like that, I mean what does run through your mind at a moment like that?
You're sitting on a virtual bomb if it decides to go that way.
You just hope that all those people that built all those little parts and tested them out so carefully did a good job on them.
I forget, I think it might have been in some recent space movie I saw just before launch, one of the astronauts commented that, do you realize how many moving parts this thing has and they were all built by the lowest bidder?
That's true.
Yes, that's probably true too.
And at other times, Gordon, you, I know, saw some of our rockets blow up and I guess when you stand there and you're fairly close and you see one blow up, that has to be imprinted very heavily on your mind.
Oh, yeah.
It is, yeah.
That's what I thought.
You just hope the one you're riding doesn't blow up like that.
Most Americans wouldn't begin to understand why a person would be willing to roll the dice Well, it's a five-lane job and it's a good job.
And it's very self-satisfying to be able to do a good job in a very high technology job.
It's very self satisfying to be able to do a good job in a high technology job.
You flew a lot of experimental jets as well.
Did you ever get close to trouble in any of those?
Oh yes, on occasion.
Um, with respect to, uh, the last Mercury mission, um, to all of a sudden lose all of your electronics, just all your electronics suddenly gone, Do you think you were going to live through that?
Yes, I had plenty on it.
I had done some practicing on that in the simulator, figuring the worst thing that could happen would be to lose all your electronics.
So I had practiced on the simulator quite a bit on that very thing.
Was it a tough thing to do, in other words, manual re-entry?
The astronauts today, of course, all rely on Computers and backup computers and backups to that, but is it a pretty narrow window?
In other words, do you have to do it very carefully lest you burn up?
Well, you have a fairly narrow window to hit.
You can't come in too steep or you can't go in too shallow.
So it's a fairly narrow window, but it's not that difficult to do.
You just have to stay on top of it.
What instruments do you watch when you're manually re-entering that keep you within this narrow little window with no electronics at all?
Well, the main thing you have to do is keep the rates from building because the spacecraft is basically unstable.
And as it starts to oscillate around the roll, pitch, and yaw, you have to crack those rates out.
But you don't have any attitude isms.
Look at this.
With electric failure, they're all gone.
So, it's kind of like going down a curved road with a car or something.
In other words, you keep correcting.
That's correct.
Gordon, there have been a million rumors over the years that have flown around about you.
With regard to a UFO that you supposedly saw on a Mercury mission now.
That rumor isn't true, is it?
You didn't see one, did you?
No, somebody made a lot of money selling a bunch of lies on that one.
Did they?
Yeah, it was totally untrue.
But somehow, once they told it though, the story stuck no matter what.
Oh yeah, it even got embellished on several times.
The funny thing is that even though that's a complete BS story, The fact of the matter is, you have seen UFOs, haven't you?
Well, on one occasion I saw some strange vehicles that we finally assumed were UFOs.
Where was this?
I've never had the occasion to really see one up close.
Where did you see this?
Over Germany.
In Germany.
Can you describe what you did see?
Well it looked just like they were in fairly high altitude and it looked like flights of fighters flying over, flying the same basic kind of formation that we fly in, fighters.
And they were going in general from east to west.
And when we got scrambled off of some of our airplanes and tried to get up closer to them to see what they were, they were very, they were looking just like saucers.
They're metallic looking, but we couldn't get any close enough to get any more detail on that.
But you got enough detail to see that they looked like saucers.
Yeah, you couldn't see any wings on them.
No wings.
And their speed relative to yours?
considerably faster.
Did you report that?
Oh yes, it got reported.
How did they handle the report?
Well, I don't know.
I was just a lowly first lieutenant at that time, so I don't know how the report was handled.
How did you handle it?
In other words, you saw something that obviously was not one of ours.
Well, it was not one of ours, but of course, It was during the height of the Cold War with Russia at that point in time, and we really had no way of knowing what Russia might have designed and might be building.
So we really couldn't rule out that it might be some kind of new Russian aircraft.
One of theirs?
Right.
Well, looking back on it now, I don't think they had anything like that, or at least history presently doesn't tell us they do.
I guess it wasn't one of theirs, and I guess it must make you wonder a lot today.
Yeah, but looking back now, I suspect it was some kind of extraterrestrial vehicle.
I understand that some of your film following a Gemini 5, this is a Gemini 5 mission, I was confiscated.
They came and they confiscated your film.
You had apparently been taking shots from orbit, I guess.
And, you know, it says here in the material that was sent to me, Gordon, that you were able to... Now, bear in mind, folks, how long ago this is.
You were able to get photographs good enough to show license plates on cars On the ground.
Is that true?
That's true.
From orbit?
Yes, well, we were using a 1250mm Questar lens, so you might expect to get some pretty good detail.
Well, you might, but, you know, years and years and years ago, we were boasting that the very best satellite, spy satellites we had, were capable of getting, perhaps, a license plate or something like that.
So if you could do that then, one has to wonder what they can do today.
Yeah, I would assume that we've improved over that considerably.
Looking back on it now, I understand you were really angry when they confiscated your film.
Looking back on it, do you think it was... I mean, why do you think they took that film?
Well, I think I only found out fairly recently, in just recent years, from one of the men who was involved in the confiscation, that the reason it got confiscated was that I had inadvertently made... we were asked to make pictures of airfields and pictures of ships at sea and pictures of cars in parking lots so they could measure resolution.
And one of these airfields that I had come over and snapped unknowingly turned out to be some little area they called Area 51.
Area 51?
Yeah, how about that?
How about that?
Do you know where I am, Gordon?
No, where are you?
No, you don't know.
I'm in a little town called Pahrump, Nevada.
Oh, yeah.
And you see, just over the mountain from me, Gordon, is Area 51.
It's just over a mountain range here.
And I'm telling you, Gordon, we see things from time to time in this town, and just about everybody in this town can tell a story, that absolutely cannot be accounted for.
They simply can't be accounted for.
In my own case, I saw a large, triangular, silent craft pass directly over my head.
I was standing there with my wife.
Silently, not making a sound, floating, not flying, doing, oh, I don't know, 30 miles an hour, perhaps not enough to support aerodynamic flight of any sort that I know.
I was in the Air Force, and I used to get to fly in C-130s a lot, Gordon, and so I know what a C-130 is.
And two weeks after I saw what I saw, a report came out in our local newspaper which said, yes indeed, on that night there had been a secret mission that may have overflown the Pahrump Valley, that's where I live, And that it was a C-130 aircraft.
And I have never been so insulted in my entire life.
So we see these things and they probably come and go from Area 51.
As a test pilot, Gordon, what do you imagine... I probably shouldn't even ask this.
What do you imagine... I mean, after all, the stealth now is...
Uh, Wyatt's old news.
Oh, yeah.
So, what do you imagine we're working on now?
I don't know, but I hope we're working on something exciting, because we're spending a lot of money apparently there.
I hope with all the money we're spending that we're getting, you know, something pretty exciting.
Return for the tax dollar?
Right, and I'm sure we probably are.
I'm sure we are.
All right, Gordon, hold on.
We're at the bottom of the hour.
You're listening to U.S.
astronaut Gordon Cooper, and this is a unique opportunity to ask him just about every question I can think of about what it's like to be in space, what it's like to sit on top of one of those rockets, and yes, what may be out there that we don't know about, or Maybe we simply don't admit it.
So we'll try and cover as much of that ground as we can.
Gordon Cooper.
I'm Art Bell.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
Alright, once again, Gordon Cooper.
And the name of the book is Leap of Faith.
Gordon, Why is it called Leap of Faith?
Why that book title?
Well, my spacecraft, the Mercury spacecraft, was named Phase 7.
Phase 7.
I guess that was kind of a nice tie-in.
Yeah, that makes sense.
But, you know, maybe it's your publisher, HarperCollins, putting words in your mouth, but these are pretty strong words.
It says here, Leap of Faith is Gordon's first person story told in his own words with his co-author Bruce Henderson.
Though it is part memoir and part adventure, it's underpinning from beginning to end is his strong and unshakable belief in extraterrestrial intelligence.
That's an incredible statement.
Is that true?
Well, I certainly am.
I certainly believe that God created a tremendous big universe for us, and everyone who's gone into space, you know, it's a very great humbler because you realize what a big, monstrous place this universe is.
And when you think about possibly 400 other planets that we know of right now that could have atmospheres similar to ours, it makes you wonder, if we aren't being kind of vain, if we think that God populated only this one planet.
That's right.
And as I said in the movie Contact, what a great waste of space it would be.
Right.
When you were in orbit, you were there for quite a while.
22 orbits, 32 hours, that's a long time.
You would have time, I would presume, during that time to look out from your spacecraft and yourself contemplate everything that you're seeing, which is a lot more than we see down here.
And did those kinds of thoughts and wonderings cross your mind then, Gordon?
Oh, I suppose so, yes.
And you're right.
And the interesting thing is when you're up in orbit, out of all the atmosphere and everything, you see about a hundred times the amount of stars that you see here on Earth.
It's really amazing.
You know, you realize that there are just millions and millions and millions of them out there.
And many, many, many of those stars you're looking at are the suns of another solar system.
Yeah, kind of like from 2010.
Oh my God, he said.
The stars.
Full of stars.
Yes, and now we know, as you point out, that there are probably planets around many, many of those stars.
We're finding more all the time, so the probability of life would seem rather high.
You combine that with the Uh, the meteorite that they just found with, uh, saline water inside of it, and gee whiz, uh, the probability of life seems to get higher and higher and bigger and bigger.
Yeah.
Out there.
So... We haven't even totally ruled out the fact that there may, if not now, that certainly at one time there may have been life on Mars.
In fact, it is likely that at one time, or at least possible, there was light on Mars.
We know there was an atmosphere.
We know there was water once on Mars.
All of that's true.
I guess I can't resist, Gordon, so I'll ask you.
There's been a lot of controversy about the face, the so-called face on Mars.
And they have gone back and they have re-photographed the face on Mars.
In what many people consider to be an angle that did not do service to the first photograph that we saw.
In other words, it was at such a terrible angle that frankly it looked like a filled cat box or something, rather than a face.
What do you think about the face on Mars?
I just don't know.
It could either be something that someone made, like some of the big Some of them were done down in Central and South America, or it could be just a natural erosion of some kind, possibly.
But I just don't know really what to make of it, and I guess that's one of the reasons we need to send some manned missions to Mars and check some of the things out a little closer.
Gordon, let me ask you this, and I'm sure that you are very loyal to NASA, but is NASA today, the same NASA when you flew?
Well, no, it's of course much bigger and being bigger and more bureaucratic is certainly probably somewhat more inefficient.
But NASA does a tremendous lot of good and a lot of good work.
And if I can criticize, one of the things I can criticize NASA the most on is the fact they really don't toot their own horn quite enough.
Because they do a lot of good work in aviation, for instance, that people aren't even aware of.
That's absolutely true.
You're right.
They don't toot their horn a lot, and their horn does not get tooted all that much anymore by the media at all.
They just don't treat spaceflight the way they once did.
No, they don't.
What do you think happened to the American people?
You think they got... Well, of course, I think if we... You know, I think if we start going back to the Moon, And doing some manned Mars landings.
We'll find that people are still just as interested as ever.
Gordon, it's been 30 years, 30 years plus, since we went to the moon.
That's a long, long time.
I remember it, of course.
I'm old enough.
I'm 54, and so I remember it as a child.
And we haven't gone back.
That's unbelievable, isn't it?
Yes, it is unbelievable.
Why?
Oh, I don't know.
You can say politics or you can say all kinds of reasons, but I just think we have not had an administration in that really had the courage and the wisdom to really put things together and really get going on it again.
And certainly a lot of it has been NASA's fault, too.
NASA has not had the courage or the wisdom that NASA Well, that's exactly what I meant when I asked you that question about NASA then and NASA now.
NASA then was much more of an adventuresome organization, much more of a risk taker.
And I guess it's not surprising, is it, Gordon, that as an organization gets larger, it takes fewer risks.
Well, they get beat up pretty bad by the politicians, too.
You know, Congress beats the heck out of NASA all the time.
I'm sure they get kind of beat down from time to time.
NASA, when they are asked about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, or even more directly to the point, the possibility that there are things in our skies That cannot be explained.
NASA does get a bit defensive on the issue.
Gordon, they don't like talking about that sort of thing.
We had a great big investigation in this country called Project Blue Book, as you well know, that ended with a statement that whatever these are, and they certainly could not explain everything they investigated, they are not a threat to national security.
Can you buy that statement?
No.
Of course, Blue Book was done by the Air Force, not by NASA.
That's right.
And Blue Book was, in my opinion, was strictly a cover-up to just whitewash the whole thing and hopefully the whole thing would go away.
Blue Book was strictly a cover-up and a whitewash.
In my opinion, that's what it was, right.
Okay.
Gordon, in your opinion, Should there be a modern day version of Project Blue Book or whatever it is they would like to call it today that would investigate what is in our skies?
Is there sufficient evidence to warrant a reopening all of this legitimately this time?
If you could have a centralized... I had recommended several years ago that we use the United Nations, you know, as a repository for all the information and all the investigative teams' data to come in to one central location that was sort of a neutral ground.
I don't know where it's... you know, I don't really care where it's done, but you do need somewhere where... to kind of correlate all these sightings and all the data that's brought in.
To see whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
Do you think such a thing is politically possible right now?
I don't know.
Very likely it is.
It may just be.
Some recent surveys of the American people Gordon, have been very revealing and a majority of the American people now believe that these things do fly in our skies.
They believe they are real.
And if you have that kind of consensus, you would think that would give some of the politicians enough backbone to call for such an investigation?
Yeah, you would think so.
It certainly would have a good chance of getting a very favorable reception from the public.
You had an experience which I have heard about over the years, Gordon, at Edwards Air Force Base.
Something about a couple of cameramen.
Can you tell me about that with a close encounter with something or another?
My experience was really second hand.
I had a crew who was working for me.
He was photographing.
Did they get pictures?
They got pictures.
I knew when they were installing on the edge of the dry lake bed.
And the saucer flew in over them and landed about 50 yards from them.
They proceeded on to go over closer to it to get pictures and it lifted up, put the
gear back up and took off.
Did they get pictures of it?
They got pictures.
They did?
And then I had to go dig through all the rags and find out who to call in Washington to
to report this as per regulations.
You, wait a minute, you made the call to Washington?
Right.
While they were developing the sound.
And, um, what kind of call was that?
Well, as per Air Force rag number, I can't remember the numbers of them now, but if an unusual sighting is made of any kind of Unidentified flying object.
You will call this particular number and report.
Oh, really?
No kidding!
First of all, I'd never even heard that, that there was a special number for a UFO, unidentified flying object, whatever you want to call it.
But there is such a number, was such a number, and you called it.
And I called it.
And you said, guess what?
We've got photographs of A strange little vehicle that doesn't seem to have any wings on it.
Strange vehicle that doesn't seem to have wings that landed at Edwards Air Force Base.
Right.
I see.
And what did the person on the other end say?
Just a minute and I'll get Colonel so-and-so.
And then before long I was talking to some general.
A general?
Uh-huh.
And he said to tell me, do not run in front of those sounds of the negatives.
Put him in a pouch and we're making arrangements to have him flown to Washington immediately.
He told you, don't make prints, fly him to Washington right away.
Right.
And I assume that is precisely what you did.
We put him in a pouch and some guy came around to the office and picked him up in a pouch and that's the last I saw him.
And how long was it before some general called you back to explain exactly what it was that was in the photographs?
Well, that was 40 years ago, and I'm still waiting.
Phone hasn't rung yet?
Phone hasn't rung yet.
Gordon, I... Generals don't generally call captains back and explain things, though, you know, frequently, so... Uh-huh.
Well, as you pointed out, it's been all those years, and you rose in the ranks, and you did a lot of things that got you a lot of public exposure, and you might imagine that the General might have called you back some years later, but no, huh?
Well, who knows?
Maybe he retired right after that or something.
Oh, he retired?
No, I'm saying maybe he did.
How many people, Gordon, do you think, in high positions, are retiring with knowledge of the kinds of things that you and I are talking about right now, taking it to their grave?
Oh, I just don't know.
It'd be interesting to know, wouldn't it?
Yes, it would.
I want to ask you about something else.
Over the years, Gordon, a lot of astronauts, Neil Armstrong, for example, at the White House, And on many other occasions, a lot of astronauts have made very, very provocative statements that don't quite say that we are being visited, that the things in our skies are real.
They don't quite say that, Gordon, but they almost say it.
Neil Armstrong particularly alluded to just some incredible things that will be coming down the line and
do you think that other astronauts are afraid to really tackle this issue straight on
well i think most people are in government in NASA or in the department of defense
are a little cautious about what they say because there have been so many lies made up about UFOs
and so many lies have been made up about all the space flights
and all the various things to do with NASA and with space
that i think everybody is a little skeptical about saying anything to anybody
It would be kind of like stepping in front of a podium, I suppose, and presenting the latest theory on who killed Kennedy.
It would be lost in the shuffle.
It would be part of the noise.
There's so much noise on the subject that... Of course, coming from somebody like yourself, or Neil Armstrong, or anybody who's been in our space program, the words that you're saying tonight carry a lot of weight with the American people.
Could you have spoken out in the way you're speaking out now, When your career was active, when you were still in the space program, and if you had, what would have happened?
Well, I don't think anything would have happened.
I always have spoken out pretty loud and clear on it.
I've never had any warnings from anybody in either the Department of Defense or NASA against speaking out or saying anything.
Contrary to what some news media are always saying, that, you know, we're always warned not to say anything.
I've never had any suppression of all of my speaking out.
Would it be your opinion, Gordon, that our government is very well aware of these things doing tremendous speeds and maneuvers in and just above our atmosphere, that they are fully aware of this?
I sure hope they are.
But is there any way, with the technology that you know and I know they have, that they could not be aware of it?
No, I think there's just too many, you know, too many solid citizen people who have seen things to totally disregard it.
And certainly, you know, we even have had the skeptics who have always said that the
speed of light is definitely by far the greatest limitation of any kind of speed we move at, and yet
every physicist in the block is now amazing neutrinos zipping around at many times the
speed of light all over space. That's right.
And so, you don't imagine that a violation of Einstein's theory about not being able to exceed the speed of light, you rather imagine that sometime in our distant future, or somebody else's present, it's already been achieved?
Well, even Einstein was modifying all his formulas when he went back and started using time as a variable rather than a constant.
And so before he died, he was opening up his theories to greater and greater speed.
That's right, he was.
All right, Gordon, hold on.
We're at the top of the hour.
You okay to go ahead?
Good.
Excellent.
Stay right where you are.
We are honored this night to be speaking with Gordon Cooper, U.S.
astronaut Gordon Cooper.
And when we get back, we'll come back for a moment to the incident at Edwards Air Force Base.
Send the negatives.
Send them now.
Don't make any prints.
I'm Art Bell and this is Coast to Coast AF.
Once again, here is Gordon Cooper.
Gordon, going back again to 1957, at Edwards, we did talk about the photographs that were taken, and it's my understanding that before you sent off these photographs as ordered, you got to see them.
You actually got to see the negatives.
Right.
Apparently the cameramen were told that what was in the negative was a balloon.
Several years later when things came out on it, that was my understanding.
Someone had interviewed them and they were told what the pictures were of.
I think that's what the story generally was from about 1940-something or another.
Maybe the 50s.
Whatever it was, it's a balloon.
That weather balloon seemed to get around a lot, didn't it?
Well, I understand you were able to observe, at least in the negatives, that it had a tricycle-like landing gear.
Right.
Interesting balloon.
Yeah, the only balloon I've ever seen with landing gear.
Although, you know, it's funny.
I was, uh, two T-38s full of us.
Pete Conrad and I and Neil Armstrong and Elliott See were heading up to St.
Louis to do some work on the Gemini 5 spacecraft.
And, uh, we were cruising along around 40-something thousand feet in two T-38s, just loose formation, and I looked out about ten o'clock high and said, what do you see out there about ten o'clock high?
You came back with arms.
I don't know that I really want to say what it looks like.
Really?
And so we finally called flight service and said, we'd like to climb considerably higher and get on up to check something out up here.
And they said, OK, go ahead.
No obstructions.
We climbed, put in the afterburners and climbed and climbed and climbed.
Got up to it and pulled up alongside.
There's a great big weather balloon with a radio package hanging underneath it.
It was a weather balloon.
It was a weather balloon.
After all the criticism, I made a weather balloon.
There was one that looked very much like a saucer from a distance.
Sure.
Sure.
If it's round and you're looking at it from below, it's going to look a lot like a saucer, no question about it.
So, anyway, your real personal opinion is that there is something going on.
And that it's worth investigation?
I think so, yeah.
Gordon, most Americans, unfortunately, because at least Americans my age, are never going to get to go to orbit.
They're never going to be in space.
They're never going to know what it feels like.
Well, don't give up yet.
Well, I'm not giving up, but I mean, just looking around at the odds right now, I'd say It doesn't look too good.
When you first experience weightlessness, is it a terrifying feeling of falling as I've heard people describe it?
Do you get used to it?
Do you enjoy it after a while?
What's it like?
You get used to it very rapidly.
It's an unusual feeling.
But it's very relaxing, and you get used to it very rapidly, and it is a very enjoyable feeling.
And when you come back to when you have weight again, back on Earth, you realize how heavy you are.
Did you get sick at all?
No, I didn't.
You didn't?
No.
Now, was that because of the... I presume you guys went through a lot of testing with what they call the The Vomit Comet or something or another that would produce temporary states of weightlessness in a dive, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you climb, and as you climb over the top, you know, as you're climbing, you're going across the top right here in a situation of weightlessness.
Well, a lot of people are wondering, one of the mandates, Gordon, that NASA has, Is to begin to privatize space.
And it's really one of the things that has not come to fruition.
They were mandated by Congress to begin to privatize space.
And if it could ever get in the private sector, then maybe some people could literally go to space on vacation someday, I'm sure.
Do you believe that that process should be hurried?
Well, I think that it is coming along a little slower than everyone had hoped, but there are a number of companies that are building spacecraft of different kinds, building boosters, several different companies building boosters in the private sector.
And I think we will see space begin to have quite a bit of privatization occurring fairly shortly.
So we're on the verge of it, you think?
I think we are, right.
You are in the middle of, apparently, this Galaxy Group, which is producing, among many other things, something called the Phanteks 2000, a vertical lift craft with saucer-shaped wings.
Why do you think?
It says here that you think the saucer shape is the way we should have been going with aircraft design for a long time.
Why?
One of the reasons we did not years back is that we had no artificial stability systems.
And a saucer is inherently mutually or slightly unstable.
And with the old advent of manual mechanical control systems, you perhaps could have some trouble controlling it.
But now with artificial stability, there's no reason why you can't take advantage of all the aerodynamics that you get off a saucer.
A saucer certainly has very interesting aerodynamics compared to a wing.
Actually, I don't even understand the aerodynamics of a saucer.
I understand a wing, and I understand lift, and I understand aerodynamic flight, and I don't understand how to relate that to something in a saucer shape.
Well, a saucer really is just like a wing.
Just like the whole vehicle really is a lifting body or lifting wing.
Well, if you are heading a company that is doing this, then is it too much of a leap of faith to imagine that they've got saucer-shaped flying things out at Area 51?
Well, as I said earlier, I certainly hope they do.
I hope they're really a few generations ahead of the aircraft that we all see around.
At least a few.
We've got some people who would like to ask you questions, Gordon, so let's try that.
On the first time caller line, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper and Art Bell.
Good morning.
Hi, good morning, Art, and good morning, Gordon.
This is Space Mummy at AOL.
You probably remember me.
I've sent you numerous emails.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
Anyway, I listen to your show almost every night, and you've got a great show, Art.
Thank you.
Do you have a question for Gordon?
Yes, this is a question for Gordon.
Gordon, I believe it was Neil Armstrong who made a report, or a remark, excuse me, while walking on the moon.
This was during the live actual broadcast when he said that he saw what looked like footprints on the moon.
Do either one of you remember Mr. Armstrong making that statement?
I do not.
Gordon, do you?
No, I don't remember that.
Would you like to have gone to the moon?
Yes.
You probably would have been a pretty good guy to have along with respect to Apollo 13 with the kind of hands-on experience that you had.
Were you ever a candidate for a flight of that sort or ever considered?
Oh, yes.
I was in the Apollo backup team and was in the crew selection process.
I watched a number of programs, Gordon, about the astronaut preparations and the backup teams and so forth.
Were people thinking that it would not be too bad if somebody got the flu on the wrong day?
You mean before a flight?
Well, I mean that if somebody who might get flu, leaving a seat open for you.
Well, I was always open to that, I guess.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
Hello.
Hello, Mr. Bell.
Hi.
Mr. Cooper, my grandfather was In World War II, and he was a prisoner of war, and he died six years ago.
His name was Hammack.
His last name was Hammack.
And he expressed to me that if I ever could speak to you, that I should tell you that you are a true patriot.
I don't know if he ever met you or knew you.
Apparently he knew you, but I don't know what the connection is.
He must have known something.
Yes, sir.
To make that comment.
Yes, sir.
All right.
Well, thank you very, very much for that.
I don't know if you can answer this or not, or maybe you can just say you can't answer it, which will tell us as much as really, I guess, an answer would, or nearly as much.
And that is this question.
Are there many things that occurred to you during the time you were in the space program, or during all the years that you were connected to NASA and experimental aircraft, are there many things that, even today, You can't talk about?
No.
Not really.
Not really?
No.
Nothing other?
Nearly anything at this point would be declassified and you could talk about it?
That's correct.
You've heard reports that on some Apollo missions there were inexplicable things that were seen.
Have you not?
I've seen reports in magazines that I've not seen that on the official NASA documentation.
There have been, Gordon, some recent, very interesting pieces of footage that have come from shuttle flights.
STS-48 was one.
I've seen that.
You saw that, did you?
The explanation given for what we saw on STS-48 was ice crystals.
Did that seem to wash with you just fine?
No, not really ice crystals, but my choice on it would have been meteors.
Meteors?
Meteors.
Because I saw thousands of meteors and meteorites.
I've watched that again and again and again, and it seemed as though one was reacting to the other.
certainly looked like meteors to me.
Okay.
Although they had, you know, there was one of them that had kind of one peculiar little
movement to it.
It certainly did, didn't it?
I've watched that again and again and again and it seemed as though one was reacting to
the other.
Was that your impression?
Yeah, a bit that way, yeah.
Maybe a coincidence?
Maybe not.
Well, it just...
Then there was another more recent shuttle flight, and I'm not sure if it was 50, I think it was 50, Gordon, in which the outboard camera on the shuttle appeared to come down and focus on a specific piece of land, whoever was controlling the camera from the ground, focused on a specific piece of land and zoomed in and waited.
And without question there was something that appeared to come up from the ground at an incredible speed.
Perhaps some sort of experiment, perhaps something leaving the atmosphere at a tremendous speed.
I really have no idea.
Maybe some sort of laser or plasma weapon or Who knows?
Have you seen that footage?
No, I haven't seen that.
I would love your view of it.
When you were in orbit, spending all that time in orbit, did you spend more time looking outward toward the stars or back toward Earth?
I'd say about an equal amount of time, probably.
About an equal amount of time.
Did you ever see anything in orbit that, you know, you kind of did a double take on?
Because so much of the film that we get back from these STS missions is kind of strange stuff.
I mean, it's kind of hard to explain.
And you were there, you were in orbit, so... Yeah, I looked and looked, but I never did see anything.
It was unusual.
It could be extraterrestrial in origin or anything.
If you, back then, were able to take photographs of license plates, then they should, by now, very nearly be able to count the hairs on our head if they wanted to.
I agree.
Is that too much of a leap of faith, or do you agree?
I agree.
Oh boy.
To imagine that is up there, and to imagine they can do that is...
Something to think about, really it is.
Well, you've got to put a big lens on.
Yeah, a big lens.
Have you ever thought about going back to space?
I mean... Yeah, I'm waiting for Mars.
Mars, huh?
I want to get my old age study like John got his on the shuttle.
I want mine on the Mars mission.
Were there any ill effects?
I didn't hear of one for John Glenn.
No, I don't think he did.
I think he came here in great shape.
Great shape, as a matter of fact.
So what does that tell us, then, about the rigors of space flight, given that even though John Glenn is long in the tooth, he's in pretty good shape?
But doesn't that really mean that if we could do it, the average American really could go to space?
Sure.
I think the average American could very readily go to space.
All right, Gordon, hold on.
We'll do one more segment.
Stay right there.
Okay.
All right.
My guest is Gordon Cooper.
His book is Leap of Faith.
And it's not out yet, but it will be.
And when it is, you're going to want to grab it right away.
Or get your order in now.
I'm Art Bell.
This is Coast to Coast AM.
I can see her lying back in her satin dress, in a room where you do what you don't confess.
Some down you better take care if I find you been creeping round my back steps.
She's been looking like a queen in a sailor's dream and she don't always say what she really means.
Sometimes I think it's a shame when I get feeling better when I'm feeling no pain.
All right, back now to Gordon Cooper.
Gordon, let me tell you this.
I was wrong.
It wasn't STS-50.
It was STS-80.
And I described to you that camera which zoomed in and I had somebody here at the house, Gordon, who worked on SDI.
And I showed them this clip from STS-80.
And they were sort of sitting there, interested and observing, and all of a sudden this thing shoots up from Earth, obviously.
And this person, who I will not identify for their own safety, said, oh my God, I worked on that.
So, I guess since you didn't see it, I would ask you, would you like to see it?
Sure.
And perhaps render an opinion for us.
Okay.
It's one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen, and I sure would like to get your opinion.
So, I'll see to it that you see it.
How's that?
Star Wars is not bad.
One more wild question, and that is, Obviously, I mean, I think all Americans know that the astronauts had an awful lot of camaraderie.
You guys were very close, very competitive, but very close.
And there must have been a lot of times when you got to sit in a bar somewhere, knocking back a few with some of the other guys.
Were you ever told anything by any of the other astronauts about anything that was seen on the moon?
No, I never have, and I certainly would have been, you know, had they seen anything of that kind.
you know, had they signed anything like that.
Kind of.
I interviewed Edgar Mitchell, who got to walk on the moon,
and he made some comments that to this day I wonder about, Gordon, and they were,
he said, you know, it's kind of strange, but when I try to think back and
No, I never have, and I My emotions and my feelings as I was walking on the moon.
I can't.
And that always puzzled me.
You would think that would be such a high point in your life.
That there would be almost nothing that you would forget about it, or that you didn't notice.
But he did make that comment on the air with me, and I thought that was very strange.
Well, one of the things that people don't realize is that all through every spaceflight, it's so well planned in every little detail, and practically every second of the whole flight is planned out because the time is so valuable.
That they don't have time for that.
So you really don't have time to do a lot of errands.
And you're really concerned about staying on your timeline and getting this done and getting this done and getting this done.
So a lot of your concentration is on just doing the job.
That's a really good point.
Then let me ask you about this.
I've long said that people don't, many times, they don't see things in our skies because You know, we're driving our cars, or we're doing our tasks, and we're not spending a lot of time looking up at the sky.
That's right.
You can't very well look up at the sky when you're running down a freeway somewhere.
Not live for long.
So, was it kind of the same way with you?
In other words, you did get to look out the window, but they kept you pretty busy too, didn't they?
Oh, yeah.
The Everspace flight was very busy.
All right.
Here we go.
First time caller on the line.
You're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
Hello.
Good morning, Art.
Good morning, sir.
Where are you?
I'm a truck driver right now.
I'm in Syracuse, New York.
All right.
Mr. Cooper, Gordo, if I may.
Kudos.
Thumbs up.
Double thumbs up.
I'm a former crew chief in the Air Force.
All right.
I was a tanker crew chief and an A-10 crew chief.
I was interested, my main question to you, sir, was during the early parts of the space project, since we really didn't know what was out in space, near-Earth orbit objects, What was the concern on them?
That's really a good question.
Actually, I'll expand it, but was there a lot of concern about near-Earth objects, things that might be orbiting our planet that you might run into accidentally?
Yeah, but actually, even in fairly early days, we had a pretty good handle on where all these pieces of space junk or spare parts and everything were.
We knew where most of them were.
You just hoped that you didn't run into some that you didn't know were there.
I've got in front of me a picture of the space junk that is around our planet right now.
And it's astounding.
I mean, it's absolutely astounding, particularly in low Earth orbit.
It looks like a complete junkyard.
Yeah.
Is that dangerous?
Well, no, not too bad.
Most of it's all going somewhat generally the same way.
Of course, you're losing a lot of it, too, every year.
You burn up a lot of it every few months.
In the lower orbits, the orbit decays and you're slowly re-entering and burning it.
Gordon, since we're talking about stuff burning up in the atmosphere, You didn't happen to hear the first hour of my program tonight, did you?
No, I didn't.
You didn't.
I had a member of the clergy on, Gordon, down in Florida, who actually, I can only reveal so much about what he does, but he has some connections at the Air Force Base there, and there was something that came into our atmosphere Over Florida, over Tampa, the Tampa area, moving west, that zigged and zagged in ways that anything that you would imagine would be entering the atmosphere could not possibly do.
Not possibly do.
And he claims that three, actually four, I think, F-16s were scrambled in the direction this object had come from.
And that three of the F-16s lost all control, all power, for a very short period, but all at once.
Is there any way that you could calculate the odds of that occurring?
Well, if you had a large electromagnetic anomaly of some type, the F-16 is a digital flight control airplane, and I can remember an incident several years ago where An F-16 flew by a very large radio transmitting tower and lost all control for a short period of several seconds.
Really?
The authorities suggested that what came down was a Russian rocket booster.
Would a rocket booster burning up in the atmosphere, in your opinion, produce that kind of strong magnetic pulse?
Well, it's hard to say.
I guess it's always possible.
Doesn't sound too likely, but it certainly is somewhat of a possibility, I suppose.
Didn't sound too likely to me, either.
All right.
Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
Good morning.
Good morning, gentlemen.
Where are you?
I'm calling from Houston.
This is Karen.
Hey, Art.
Hi, Karen.
Mr. Cooper, you're familiar with Story Musgrave, is that right?
Oh, yes.
Art, I believe on one of your programs, someone had called in and said that at a convention that was held in Hawaii not too long ago... Yes.
...towards the first of the year, or sometime around then, and Story had given a presentation, and he closed his presentation by pointing to, like, a depiction of the grave, and he said, gentlemen, something to the effect that these guys are real.
Actually, that's exactly right, Gordon.
Story was in Hawaii.
I have a very good friend, a very good friend and acquaintance, who works at a television station in Honolulu, and he went and covered a talk that Story was giving, and at the very end of the talk, Story, in fact, uncovered some kind of a palette, I guess, that was up on the stage, and there was a picture of what's known to many in the UFO community as an alien gray, and stone-faced, he said, These guys are out there.
And there was kind of a nervous laugh in the audience.
People weren't sure whether to laugh and or to take him, whether it was intended to be a joke or it was intended to be serious.
Would you have laughed?
No.
No?
I think there have been a lot of very reliable people who've had contacts.
Yeah, you know, it's a repeated possibility that they're for real.
Gee, Gordon, you seem to think like a lot of the rest of us do.
And you say you've been this outspoken on this subject all your life?
Pretty much so, right.
Somehow, most people would have imagined that to be a career killer, but obviously yours didn't get killed.
All right.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
Good morning.
Hello there.
Yes?
Yes, sir.
You're on the air.
Okay.
My question is, did you see the vehicle that landed on the airstrip, or did you see pictures of it?
No.
What he saw was negatives.
In other words, two photographers at Edwards Air Force Base took photographs of this object.
And Gordon got to see the negatives of the pictures that were taken before they were spirited off to Washington, never to be heard from again.
Okay.
Of course, it never made Project Blue Book then.
Not as far as I know.
No, it didn't make Project Blue Book either.
Yeah.
Is there any way you could access it through Freedom of Information?
Now do you think?
I think it's been tried several times.
It has been tried.
Do you know the photographers that took the pictures?
No, I don't really recall.
I looked up their names somewhere in one of the reports.
Someone had dug up on the Freedom of Information Act.
I can't recall what they are at the moment.
You don't remember what came back?
In other words, it was non-responsive in some way?
Yeah, it wasn't anything.
I think it involved another weather balloon or something.
Did the reporters, did they talk to Mr. Cooper about it?
Or had he talked to them?
Which reporters?
The photographers, I mean, that took the photographs.
Did you guys talk about it?
Oh yeah, they talked about it.
What did they tell you?
Did they tell you any more about it as far as what the landing gear was like?
That's a very good question, yes.
Yeah, just that it was a metallic looking vehicle, very silvery metallic.
It was definitely a saucer.
It had just three little spindly landing gear that it put down.
No wheels on the landing gear?
As I recall, it had either some little nubbins or small little wheels on it.
Something like the Avro car or something like that?
Yeah, well, I think probably, you know, just to roll it around when you're sitting on the ground or something like that.
But bear in mind, this was back in the 1950s, sir.
Right.
Yeah.
So, far as I know, when you think about the 1950s, there wasn't anything like that about.
Yeah, as far as we know.
That's whether the military was working on that or not.
You know, it's like the Avro car and that type of thing.
Uh, they did have different vehicles that they were trying to build.
Yeah, they did.
But, uh, did it look like, to them, it didn't seem like, or it did seem like something that was man-made or foreign?
Well, it's hard to say, but, you know, I've never seen anything like it before.
You hadn't?
No.
Just, you know, a little bit that I can see on the negative.
Uh-huh.
All right, sir?
Yes, that's very good.
All right, take care.
Western Rockies, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
Hi, Mr. Bell.
This is Chris in Eugene, Oregon.
Hi, Chris.
Hi.
This is a great honor, Gordo.
I was wondering, now, did you imagine, this is kind of a two-part question, did you imagine that we would not be further along by the year 2000, this is 99 now, than we are?
And what direction now do you think we should, the space program should really concentrate on You know, like planetary exploration and in what sort?
That's a lot of questions.
First of all, let's start with this.
It is a good question.
When you were making your space flights, did you imagine that, thinking about the year 2000, that we'd be a lot further along, maybe by now to Mars or beyond?
I thought we'd be long beyond Mars.
I think we have not progressed.
It's pitiful how poorly we've progressed really compared to what we should have.
Do you agree that we've stagnated?
Yes.
And I think where we need to concentrate is manned planetary exploration.
We need to get back to the moon.
We need to get to Mars.
So, in other words, you don't buy into this cheaper, faster, unmanned, can-do-it argument.
Well, I think that we ought to use the unmanned ones wherever possible because you gather as much information as
you can from them, but we proved on the lunar missions that a man has about a
million to one data response better than unmanned ones.
So, the unmanned ones are only as good as the programmer who programs and knows what to look for,
and the unexpected things that you find, they don't know what to look for.
Well, that's right.
And we had a little robot, I recall, recently on Mars, which was nice.
However, one can only imagine how much more information a man could have given us.
Mr. Cooper, what direction do you think that the space program should be going?
What do you think the focus should be now?
Well, I think we're proceeding in one good direction.
That's the space station, because we're involving about 16 or 17 other nations in that.
That'll make a good international program to give a good jumping off point.
And we can use that space station to go on out into space.
It is, however, getting pretty expensive.
Yes, it is.
OK.
First time caller on the line, you're on there with Gordon Cooper.
Hi.
Hi.
Where are you, sir?
I'm Chris.
I'm calling from Springfield, Illinois.
Okay, Chris.
I wanted to ask Mr. Cooper, when he first took off on his Mercury flight, was he surprised at how many Gs he pulled?
Was there any surprises or anything he hadn't anticipated in his flight.
No, because we had calculated how many we'd be pulling.
And we'd done a lot of practicing on the centrifuges with a profile that was a very similar profile.
So the actual launch profile was very close to what we had worked out on the centrifuges.
Gordon, what made you decide to write a book?
Well, I'd been writing down little notes and writing little anecdotes
and stuffing them away in files.
I had the whole file cabinet full of stuff.
I figured I needed to, you know, get somebody to help me kind of get it organized in a little better fashion, and write in maybe a little better form.
The person who helped you with all this, was he surprised at some of the information that you gave him?
Well, I guess he was.
Because I talked to him, and he sure did sound surprised to me.
So I guess it's going to be a pretty good book.
Yeah, I think so.
Well, listen, I've been a radio host for a lot of years, and I cannot tell you, Gordon, how much of an honor it has been to talk with you.
And I hope that when your book comes out, let's see, that's going to be Uh, the spring of 2000.
That's not very far away.
So, if I can, when it does come out, I'd love to have you on again.
Oh, thank you.
Would that be alright?
Sure.
Alright, in the meantime, I'm going to hold up my end of the deal, and I am going to get you a copy of that footage of STS-80.
Okay.
If you'll give, if you'd be willing to render an opinion to us, alright?
Okay.
Gordon Cooper, thank you.
Thank you.
Good night, my friend.
Good night, man.
That's it, folks.
That's Gordon Cooper.
And I'm serious about that.
What a great honor.
What a great honor to be able to speak with a man like that.
You're listening to Coast to Coast AM, and we're going to take a break here at the top of the hour.
When we come back, I'm going to do something I very, very rarely do.
Because not all radio stations get to hear the first hour of the program, we had a member of the clergy on, brought to us by Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle, Washington.
So I'm going to come back after the top of the hour, and I'm going to do the commercial work I have to do, and then I am going to, as best we're able, Play, replay that for you and I've done this perhaps two or three times in my career on radio.
That's how important I think that interview was.
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