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
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.
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-D011
Summary written by SkyUnknown from the facts published by the source.