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Mitchell, Edgar D. (1930-)

American astronaut with an active interest in parapsychology. Born September 17, 1930, at Hereford, Texas, he was educated at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He entered the U.S. Navy in 1952 and was commissioned a year later. After flight training, he was assigned to Patrol Squadron 29 in Okinawa and flew aircraft on carrier duty and with a heavy attack squadron.

He studied for his doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became chief of the project management division of the Navy Field Office for Manned Orbiting Laboratory (1964). He later attended Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School. He was selected by NASA as an astronaut in April 1966 and was lunar module pilot of Apollo 14, which landed on the moon February 5, 1971.

His interest in parapsychology dated from 1967, soon after his arrival at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. He was dissatisfied with orthodox theology and began to investigate areas of psychic phenomena and mysticism. In December 1969 Mitchell became friendly with medium Arthur Ford, who suggested an interesting ESP test from a man in a rocket to a contact on earth.

Mitchell planned a rocket-to-earth ESP test for the Apollo 14 mission, although Ford died January 4, 1971, 27 days before the mission launch (to which he had been invited as Mitchell's guest). NASA had rejected a telepathy experiment planned by the American Society for Psychical Research in 1970, so Mitchell's test was a private affair in his own rest periods. The tests involved the transmission of symbols associated with a range of chosen numbers. Eminent parapsychologists J. B. Rhine of the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man and Karlis Osis of the ASPR offered cooperation in evaluating the test. The results of the test were ambiguous.

After being the sixth man to walk on the moon, Mitchell was a member of the backup crew of further lunar probes. He retired from NASA and the navy in 1972. His second wife, Anita, whom Mitchell married in 1973 after a divorce, shared his interest in parapsychology. In the same year Mitchell founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences for the study of human consciousness and mind/body relationships. He has headed the institute ever since.

Among the projects supported by the institute were the efforts of Andrija Puharich to test Uri Geller, and supervised experiments with Geller at Stanford Research Institute.