Apollo 11 'UFO' - Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin talks about the 'UFO' which the Apollo 11 crew saw on their way to the moon. He explains why they didn't describe it explicitly to Houston: “...those transmissions would be heard by all sorts of people and who knows what somebody would’ve demanded - we turn back because of aliens, or whatever the reason is.” Dr David Baker, senior Apollo scientist: "The possibility that you might encounter aliens in space has to be considered in a very sensible and positive and realistic way; there were a lot of people within the program who went off later and became convinced that UFOs existed.” Excerpted from “Apollo 11: The Untold Story”. NASA: “I just talked to Buzz Aldrin...and he notes that the quotations were taken out of context and did not convey the intended meaning. After the...crew verified that it...was not the SIV-B upper stage...they concluded that they were probably seeing one of the panels from the separation of the spacecraft from the upper stage. These panels were not tracked from Earth and were likely much closer to the Apollo spacecraft....Apparently all of this discussion about the panels was cut from the broadcast interview, thus giving the impression that they had seen a UFO.” - David Morrison, NAI Senior Scientist, 7/26/06 http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/astrobio/astrobio_detail.cfm?ID=1568