Gordon Cooper, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, spent decades describing an incident at Edwards Air Force Base in 1957 that the Air Force had consistently declined to confirm.
Cooper reported that while he was directing a camera crew filming precision landing tests, a metallic disc-shaped craft descended, hovered briefly over the installation, extended three landing gear, touched the lakebed surface, then retracted its gear and ascended at high velocity without any visible exhaust or sound. His camera crew captured the landing and departure on 35mm film. He sent the film to Air Force headquarters in Washington with a written report. The film was never returned.
In April 2024, a FOIA request produced a formerly classified Air Force Technical Intelligence Center report from 1957 referencing a camera crew incident at Edwards consistent with Cooper's account. The document was heavily redacted, but the operational detail — date, location, description of observing personnel, description of a disc-shaped object with landing gear — matched Cooper's published account.
Cooper died in 2004. The declassified document was the first official record to corroborate any element of his account.