Imagine having the chance to visit a totally different planet, getting to dive into alien cultures, and poking around with technology that’s way beyond anything on Earth. Sounds like a trip, right? But wait, you’d be gone for over a decade, all traces of your life on Earth would vanish, and you’d have to start fresh with a new identity upon your return, never breathing a word about your space adventures. Still keen?

In 1965, a dozen astronauts jumped at this opportunity under a secret project called Serpo. Thirteen years later, a few of them made it back. This all went down during a hush-hush human-alien exchange program. Let’s dive into this wild piece of space history.

Colonel McKeever of the U.S. Air Force had no idea what he was signing up for when he was selected for a mission he only knew was “important” and would be long—over a decade away from Earth. With no family ties holding him back, McKeever thought why not? The catch: he had to be “sheep-dipped”—essentially, erased from existence. His records, from Social Security to school, were wiped clean, as if he had never been.

Upon arrival at a super-secure facility, McKeever realized this was no ordinary mission. After a top-secret briefing revealing real alien encounters, including the famous Roswell UFO crash, he knew he was part of something big. He was shown footage of the crash site and was introduced to the extraterrestrial biological entity, or EBE-1, the lone survivor from the crash, who lived until 1952 under military care. Discussions with EBE-1 led to the discovery that these aliens, known as Ebens, had been visiting Earth for 2,000 years and had faced a radar issue causing their crash.

Fast forward to the 1960s, the Air Force was eager for some sort of exchange—human bodies for alien tech. But the Ebens had other plans: they proposed an extraordinary deal. The U.S. would return the bodies of the crashed alien crew, an Eben would come to assist the U.S., and in return, 12 humans would spend a decade on the Eben planet, Serpo, located in the Zeta Reticuli system.

The year-long intense training involved survival techniques, even how to handle Eben spacecraft. And soon, the team was ready. In 1964, the Ebens landed in New Mexico to retrieve their dead. By 1965, the human team set off from Area 51 to their alien rendezvous.

The journey to Serpo was no first-class flight. The team spent nearly ten months in small pods, often feeling sick and disoriented. On arrival, they faced grueling heat from two suns and a barren landscape, quite similar to Arizona or New Mexico, save the dual suns. The alien world was home to around 650,000 Ebens, who lived in a manner McKeever found surprisingly primitive given their technological prowess.

Their accommodations were basic, akin to adobe houses they’d seen back in the southwestern U.S. Thankfully, cool underground bunkers stored their supplies. The Ebens’ way of life was a headscratcher—no money, regimented schedules, communal living overseen by a council of governors. Work, food, and even spiritual life were organized in a way that seemed both alien and familiar.

As the humans acclimated, they faced unfamiliar food and faced health obstacles due to high radiation and extreme heat. Nonetheless, they managed, even moving to cooler, greener regions more suited to their comfort.

The real story began when team member 308 died en route. The Ebens insisted on keeping his body, which left McKeever and the rest fuming. Turns out, the Ebens planned to use his body for cloning and creating hybrids—a practice seen as an honor in Eben culture. With little choice, McKeever reluctantly accepted this and moved on, but it painted a darker picture of this supposedly peaceful alien race.

Near the end of their mission, eight out of the twelve astronauts returned to Earth. They spent a year in quarantine, were assigned new identities, and received generous bonuses. Sadly, many of them suffered from illnesses due to the radiation on Serpo, and only Colonel McKeever survived till old age, dying in 2002. His comprehensive, mind-boggling 3,000-page report remains a treasure trove of information on interplanetary life.

Colonel McKeever’s heroic journey barely gets any recognition today, although he significantly contributed to human understanding of alien life. Is it fair? Maybe not. But McKeever’s story, masked under thick layers of secrecy, is now part of the UFO legend.

Project Serpo entered public domain in 2005, thanks to some intriguing emails from an anonymous whistleblower. This retired government employee revealed details of an Earth-to-Serpo mission, sparking massive debate and investigation into the legitimacy of his claims. The diggings pointed towards one Richard Doty, an infamous figure known for spreading UFO disinformation.

Doty had a history of feeding wild stories about UFOs to stir chaos and confusion within the UFO community. And while he denies involvement with Serpo, many traces and clues point back to him. Further complicating the narrative, other sources, including former British defense personnel, validate parts and dismiss other parts of the story, hinting at an elaborate CIA ruse during the Cold War.

Doty’s disinformation campaigns had conspired to blur truth and fiction so much that even serious UFO researchers couldn’t discern fact from fantasy. Despite no physical evidence to confirm or deny Serpo’s occurrences, the tale of Serpo has seen relentless speculations and theories over the decades.

One consistent thread is the mention of the Zeta Reticuli system, which appears in various alien encounter stories, including the famous abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill. Whether these accounts are genuine or merely built upon a fabricated lore remains unresolved.

In the grand scheme, whether Serpo is a cool sci-fi story, an elaborate Cold War hoax, or an actual undisclosed episode of extraterrestrial diplomacy, it sparks curiosity and pushes the boundaries of what we think we know about our place in the universe. What continued mysteries and potential truths lie hidden among the stars? Only time, or maybe another whistleblower, would tell.

And there we have it—Colonel McKeever’s unrecognized yet monumental mission to a distant planet, unraveling more questions than answers about our cosmic neighbors.