I want to believe. It’s hard not to. When you consider how old the universe is, and how young mankind is, can you imagine how evolved we’ll be in the next 100…1,000…10,000 years?

I’m a conspiracy junkie, which means I feast on landfills worth of garbage. One of my favorite topics is UFOs and the military – especially back during the Cold War. Searching Google you’ll come across dozens of stories about UFOs appearing over military bases and disabling – and even shooting down missiles.

Were they alien-manned? Or maybe they were top secret man-made aircrafts being tested across the Nation? Doing your own research, I think you’ll agree that the latter seems highly unlikely considering our technological advancements back then…

With that said, I came across this insanely interesting article over at Mirror Online in which Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, claims that these UFOs were on a mission to prevent nuclear war between America and Russia.

Edgar Mitchell, a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, told Mirror Online that top-ranking military sources spotted UFOs during weapons tests.

The astronaut has been outspoken about his belief in aliens ever since he landed on the surface of the moon, becoming one of the most prominent figures in the worldwide UFO community.

He told us military insiders had seen strange crafts flying over missile bases and the famous White Sands facility, where the world’s first ever nuclear bomb was detonated in 1945.

Mitchell grew up in New Mexico near both the bomb testing zone and Roswell, where believers think one of the world’s most famous UFO encounters took place.

“You don’t know the area like I do,” he said in an interview with the site.

“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.

“My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.”

Mitchell also suggested he had heard similar stories from people who manned missile bases during the most tense parts of the 20th century.

“I have spoken to many Air Force officers who worked at these silos during the Cold War,” he continued.

“They told me UFOs were frequently seen overhead and often disabled their missiles.

“Other officers from bases on the Pacific coast told me their [test] missiles were frequently shot down by alien spacecraft.

“There was a lot of activity in those days.”

Those seeking a naysayer need look no further.

Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO researcher, whether he believed Mitchell’s claims.

“Edgar Mitchell is an honourable and truthful man, who I’ve had the privilege of meeting,” he said.

“But so far as I’m aware, most of his information on this issue comes not from things he’s experienced himself, but from things he’s been told by others.”

What’s more interesting is Pope’s assessment of alien life, if it were to exist.

“Given that the Universe is around 14 billion years old, if we’re being visited, it’s unlikely we’re dealing with a civilization just a few hundred years ahead of us, so stories of aliens managing to disrupt a few of our weapons tests are far-fetched.

“Chances are they’d be millions of years ahead of us and could do anything they wanted to.”

The idea that Pope would be able to theorize the age of an alien civilization visiting us, as well as their motives, is hysterical. Although, if we should listen to anyone it would be Stephen Hawking, the smartest man on the planet. He suggests that alien life would seek us out to exterminate us in order to use our planet for its resources – being that the reason for their trek out into the galaxy is because they’ve probably used up all of their own…

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to extraterrestrials, which is why we obsess over it in pop culture. I guess this is the perfect segue into the return of “The X-Files” this coming January? It sure is…