Originally posted by MsSmartypants
Is it the one that landed in front of him and three other men with cameras? Though I was never really clear on whether Mr. Mitchell was actually there.

[edit on 11/22/2008 by MsSmartypants]

The incident took place in the late 1950s, either 1957 or 1958 - as Cooper can best recall; and to this day, the photographic evidence of an actual UFO touching down upon the Earth is being kept under wraps.

During this period, Cooper was a Project Manager at Edwards Air Force Base, just three or four years before entering America's space program. After lunch this particular day, Cooper had assigned a team of photographers to an area of the vast dry lake beds near Edwards.

In a taped interview with UFOlogist Lee Spiegel, the former Astronaut disclosed that while the crew was out there, they spotted a strange-looking craft above the lake bed, and they began taking films of it.

Cooper says the object was very definitely "hovering above the ground. And then it slowly came down and sat on the lake bed for a few minutes." All during this time the motion picture cameras were filming away.

"There were varied estimates by the cameramen on what the actual size of the object was," Cooper confesses, "but they all agreed that it was at least the size of a vehicle that would carry normal-sized people in it."

Col. Cooper was not fortunate enough to be outside at the time of this incredible encounter, but he did see the films as soon as they were rushed through the development process.

"It was a typical circular-shaped UFO," he recollects. "Not too many people saw it, because it took off at quite a sharp angle and just climbed straight on out of sight!"

Cooper admits he didn't take any kind of poll to determine who had seen the craft, 'because there were always strange things flying around in the air over Edwards.' This is a statement Lee Spiegel was able to verify through his own research efforts, having obtained closely guarded tapes of conversations between military pilots circling the base and their commanding officers in the flight tower, tracking the presence of unknown objects.

"People just didn't ask a lot of questions about things they saw and couldn't understand,' notes Cooper, who adds that it was a lot simpler to look the other way, shrug one's shoulders, and chalk up what had been seen to 'just another experimental aircraft that must have been developed at another area of the air base."

But what about the photographic proof - the motion picture footage - that was taken?

"I think it was definitely a UFO," Cooper states, as he makes no bones about it. 'However, where it (the object) came from and who was in it is hard to determine, because it didn't stay around long enough to discuss the matter - there wasn't even time to send out a welcoming committee!

After he reviewed the film at least a dozen times, the footage was quickly forwarded to Washington. Cooper no doubt expected to get a reply in a few weeks' time as to what his men had seen and photographed, but there was no word, and the movie *vanished* - never to surface again...