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For a long time now we at Pegasus have been telling people that there was, and is a corp of Astronauts who are not connected to NASA and fly secret missions. It has always been our contention that this "Secret Astronaut Corp" not only exists, but is far more active currently in space, on the Moon and on Mars... Naturally we are told we are crazy... there is no way they could hide this... and of course as with any truly secret program, there is really no way to prove our position... The best we can do is hunt circumstantial evidence and present our case... Then things started to happen... First there was GARY McKINNON, a British hacker who claime he accessed NASA files via open passwords... He stated in an interview... "What was the most exciting thing you saw?" I ask. "I found a list of officers' names," he claims, "under the heading 'Non-Terrestrial Officers'." "Non-Terrestrial Officers?" I say. "Yeah, I looked it up," says Gary, "and it's nowhere. It doesn't mean little green men. What I think it means is not earth-based. I found a list of 'fleet-to-fleet transfers', and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren't US navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet." "The Americans have a secret spaceship?" I ask. "That's what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe." "Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?" "I guess so," says Gary. "What were the ship names?" "I can't remember," says Gary. Now unfortunately he does not have any evidence to back this up, but the action taken against him does seem to indicate he had indeed found something 'sensitive'. So this is just one more bit of circumstantial evidence... Gary McKinnon has been accused of committing the 'biggest military computer hack of all time', and if extradited to the US faces up to 70 years in jail. So how did this techno geek from north London end up cracking open the Pentagon and Nasa's systems? He talks exclusively to Jon Ronson as he awaits his fate. His case is still in the legal system today - see Gary McKinnon |
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| Jack and I had been following leads on projects called
ALMAZ and MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboritory) but had not completed the search..
when along comes NOVA and releases a one hour documentary called...
SECRET ASTRONAUTS: ASTROSPIES
"Although the U.S. abandons
its MOL program, the Russians succeed in flying secret manned spy missions
over U.S. territory and that of its allies from 1974 to 1977. "
We posted this info in our favorite forums and found an intersting phenomena.. NOT ONE SKEPTIC had a word to say... they were silent. While this film is showing material from over 40 years ago that has now obviously been released it is most certainly definite proof that we we right. So if they had them back then, it seems only logical that we still have them today, but other than the bits of info we discover, we will most likely have to wait another 40 years to find out... There is however one other source to help out... the NASA/DoD classified shuttle missions, which we will cover later. Below we will take the info provided by NOVA in their excellent film, and add our own research paralleling this story. The best thing to come from this film though is that NOVA has the funding to actually interview the Generals and others actually involved with the program, providing names and clues to help us find even more details. So take the time to see the film or support NOVA by
getting your own copy
The Following DATA is collected from NOVA ASTROSPIES with additions and notes by PEGASUS and presented for non profit educational purposes only. Pegasus has no affiliation with NOVA or PBS |
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An early photo of the first MOL crew, the "Magnificent Seven". Maj. Robert Lawrence, the eighth member profiled here (see below), joined MOL later as part of the third crew. They were the "Magnificent Seven" of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, some of the best pilots the U.S. military had to offer the officials who were making the first MOL crew selection in 1965. Two more crews would follow, including that of Bob Lawrence, the first African-American astronaut. These men, 17 in all, were set to make history in space as the first military astronauts, performing covert reconnaissance from orbit. Yet while NASA's astronauts were gracing magazine covers and signing autographs, the MOL teams were sworn to secrecy; most of the program's details remain classified even today. And MOL was canceled in 1969, before any of its astronauts went into space. To learn more about some of these secret astronauts and their subsequent career achievements, [see below].—Rima Chaddha Note:
MOL Group 1: Formed November
1965
MOL Group 2: Formed June 1966
MOL Group 3: Formed June 1967
SOURCE: NOVA ASTROSPIES PROFILES |
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The Astronauts ..
Col. Albert H. Crews Jr., United States Air Force "We didn't really have a pecking order, but Al was our senior guy. He was our leader and the one we all looked up to." - Col. Lachlan Macleay Background Albert Hanlin Crews Jr. was born on March 23, 1929, in El Dorado, Arkansas. He obtained a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the University of Southern Louisiana in 1950 and later earned a master of science in aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. Career highlights The secret announcement in June 1966 that they were training as reconnaissance astronauts may have come as a shock to most of the MOL team, but to Al Crews, it was business as usual. Crews had previously been a part of X-20 Dyna-Soar, an Air Force program to build a "spaceplane" that was to engage in intelligence gathering, bomb targets on Earth, and sabotage enemy satellites. Although the military had already built a Dyna-Soar prototype, the program was canceled on December 10, 1963. That same day, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced plans to develop the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Out of the six Dyna-Soar astronauts, only Crews went on to join MOL; others, including Neil Armstrong, joined NASA. When MOL was canceled in 1969, Crews also entered NASA, but not as an astronaut. He joined Flight Crew Operations at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where he worked as a test pilot until retiring as an Air Force colonel in 1994. Crews continues to fly today. |
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The Astronauts ..
Capt. John L. Finley, United States Navy "In the space program, you can't be impatient, but that's what Jack was. He was hard-charging and always willing to take on new challenges, the more the better." - Vice Adm. Richard H. Truly Background Born on December 22, 1935, in Winchester, Massachusetts, John Lawrence Finley began preparation for a career in the U.S. Navy as a teenager at Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana. He later attended the Naval Academy, graduating in 1957, and became an aviator the following year. Finley spent most of his later years in business before his death in 2006. Career highlights Like many of his colleagues in MOL, Jack Finley was a war hero. In April 1968, one year prior to MOL's cancellation but after a long string of delays, Finley requested reassignment and returned to active military duty with a tour of Vietnam. For his achievements in combat during the Vietnam War, he earned multiple Distinguished Flying Crosses, Strike Flight Air Medals, and Navy Commendation Medals. Finley served as commanding officer of the USS Kawishiwi tanker before retiring as a Navy captain at 45 in 1980. Finley also found great success in his civilian life as a businessman. After leaving the military, he spent 15 years with the FedEx Corporation, where he became Vice President of Aircraft Line Operations. He also served as an Executive Vice President at Intrepid Aviation Partners as well as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at Dee Howard Aircraft Maintenance. On September 19, 2006, Finley lost a long battle with cancer and diabetes. He received a traditional burial at sea. |
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The Astronauts ..
Col. Richard E. Lawyer, United States Air Force "Dick was the kind of guy who, if you gave him something to do and you put a brick wall in front of him, he would go through that wall to get it done." - Col. Lachlan Macleay Background Richard Earl Lawyer was born on November 8, 1932 in Los Angeles. He received his bachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1955. That year he joined the Air Force, where he trained to become a test pilot before being selected for MOL. Lawyer continued to fly until days before his death in 2005. Career highlights Dick Lawyer was a distinguished graduate of his Air Force Fighter Weapons School and Air Force Test Pilot School classes. He later flew two combat tours in Vietnam and eventually served as Chief of Fighters at Edwards Air Force Base in California. So it is not surprising that with the cancellation of MOL in 1969, Lawyer left the space program to continue flying with the Air Force. Although he retired as a colonel in 1982, Lawyer continued flying and teaching others to fly for the rest of his life. He became a flight-test manager at Martin-Marietta (now Lockheed Martin). There, he also helped run a successful program to create an infrared guidance system for nighttime flying used in the F-16 and other fighter jets. Lawyer later took a position at the National Test Pilot School in California and eventually became chief test pilot for Flight Systems, Inc. Lawyer continued work as a test pilot until his death from natural causes on November 12, 2005. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. |
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The Astronauts ..
Col. Lachlan Macleay, United States Air Force "The MOL program was not as memorable to me as the friends I made there. I got to be around some of the smartest and most dedicated people in the world, and I wouldn't trade that for anything." - Col. Lachlan Macleay Background Lachlan Macleay was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 13, 1931. He earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1954, but chose to begin his career in the Air Force instead. He later earned a master's degree in business administration from the University of Southern California. Career highlights For Lachlan "Mac" Macleay, the highlight of his career was not being selected as an astronaut for the MOL program but rather being a squadron commander in combat in Vietnam and keeping all 350 men working under him safe. A year after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1954, Macleay trained as a test pilot and later became a flight instructor at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia. There he taught others to fly fighter jets such as the F-86D. Macleay also gained experience piloting the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Macleay returned for a brief stint in the Air Force following MOL's cancellation. He served his celebrated tour of Vietnam in 1971 and retired with the rank of colonel on May 1, 1978. Later, Macleay joined Hughes Aircraft in Tucson, Arizona, where he helped develop missile systems for each of the branches of the military; one of the systems was eventually sold to more than 25 countries. Today, Macleay works as a volunteer for both Habitat for Humanity and a local hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado. |
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The Astronauts ..
Col. Francis G. Neubeck, United States Air Force "Greg always got a lot done on his own. He was the quietest of all of us and maybe the most independent, and that worked for him because he really knew his stuff." - Col. Lachlan Macleay Background Francis Gregory Neubeck was born in Washington, D.C., on April 11, 1932. He earned a degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1955 and later obtained a master's degree in business administration from Auburn University in Alabama in 1972. Career highlights With the cancellation of MOL, Greg Neubeck retired from the space program and returned to the Air Force, eventually serving as Vice Commander at the Tactical Air Warfare Center at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. By 1986, he had attained the rank of colonel and retired to pursue politics. That year, he became the Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's First Congressional District, but his run proved unsuccessful. He still resides in Florida today. |
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The Astronauts ..
Lt. Col. James M. Taylor, United States Air Force "To be in MOL, you had to be smart and you had to be a leader. To me, Jimmy was among the best in both categories." - Vice Adm. Richard H. Truly Background James Martin Taylor was born in Stamps, Arkansas, on November 27, 1930. He received his bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1959. Career highlights Following the cancellation of MOL, James M. Taylor served as an instructor pilot at the Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base. Tragically, he and a student were killed the next year, in 1970, when their T-38 jet crashed during a training mission at Palmdale Regional Airport near Edwards Air Force Base. Taylor's fellow MOL astronauts escorted the lieutenant colonel's body to McChord Air Force Base in Pierce County, Washington. They were pallbearers at his funeral. |
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The Astronauts ..
Vice Adm. Richard H. Truly, United States Navy "It's tough to describe how hard we all worked on MOL. But it was a huge part of our lives and, because of how hard we worked, we all learned a lot about ourselves and our abilities." - Vice Adm. Richard H. Truly Background Richard Harrison Truly was born November 12, 1937, in Fayette, Mississippi. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he received his bachelor of aeronautical engineering in 1959. In 1964, he attended what is now the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he later became an instructor. Career highlights Following MOL, Richard Truly joined NASA and became a member of the astronaut support crew and capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for all three manned Skylab missions in 1973 as well as the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission. He piloted Columbia in 1981 and served as space shuttle commander during the third Challenger mission in 1983, after which he left NASA to become the first commander of the Naval Space Command. He returned to NASA one month after the tragic Challenger explosion that killed all seven crew in 1986. Truly became head of the agency for three years starting in 1989. Already a retired vice admiral in the U.S. Navy, he has since held a number of distinguished academic, government, and professional positions. His decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, two Legions of Merit, and the Distinguished Flying Cross, as well as a host of honors from NASA. |
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The Astronauts ..
Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr., United States Air Force "MOL was particularly exciting for Bob because being in the program offered him an opportunity to do the two things he loved most—experimental science and flying." - Barbara Cress Lawrence, Maj. Lawrence's widow Background Born in Chicago on October 2, 1935, Robert Henry Lawrence graduated in the top 10 percent of his high school class at 16. At 20, he obtained his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Bradley University and later earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Ohio State University. He died in 1967 during a training exercise. Career highlights Bob Lawrence's Air Force career began in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) when he was a teenager attending Bradley University. There he distinguished himself as a cadet commander. After graduation, Lawrence attended flight training school at Malden Air Force Base and became an Air Force pilot. He became a test pilot after training at Edwards Air Force Base in 1967, two years after earning his doctorate in physical chemistry. During his short career, Lawrence clocked over 2,500 flight hours, mostly in jets. He tested several aircraft, including the supersonic Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. His research became instrumental in bringing space shuttles safely back from orbit. Tragically, he died just months after being selected for MOL during a Starfighter training exercise on December 8, 1967. Lawrence was the first African-American astronaut, but it wasn't until 30 years after his death, in 1997, that NASA fully recognized his achievements in MOL. His is now the 17th name on the Astronauts Memorial Foundation Space Mirror, a monument erected at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida to honor astronauts who lost their lives during or while preparing for space missions. |
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The Meeting ..
Left to right: Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, French Premier Edgar Faure, and British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden on the eve of the 1955 Geneva conference during which Eisenhower introduced "Open Skies" Following World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into the Cold War game of spy-versus-spy that ultimately led to the space race. Americans were still deeply unsettled by the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. government wanted to arrange flyovers of U.S.S.R. territory to learn what they could about Soviet arms. Equally, the Soviets wanted to spy on the United States but strived to keep their depleted military resources secret. In July 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower proposed an "Open Skies" policy whereby either nation would be allowed to fly reconnaissance aircraft over the other. When the Soviet Union rejected the proposal, Eisenhower sought other ways to gather intelligence. On July 29, he announced that the United States would begin work on a scientific satellite. The Soviet Union immediately announced that it too would launch a satellite. |
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Manned Orbiting Laboratory ..
A 1960 conceptual drawing of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory On December 10, 1963, the United States announced plans to build the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, a military space station designated for scientific research. The MOL's covert mission, however, was to enable astronaut spies to take better and more detailed photographs of the Soviet Union and its allies than ever before. The Corona satellites in use in the early 1960s were not sophisticated enough to seek out and zoom in on specified targets. But as computerized reconnaissance technology improved, the need for an expensive manned mission receded. The United States finally abandoned the MOL program in June 1969, one month before NASA's Apollo 11 landed the first men on the moon. |
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Space weapons ..
Cosmonauts test a pressure suit worn aboard a Salyut space station orbiting Earth. Illustrating the Cold War's true potential dangers, both the United States and the Soviet Union made covert plans to bring weapons ranging from cannons to laser guns into space. In 1974, the Soviet Union launched the Salyut 3 space station, code-named Almaz, which secretly carried a 23-mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon. According to Soviet cosmonauts, tests run on this very first space gun were a success—the cannon even destroyed a target satellite. Although Almaz tracked several American spacecraft, including Skylab, the Soviets never attacked any of them. More benign Soviet stations such as the Salyut 4 were utilized in research and tests similar to those conducted on Skylab. |
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