Edgar Mitchell

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Edgar Dean Mitchell
Edgar Mitchell cropped.jpg
NASA Astronaut
Status Retired
Born September 17, 1930 (1930-09-17) (age 79)
Hereford, Texas
Other occupation Test Pilot
Rank Captain, USN
Time in space 9d 00h 01m
Selection 1966 NASA Group
Missions Apollo 14
Mission insignia Apollo 14-insignia.png

Edgar Dean Mitchell, D.Sc. (born September 17, 1930) is an American pilot, engineer, and astronaut. As the lunar module pilot of Apollo 14, he spent nine hours working on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro Highlands region, making him the sixth person to walk on the Moon.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Mitchell's doctoral thesis on space vehicle guidance on display at the Astronaut Hall of Fame

Mitchell was born in Hereford, Texas.[1] He was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second highest rank, Life Scout. He was also a member of DeMolay International and has been inducted into its Hall of Fame.

Mitchell earned a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial management from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1952.[1] The following year he joined the US Navy where he trained as a pilot and flew off the aircraft carriers USS Bon Homme Richard and USS Ticonderoga. He later qualified as a research pilot and taught at the Navy's research pilot school. While on active duty in the Navy, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a Doctor of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1] He currently resides in suburban West Palm Beach, FL.

[edit] NASA experience

Mitchell studies a map while walking on the Moon, February 6, 1971

Mitchell was selected to be an astronaut in 1966 and was seconded from the Navy to NASA. He was backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 10 and flew (again as LM pilot) on Apollo 14. Apollo 14 was his only spaceflight. Ed Mitchell remained with NASA until he retired from the Navy in 1972.

Mitchell is a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and carried one of the order's badges to the moon; it is now kept at his home chapter of Kappa Sigma at Carnegie Mellon University.

Ed Mitchell was awarded honorary doctorates from the New Mexico State University, the University of Akron, Carnegie Mellon University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Edgar Mitchell was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1970 by President Richard Nixon.

Mitchell was portrayed by Gary Cole in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.

[edit] Other interests

Mitchell's interests include consciousness and paranormal phenomena. During the Apollo 14 flight he conducted private ESP experiments with his friends on Earth.[2] In early 1973, he founded the nonprofit Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) to conduct and sponsor research into areas that mainstream science has found unproductive, including consciousness research and psychic events.

[edit] Remote healing

Mitchell says that a teenage remote healer who lives in Vancouver and uses the pseudonym Adam Dreamhealer helped him heal of kidney cancer at a distance. Mitchell said that while he never had a biopsy (the definitive test for cancer), "I had a sonogram and MRI that was consistent with renal carcinoma." Adam worked (distantly) on Mitchell from December of 2003 until June of 2004, when the "irregularity was gone and we haven't seen it since".[3]

[edit] Views on UFOs

Mitchell has publicly expressed his opinions that he is "90 percent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets"[4] and that UFOs have been the "subject of disinformation in order to deflect attention and to create confusion so the truth doesn't come out".[5] Dateline NBC conducted an interview with Mitchell on April 19, 1996, during which he discussed meeting with officials from three countries who claimed to have had personal encounters with extraterrestrials. He offered his opinion that the evidence for such "alien" contact was "very strong" and "classified" by governments, who were covering up visitations and the existence of alien beings' bodies in places such as Roswell, New Mexico. He further claimed that UFOs had provided "sonic engineering secrets" that were helpful to the U.S. government. Mitchell's book, The Way of the Explorer," discusses his journey into mysticism and space.[6]

In 2004 he told the St. Petersburg Times that a "cabal of insiders" in the U.S. government were studying recovered alien bodies, and that this group had stopped briefing U.S. presidents after John F. Kennedy.[7] He said, "We all know that UFOs are real; now the question is, where they come from."[8]

On July 23, 2008 Edgar Mitchell was interviewed on Kerrang Radio by Nick Margerrison. Mitchell claimed the Roswell crash was real and that aliens have contacted humans several times, but that governments have hidden the truth for 60 years stating, "I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real." In reply, a spokesman for NASA stated, "NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe. Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue."[9][10]

In an interview with Fox News on July 25, 2008, Mitchell clarified that his comments did not involve NASA, but quoted unnamed sources, since deceased, at Roswell who confided to him that the Roswell incident did involve an alien craft. Mitchell also claims to have subsequently received confirmation from an unnamed intelligence officer at the Pentagon.[11][12]

Edgar Mitchell, February 2009

[edit] Other projects

Edgar Mitchell is one of the astronauts featured in the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon.

Mitchell is featured in the documentary "The Phoenix Lights...We Are Not Alone".

Mitchell has written several articles and essays,[13] as well as two books. In The Way of the Explorer, Mitchell proposed a dyadic model of reality.[14]

He is currently the Advisory Board Chairman of the Institute for Cooperation in Space, co-founded by Dr. Carol Rosin[15] and is a member of INREES.

Mitchell is one of the initial supporters of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly - which would be a first step towards a "world parliament".[16]

[edit] Books

[edit] Sources

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Astronautix biography
  2. ^ "Private Lunar ESP: An Interview with Edgar Mitchell". http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/5/esp.php. 
  3. ^ Jill Neimark (March/April 2006), ""The Big Bird, the Big Lie, God, and Science"", Skeptical Inquirer 30 (2) 
  4. ^ "Edgar Mitchell On The UFO Cover-Up" (subscription fee required). UFO UpDates. 1998-10-11. http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/1998/oct/m12-010.shtml. Retrieved 2007-02-07. 
  5. ^ "Edgar Mitchell, Ph.D. - UFO Researchers & People". UFOEvidence.org. http://www.etcontact.net/Researchers/Detail44.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-07. 
  6. ^ "Interview on Dateline NBC April 19, 1996". UFO Evidence. http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1923.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-27. 
  7. ^ Waveney Ann Moore (2004-02-18). "Astronaut: We've had visitors". St. Petersburg Times. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/02/18/Neighborhoodtimes/Astronaut__We_ve_had_.shtml. Retrieved 2007-10-14. 
  8. ^ Visitors from space, Vieraita taivaalta, TV program of Juhan af Grann from the beginning of 1990s
  9. ^ Apollo 14 astronaut claims aliens HAVE made contact Daily Mail July 24, 2008
  10. ^ The Audio interview of Dr. Mitchell on Kerrang Radio
  11. ^ "Commenting on recent disclosure with Kerrang Radio". Fox News. 2008-07-25. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwE0vDuTm48. 
  12. ^ "Former astronaut: Man not alone in universe". CNN. 2009-04-20. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/20/ufo.conference/index.html. Retrieved 2009-05-27. 
  13. ^ Articles and essays by Edgar Mitchell
  14. ^ "Dyadic Model of Reality", IONS, by Doris Lora, December 2003
  15. ^ "ICIS Board of Directors & Advisors", Institute for Cooperation in Space
  16. ^ "List of Initial Signatories"

[edit] External links

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NASA Astronaut Group 5 "The Original 19"
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NASA Astronaut Groups

NASA Astronaut Group 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18 · 19 · 20 · List of astronauts by selection
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People who have walked on the Moon

Neil Armstrong (CDR, Apollo 11) · Buzz Aldrin (LMP, Apollo 11) · Pete Conrad (CDR, Apollo 12) · Alan Bean (LMP, Apollo 12) · Alan Shepard (CDR, Apollo 14) · Edgar Mitchell (LMP, Apollo 14) · David Scott (CDR, Apollo 15) · James Irwin (LMP, Apollo 15) · John Young (CDR, Apollo 16) · Charles Duke (LMP, Apollo 16) · Eugene Cernan (CDR, Apollo 17) · Harrison Schmitt (LMP, Apollo 17)
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