Sighting in Low Earth Orbit, May 15, 1963
Item released by the US government (PURSUE, NASA): an audio recording, "Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15". Incident: 5/15/63, Low Earth Orbit. According to the government, no definitive determination could be made.
What happened
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.
Summary written by AARO, the Pentagon's UAP office, and released by the US government (public domain).
- Date
- May 15, 1963
- Location
- Low Earth Orbit · country only
- Type of sighting
- From the ground
Sources
- See the original document
PURSUE (gouvernement des États-Unis)
n° NASA-UAP-D010
Summary written by SkyUnknown from the facts published by the source.