Gordon Cooper

One of the original Mercury 7 astronauts and pilot of the final Mercury mission (Faith 7, 1963) and Gemini 5 (1965). Cooper had multiple direct UAP encounters throughout his career. In 1951, while stationed at Neubiberg Air Base in Germany, he and other pilots witnessed metallic, saucer-shaped craft flying in formation at high altitude. In 1957, while supervising a test film crew at Edwards Air Force Base, a film crew captured footage of a disc-shaped craft landing on the dry lake bed. Cooper saw the developed film — it showed a classic flying saucer extending landing gear. He reported it through channels and the film was confiscated; he never saw it again. In a 1978 letter to the United Nations, Cooper wrote: 'I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets.' He testified before the UN calling for international cooperation on UAP research. One of the most decorated test pilots and astronauts in American history, spending his post-NASA years insisting the government was covering up ET contact. Died October 4, 2004.