A former NASA astronaut has claimed that the aliens flew down to earth to prevent nuclear war between the United States of America and the Cold War. Dr Edgar Mitchell, the sixth person to walk on the moon, made the bizarre claims while talking to Mirror Online.

While a lot of people claim to have seen aliens, Mitchell's elevated status gives him a ready audience. He said that the military top brass saw UFOs visiting Earth during weapons tests in the 1940s at American missile bases and the famous White Sands Proving Ground in the New Mexico desert where the world's first nuclear bomb was detonated in 1945.

The 84-year-old man told Mirror Online: "White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons - and that's what the extra-terrestrials 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."