He was married to Louise Randall from 1951 to 1972. Following their divorce, he married Anita Rettig in 1973. The couple divorced in 1984 when he began an affair with former Playboy model Sheilah Ledbetter. He was father to two children with Randall, adopted Rettig's three children, and later was father to another child, this time with Ledbetter. Rettig served as chair of the Palm Beach CountyRepublican Party, while Kimberly Mitchell (the eldest daughter from his union with Rettig) was a city commissioner in West Palm Beach, Florida.[10] Ledbetter and Mitchell married in 1989 and divorced in 1999.[10][11] He was survived by five children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Mitchell stands with the United States' flag on the Moon, 1971Mitchell studies a map while walking on the Moon, February 6, 1971A U.S. Navy diver helps Mitchell out of the Command Module, 1971
He then went to serve as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 14, landing with Shepard aboard the Lunar Module Antares on February 5, 1971, in the hilly upland Fra Mauro Highlands region of the Moon. They stayed on the Moon for 33 hours, deployed and activated lunar surface scientific equipment and experiments, and collected almost 100 pounds of lunar samples for return to Earth. Other Apollo 14 achievements include: only use of the Mobile Equipment Transporter (MET); first successful use of color television with a new Vidicon tube; longest distance traversed on foot on the lunar surface;[17] largest payload placed in lunar orbit; first use of shortened lunar orbit rendezvous techniques; and first extensive orbital science period conducted during CSM solo operations.[12]
In completing his first space flight, Mitchell logged a total of 216 hours and 42 minutes in space. He was subsequently designated to serve as backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 16.
During the mission, he took photos, including the one with Shepard raising the American flag. In the photo, Mitchell's shadow is cast over the lunar surface near the flag. That photo was listed on Popular Science's photo gallery of the best astronaut selfies.[18]
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that, you son of a bitch."
Mitchell's interests included consciousness and paranormal phenomena. On his way back to Earth during the Apollo 14 flight he had a powerful savikalpa samādhi experience,[20] and he claimed to have conducted private ESP experiments with his friends on Earth.[21] The results of these experiments were published in the Journal of Parapsychology in 1971.[22]
He retired from NASA and the U.S. Navy with the rank of captain in October 1972.[12] Immediately thereafter, he founded Edgar D. Mitchell & Associates of Monterey, California, a "commercial organization promoting ecologically-pure products and services designed to alleviate planetary problems."[23]
After moving to Atherton, California, he became founding chairman of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Palo Alto, California in 1973 for the purpose of consciousness research and other "related phenomena".[24][17] "Science and religion have lived on opposite sides of the street now for hundreds of years," Mitchell said toward the end of his life. "So here we are, in the twenty-first century, trying to put two faces of reality—the existence face and the intelligence or conscious face—into the same understanding. Body and mind, physicality and consciousness belong to the same side of reality.[25]
From 1974 to 1978, he was president of the Palm Beach, Florida-based Edgar Mitchell Corporation. In 1975, he moved to nearby Lantana, Florida, where he resided for the rest of his life.[12] He co-founded the Association of Space Explorers in 1983 and later served as chairman of the Mitchell Communications Company.[17][28]
Mitchell's heretofore undisclosed experimentation with LSD was reported by writer David Jay Brown in The New Science of Psychedelics: At the Nexus of Culture, Consciousness, and Spirituality (2013). Although he favorably compared the sensations of the psychedelic experience to his time in zero gravity, it remains unclear if his use preceded or followed Apollo 14.[29]
In 1997, Mitchell was interviewed for NASA's oral history program.[17] In one excerpt from that, he talked about how he was drawn to the space program:[17]
After Kennedy announced the moon program, that's what I wanted, because it was the bear going over the mountain to see what he could see, and what could you learn, and I've been devoted to that, to exploration, education, and discovery since my earliest years, and that's what kept me going.
On June 29, 2011, the federal government of the United States filed a lawsuit against Mitchell in the United States district court in Miami, Florida after discovering that he placed a camera used on Apollo 14 for auction at the auction house Bonhams. The litigation requested the camera be returned to NASA. Mitchell's position was that NASA had given him the camera as a gift upon the completion of the Apollo 14 mission. Bonhams withdrew the camera from auction.[30] In October 2011, attorneys representing the government and Mitchell reached a settlement agreement, and Mitchell agreed to return the camera to NASA, which in turn would donate it for display at the National Air and Space Museum.[31] On September 20, 2012, Congress enacted H.R. 4158, confirming full ownership rights of artifacts to astronauts on Apollo (and Mercury and Gemini) space missions.
Remote healing
Mitchell claimed that a teenage remote healer living in Vancouver and using the pseudonym "Adam Dreamhealer" helped him heal kidney cancer from a distance. Mitchell said that while he never had a biopsy, "I had a sonogram and MRI that was consistent with renal carcinoma." Adam worked (distantly) on Mitchell from December 2003 until June 2004, when the "irregularity was gone and we haven't seen it since".[32]
Views on UFOs
Mitchell publicly expressed his opinions that he was "90 percent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets".[33]Dateline NBC conducted an interview with Mitchell on April 19, 1996, during which he discussed meeting with officials from three countries who claimed to have had personal encounters with extraterrestrials. He offered his opinion that the evidence for such "alien" contact was "very strong" and "classified" by governments, who were covering up visitations and the existence of alien beings' bodies in places such as Roswell, New Mexico. He further claimed that UFOs had provided "sonic engineering secrets" that were helpful to the U.S. government. Mitchell's 1996 book, The Way of the Explorer, discusses his journey into mysticism and space.[34]
In 2004, he told the St. Petersburg Times that a "cabal of insiders" in the U.S. government were studying recovered alien bodies, and that this group had stopped briefing U.S. Presidents after John F. Kennedy.[35] He said, "We all know that UFOs are real; now the question is where they come from."[36]
Edgar Mitchell, February 2009
On July 23, 2008, Edgar Mitchell was interviewed on Kerrang Radio by Nick Margerrison. Mitchell claimed the Roswell crash was real and that aliens have contacted humans several times, but that governments have hidden the truth for 60 years, stating: "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." In reply, a spokesman for NASA stated on the Skeptoid Podcast with Brian Dunning: "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."[37]
In an interview with Fox News on July 25, 2008, Mitchell clarified that his comments did not involve NASA, but quoted unnamed sources, since deceased, at Roswell who confided to him that the Roswell incident did involve an alien craft. Mitchell also claims to have subsequently received confirmation from an unnamed intelligence officer at the Pentagon.[38][39]
In an interview for AskMen published March 6, 2014, Mitchell said that he had never seen a UFO,[37] that no one had ever threatened him over his claims regarding UFOs, and that any statements about the covering up of UFOs being a worldwide cabal was "just speculation on my part".[40]
In 2015, Mitchell said in an interview with the Daily Mirror that extraterrestrials "had been attempting to keep us from going to war [with Russia] and help create peace on Earth." He also said that "White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons—and that's what the extraterrestrials were interested in. They wanted to know about our military capabilities."[41]
Mitchell was one of the initial supporters of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, which would be a first step towards a "world parliament".[44]
Death
Edgar Mitchell's memorial in the Treasures of Apollo exhibit at Kennedy Space CenterApollo 14 command module Kitty Hawk, Mitchell's memorial wreath nearby
Mitchell died under hospice care in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of 85, on February 4, 2016,[11][45] the eve of the 45th anniversary of his lunar landing.[17] As Roosa and Shepard had died in the 1990s, Mitchell was the last surviving member of the Apollo 14 crew.[16]
He was the subject of a chapter of Chris Wright's book No More Worlds to Conquer, which asks how people who are famed for one moment moved on with their life. In it he talked at length about his beliefs in extraterrestrial visitation, the power of the mind, and his certainty that his cancer had been cured "by mind means".
The climactic scene of the 2004 documentary Astronauts Gone Wild features an interview with Mitchell. After filmmaker Bart Sibrel questions Mitchell about various aspects of footage from the Apollo 11 mission, Mitchell and his son threaten to murder Sibrel and his assistant.[50]
Books
Psychic Exploration: A Challenge for Science (1974), G. Putnam & Sons, ISBN0-399-11342-8
The Way of the Explorer: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds (1996), G. Putnam & Sons, hardcover, ISBN0-399-14161-8, 2008 paperback edition: ISBN1-56414-977-3, audio cassette edition: ISBN1-57270-019-X
Earthrise: My Adventures as an Apollo 14 Astronaut (2014), Chicago Review Press, hardcover, ISBN1-61374-901-5
Apollo 14 was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, the third to land on the Moon, and the first to land in the lunar highlands. It was the last of the "H missions", landings at specific sites of scientific interest on the Moon for two-day stays with two lunar extravehicular activities.
Buzz Aldrin is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and was the Lunar Module Eagle pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. He was the second person to walk on the Moon after mission commander Neil Armstrong. Following the death of Michael Collins in 2021, he is the last surviving Apollo 11 crew member.
William Alison Anders was an American United States Air Force (USAF) major general, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of Apollo 8, the first three people to leave low-Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. Along with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, he circled the Moon ten times, and broadcast live images and commentary back to Earth, including the Christmas Eve Genesis reading. During one of the mission's lunar orbits, he took the iconic Earthrise photograph.
Alan LaVern Bean was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, NASA astronaut and painter. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3, and was the fourth person to walk on the Moon.
Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr. was an American NASA astronaut, aeronautical engineer, naval officer, aviator, and test pilot who commanded the Apollo 12 mission, on which he became the third person to walk on the Moon. Conrad was selected for NASA's second astronaut class in 1962.
Eugene Andrew Cernan was an American astronaut, naval aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and fighter pilot. During the Apollo 17 mission, Cernan became the 11th human being to walk on the Moon. As he re-entered the Apollo Lunar Module after Harrison Schmitt on their third and final lunar excursion, he remains the most recent person to walk on the Moon.
John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the 9th person to walk on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. He is the only astronaut to fly on four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo command and service module, the Apollo Lunar Module and the Space Shuttle.
James Benson Irwin was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force pilot. He served as Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 15, the fourth human lunar landing. He was the 8th person to walk on the Moon.
Russell Louis "Rusty" Schweickart is an American aeronautical engineer, and a former NASA astronaut, research scientist, U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, as well as a former business executive and government executive.
Stuart Allen Roosa was an American aeronautical engineer, smokejumper, United States Air Force pilot, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, who was the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 14 mission. The mission lasted from January 31 to February 9, 1971, and was the third mission to land astronauts on the Moon. While Shepard and Mitchell spent two days on the lunar surface, Roosa conducted experiments from orbit in the Command Module Kitty Hawk. He was one of 24 men to travel to the Moon, which he orbited 34 times.
Fred Wallace Haise Jr. is an American former NASA astronaut, engineer, fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, and a test pilot. He is one of 24 people to have flown to the Moon, having flown as Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 13. He was slated to become the 6th person to walk on the Moon, but the Apollo 13 landing mission was aborted en route.
The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is an American non-profit parapsychological research institute. It was co-founded in 1973 by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the Moon, along with investor Paul N. Temple and others interested in purported paranormal phenomena, in order to encourage and conduct research on noetics and human potentials.
Thomas Kenneth Mattingly II was an American aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, rear admiral in the United States Navy, and astronaut who flew on Apollo 16 and Space Shuttle STS-4 and STS-51-C missions.
Ronnie Walter Cunningham was an American astronaut, fighter pilot, physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author of the 1977 book The All-American Boys. NASA's third civilian astronaut, he was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 7 mission in 1968.
Ronald Ellwin Evans Jr. was an American electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, officer and aviator in the United States Navy, and NASA astronaut. As Command Module Pilot on Apollo 17 he was one of the 24 astronauts to fly to the Moon, and one of 12 people to fly to the Moon without landing.
James Alton McDivitt Jr. was an American test pilot, United States Air Force (USAF) pilot, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut in the Gemini and Apollo programs. He joined the USAF in 1951 and flew 145 combat missions in the Korean War. In 1959, after graduating first in his class with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Michigan through the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) program, he qualified as a test pilot at the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School and Aerospace Research Pilot School, and joined the Manned Spacecraft Operations Branch. By September 1962, McDivitt had logged over 2,500 flight hours, of which more than 2,000 hours were in jet aircraft. This included flying as a chase pilot for Robert M. White's North American X-15 flight on July 17, 1962, in which White reached an altitude of 59.5 miles (95.8 km) and became the first X-15 pilot to be awarded Astronaut Wings.
Space is a novel by James A. Michener published in 1982. It is a fictionalized history of the United States space program, with a particular emphasis on human spaceflight.
NASA Astronaut Group 4 was a group of six astronauts selected by NASA in June 1965. While the astronauts of the first two groups were required to have an undergraduate degree or the professional equivalent in engineering or the sciences, they were chosen for their experience as test pilots. Test pilot experience was waived as a requirement for the third group, and military jet fighter aircraft experience could be substituted. Group 4 was the first chosen on the basis of research and academic experience, with NASA providing pilot training as necessary. Initial screening of applicants was conducted by the National Academy of Sciences.
NASA Astronaut Group 5 was a group of nineteen astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. Of the six Lunar Module Pilots that walked on the Moon, three came from Group 5. The group as a whole is roughly split between the half who flew to the Moon, and the half who flew Skylab and Space Shuttle, providing the core of Shuttle commanders early in that program. This group is also distinctive in being the only time when NASA hired a person into the astronaut corps who had already earned astronaut wings, X-15 pilot Joe Engle. John Young labeled the group the Original Nineteen in parody of the original Mercury Seven astronauts.
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