Aliens came to Earth to stop a nuclear war between America and Russia, according the bizarre claim of a former astronaut.

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, says high-ranking military officials witnessed alien ships during weapons tests throughout the 1940s.

The UFOs, he says, were spotted hovering over the world's first nuclear weapons test which took place on July 16, 1945 in the desolate White Sands deserts of New Mexico.

The Nasa veteran has regularly spoken about his belief in aliens ever since he landed on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

'White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons - and that's what the extra-terrestrials were interested in,' the 84-year-old Texan told Mirror Online.

 

'They wanted to know about our military capabilities.

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