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Gordon Cooper UFO film

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Ezechiel

Paranormal Adept
Can't a FOIA request be made to release it ? Gordon Cooper passed away in 2004. Surely they've preserved this precious 60 year old film :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Cooper

In 1957, when Cooper was 30 and a captain, he was assigned to Fighter Section of the Experimental Flight Test Engineering Division at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He acted as a test pilot and project manager. On May 3 of that year, he had a crew setting up an Askania-camera precision landing system on a dry lake bed.

This camera system would take pictures at one frame per second as an aircraft landed. The crew consisted of James Bittick and Jack Gettys who began work at the site just before 0800, using both still and motion picture cameras. According to his accounts, later that morning they returned to report to Cooper that they saw a "strange-looking saucer" like aircraft that did not make a sound either on landing or take off.

According to his accounts, Cooper realized that these men, who on a regular basis have seen experimental aircraft flying and landing around them as part of their job of filming those aircraft, were clearly worked up and unnerved. They explained how the saucer hovered over them, landed 50 yards away from them using three extended landing gears and then took off as they approached for a closer look. Being photographers with cameras in hand, they of course shot images with 35mm and 4-by-5 still cameras as well as motion film. There was a special Pentagon number to call to report incidents like this. He called and it immediately went up the chain of command until he was instructed by a general to have the film developed (but to make no prints of it) and send it right away in a locked courier pouch. As he hadn't been instructed to not look at the negatives before sending them, he did. He said the quality of the photography was excellent as would be expected from the experienced photographers who took them. What he saw was exactly what they had described to him. He did not see the movie film before everything was sent away. He expected that there would be a follow up investigation since an aircraft of unknown origin had landed in a highly classified military installation, but nothing was ever said of the incident again.

He was never able to track down what happened to those photos. He assumed that they ended up going to the Air Force's official UFO investigation, Project Blue Book, which was based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

 
John Greenwald filed a series of them years ago but got the "no documents meeting your criteria" crap back. His site (FOIA Research Tools) shows you how to file your own FOIA requests. In case you want to try your luck. Typically they are free. Especially if they don't find anything.
 
John Greenwald filed a series of them years ago but got the "no documents meeting your criteria" crap back. His site (FOIA Research Tools) shows you how to file your own FOIA requests. In case you want to try your luck. Typically they are free. Especially if they don't find anything.

What would you ask for... is there a film number, submission date of film. What should the parameters of the request be in order to get a hit :)

If Cooper's story is true, you should be able to track the photography team (or descendants ;) present during the landing. Perhaps building a case around these photographers followed by a formal request would be more productive (and more credible).
 
What would you ask for... is there a film number, submission date of film. What should the parameters of the request be in order to get a hit :)

If Cooper's story is true, you should be able to track the photography team (or descendants ;) present during the landing. Perhaps building a case around these photographers followed by a formal request would be more productive (and more credible).

Well, Im up for trying if you are. Worse case scenario is we get nothing. Here is what we know.

1 -- I think he said he was a Captain at the time. Although, he was between 30 and 35 at the time which is almost old for a Captain so he might have been a Major. I am not sure.
2 -- It was either 1955, 1956, or 1957 depending on what source you look at or listen to.
3 -- I think it has traced it to the late April or Early May of one of these years, again depending on the source. Though Wikipedia says it was May 3, 1957.
3 -- It was at a dry lake bed at or near Edwards AFB.
4 -- They were filming precision landings for the F-86 Saber.
5 -- The known crew were James Bittick and Eugene (Gene) E. Gettys.Wikipedia says that Gene was "... pay grade was WS-11. At that time he was Chief of the East Test Range."
6 -- We know they took mivie footage, 35mm stills and according wikipedia a 4x5 still camera shots.
7 -- Some Key words might be:
a -- Cinetheodolite both
b -- 3D position data
c -- DOETRO
d -- Eugene E. Gettys
e -- James Bittick
f -- filming precision landings of the F-86
g -- gyrotheodolite
h -- photogrammetry

Thats all I can think of at the moment. The more information we have the better narrowed the search can be.
 
What's the use? Some documents obtained via FOIA have been almost all blacked out. Even if a film were released, 99% of it could be missing.
 
What would you ask for... is there a film number, submission date of film. What should the parameters of the request be in order to get a hit :)

If Cooper's story is true, you should be able to track the photography team (or descendants ;) present during the landing. Perhaps building a case around these photographers followed by a formal request would be more productive (and more credible).

You think there's a possibility he was wrong/misinterpreting something or he was lying plainly? Hardly possible in my view.
With Cooper you had an highly credible expert on his field and he judged with all his sense that this film (and the testimony of this two guys) meant something extraordinary, nothing experimental. No way that he mixed something up.
Besides this he would had behaved self destructive to invent such stories even for a retired. This doesn't make sense to me at all.

In my view still the best case. There are rarely happenings like this where such experts are witnesses, but then you get their judgement also for free.
 
If i were to pick one person to expose to someone who was curious about this stuff it would be Cooper. And yet....

This remains an unsubstantiated story. Nothing more. I have a "sense" that he is not lying but nothing more really.

I have never read a bad word about him or his intentions but in the end only the film itself would suffice as proof. Nevertheless, I remain transfixed by his personal testimony and will have to let it stay a mystery .

PS: food for thought

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/797799/ufo_aliens_and_the_vatican_and_why.html?cat=58
 
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