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Sept. 9, 1999 - Art Bell

01:13:36

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Gordon Cooper - NASA Career and UFOs

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art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gordon Cooper was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
		Bet you didn't know that.
		Attended the University of Hawaii, graduated USAF Institute of Technology with a BS in Aeronautical Engineering.
		He has eleven 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 Fantex two thousand,
		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 twenty two times around the Earth, thirty two hours, still, by the way, the US 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 reentry from space.
		Here is Gordon Cooper.
		Gordon, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you, Art.
unidentified		Good to be here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Gordon, you are now in your 70s, aren't you?
unidentified		Yes, I am.
unidentified		I'm 72.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		72.
		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 70s?
unidentified		Well, of course, I'd always hoped to, right.
unidentified		Of course, in those days, 70s sounded pretty old.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 is going to come up the wrong way.
unidentified		Well, I think most, particularly fighter pilots and test pilots, have become kind of fatalists.
		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, why you'll go.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Well, that's right.
		And when you really look at it, the fatality rate among test pilots and certainly among space flyers has been pretty good.
		We have worse fatalities out on the highways.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 in it.
		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.
unidentified		Well, 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		That's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I guess 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 when you're seeing it.
		It is, yeah.
		That's what I thought.
unidentified		You just hope the one you're riding doesn't blow up like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lot of most Americans wouldn't begin to understand why a person would be willing to roll the dice that way.
		What is so exciting?
		What is so magnetic to get somebody like yourself to do that?
unidentified		Well, it's a fascinating job, and it's a good job.
unidentified		And it's very self-satisfying to be able to do a good job and very, you know, high-technology job.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You flew a lot of experimental jets as well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Was that did you ever get close to trouble in any of those?
unidentified		Oh, yes, on occasion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		With respect to the last Mercury mission, 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?
unidentified		Yes, I was planning 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So what instruments do you watch when you're manually re-entering that keep you within this narrow little window with no electronics at all?
unidentified		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 roll, pitch, and yaw, you have to crack those rates out.
		But you don't have any attitude as much.
		Look at with electric value.
		They're all gone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it's kind of like going down a curved road with a car or something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, you keep correcting.
unidentified		That's correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		No, somebody made a lot of money selling a bunch of lies on that one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did they?
unidentified		Yeah, it was totally untrue.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But somehow, once they told it, though, the story stuck no matter what.
unidentified		Oh, yeah, it even got embellished on several times.
unidentified		Huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Well, on one occasion, I saw some strange vehicles that we finally assumed were UFOs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where was this?
unidentified		But I never had the occasion to really see one up close.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where did you see this?
unidentified		Over Germany.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In Germany.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can you describe what you did see?
unidentified		Well, it looked just like they were at fairly high altitude, and it looked like flights of fighters flying over, flying the same basic kind of formation that we fly, in fighters.
		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 just like saucers.
		They're metallic looking, but we couldn't get any close enough to get any more detail on that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But you got enough detail to see that they looked like saucers.
unidentified		Yeah, you couldn't see any wings on them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No wings.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And their speed relative to yours?
unidentified		Considerably faster.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you report that?
unidentified		Oh, yes, it got reported.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did they handle the report?
unidentified		Oh, I don't know.
unidentified		I was just a lowly first lieutenant at that time, so I don't know how the report was handled.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did you handle it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, you saw something that obviously was not one of ours.
unidentified		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.
unidentified		So we really couldn't rule out that it might be some kind of new Russian aircraft.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One of theirs.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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, so I guess it wasn't one of theirs, and I guess it must make you wonder a lot today.
unidentified		Yeah, but looking back now, I suspect it was some kind of extra-traustial vehicle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I understand that some of your film following a Gemini-5, the Gemini 5 mission 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, 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?
unidentified		That's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		From orbit.
unidentified		Yes, well, we were using a 1,250 millimeter Questar land.
unidentified		So you might expect to get some pretty good detail.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So if you could do that then, one has to wonder What they can do today.
unidentified		Yeah, I would assume that we've improved over that considerably.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You overflew.
		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...
unidentified		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 that 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.
unidentified		And one of these airfields that I had come over and snapped unknowingly turned out to be some little area they called Area 51.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Area 51?
unidentified		Yeah, how about that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How about that?
unidentified		Do you know where I am, Gordon?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you know?
unidentified		Where are you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, you don't know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm in a little town called Perrump, Nevada.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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, 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 Purump Valley, that's where I live, and that it was a C-130 aircraft.
		And I had 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 why it's old news.
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So what do you imagine we're working on now?
unidentified		I don't know, but I hope we're working on something exciting because we're spending a lot of money, apparently, there.
unidentified		I would hope with all the money we're spending that we're getting something pretty exciting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Return for the tax dollar?
unidentified		Right, and I'm sure we probably are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		The Coast to Coast AM.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, 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?
unidentified		Well, my spacecraft, Mercury spacecraft, was named Phase 7.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Phase 7.
unidentified		I guess that was kind of a nice tie.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that makes sense.
		But, you know, maybe it's your publisher, Harper Collins, 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.
		Its underpinning from beginning to end is his strong and unshakable belief in extraterrestrial intelligence.
		That's an incredible statement.
		Is that true?
unidentified		Well, I certainly believe that God created a tremendous big universe for us.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And as they said in the movie Contact, what a great waste of space it would be.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Oh, I suppose so, yes.
		And you're right.
		And the interesting thing that 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 meteorite that they just found with saline water inside of it.
		And gee whiz, the probability of life seems to get higher and higher and bigger and bigger out there.
unidentified		We haven't even totally ruled out the fact that there may, if not now, certainly at one time there may have been life on Mars.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In fact, it is likely that at one time, or at least possible, there was life 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?
unidentified		I just don't know.
		It could either be something that someone made, like some of the big symbols that 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 those things out a little closer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		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, friends, that people aren't even aware of.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		No, they don't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		what do you think happened to the american people you think they got uh...
		Gordon, it's been 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.
unidentified		That's unbelievable, isn't it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it is unbelievable.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why?
unidentified		Oh, I don't know.
		And you can say politics or you can say all kinds of reasons.
		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 the NASA years ago had.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ah, 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.
unidentified		Well, they get beat up pretty bad by the politicians, too.
unidentified		You know, Congress beats the heck out of NASA all the time, and I'm sure they get kind of beat down from time to time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 aboard, and 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 the 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?
unidentified		No, of course, Blue Book was owned by the Air Force, not by NASA.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
unidentified		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Blue Book was strictly a cover-up and a whitewash.
unidentified		In my opinion, that's what it was, right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 Reopening all of this legitimately this time.
unidentified		Well, I suppose if you could have a centralized, I had recommended several years ago that we use the United Nations as a repository for all the information and all the investigative teams' data to come into 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 to kind of correlate all these sightings and all the data that's brought in to see whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think such a thing is politically possible right now?
unidentified		I don't know.
unidentified		Very likely it is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Yeah, you would think so.
unidentified		It certainly would have a good chance of getting a very favorable reception from the public.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 that you had?
unidentified		My experience was really secondhand, but I had a crew who was working for me.
		He was photographing a landing at Scania's site knew when they were installing on the edge of the dry lake bed.
		And this saucer flew in over them and landed down to Atlantic here and landed about 50 yards from them.
		And they proceeded on the go closer to it to get pictures, and it lifted up, put the gear back up, and took off.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did they get pictures of it?
unidentified		They got pictures.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They did.
unidentified		And then I had to go dig through all the rags and find out who to call in Washington to report this as per regulation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wait a minute.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You made the call to Washington?
unidentified		Right.
unidentified		While they were developing the town.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what kind of call was that?
unidentified		Well, as per Air Force RAG number, da-da-da-da-da.
unidentified		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		And I called it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you said, guess what?
unidentified		We've got photographs of a strange little vehicle that doesn't seem to have any wings on it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Strange vehicle that doesn't seem to have wings that landed at Edwards Air Force Base.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what did the person on the other end say?
unidentified		Just a minute, and I'll get Colonel so-and-so.
unidentified		And then before long, I was talking to some general.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A general.
unidentified		And he seemed to tell me, do not run Prince of those sounds of the negatives.
unidentified		Just put them in a pouch, and we're making arrangements to have them flown to Washington immediately.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He told you, don't make Prince, fly him to Washington right away.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I assume that is precisely what you did.
unidentified		We put him in a pouch, and some guy came around to the office and picked him up in the pouch, and that's the last I saw him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And how long was it before some general called you back to explain exactly what it was that was in the photographs?
unidentified		Well, that was 40 years ago, and I'm still waiting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The phone hasn't rung yet?
unidentified		Phone hasn't rung yet.
		Gordon, I generals don't generally call captains back and explain things, though, you know, frequently, so.
		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I mean, 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?
unidentified		Well, who knows?
unidentified		Maybe he retired right after that or something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, he retired.
unidentified		No, I say maybe he did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Oh, I just don't know.
unidentified		It'd be interesting to know, wouldn't it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 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?
unidentified		Well, I think most people in government, whether it's 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 uh space flights and and all the um you know,
unidentified		the various things to do with mass and with space that I think everybody's a little skeptical about saying anything to anybody.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would be kind of like uh stepping in front of a podium, I suppose, and presenting the latest theory on who killed Kennedy.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		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 Department of Defense or NASA against speaking out or saying anything.
		Contrary to what some news media are always saying, that we're always warned not to say anything.
		I've never had any suppression of all of my speaking out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That they are fully aware of this?
unidentified		I sure hope they are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But is there any way with the technology that you know and I know they have that they could not be aware of it?
unidentified		No, I think there's just too many, you know, too many solid-sensitive people who have seen things to totally disregard it.
unidentified		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 in 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Well, even Einstein was modifying all his formulas when he was using time, when he went back and started using time as a variable rather than a constant.
unidentified		And so before he died, he was opening up his theories to greater and greater speed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right, he was.
		All right, Gordon, hold on.
		We're at the top of the hour.
		You okay to go ahead?
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 AM.
unidentified		Coast AM.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No.
unidentified		See the negative.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Apparently, the cameramen were told that what was in the negative was a balloon.
unidentified		Several years later, when things came out on it, that was my understanding that someone had interviewed them, and they were told that that's what the pictures were.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think that's what the story generally was from about 1940-something or another, maybe the 50s.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Whatever it was, it's a balloon.
unidentified		That weather balloon seemed to get around a lot, didn't it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I understand you were able to observe, at least in the negatives, that it had a tricycle-like landing gear.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Interesting balloon.
unidentified		Yeah, the only balloon I've ever seen with landing gear.
		Although, you know, it's funny, one time I was two T-38 fellows, Pete Conrad and I, and Neil Armstrong, Liet C, were heading up to St. Louis to do some work on Gemini 5 spacecraft.
		And we were cruising along around 40-something thousand feet in two T-38s, just loose formation.
		I looked out about 10 o'clock high and said, what do you see out there about 10 o'clock high?
		And Neil came back with, I don't know that I really want to say what it looks like.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		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, okay, go ahead, you're no obstruction.
		We climbed, put in the afterburners, and climbed, climbed, climbed.
		Got up to it, pulled up alongside.
		It was a great big weather balloon with a radio package hanging underneath it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It was a weather balloon.
unidentified		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		I think so, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Well, don't give up yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm not giving up, but I mean just kind of 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?
unidentified		Oh, 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you get sick at all?
unidentified		No, I didn't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You didn't?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, was that because of the I presume you guys went through a lot of testing with what they called the vomit comet or something or another that would produce temporary states of weightlessness in a dive, right?
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		And then you climb and then as you climb over the top, you know, as you're going across the top, you're in a situation of weightlessness.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Well, I think that it is coming along a little slower than everyone has hoped, but there are a number of companies that are building spacecraft of different kinds and building boosters, several different companies building boosters and the private sector.
unidentified		And I think we will see space begin to have quite a bit of privatization occurring fairly shortly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So we're on the verge of it, you think?
unidentified		I think we are, right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You are in the middle of apparently this galaxy group, which is producing, among many other things, something called the Fantex 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?
unidentified		Well, one of the reasons we did not in years back is that we had no artificial stability system.
		And a saucer is inherently neutrally or slightly unstable.
		And with the old advent of 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.
		And a saucer certainly has very interesting aerodynamics compared to a wing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, I don't even understand the aerodynamics of a saucer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Well, a saucer really is just like a wing.
unidentified		It's just like the whole vehicle really is a lifting body or lifting wing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Well, as I said earlier, I certainly hope they do.
unidentified		I hope they're really a few generations ahead of the aircraft that we all see around.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Good morning, Art, and good morning, Gordon.
		This is Space Mummy at AOL.
		You probably remember me.
		I've sent you numerous emails.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		Anyway, I listen to your show almost every night, and you've got a great show, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		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 is 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?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gordon, do you?
unidentified		No, I don't remember that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would you like to have gone to the moon?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Were you ever a candidate for a flight of that sort or ever considered?
unidentified		Oh, yes.
unidentified		I was in the Apollo backup team and was in the crew like some brothers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I watched a number of programs, Gordon, about the astronaut preparations and the backup teams and so forth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And were people thinking that it would not be too bad if somebody got the flu on the wrong day?
unidentified		You mean before a flight?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean that if somebody who might get flu leaving a seat open for you.
unidentified		Well, I was always open to that, I guess.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Hello, Mr. Bale.
		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 Hamack.
		His last name was Hamack.
		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 that if he ever met you or knew you.
		Apparently he knew you, but I don't know what the connection is, but he must have known something.
		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To make that comment.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, well, thank you very, very much for that.
		Gordon, 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?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not really?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nothing out there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nearly anything at this point would be declassified and you could talk about it.
unidentified		That's correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You've heard reports that on some Apollo missions there were inexplicable things that were seen, have you not?
unidentified		I've seen reports in magazines of that.
unidentified		I've not seen that on the official map or documentation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There have been, Gordon, some recent very, very interesting pieces of footage that have come from shuttle flights.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		STS 48 was one.
unidentified		I've seen that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		No, not really ice crystals, but my choice on it would have been meteors.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Meteors?
unidentified		Meteors.
		Because I saw a thousand meteors, meteorites on Gemini 5, friends, in August during the high meteor shower time.
		Those certainly looked like meteors to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		Although they had, you know, there was one on the kind of one peculiar little movement.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Yeah, a bit that way.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe a coincidence?
		Maybe not.
		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?
unidentified		No, I haven't seen that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would love your view of it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		I'd say about an equal amount of time, probably.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		About an equal amount of time.
		Did you ever see anything in orbit that 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.
unidentified		Yeah, I looked and looked, but I never did see anything that was unusual.
unidentified		It could be extra-traffilling origin or anything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that too much of a leap of faith, or do you agree?
unidentified		I agree.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, boy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To imagine that is up there, and to imagine they can do that is something to think about, really it is.
unidentified		They put a big lens on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, a big lens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you ever thought about going back to space?
unidentified		I mean, yeah, I'm waiting for Mars.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Mars, huh?
unidentified		I want to get my old age study like John got his on the shuttle.
unidentified		I want I want mine on the Mars mission.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Uh uh were there any ill effects?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I I didn't hear of one for for John Glenn.
unidentified		No, I don't think he did.
unidentified		I think he came here in great shape.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Sure.
unidentified		I think the average American could better readily go to space.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, Gordon, hold on.
		We'll do one more segment.
		Stay right there.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		I can see you lying back in your satin dress.
		In a room where you do what you don't confess.
		Some bell you better take care.
		If I've been creeping down my bedstead.
		Somehow, you better take care.
		If I've been creeping down my bad stairs, 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
		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?
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And perhaps render an opinion for us.
		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?
unidentified		Star Wars is not dead, huh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 or elsewhere that they didn't really particularly want to talk about in public?
unidentified		No, I never have, and I certainly would have been, you know, had they seen anything of that kind.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 remember 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.
unidentified		Well, one of the things that people don't realize is that all through every space flight is so well planned and every little detail and practically every second of the whole flight is planned out because the time is so valuable, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That they don't have time for that.
unidentified		So you really don't have time to do a lot of errant things.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a really good point.
		And it goes, 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.
unidentified		That's right.
unidentified		You can't very well look up at the sky when you're running down a freeway somewhere.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
		Absolutely.
		Ever Space Flight was very busy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, here we go.
		First time caller align.
		You're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
		Hello.
unidentified		Good morning, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		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.
		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?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's really a good question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Yeah, but actually, even in fairly early days we had a pretty good hand on where all these uh pieces of space junk or spare parts and everything were.
		We knew where most of them were.
		Uh you just hope that uh you know you didn't run into some that you didn't know were there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that dangerous?
unidentified		Well no, not too bad.
		Most of it's all going somewhat generally the same way and it's of course you're losing a lot of it too every year.
		You know you burn up a lot of it every few months in the lower orbits it starts to orbit decays and you're slowly re-entering and burning it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		No, I didn't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 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?
unidentified		Well, if you had a large electromagnetic anomaly of some type, the F-16 is a digital flight control airplane.
unidentified		And I can remember an instance 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
unidentified		Oh, it's hard to say.
		I guess it's always possible.
		It doesn't sound too likely, but it certainly is somewhat of a possibility, I suppose.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Didn't sound too likely to me either.
		All right.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, gentlemen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		I'm from Houston.
		This is Karen.
		Hey, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Karen.
unidentified		Mr. Cooper.
		You're familiar with Story Musgrave, is that right?
		Oh, yes.
		Well, 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, 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 graves.
		And he said, gentlemen, something to the effect that these guys are real.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, that's exactly right, Gordon.
		Story was in Hawaii.
		I have a very good friend, I should say a very good friend, an 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 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 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?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No?
unidentified		I think there have been a lot of very reliable people who've had contacts to refute the possibility that they're for real.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gee, Gordon, you seem to think like a lot of the rest of us do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you say you've been this outspoken on this subject all your life?
unidentified		Very much so.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Yes?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're on the air.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		My question is, did you see the vehicle that landed on the airstrip, or did you see pictures of it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, what he saw was negatives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		Of course, it never made Project Blue Book then.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not as far as I know.
unidentified		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 hasn't been particularly successful.
		Do you know the photographers that took the pictures?
		No, I don't really recall.
		I looked up their names somewhere from one of the reports that someone had dug up on the Freedom Information Act.
		I can't recall what they are right at the moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You don't remember what came back.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, it was non-responsive in some way.
unidentified		Yeah, it wasn't anything to I think it involved another weather balloon or something.
		Yeah.
		Did the reporters, did they talk to Mr. Cooper about it, or had he talked to them?
		Which reporters?
		Or the photographers, I mean, that took the photographs.
		Didn't they talk about it?
		Oh, yeah, they talked about it, right?
		And what did they tell you?
		Did they tell you any more about it as far as what the landing gear was like?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a very, very, very good question, yes.
unidentified		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?
		Yeah, as I recall, it had either some little nubbins or small little wheels on it.
		Uh-huh.
		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.
		You would roll it around with.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But bear in mind, this was back in the 1950s, sir.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So, far as I know, when you think about the 1950s, there wasn't anything like that about.
unidentified		Yeah, as far as we know.
		This is whether the military was working on that or not.
		You know, it's like the Avro car and that type of thing.
		They did have different vehicles that they were trying to build.
		Yeah, they did.
		But 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 I've never seen anything like it before.
		You hadn't?
		No.
		You know, the little bit that I can see on the negative.
		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, sir?
unidentified		Yes, that's very good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Take care.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Gordon Cooper.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, Mr. Bell.
unidentified		This is Chris and Eugene Oregon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Chris.
unidentified		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 the space program should really concentrate on, you know, like planetary exploration and in what sort?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've got 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 when thinking about the year 2000, that we'd be a lot further along, maybe by now to Mars or beyond?
unidentified		I thought we'd be long beyond Mars by now.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So in other words, you don't buy into this cheaper, faster, unmanned, can do it argument.
unidentified		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 to look for.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		How, 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is, however, getting pretty expensive.
unidentified		Yes, it is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		First time caller line, you're on there with Gordon Cooper.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Hi.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you, sir?
unidentified		I'm Chris.
unidentified		I'm calling from Springfield, Illinois.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Chris.
unidentified		I wanted to ask Mr. Cooper, when he first took off on his Mercury flight, was he surprised at how many Gs he pulled?
unidentified		Was there any surprises or anything he hadn't anticipated in his flight?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		No, because we had calculated how many we'd be pulling, and we'd done a lot of practicing on the centrifuge with a profile that was a very similar profile.
unidentified		So the actual launch profile was very close to what we had worked out on the centrifuge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gordon, what made you decide to write a book?
unidentified		Well, I'd been writing down jotting down little notes and writing little anecdotes and stuffing them away in files.
		I had a whole file cabinet full of stuff.
		I figured I needed to get somebody to help me kind of get it organized in a little better fashion and write it in maybe a little better form.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The person who helped you with all this, was he surprised at some of the information that you gave him?
unidentified		Oh, I guess he was.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		'Cause he sure did sound I talked to him, and he sure did sound surprised to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So I guess it's going to be a pretty good book.
unidentified		Yeah, I think.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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 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.
unidentified		Oh, thank you, Aaron.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Would that be all right?
unidentified		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, 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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you'd be willing to render an opinion to us, all right?
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gordon Cooper, thank you.
unidentified		Thank you, Aaron.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good night, my friend.
unidentified		Good night, man.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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, 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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