There is an untold story of the former NASA fireman who testified witnessing a UFO hovering over the astronauts in a secret broadcast by being at the wrong place at the right time. This testimony was brought to the public by two researchers, B. J. Booth and Eileen Nesbitt, who may or may not be with us any longer. The NASA employee who witnessed this incident started working for the US space agency in 1958 as a security guard on Wayside in Houston, Texas.
The event was witnessed by the NASA employee whose job was to ensure that all fire safety standards, equipment, and escape routes were always in place and operational. As part of their duty, he and his fellow firefighters were able to enter guarded buildings at the Johnson Space Center, allowing them to view items that could only be defined as “Top Secret” on multiple occasions. During one of these periodic safety inspections, the anonymous NASA employee, and a fellow fireman observed an incredible event during the Apollo 15 Moon Mission.
Apollo 15 was the ninth crewed mission and the fourth to land on the Moon in the history of US space manned program missions. When the first J mission landed on the Moon, it spent more time there than previous missions and put a larger emphasis on scientific exploration. It was on Apollo 15 that the Lunar Roving Vehicle was first put into operation.
The mission began on July 26 and ended on August 7, with the lunar surface exploration taking place between July 30 and August 2. Commander David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot James Irwin landed near Hadley Rille and explored the local area using the rover, allowing them to travel further from the lunar module than had been possible on previous missions. They spent 18 hours 37 minutes on the Moon’s surface on extravehicular activity (EVA) and collected 170 pounds (77 kg) of surface material.
These three astronauts are the prime crew of the Apollo 15 lunar landing mission. They are, left to right, David R. Scott, commander; Alfred M. Worden, command module pilot; and James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot. The Apollo 15 emblem is in the background. Image Credit: NASA
It is estimated that around 380 personnel were part of Manned Spacecraft Center’s fire department when Fireman first arrived. His tenure at NASA lasted over 26 years, but he never witnessed an employee complain about the agency’s tight security. “Even in later years, I kept in touch with several of my closest friends, when conversations turned to anything we were told not to talk about, there was always someone there to remind us that we had been told not to discuss it, even after we were no longer there,” Fireman said.
The former NASA employee stated that there were several incidents that occurred during his tenure and to several of the fire fighters that forced them to think about how the government was not telling everything. For instance, in Building 1 on Johnson Space Center, which was Building 2 when he first started working there, most of the north center of the second floor was the “crypto” room.
He did not know what went on in the room, but they were not allowed in the room under normal circumstances. However, when an alarm came in at the Fire Station, they responded to the floor of the building that showed up on the enunciator panel at the station. One time, around 1964, they responded to Building 2 to find that the alarm originated from the “crypto” room.
But the doors were open, so they strolled on in to examine the inconsequential control panel. He explained: “The whole east wall was covered with photos of UFOs. As we finished up, the officer in that room came back in and found us there. He actually pulled his sidearm and pointed it at us before demanding to know why we had entered that room.”
Later, the armed officer pulled his weapon down after Everett [D.] Shafer, a head of NASA Security vouched for them. The fireman speculated that the officer could be from Air Force. They had another incident in the very same room in 1968. This time, he was okay for them to enter the room. But the walls on all four sides were photo-to-photo of UFOs and other very strange-looking aircraft. After they finished their job, Mr. Shafer and the officer both told them not to speak to anyone about what they observed in that room. (Shafer is mentioned in this NASA source)
Further, according to the testimony of a former NASA fireman, astronauts Scott and Irwin discovered that they were not alone on the Moon while they were studying the Hadley Rill. This information was obtained from the astronauts’ exploration of the crater. The following is his powerful testimony: (Source)
Nothing out of the way ever occurred in the Missions, but during one particular Mission, something so unique happened that I would always remember it. Jim Baker and I had been doing the routine safety inspection during a [Apollo 15] Manned Mission to the Moon.
We entered the viewing room at the end of our patrol, and as was our wont, sat at the back of the room to enjoy a pipe. We both smoked a pipe, and the viewing room allowed smokers. We had been there for no longer than fifteen minutes, it may have been longer, but I doubt it when the stage left door opened and in walked several, at least five of the upper echelon administrators of Johnson Space Center.
Uh, it actually wasn’t called Johnson Space Center at that time; rather the name was Manned Spacecraft Center. Anyway, I do know that one of the people was definitely Chrome Dome, as we were irreverently known to call Dr. Girth. At that time I had hair and found it funny to refer to one of the finest minds our country had by the moniker, “Chrome Dome.”
Just prior to their entering the viewing room, Jim and I noticed that the Technicians in the Mission Operations Control Rooms (MOCR) had gotten up and left the room. Now, that isn’t unusual during a normal EVA, but the Astronauts were in Hadley’s Rille. They couldn’t be seen because they were over the edge, down in the Rille itself. The Lunar Rover was about thirty, maybe forty or more yards from the edge, and had the left front camera on the spot where the Astronauts had disappeared. You could hear the Astronauts’ voices talking, but as in most of the dialogs, we weren’t paying close attention to what they were saying. We did notice the technicians getting up and leaving the MOCR. Jim is the one who actually said something about it.
“Looks as if everyone got a bee in their bonnet at the same time, don’t it?” “Most probably their piss and lunch break,” I offered. It was right after I made that statement, that Dr. Gilruth entered, and several others came in with him. They didn’t look back, just went to the center of the viewing room and were talking excitedly among themselves and pointing towards the big screen to the right of the main screen in the MOCR.
Jim and I then paid close attention to what was on the screen. There was an object above the spot where the Astronauts were supposed to be in Hadley’s Rille, just hovering. I am totally positive as to it being an object; it was round, it had a shiny side with a shadow side, with the shadow side matching the shadows on the moon, and though all the video shots coming from the moon looked black and white, they could actually have been in color. The harsh lighting was probably responsible for the illusion of black and white.
Anyway, The object started a slow move from the screen left to the screen right. The camera on the left front of the Rover followed the object as it moved the screen right. Soon it was apparent that it actually wasn’t moving the screen right, but was circling the Rover.
The Rover has two mounted cameras on it. One camera was mounted on the left front and one on the right rear. As the object came into view of the right rear, that camera picked up the object and continued tracking it as it circled, very slowly around the Rover. It finally came to the point where the right rear camera could no longer follow it, so the left front camera picked up the image again and followed it to where it was once more above where the Astronauts were in Hadley’s Rille. (Source)
I uttered something that brought us to the attention of Dr. Gilruth and the others. “What the crap is that? What caused me to utter that phrase was, the object took off straight up and went out of sight in less than a second. It may have been longer, but seemed like it was gone in the blink of an eye, but I was still aware that it had actually gone straight up.
One of the men there, I still think it was Everette Shafer, turned and asked us what we were doing in the room, and we told them that we were there to inspect the fire alarm panel at the rear of the room and to take our smoke break. And to ask a question of our own. “What in hell was that about?”
Can you believe they actually told us it was a drop of oil on the lens of the camera on the moon? Truth! Now, I am not stupid, though I have done a few stupid things in my life, like getting married the first time, but I know a pile of schlock when I hear it! It wasn’t a drop of oil, no way! I opened my mouth and said, “There’s no way it was on the lens on the camera on the moon. The temperature would freeze the drop solid.”
UFO hovering near astronauts? Astronaut David R. Scott, commander, standing on the slope of Hadley Delta, uses a 70mm camera during Apollo 15 extravehicular activity (EVA) on the lunar surface. Image credit: NASA
To Which the man holding my clearance in his hand, reading my name replied, “I mean it was a drop of oil on the camera lens at the back of that screen.” To which he pointed. Okay, it was a good place to shut up and get out of the viewing room, but.. Once more I said something because as I have previously stated, I’m not stupid!
“There’s no way that drop of oil is on any one of those lenses at the back of the screen, because of the temperature. The heat is high enough back there to set the drop of oil on fire. Whoever it was holding my badge in his hand, says, “If you want to keep your job, you’ll get out of here and keep your mouth shut about what occurred here. Not about what I saw, not about why I was in there, just get out and keep my mouth shut about what had occurred. I pulled away from him, turned to Jim, and said let’s go.
When we exited the room, to our surprise, there was Dick Nieber and Loring E. Williams of security on the doors. They were as surprised at seeing us come out of the room as we were at seeing them standing guard there. Further, they told us that Andrado and two others were on the rear doors to keep unauthorized people out of there.
Then they told us their story: They were pulled away from vehicular patrol and told to go immediately to IMCC and the second-floor MOCR viewing room and stand guard until further notice. They were told that absolutely nobody other than Dr. Gilruth and the people who were with him were to be allowed into the room. It’s no wonder our being there disturbed Dr. Gilruth and the others; we weren’t supposed to be there.
When Nieber asked us what had happened in there, we told them we couldn’t discuss it. They thought that the Astronauts had been killed. That was what had been circulating between them while they were guarding the doors to the viewing room. Wrong! That same evening, I sat at the typewriter and wrote out everything, time, date, place, and mission, plus all the names I could remember of who were there with all the facts concerning the incident, and asked Jim Baker to read it and sign it. He read it and signed it on the condition that I would give him a copy of the report. I went to the copier, and made six complete copies of the report, and gave Jim one of them.
Incidentally, when we arrived back at the fire station, Sgt. Thomas Walsh asked us to come to the dispatcher’s office to speak to him. He closed the door and told us that he’d received a call from Shafer, that no matter what we had seen or heard in the viewing room, we were not supposed to discuss it with anyone at all, ever, because it had to do with National Security. “National Security over a drop of oil on a camera lens?” I think not!
Jim Baker died in 1983 of a sudden heart attack. He was forty- six and one of my best friends and we got together regularly at his home, in his gun shop to discuss different people and things. The last time I saw him alive, I asked him if he still had his report hidden away and he told me he had actually burned his copy but had given a copy to another friend from West Virginia who wanted it.
I retired in 1979 and moved to Austin Texas. I was a security dispatcher for the LBJ Presidential Library there in Austin when I got a call from Jim’s daughter, Amey, telling me that her father had passed away early that morning. Jim’s last words to me, there in his little gun shop was, “You sure raised hell over that drop of oil, but you were right, they were full of shit and you knew it.”
Addendum: 03-13-05
I looked it up recently and it was Apollo 15. For some reason, I have lost my original notes written up on NASA Fire Department’s old IBM Selectric. However, I must reiterate that it wasn’t a film, it was real-time and we observed the incident as it happened on the big screen in the MOCR on the second floor at Building 30, aka, Mission Operations Control Center.
We had stopped in the viewing room to check the minor fire panel at the rear of the room and then sat down to smoke our pipes. We had been in there about fifteen minutes when in walked Dr. Gilruth and about five other men. They didn’t even know we were in the room until the object took off straight up, this being after it had circled the Lunar Rover.
As I stated, it was the Flight where the Astronauts had landed close to Hadley’s Rille, and when the incident happened, they were out of sight over the edge, in the Rille. To the best of my knowledge, that is what was being told by the news media. However, when we returned to the Fire Station, nobody had seen the object, and Sgt. Thomas Walsh had taken us into the Dispatchers office and told us that he had received a call from Everette Shafer, NASA Security, telling him to apprise us of the oaths we had signed concerning National Security and the penalties attached to breaking the law.
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