Moonshine, Part 2: Paranoia and the Pentagon

AFTER EDGAR MITCHELL had left the surface of the Moon, but before he reached Earth, he went through an experience that left him baffled for the rest of his life. It took place entirely in the privacy of his mind – which is not at all the same as saying that he simply imagined the whole thing. NASA famously chose its space pioneers for possessing "the right stuff", a distinct and recognisable combination of fearlessness, bravado, and single-mindedness. The aim was to get men to the Moon and back safely with scientific data, not to compose poems about the view.

Dr Mitchell (seen enjoying dinner in space, left) had that "right stuff." He was adamant that he did not undergo a religious experience. Yet Dr Mitchell's memoirs are sprinkled with words that indicate the profundity of what happened: "Upwelling"; "ecstasy"; and – finally – "ineffable." This is perhaps as close as he ever got to describing it:

Our presence here, outside the domain of the home planet, was not rooted in an accident of nature or in the capricious whim of a technological civilization. It was rather an extension of the same universal process that evolved our molecules. And what I felt was an extraordinary personal connectedness with it […] I not only saw the connectedness, I felt it, and experienced it sentiently. I was overwhelmed with the sensation of physically and mentally extending out into the cosmos. The restraints and boundaries of flesh and bone fell away. ^{(Emphases in original)}

It was while in this "state of grace" that Dr Mitchell conducted the second part of a private experiment. The first part had been conducted four days earlier, during the outward-bound leg of the moonshot.

The apparatus was a set of Zener Cards (illustrated right). The aim was telepathic communication with Florida-based researchers, including the celebrated Dr J B Rhine.

The results, when analysed, indicated a "psi missing" event, which meant Dr Mitchell's experiment had performed so badly that the failure itself was statistically significant. A simplified analogy might be an experiment in which you tossed a coin 50 times but called the wrong outcome 49 times – it's so far removed from what "should" happen that the results are actually noteworthy. Psi researchers refer to this as "the Sheep/Goat effect." Sceptics refer to it in terms related to another well-known farm animal.

... With a Bump

MOST PEOPLE are sceptics, as Dr Mitchell found to his dismay while quarantined after arriving back on Earth on 9 February 1971 (pictured left, Dr Mitchell emerges from the re-entry capsule). One of the psychics involved in his experiment had spoken to the media, and Dr Mitchell's “far out” ideas were front page news. NASA was mortified, and resolved to prevent such exotic embarrassments in future.

Released from quarantine at last, Dr Mitchell had a surprise visit from a distinguished NASA scientist, who wanted to know all about the telepathy experiment. This scientist now felt emboldened to propose that he and Dr Mitchell conduct a large-scale telepathy experiment using NASA facilities, equipment, and personnel who could be trusted to keep quiet about what was going on.

The scientist was Professor Wernher Von Braun (pictured right, with a model of a proposed lunar landing module). In 1930s Germany, Von Braun (1912-1977) had been privately experimenting with rocketry. He eventually masterminded the Nazi regime's missile program, which used armies of slave labour drawn from a concentration camp.

Von Braun had arrived in the USA secretly via Operation Paperclip, and was eventually put to use on the American space effort. This would cause NASA intense embarrassment, decades later.

Dr von Braun's interest in telepathy may have been sparked by the fact that Russian scientists were conducting experiments with psychic abilities at the time, and publishing remarkable-looking results -- results which no western scientists ever managed to reproduce.

Whether these Soviet experiments were genuine has never been clear. On the other hand, how NASA's top brass would have reacted if they had learned they were being dragged into secret telepathy experiments run by an ex-Nazi and suspected war criminal can only be imagined.

In any event, Dr von Braun's schemes came to nothing. By 1971 the US space program was being quietly wound down (Moon landings ceased in December the following year, with Apollo 17) and Dr von Braun's budget was being whittled away. Finally, he left NASA to pursue his career with private industries.

The "Roswell Incident" Redux

DR MITCHELL, MEANWHILE, did not forget his transformative experience between Earth and Moon. His life changed dramatically, as he became immersed in the flourishing 1970s subcultures of fringe science, paranormal research, and speculative cosmology. In 1973, he founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which supported (and still supports) a range of academic research that might almost have been calculated to make mainstream scientists spontaneously combust with fury.

After his interplanetary awakening, Dr Mitchell also returned his attention to that key formative experience from his schooldays – the so-called “Roswell Incident” (pictured right).

As we saw in part one of this story, the "Roswell Incident" had kick-started his fascination with space exploration, and now he was going to repay it.

And this is where the story takes a saddening turn. Thanks precisely to his openness to seemingly outlandish ideas, Dr Mitchell got smeared as a "UFO nut" by a shadowy disinformation operation.

The Psy-Op's "Patient Zero"

THE CASE OF Paul Bennewitz is the absolute proof that, for decades, the USA has been deliberately encouraging people to believe that there is a vast conspiracy to conceal the existence of alien visitors to Earth.

Briefly, Paul Bennewitz (1927-2003) was a respected physicist who suspected that he was picking up signals from extraterrestrial spacecraft in the New Mexico area.

He contacted the USAF with his information. But rather than laughing in Bennewitz's face and sending him packing, the USAF span an elaborate web of lies around him, and encouraged his growing belief that he had cracked a cosmic cover-up.

This isn't speculation. The participants have been identified. And it wasn't a casual leg-pull, either. It involved long-term communication and forged documents. Bennewitz (pictured above right) kept ufologists informed of his discoveries, which was what the USAF wanted. And when he finally had a nervous breakdown and ended up on a psych ward, Uncle Sam blew on his own knuckles and quietly slipped away.

We still don't know exactly what the USAF was actually covering up by feeding Bennewitz this stream of falsehoods. Which is proof that the tactic works very well indeed. And it still works, to this very day.

Whenever the media go through one of their fits of interest in UFOs, you can almost guarantee that, buried deep in their stories, there is a line about anonymous officials.

These people give mind-blowing briefings about a cover-up so big that even the President isn't allowed in on it... and then vanish.

This "Saucer Smear" technique has even attached itself to the JFK assassination, as I discussed in a 2017 article (PDF). The sorry fingerprint of the same strategy can be found in the statements of Dr Mitchell himself. As we saw in part one of this story, Dr Mitchell regretted the fact that he had no direct experience of UFOs or aliens. But he knew some men who had.

They got in touch and arranged meetings at which they impressed Dr Mitchell with their military credentials, told him just enough to confirm his suspicions, then disappeared from his life forever, leaving him only the unshakeable conviction that alien contact was an established reality.

Due to his distinguished career, historical credibility, and public prominence, Dr Mitchell became an invaluable instrument in spreading and perpetuating this UFO "legend."

After all, government employees would never lie to a NASA space pioneer. Right?

Postscript: The Pentagon Insider

THIS DISGUSTING tale of despicable official conduct -- trying to turn a historic explorer into a laughing-stock in the name of "National Security" -- does, however, have a satisfying and unexpected pay-off.

While Dr Mitchell was re-examining the so-called Roswell Incident, he famously established contact with a very important person at the Pentagon.

That individual looked into the Roswell Incident on Dr Mitchell's behalf and confirmed to him yet again the existence of a grand UFO cover-up. This well-placed person has never been identified... until now.

It took me a lot of detective work and arguments with reluctant sources to get to this point. And it still isn't the whole story: was this individual deceived, or part of the deception itself? Nevertheless, the video immediately below contains my little exclusive in a nutshell. UFO believers (and my fellow UFO sceptics) will not be disappointed. If I learn any more about this incident at the Pentagon, Steemians will be the first to know.