Richard Gordon was a Doctor of Medicine specialising in internal medicine.1 He first met Robert Monroe in 1942 in New York City New York2 and became Monroe’s family doctor.3 Gordon was in his fifties when the two first met.4 According to Monroe, Mrs. Gordon told him that at twenty-two Gordon had been very active and eager, always in a hurry, with a big shock of blond hair.5 Monroe said he considered Agnew Bahnson similarly too interested in new things and experiences to dwell in the past, comparing him in this respect to Gordon.6
In 1958, Monroe consulted Gordon, his longtime family physician and diagnostician, about a series of vibration episodes he had been experiencing.7 According to Monroe, after a thorough physical examination Gordon found nothing physically wrong, suggested he had been working too hard, and recommended more sleep and losing weight, dismissing the possibility of a brain tumour or epilepsy.8 The following week, Gordon carried out further tests - blood tests, fluoroscopes, electrocardiograms and a urinalysis - checking carefully for indications of brain lesions.9 According to Monroe, Gordon also arranged an electroencephalogram (EEG) brain-wave analysis, which showed no unusual problem.10 Monroe said Gordon prescribed tranquilizers and advised him to lose weight, smoke less and rest more, telling him that if he had a problem it was not a physical one.11
In the spring of 1961, Monroe visited Gordon at his office and had lunch with him there.12 About a week later, Gordon and his wife sailed to Spain for a European trip.13 According to Monroe, Mrs. Gordon phoned him six weeks later to say Gordon had fallen sick in Europe and the couple had cut short their trip.14 Monroe said Gordon refused treatment overseas, insisted on returning home, and went immediately into hospital for an exploratory operation15, which, according to Monroe, found an abdominal cancer that was beyond treatment.16 Monroe wrote to Gordon describing his own out-of-body experiences and a technique for leaving the physical body; at Gordon’s own request, Mrs. Gordon read the letter to him repeatedly in hospital.17 Several weeks later, Gordon fell into a coma and died peacefully without regaining consciousness.18
Gordon was the first person close to Monroe to die since Monroe had developed his own out-of-body ability.19 Some months later, on a Saturday afternoon, Monroe attempted an out-of-body journey to find him, taking about an hour to reach the vibrational state before leaving his body.20 That first attempt lasted two hours away from his physical body and ended in failure to find Gordon.21 During one such attempt, Monroe became increasingly and unbearably hot while waiting to see Gordon, and eventually had to leave without seeing him.22 On a second attempt the following Saturday, a voice asked Monroe why he wanted to see Gordon again, since he had already seen him the previous Saturday.23 Monroe concluded that a short, thin young man of about twenty-two with a big shock of hair, whom he had seen during his first visit, was Gordon as he would have appeared at twenty-two rather than at seventy.24 At a later visit to the home of Gordon’s widow, Monroe saw an old photograph of Gordon at twenty-two that matched perfectly the young man he had seen.25 Monroe never saw the helper who took him on an out-of-body voyage to visit Gordon in Locale II, but felt the helper’s hands and heard his voice.26
Separately, NASA mission audio associates a Richard Gordon with the Apollo 12 mission: aboard Yankee Clipper during a rendezvous procedure, he was unable to find Intrepid’s tracking light in his sextant because the light appeared to have burned out.27 Charlie Hickson said that Gordon had set up the television camera and told Charles “Pete” Conrad it was ready.28 In a later Apollo 17 crew medical debriefing, Harrison Schmitt recalled that Dick Gordon had said that once you start flying, the clock is relentless.29