Audio recordings

This audio recording contains air to ground communications and the NASA Public Affairs audio feed with commentary, recorded during the flight of the Gemini 7 mission. In this excerpted segment of audio, Astronaut Frank Borman reports to NASA mission control in Houston his sighting of an unidentified object, which he referred to as a "bogey." This sighting occurred on December 5, 1965. The dialogue includes Borman's initial report, as well as additional comments by Astronaut Jim Lovell, Borman's fellow crew member.

During a medical debriefing of the crew of the Apollo 12 mission, Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad, Command Module Pilot Richard “Dick” F. Gordon, and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean describe their observations of instances of light flashes or “streaks of lights.” The astronauts each reported that these experiences occurred in the dark as they tried to sleep. The NASA medical team considered whether similar phenomena reported by Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin had been attributable to exposure of the retina by cosmic rays. NASA later determined that the phenomena reported by the Apollo 12 flight crew were internal to the astronauts’ vision rather than external light sources.

During the eleventh and final crewed mission in the Apollo program, Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans report seeing small lights outside the Apollo spacecraft during transit to the moon. The crew describe bright “particles” or “fragments” as being “jagged,” “angular,” and drifting near the Apollo spacecraft and the separated Saturn S-IVB stage. The Apollo 17 crew speculate that paint chips or ice chips are likely the source of these lights and note that they “twinkle” and move away from the Saturn S-IVB stage.

Approximately one hour and 41 minutes into the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. notes that he sees “John’s fireflies,” referring to John Glenn’s term from the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission. NASA later determined that the “fireflies” are attributable to frozen condensation separating from the spacecraft body. The white, green-hued appearance of this phenomenon results from sunlight reflecting off frozen condensation.

During the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. describes the brilliant blue of sunrise beneath the haze layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. As he approaches sunrise, he describes small, luminous, brilliant white particles drifting away from the spacecraft. Cooper describes observing “fireflies” after deploying beacons, which are spherical mission-related equipment with xenon strobe lights.

During the Mercury Atlas 8 mission, Sigma 7 pilot Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr. describes observing “little white objects that tend to come from the capsule itself and drift off.” Schirra later also refers to those objects as “particles” and “lathe shavings.” Schirra also describes seeing a burst of light in the window, whose source he cannot identify. He speculates that his observation corresponds with the moment the sun passes below the horizon during sunset.

During the fourth crewed spaceflight and second orbital flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 7 (MA-7), Aurora 7 pilot Scott Carpenter describes white particles in view that appear to move at “random” and “look exactly like snowflakes.” He describes these phenomena as reflective, and that some seemed to move faster than the Aurora 7 spacecraft.

During the recovery of the fourth launch and second crewed spaceflight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Redstone 4 (MR-4) Liberty Bell 7, the recovery team discusses a dye pack in the water that did not activate.

In November 1962, journalist Walter Cronkite interviewed astronaut Gordon Cooper. In this excerpt from that interview, Cronkite asks Cooper about his views regarding the nature of unidentified flying objects, having previously expressed an interest in the subject. Cooper opines that “a large number of exceptionally well-qualified people have seen objects” without a “logical explanation” and speculates on the existence of other planets with “a livable atmosphere” and that maybe there are “some type of human life” out there. Interview was conducted in November 1962.

This debriefing includes presentations from principal investigators of various Apollo experiments. The principal investigators describe preliminary results of their work to educate the Apollo crews about what they’ve obtained from Apollo 16 to help prepare for Apollo 17. They also describe anomalies, such as a “flash” that was observed that had not yet been reported. The flash is mentioned beginning at 25:15.

At 32:41, the speaker makes an off-handed comment, “Could be an alien starbase or something, I don’t know” when discussing correlations between experimental data sets.

This file contains segment 1 of 2 of the Apollo 14 post-mission crew debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In the recording, crew members and debriefers discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes. The questioners attempt to distinguish the characteristics of the observed phenomena. The debriefing continues in the next file (NASA-UAP-D027), which contains some overlapping audio content.

This file contains segment 2 of 2 of the Apollo 14 post-mission crew debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In this continued segment, crew members and debriefers further discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes.

This file contains segment 1 of 2 of the Apollo 17 post-mission medical debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In the recording, crew members discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes. Two of the three crew members reported observing these flashes at various points during the mission, including in lunar orbit and while on the lunar surface. The debriefing continues in the next file (NASA-UAP-D029).

This file contains segment 2 of 2 of the Apollo 17 post-mission medical debriefing at the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center), Houston, Texas. In this continued segment, crew members and debriefers further discuss the “light flash phenomena,” a then novel, now well-documented biological effect where high-energy cosmic rays pass through the eye and strike the retina, causing the perception of light streaks or flashes. Two of the three crew members reported observing these flashes at various points during the mission, including in lunar orbit and while on the lunar surface.