Published: 13:00 BST, 22 August 2026 | Updated: 13:03 BST, 22 August 2026
Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell openly admitted after returning to Earth that he had conducted an unauthorized ESP experiment during his historic moon mission.
But his former wife, Anita Mitchell, has now revealed the story behind the clandestine test, including the scientists who helped arrange it, the staggering odds Mitchell privately attached to its results and how it changed the course of his life.
Mitchell, the lunar module pilot and sixth person to walk on the moon, attempted to transmit symbols mentally across hundreds of thousands of miles to four receivers on Earth in February 1971.
The experiment was conducted during four rest periods aboard the Apollo 14 spacecraft without NASA's knowledge or approval.
The receivers on Earth separately recorded which symbols they believed Mitchell was concentrating on, with the two highest-scoring participants identifying 51 out of 200 correctly.
Anita told the Daily Mail that Edgar believed the odds against the result occurring randomly were 'two billion to one.'
The results convinced Edgar that something extraordinary had crossed the void between Apollo 14 and Earth.
Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot for the Apollo 14 lunar landing mission, stands by the deployed US flag on the lunar surface in 1971
His former wife, Anita Mitchell, told the Daily Mail that he conducted a secret ESP experiment on the moon, which he said was successful
Her memoir, You Don't Look Like An Astronaut's Wife, reveals how the strange experiment helped transform one of America's most celebrated astronauts into a determined investigator of consciousness and paranormal phenomena.
Anita married Mitchell after Apollo 14, and the couple later divorced in 1984.
Although she was not married to him at the time of the mission, she said the experiment remained an important part of his life and reflected an interest in ESP that began before he traveled to the moon.
'He had a group of scientists that he had worked with before he went to the moon, and they had set up the ESP experiment,' Anita said.
'So he had tipped his toe into that even before he flew.'