Apollo 14 Astronaut Edgar Mitchell's Exploration of Inner Space

Forty years ago this weekend, on Feb. 5 and 6, 1971, Edgar Mitchell walked on the moon, one of only 12 men to ever do so. The Apollo 14 astronaut trained as an engineer and has a Ph.D. in aeronautics from MIT. As a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, he saw combat during the Korean War. On his return journey from the moon, he had a profound spiritual experience that started him on a new journey in life.

By the time he splashed down in the Pacific, the scientist had met the mystical, and was intrigued. He has since dedicated his life to developing a scientific understanding of that most ineffable human quality: consciousness.

Perhaps the two greatest questions that face mankind today are these: "Is there a supreme being?" and "Are we alone in the universe?" Speaking from his home in Florida, Mitchell offers us his answers.

The sixth human being to have walked on the moon speaks with a soft southern drawl:

"My great grandparents came across the southern United States in the 1870s to start a new life in the western territories. They were in a covered wagon drawn by horses, driving a few cattle to start a new herd. The railroads had not been completed, automobiles had not been invented; the electric light had not been invented. My father was born shortly after the Wright brothers made the first airplane flight -- and I went to the moon...In less than a hundred years we went from covered wagons to going to the moon."

On Jan. 31, 1971, Mitchell and the other crew members of Apollo 14 -- Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa -- blasted off from Cape Kennedy on board a giant Saturn 5 rocket. It was just after the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, and the world watched anxiously as Apollo 14 sped toward the moon on a scientific mission to explore the Fra Mauro highlands.

The man who splashed down in the Pacific on February 9 was not the same as the one who had left Earth just days earlier. Capt. Edgar J. Mitchell, Navy fighter pilot, would become a pacifist. Edgar Mitchell Ph.D., the hardened MIT and NASA-trained scientist, would become a spiritual seeker, dedicated to using the tools of science to uncover the mysteries of human consciousness and spirituality.

Mitchell, 80, tells me that the experience that changed him so profoundly was not standing on the moon, but a spiritual epiphany that occurred on the journey back to Earth. He describes this experience vividly in his autobiography, "The Way of the Explorer:"

"What I experienced during that three-day trip home was nothing short of an overwhelming sense of connectedness. I actually felt what is described as 'the ecstasy of unity.' It occurred to me that the molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft itself were manufactured long ago in the furnace of one of the ancient stars that burned in the heavens about me. And there was a sense that our presence as space travelers, and the existence of the universe itself, was not accidental, but that there was an intelligent process at work. I perceived the universe as in some way conscious."

After leaving NASA in 1972, he founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California to explore the frontiers of inner space. This was the beginning of a new journey for Mitchell: Since then, his aim has been to find an understanding of the universe which encompasses both science and spirituality.

As he researched his spiritual experiences of "oneness," he says, "I began to realize that this type of experience has taken place in every culture throughout history. In my opinion, this type of experience is the basis of all religion."

"[Religions] begin with some type of transformational type experience like that...a mountaintop experience, which moves you from your normal way of thinking...As a result of my experience, I think that the evolutionary path of humanity has to be away from violence and towards caring and oneness."

He says that most anyone can have such a transformational experience, if they seek it: "The time-honored way is through traditional meditation techniques, where the mind is stabilized and cleared. That seems to open the way for the transformation-type experiences to take place. In many of our religious traditions, the cloistered aspects of the tradition has featured that."

However, he says, as well as their mystical aspects, many religions also contain "a branch which says 'onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war'... to me, that's exactly the opposite to what these transcendent ideas are all about."

"It seems to be always the case that, from the evidence we have of these ancient transcendent events, that the early spiritual leaders had the same notions as we're talking about. But somewhere along the line, the followers who hadn't had the original experience reverted right back to the same old political maneuvers, social and cultural bickering...so eventually religion becomes part of the problem, and not part of the solution."

In recent years he has worked with several prominent scientists in developing the theory of the "quantum hologram," which posits an energy field infusing all objects and living things. They hypothesize that this "quantum field" contains information about each object or being; and that it, in turn, interacts and connects with a single unified energy field that pervades the entire universe.

He says that "the quantum hologram [could be] a mechanism for psychic information, which we call in English our intuition, our 'sixth sense.' It should really be called our 'first sense' [as] quantum information flow is very fundamental in nature."

He agrees that this conception may in some ways correspond with the theological concept of the "One God" of Judeo-Christian tradition, but he adds, "in the Judeo-Christian tradition they personify and anthropomorphize the deity, and I don't...this newer interpretation that seems to be unfurling before us is with nature as the creative force, embodied in the natural law of the universe. That certainly seems to fit, in my mind at least, better than most other models." But he chuckles, "We still have a ways to go before we understand the universe...we won't have the answers before tea time."

Mitchell has seen a broad spread of history in his 80 years, but believes that mankind is right now in a critical period of transition because "civilization is not on a sustainable path with the explosion of population in the 20th and 21st centuries. We are consuming non-renewable sources at a non-sustainable rate and you can't sustain a rapid growth in a finite space...something's got to give, and it's got to give quickly."

What we fundamentally need to create a sustainable civilization, he says, is a "shift in consciousness that starts to recognize 'were all in this together, we're all part of the same mold'; that the molecules in our bodies were manufactured or prototyped in ancient star systems, and we are all part of the same stuff. And that we'd better learn to solve our problems cooperatively and together rather than solving our problems through violence and war. Otherwise, sooner or later, we will use nuclear weapons if we keep this up, and as soon as we do that, it's all over."

Mitchell made headlines across the world in the summer of 2008 when he said on live radio: "I happen to have been privileged enough to be in on the fact that we've been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real." A NASA spokesperson responded to his claims, saying: "NASA does not track UFOs. NASA is not involved in any sort of cover up about alien life on this planet or anywhere in the universe. Dr. Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue."

Although my primary interest in interviewing Mitchell was to explore his life story and to garner his scientific and spiritual insights, I felt I ought to also ask him about this extraordinary pronouncement, which he has since repeated on Fox News, CNN and elsewhere. Mitchell told me that he feels his promotion of awareness of the reality, as he sees it, of extraterrestrial visitations is an important part of raising human consciousness toward building a sustainable civilization: "I think I'm working in a direction that will give us a possible future as opposed to a destroyed future."

Although Mitchell grew up in Roswell, N.M., he says he only came to give credence to the idea of ET visitations in the years after his 1971 moon mission. "I learned about the Roswell incident [an alleged UFO crash in 1947] when I went back to New Mexico to visit and see family and friends there and make a couple of speeches." He claims an unnamed source at the Pentagon confirmed that an alien ship did crash, though the U.S. Air Force has dismissed that view.

"From what I know, and I don't consider myself a real expert in the area, but there are more than one civilization, or species of extraterrestrials, that have been here, as far as it appears," Mitchell says. "And I don't know that all of them are as open minded and helpful as others -- or that they're all the same, but I'm sure there are some that are here to try to help us try to do exactly what we need to do, which is to create a sustainable civilization. They certainly don't seem to be trying to conquer us in any way or they could certainly have done so, if that were their intent."

Citing information from "private sources," he claims that President Barack Obama has been briefed on this subject. He notes that the Vatican in late 2009 held a conference on extraterrestrial life and has declared the possible existence of such life to be compatible with its theology, which Mitchell calls "a step in the right direction." Mitchell also feels a White House investigation into UFOs would be a good idea.

As to the future of human space exploration, he says, "It's true that likely space exploration can offer some solutions to stabilize the future of our civilization, so that there are resources available, perhaps on the moon, or Mars or in the asteroid belt, and certainly energy from the sun can help offset the fact that we are using up our other sources of energy at an alarming rate, so there's a lot that space technology has to offer that we haven't explored yet."

Mitchell challenges our reality in many ways. But his greatest challenge is to our open-mindedness. When someone of his stature and with his scientific training and contacts suggests things that seem so extraordinary, we have a duty not to retreat to our entrenched positions of doubt and ridicule but to actively engage with what he says, however much it may rattle our cages. And I have to confess, as a reporter on the often mundane subjects of law, politics and religion, it was somewhat spooky to have to look head-on at the extraordinary claims made by Mitchell, for such concepts challenge the very foundations of our common sense everyday worldview.

Yet he has been where few have followed: A great many astronauts have been in orbit, but only 12 have stood on the moon and seen Earth as it really is: tiny, fragile, and traveling lonesome in a sparkling void.

Many may react to some of Mitchell's assertions like Shakespeare's Horatio did upon seeing a ghost:

"O day and night, this is wondrous strange!"

We may all do well to remember Hamlet's reply:

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Ultimately, whatever the truth about his claims of ET visitations, Mitchell entreats us to become better stewards of our planet, and promotes a sense universal fellowship, with all creatures. As he once said, recalling seeing whales up-close on a visit to the Antarctic:

"We are all friends, we are one -- we are just a little bit of a different shape."