Dear Gramps,
Are there such things as aliens and ufos? If so what does the Mormon Church say about them. I have watched many documentaries about this subject and in those documentaries it always talks about the little grey aliens and many documented spacecraft that have been seen.
Gerrad, from Idaho

Dear Gerrad,
There is no doubt in my mind that our earth is under surveillance by alien spacecraft. There are several types of evidence that give rise to this opinion.
1) Information on UFOs that is now being declassified indicates that there has been, and continues to be, a government cover-up of alien activity. One of the hangars at Wright Patterson AFB is reputed to be the storage location for the Roswell UFO crash, where several bodies were recovered. There was a recent TV program that reported uncovering information of a government committee charged with covering up UFO evidence, and debunking UFO sightings. This committee was made up of some of the top scientists and military officers in the country.
2) News reporting of innumerable UFO sightings all over the world. Particular sightings have been reported by large numbers of people observing from different vantage points, whose testimonies of the events reveal such a consistency that they cannot be arbitrarily dismissed.
3) Radar sightings. Radar sightings of unknown objects with speeds and accelerations that cannot be matched by military aircraft are rather common.
4) UFO sightings by Apollo, Gemini and Mercury Astronauts. Here are a number of reports of the testimonies of various astronauts who have had close encounters with UFOs—

The People, September 3, 1995
UFO EXPERTS CLAIM HOSTILE ALIENS TOLD ASTRONAUTS NOT TO LAND ON THE MOON
BYLINE: Ian Brandes
BODY: Aliens warned US astronauts not to land.
THE first men on the moon were watched by hostile aliens, according to an amazing investigation by UFO experts. The extra-terrestrials apparently warned America’s first moon expedition in 1969 that a space station would not be welcome. And a fleet of UFOs even confronted the Apollo 11 and its crew to prove their point.
The sensational claims were unveiled yesterday by researchers from the para- normal magazine Encounters, who have analyzed ten tales from space missions over the past 30 years.
One former employee of NASA, the American space agency, told the research team that radio hams heard Apollo crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin agog with amazement when they saw the aliens. “These babies are huge, sir, enormous! Oh my God!” Armstrong reported to mission control. “There are other spacecraft out there, lined up on the crater’s edge. They’re on the moon, watching us!”
The encounter was confirmed to the researchers by Maurice Chatelain, a former head of communications at NASA.
“It was common knowledge, but nobody has talked about it until now,” he said. “All Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extra-terrestrial origin. “Every time, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence.”
The researchers also produced an alleged statement about the aliens on the moon from Armstrong himself. They said he hinted at the earth-shaking experience during a question-and-answer session at a space agency conference. He reportedly said: “I can’t go into detail except to say that their ships were superior to ours both in size and technology.”
UFO expert Dr Vladimir Azhazha told the researchers that Armstrong has been gagged over the claims. And they say that world governments have covered up the UFO encounters in case they spark mass panic.

UFO Sightings by Astronauts
UFO Joe, February 17, 1993
Major Gordon Cooper
One of the original Mercury Astronauts and the last American to fly in space alone. On May 15, 1963 he shot into space in a Mercury capsule for a 22 orbit journey around the world. During the final orbit, Major Gordon Cooper told the tracking station at Muchea (near Perth Australia) that he could see a glowing, greenish object ahead of him quickly approaching his capsule. The UFO was real and solid, because it was picked up by Muchea’s tracking radar.
Cooper’s sighting was reported by the National Broadcast Company, which was covering the flight step by step; but when Cooper landed, reporters were told that they would not be allowed to question him about the UFO sighting.
Major Cooper was a firm believer in UFOs. Ten years earlier, in 1951 he had sighted a UFO while piloting an F-86 Sabrejet over Western Germany. They were metallic, saucer-shaped discs at considerable altitude and could out-maneuver all American fighter planes.
Major Cooper also testified before the United Nations: “I believe that these extra-terrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets… Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs.” “I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, generally from east to west over Europe.”
And according to a taped interview by J. L. Ferrando, Major Cooper said: “For many years I have lived with a secret, in a secrecy imposed on all specialists in astronautics. I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us. And there are thousands of witness reports and a quantity of documents to prove this, but nobody wants to make them public. Why? Because authority is afraid that people may think of God knows what kind of horrible invaders. So the password still is: We have to avoid panic by all means.”
“I was furthermore a witness to an extraordinary phenomenon, here on this planet Earth. It happened a few months ago in Florida. There I saw with my own eyes a defined area of ground being consumed by flames, with four indentations left by a flying object which had descended in the middle of a field. Beings had left the craft (there were other traces to prove this). They seemed to have studied topography, they had collected soil samples and, eventually, they returned to where they had come from, disappearing at enormous speed…I happen to know that authority did just about everything to keep this incident from the press and TV, in fear of a panicky reaction from the public.”

Ed White & James McDivitt
In June 1965, astronauts Ed White (first American to walk in space) and James McDivitt were passing over Hawaii in a Gemini spacecraft when they saw a weird-looking metallic object. The UFO had long arms sticking out of it. McDivitt took pictures with a cine-camera. Those pictures have never been released.

James Lovell and Frank Borman
In December 1965, Gemini astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman also saw a UFO during their second orbit of their record-breaking 14 day flight. Borman reported that he saw an unidentified spacecraft some distance from their capsule. Gemini Control, at Cape Kennedy told him that he was seeing the final stage of their own Titan booster rocket. Borman confirmed that he could see the booster rocket all right, but that he could also see something completely different.
During James Lovell’s flight on Gemini 7:
Lovell: BOGEY AT 10 O’CLOCK HIGH.
Capcom: This is Houston. Say again 7.
Lovell: SAID WE HAVE A BOGEY AT 10 O’CLOCK HIGH.
Capcom: Gemini 7, is that the booster or is that an actual sighting?
Lovell: WE HAVE SEVERAL…ACTUAL SIGHTING.
Capcom: …Estimated distance or size?
Lovell: WE ALSO HAVE THE BOOSTER IN SIGHT…

Neil Armstrong & Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin
According to the NASA Astronaut Neil Armstrong the Aliens have a base on the Moon and told us in no uncertain terms to get off and stay off the Moon.
According to hitherto un-confirmed reports, both Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin saw UFOs shortly after that historic landing on the Moon in Apollo 11 on 21 July 1969. I remember hearing one of the astronauts refer to a “light” in or on a crater during the television transmission, followed by a request from mission control for further information. Nothing more was heard.
According to a former NASA employee Otto Binder, unnamed radio hams with their own VHF receiving facilities that bypassed NASA’s broadcasting outlets picked up the following exchange:
NASA: What’s there? Mission Control calling Apollo 11…
Apollo11: These “Babies” are huge, Sir! Enormous!
OH MY GOD! You wouldn’t believe it!
I’m telling you there are other spacecraft out there,
Lined up on the far side of the crater edge!
They’re on the Moon watching us!

A certain professor, who wished to remain anonymous, was engaged in a discussion with Neil Armstrong during a NASA symposium.
Professor: What REALLY happened out there with Apollo 11?
Armstrong: It was incredible, of course we had always known there was a possibility, the fact is, we were warned off!(by the Aliens). There was never any question then of a space station or a moon city.
Professor: How do you mean “warned off”?
Armstrong: I can’t go into details, except to say that their ships were far superior to ours both in size and technology - Boy, were they big!…and menacing! No, there is no question of a space station.
Professor: But NASA had other missions after Apollo 11?
Armstrong: Naturally - NASA was committed at that time, and couldn’t risk panic on Earth. But it really was a quick scoop and back again.

According to a Dr. Vladimir Azhazha: “Neil Armstrong relayed the message to Mission Control that two large, mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the moon module. But this message was never heard by the public — because NASA censored it.”
According to a Dr. Aleksandr Kasantsev, Buzz Aldrin took color movie film of the UFOs from inside the module, and continued filming them after he and Armstrong went outside. Armstrong confirmed that the story was true but refused to go into further detail, beyond admitting that the CIA was behind the cover-up.

Donald Slayton
Donald Slayton a Mercury astronaut revealed in an interview he had seen UFOs in 1951: “I was testing a P-51 fighter in Minneapolis when I spotted this object. I was at about 10,000 feet on a nice, bright, sunny afternoon. I thought the object was a kite, then I realized that no kite is gonna fly that high.” As I got closer it looked like a weather balloon, gray and about three feet in diameter. But as soon as I got behind the darn thing it didn’t look like a balloon anymore. It looked like a saucer, a disk. About the same time, I realized that it was suddenly going away from me — and there I was, running at about 300 miles per hour. I tracked it for a little way, and then all of a sudden the damn thing just took off. It pulled about a 45 degree climbing turn and accelerated and just flat disappeared.”

Major Robert White
On July 17, 1962 Major Robert White reported a UFO during his fifty-eight-mile high flight of an X-15. Major White reported:
“I have no idea what it could be. It was grayish in color and about thirty to forty feet away.”
Then according to a Time Magazine article, Major White exclaimed over the radio: “There ARE things out there! There absolutely is!”

NASA Pilot Joseph A. Walker
On May 11, 1962 NASA pilot Joseph Walker said that one of his tasks was to detect UFOs during his X-15 flights. He had filmed five or six UFOs during his record breaking fifty-mile-high flight in April, 1962. It was the second time he had filmed UFOs in flight. During a lecture at the Second National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space Research in Seattle, Washington he said:
“I don’t feel like speculating about them. All I know is what appeared on the film which was developed after the flight.” - Joseph Walker
To date none of those films has been released to the public for viewing.

Commander Eugene Cernan
Eugene Cernan was commander of Apollo 17. In a Los Angeles Time article in 1973 he said, about UFOs:
“…I’ve been asked (about UFOs) and I’ve said publicly I thought they (UFOs) were somebody else, some other civilization.”

NASA’s Maurice Chatelain
In 1979 Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems confirmed that Armstrong had indeed reported seeing two UFOs on the rim of a crater. Chatelain believes that some UFOs may come from our own solar system — specifically Titan. “The encounter was common knowledge in NASA, but nobody has talked about it until now.” “…all Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin - flying saucers, or UFOs, if you want to call them by that name. Every time it occurred, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence.”
“I think that Walter Schirra aboard Mercury 8 was the first of the astronauts to use the code name ‘Santa Claus’ to indicate the presence of flying saucers next to space capsules. However, his announcements were barely noticed by the general public. It was a little different when James Lovell on board the Apollo 8 command module came out from behind the moon and said for everybody to hear: ‘PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS.’ Even though this happened on Christmas Day 1968, many people sensed a hidden meaning in those words.”

The rumors persist. NASA may well be a civilian agency, but many of its programs are funded by the defense budget and most of the astronauts are subject to military security regulations. Apart from the fact that the National Security Agency screens all films and probably radio communications as well. We have the statements by Otto Binder, Dr. Garry Henderson and Maurice Chatelain that the astronauts were under strict orders not to discuss their sightings. And Gordon Cooper has testified to a United Nations committee that one of the astronauts actually witnessed a UFO on the ground. If there is no secrecy, why has this sighting not been made public?

NASA’s Scott Carpenter
“At no time, when the astronauts were in space were they alone: there was a constant surveillance by UFOs.”

August 1, 2002– WHAT’S BLUE, LOW-FLYING, AND FASTER THAN AN F-16?
A Waldorf, Md., man told the Washington Post that he saw a U.S. military jet lose a race with a UFO over his house early last Friday. Renny Rogers said he heard jets flying low in the middle of the night and went outside to see an F- 16 chasing a light-blue object. The object, he told the Post, left the jet “in the dust.” Military officials acknowledged that two F-16s were scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base after a “track of interest” was plotted on radar, but “everything was fine” and they went home … but then, isn’t that what they always say?

5) Finally, such occurrences are completely in accord with the spirit of the scriptures—
a) The number of our Father’s creations is infinite—

And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there (Moses 7:30).

b) Other worlds are inhabited by the children of our Father in Heaven, and ours is the most wicked world in all creation—

Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also, and among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren (Moses 7:36).

c) People on other worlds know about us—

For all flesh is corrupted before me; and the powers of darkness prevail upon the earth, among the children of men, in the presence of all the hosts of heaven–Which causeth silence to reign, and all eternity is pained(D&C 38:11-12).

The other worlds know about us because their Savior was born here. We have no such comparable reason to know about the other worlds. There is every reason to have the most wicked world in the universe under surveillance, because if we gain the technology to visit other worlds, they, who know the wickedness of this earth would have good reason to keep a watchful eye on us. Further, they would have good reason to keep their distance and not demonstrate too much familiarity with a race of people that live in war.
Gramps