Congressional, White House, UFO-related Constituent Correspondence, 1998

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Geminl-11 photo of Proton-3 (arrow) i nd extreme enlargement of image. UFO magazines often pront funv blobs without indicating
that object w as h ighly magnified. f; llrn ertlf,icts cause "blobblneu". NASA photo S-66-54661.
Let's take a moment to look at the
Apollo--12 flight more ca·re(ully. It
probably rates as one of the most
"UFO-ridden" space flights ever made,
and ·probably did more than any
Apollo
mission
to encourage the
stories o( astronaut sightings of UFOs.
. What lies behind all these stories? Who
started them? What is the "official"
NASA position?
Apollo-12
was
launched
on
November 1-l, 1969, on the second
moon landing
m1ss1on.
The crew
co;'ISisted
o(
Gcmini-11
veterans
"Pete" Conrad and Richard Gordon,
and space rookie Alan Dean (Conrad
had
also
nown
into
space
on
Gemini-5.)
Taking
off
during a
thunderstorm, the craft was twice hit
by lightning which threatened to
abort the mission.·
Instead,
the
night
proceeded
successfully to the first pinpoint moon
landing four days later. Astronauts
Conrad and Bean flew their Luna.r
Module in to a precision touchdown
near the Surveyor-3 automatic moon
probe. During a scheduled moon walk,
the men retrieved samples from the
robot crnft. The return on Eanh was
"routine", if f?ights to the moon can
ever be considered routine.
49
On the outbound leg, Conrad had
radioed to Earth that the Apollo was
"being followed". This message, trans­
mitted over the open radio link, was
heard by hundreds of newsmen and by
millions of Americans. It im:nediately
gave rise to new UFO stories.
According to the account best
known to UFO believers (published in
Saga magazine, May 1970, entitled
" Apollo l 2's ~Jysterious Encounter
with Flying Sauct'rs", written by T.G.
Beckley and H. Salkinl. the astronau~,;
watched Lwo nashing lights near ch~ir
Command
Module about 150,000
miles out from Earth. At first, the