Gordon Cooper was an American aerospace engineer, test pilot and the youngest of seven astronauts in NASA’s Project Mercury. In 1963 Cooper piloted the longest and last Mercury spaceflight, Mercury-Atlas 9, during that 34-hour mission he became the first American to spend an entire day in space, the first to sleep in space, and the last American launched on an entirely solo orbital mission. His mission came just one year after the Cuban Missile Crisis and so, along with his usual NASA tasks, the US Government had asked him to photograph as much of the Earth as possible, to get an idea of any Soviet advancements.
However, YouTube channel “TheRichest” revealed how he ran his own project alongside his set tasks during a mini-series.
The narrator explained in 2019: “Cooper was instructed to observe any effects zero gravity would have on the human body, then after a period of time, he would return to Earth safely.
“The public were only aware of those two tasks, but a lot of the mission objectives were classified, and one of them included taking a lot of photos, he took over 5,000 pictures.
“But this wasn’t just to shoot some pretty pictures, there was another objective involved in taking all the space snaps, including the Soviet Union to search for hidden Soviet nuclear bases and submarines.
“Cooper would then mark on a map where these potential locations were off the United States coast, invaluable information for the US defence at the time.
“As Cooper was searching for these destructive areas, he found something else, something that didn’t make sense.”
The series went on to reveal how Mr Cooper noticed several “anomalies” around the Earth, but he apparently did not tell NASA about them on touchdown.
It added: “He saw these magnetic anomalies through the camera, but they weren’t the correct size or shape to by nuclear-holding facilities and many were in the shallow waters around the Caribbean.
“This grabbed hold of Cooper, he had to find out what these bizarre marks were, so he made another map of all the anomaly locations.
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“But eventually, time and life caught up with Cooper, due to his illness, Cooper was unable to continue his research and so in 2004, he passed on the task to a close friend – Darrell Miklos – who received every piece of paper.
“Miklos had a lot of resources and experience under his belt, but he needed financing, this is where the Discovery Channel comes in.
“The show was titled Cooper’s Treasure and is believed to be worth billions of dollars in gold and other valuable items found.
“The information from all Cooper’s notes turned out to be accurate and Miklos and his crew made a number of great discoveries during the journey.”
The series was first released in 2017, and a second series in 2018, it is unclear whether there are plans for a third.
To date, the biggest discovery made was an anchor from one of Christopher Colombus’ ships, dated to have been used between 1492 and 1550.