The biggest advantage of being an astronaut is that you can view the earth from above and get first-hand information of anomalies on the surface right there in space. As intriguing as this story sounds, one NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper selected as one of the Mercury astronauts in 1959, used his data to pinpoint shipwrecks filled with treasure and he chose to keep it a secret that became to be known as Cooper’s treasure.
Yes! That’s right. These records still exist in NASA’s biographical data till today depicting how Gordon Cooper was chosen for piloting the Faith7 spacecraft on May 15th 1963. The mission was a 22 orbit one and a success which landed Cooper another mission where he was the command pilot along with colleague Charles Conrad on the Gemini mission which was an 8 day 120 revolution that commenced on August 21, 1965.
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Cooper was in command of the flight which also created a record for space endurance making Cooper the first man to fly two consecutive orbits in space. Cooper died in 2004 but he died taking him with him a secret that would have made big news had he declared it in public. Cooper had pinpointed treasure from space during his first Mercury space run and he wasn’t planning on telling anybody about it presumably hoping to find it himself.
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Gordon Cooper kept the treasure a secret even from NASA for several years. What exactly was this space treasure? Well, while in space, Cooper had instructions to look for anomalies on the earth that would reveal nuclear devices. While he was piloting the Faith7 for the Mercury-Atlas expedition, Cooper had fixed instructions to find out certain anomalies that were suspected to be nuclear missiles or devices. However what Cooper found was even more stunning.
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Cooper knew that the magnetic anomalies he had detected were too small for a nuclear device and it was clear they were something else. Famed Treasure hunter Darrel Miklos said that somehow Cooper knew in his heart what they were. They were shipwrecks.
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Cooper identified the anomalies as century-old shipwrecks that were found in regions throughout the Atlantic although they happened to exist in isolated locations. Cooper also made a note of the coordinates and as soon as he returned to earth, he started making a chart in an attempt to create a map.
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Cooper’s treasure map from space took up his entire life; he was obsessed with the map and began researching shipwrecks that related to the coordinates on his map. He was convinced that the shipwrecks had to be colonial ships that frequented the area and were often sunk because of bad weather. Ships at the time were the primary mode of transport and trade and carried with them gold, silver, spices and muslin among other things.
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Miklos says that during the time, a lot of the treasure never reached their destination because of the ships that had been sunk. Some of it were also part of the famous lost fleet of Columbus which was part of Columbus second journey to the Americas in 1494 as recorded by National Geographic.
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Columbus made the journey with a large number of ships more than what he took on his maiden voyage. He was hell-bent on creating the first European colony in the new world. His settlement dissolved in a few years where six ships were sunk in the nearby bay and one-fifth of his men dead.
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Cooper had made out big plans for an excavation but unfortunately passed away in 2004 from a heart attack. But before dying, Cooper passed on the map and his research to Miklos. He may have carried on his secret how he came by the treasure but like all good treasure hunters, he passed on his knowledge to whom he thought deserving of it.
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Miklos is hopeful that the shipwrecks as detailed by Gordon Cooper will be found as he wants the world to know Cooper's story and the story of the famous characters whom he has grown to love through stories today. The wrecks if found will shed a lot of light on the nature of Columbus fleet and the fourth journey not forgetting the bounty that may be buried deep within the shipwrecks.
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The wrecks of Columbus second journey included five ships that sank and was never discovered thereafter. 500 years hence, they still remain a mystery even as National geographic excavations have attempted to find out the truth as well as records about North America’s first European city which Columbus named La Isabella. Perhaps they too should look at Cooper’s treasure map from space and his research which has even been made into a documentary called Cooper’s treasure.