PURSUE Release 03 — Congress WhiteHouse UFO Correspondence 1998 (USG-UAP-D001)
Source: U.S. Department of War, PURSUE (Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters) — Release 03 (third tranche), published 12 June 2026. Document USG-UAP-D001.
URL: release portal https://www.war.gov/UFO/release/03/ · bundle https://www.war.gov/medialink/ufo/061226/release_03/release_03_documents.zip (file: USG-UAP-D001_Congress-WhiteHouse-UFO-Correspondence_1998.pdf)
Captured: 2026-06-12. Text below is the clean born-digital / OCR text extracted from the released PDF (86 pages).
What this is: Congress WhiteHouse UFO Correspondence 1998. Index/analysis: pursue-release-03-uap-records.
1320 .4 Aeronautics:UFO
Headquarters Action Tracking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L11998-00407 .
Title: WARD/Sen Snowe fwds ltr from U.F.O. and the recent Mars photo Recipient:
UHeffernan
Author: Organization:
SNOWE SENATE
(b) (6)
who’s interested in
Date Written : Date Received: Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed:
Current Due Date: Original Due Date:
Action Office:
UWard:S
Status:
Closed
Signature Office:
UHeffernan
Info offices:
UHeffernan, UHeninger, L/Kerwin
05/18/1998 05/26/1998
06/24/1998 06/24/1998 06/18/1998<<
Abstract: OF STOCKINGTON, MAINE, WHO’S SEN SNOWE FWDS LTR FROM (b) (6) INTE:RESTED IN U.FO.‘S AND THE RECENT PHOTOS OF MARS WHICH WERE RECENTLY RELEASED. Comments:
Enclosures:
NO
Related Records:
Keywords: (b) (5) File Plan: 1320.4
06/24/1998
MAINE U.F.O. MARS Analyst: BMoore Page 1 of 1
Headquarters Action T racking System (HATS) INCOMING CORRESPONDENCE ACTION ID Number: L/1998-00729
Title: Rothman/UFO_Sightings by Astronauts Recipient:
UHeffernan
Author: Organization:
Grassley Senate
Action Office:
LD/Rothman:P
Status:
Closed
Signature Office:
UHeffernan
Info Offices:
UHeffernan, UHeninger, UKerwin
Date Written: Date Received: Date Concurred: Date Submitted: Date Signed: Date Closed:
Current Due Date: Original Due Date:
08/03/1998 08/31/1998
09/04/1998 09/10/1998 08/22/1998<< 08/22/1998
Abstract: Senator Grassley forwards letter from (ts) (S) who is requesting information on UFO sightings by Astronauts. -Comments:
Enclosures:
letter
Related Records:
Keywords: (6J (o) UFO,astronauts,sightings File Plan: 1320.4 09/10/1998
Analyst: JMassey Page 1 of 1
yeA toGU SEP - 4 1998
L:HR:mtg:L/1998-729f
The Honorable Charles E. Grassley United States Senate Washington, DC 2051 0
Dear Senator Grassley: who Thank you for your letter of August 3, 1998, on behalf of(b <5) is requesting informat ion about the possible sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (U FOs) by NASA astronauts. Over the years there have been many objects sighted by the astronauts during space missions. Most of these items were later identified by photographs or NORAD records as material from launch vehicles or spacecraft or were such items as water droplets. No unidentified materials were seen on missions to the moon. The Air Force, in the interest of national security, received and investigated all reports for many years but has discontinued this activity. NASA has no program for investigating UFOs and has not withheld information on sightings. In 1976, James Oberg thoroughly researched the UFO/astronaut allegations and published an article about it in SEARCH magazine. We are enclosing that article for (b) (6 ) )nformation. In addition, enclosed is a NASA Fact Sheet which summarizes the current status of NASA’s involvement in UFO investigations. We trust this information wi ll aid you in responding to(b) 6 ) Sincere ly,
Edward Heffernan Associate Administrator for Legislative Affairs Enclosures
inquiry.
+ bee: Z/Roger Launius (with incoming) ; provided info Sent to Sherry Kuntz in the Hill office
S,ncc tho ··auron.iut UFO” genre
is one of rhe m13in pillolrs o f VFO
Story!
ovidcr1ce. thi5 study c lafml n g ! hat the enti re set of C .)Scs i1 inv.,..l id W 1if
0U 1110U 5iy
15eeptic. ism
and
CC
fCCl.?1”18<J
cr i tic ism
t..Vlth
from
UFO buffs. Aation~I objections and arguments wiH bo printed and answered in a subseQuent is’5ue of this magazina. Critics are urged to raise specific points not address°‘d in tho study. or to cite and docum.ant facts which might modify or invalidate conclusions in the study.
SGM{ q ~ f’~9 ~?-j ,1{ James E. Oberg Associate Editor ” Space World” magazine
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Space flight has opened many mysteries. True, scie11tists prefer to list tlie puzzles solved and u11knoums discovered, but as men venture beyond the earth it is inevitable that new mysteries will be encountered. Somewhere out there, many obsen:ers believe, are intelligent species with technological civilizations · far more advanced tha,z that of Earth. Perhaps they are sending us radio signals we have not recognized. Perhaps they have left artifacts of past visits for us to find. Perhaps they are even_ now keeping the earth under surveillance. If they are out there, someday we will meet them. As illustrated in science fiction, this meeting will probably occur in space. Have such meetings already occurred? Have astronauts and cosmonauts already seen alien spacecraft? The UFO lite!ature is full of tales of “space UFOs”. Are any ofthem valid? What can a careful study reveal?
H
ardly a UFO book or movie is complete without the standard assertion that “astronauts have seen UFOs too”. While critics may attack the character or intelligence of many UFO witnesses, they cannot use these tactics on American and Russian space pilots. Where UFO photographs can be accused of distortion and forgery, photographs taken by astronauts and processed by NASA must be of the highest trustworthiness. Hence, most UFO scholars consider the family of astronaut UFO sightings to be one of the strongest bodi~s of evidence in the past thirty years. The best of these cases include astronaut James McOivitt’s sighting of o( an “unidentified spacecraft” near his Gemini-4 space capsule in 1965, a curious photo of a pair of UFOs with glowing propulsion fields taken by the Gemini-7 astronauts. reports of nearby objects from X-15 and Mercury spacecraft. tales of how ~he 1968-1969 Apollo moon shots were followed by U.FOs on their way to the moon, and reports and pbutographs of objects seen by crewmen on the Skylab space station. Last year, the National Inves-
tigations Committee on A erial Phenomena (NICAP) selected the “McDivitt UFO” photo as one of the four best photographs ever taken. The “astronaut UFO” sightings must appeal to many seriou:i researchers for a number of reasons. The witnesses and the photographs are unimpeachable as to honesty and authenticity. The conditions of the space missions can be calculated and recorded, and every object near the spacecraft can be determined by con sulting the giant space radars of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), headquartered inside Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Extensive crew debriefings and on-board tape recorder transcripts may be available to obtain direct eye witness testimony. With all these facts and assumptions in mind, and mindful of the nume rous ‘unsolved’ cases which might tell much about the lJFO phenomenon, I began a special research program into this particular body of evidence. As an aerospace writer. historian, and re searcher, I felt that my experience with astronautics, computers, Air
38
Force operations, and space miss:ons might give me new insights into this most puzzling series of cases. I was not disappointed, and my results were startling. The basic truths behind these sightings seems lately to have gathered an accretion of exaggeration, confusion, and outright fiction. The 1968 “Condon Report” on UFOs (conducted by the University of Colorado for the U.S. Air Force) found itself unable to penetrate three specific cases, which the analyst felt were •a “challenge” to any serious investigator. Stories later began circulating about sightings of lunar surface lights and structures, and the discovery of artifacts on the moon, about near approaches of structured objects, and about attempts at radio contact between Apollo capsules and UFOs. Recent books on UFOs give lists of astronaut sightings which are out of numeric sequence, misdated, mispeUed, and otherwise distorted. My research has revealed a few examples of deliberate photo forgeries by UFO buffs or opportunistic authors. My investigations in the NASA
arch,n•s has fl‘“l•aled ca..~es whcrl’ UFO
rt•c:i rchrr; withheld Cl•rtain informa
tion frl’cly gi,·1•n them by N:\SA
officials. infori:tation which would
have clearly explained m;my cases
which the authors wantt•d to appear
mysterious. So the time has come to
take a ne\’ look at this whote
phenomenon. What is the truth about
“astronaut li rOs “?
The first step in any research might
be with the Condon report. t:-iought
by many to have been commissioned
as a “whitewash” of the UFO
phenomenon. UFO enthusiasts are
accustomed to hearing harsh criticism
of almost all aspects of this study. but
my own objections to the “astronaut
UFO” section is from a novel angle.
My own research suggests that the
Condon investigator, far from being
the best man for the job, was clearly
unqualified to evaluate the difficult
cases. He was not familiar with the
terminology of space flight or the
basics of orbital flight trajectories, as I
am. As
result , he ignored possible
explanations
while
incorrecUy
eliminating other possible answers.
In other words, far from being a
coverup, this chapter of the Condon
report is superficial. It is entirely
worthless as an endorsement of the
unexplained and unexplainable nature
of several astronaut sightings which I
will discuss. I can prove this remark
able assertion to any investigator
serious enough to consider all the
evidence, much of which has never
before been published.
The Condon report does give some
details about the environment of
astronaut sightings, but even here does
not go far enough. More stress needs
to be put on the visual and photo
graphic limitations of space flight: the
windows are far smaller than popularly
realized (about half the size of this
open magazine at arm’s length), and
for many years were subject to
obscuration and smudging by seepage
o( sealant and by contamination by
rocket fuel. At various p_oints in the
fligh t, the spacecraft was surrounded
by cl ouds of dbris (leaking fuel,
dum ped water, chipping paint, fraying
insulation, ejected equipment. and
more). while the inside of the weight•
less cabin was usually plagued with
fl oating particles of dust and debris
which often passed in front of camt!ras
pointing out windows. Other satellites
sho uld have been visible, since few
people realize that on any clear night
a
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Dc:sµitc the pt!r.~istl’11t rumo rs of ’.,;ccrct space p ict‘“rcs •. all pho /nJ!rupl1s tahl’ll by .V,\S.-\ i11 space arc i11 tlie public domui11. That is. any p ict ure tuhc:,: by 1.111 astro11a111 or 011 earth resource, satellite is ai:ailablr. to anyo11c who wants to pay fur i t. There are foi: r tiers of plwto,;:-:iph Ji·cilcbility. but two a:-e rescri:ed for 11ewsme11 only The ~/ructurc is us f olluws: A . The most p o pular space photographs /alien arc lithographed for general free di.,;tributiCJ11 to anyone who asr.s for them. Seueral dozen new pho tographs are added to this list eucry year. Cost to .VAS,\ is a few ce11ts per print. 8 . The N.-lS.-l Public Information Offices at uarious centers and at headquarters prints gfossy photographs of t imely news stories for distribution tu the news media. Hundreds of these photographs are released euery year. but only crrtified newsmen can receiue them for ~~
.
C. .!any thousands of other photographs and drawi11gs may be of interest to the news media and arc therefore fifad at public i11formatio11 offices. but stock copies are not kept. Each request must be filled by actual photo lab orders. which co:;ts NASA abo ut one dollar per photograph. D. A,1y citizen who wants copies of any photograph listed in ‘B’ or ‘C’ aboue con get it, but it is entirely reasonable for NASA to expect him t o pay for it. News bureau photographs. along with all other (light photography-stills and mouies-can be ordered from Bara Studios, P.O. Box 486, Bladensburg, MD 20710. The cost of any photograph ordered by st ock number is seueral dollars apiece. A ny cross-referencing or researching will also cost money. . • Some ground photographs of astronaut accidents, au topsies, and medical examinations are not releasable for publication. On seueral Gemini {lights, special photographic experiments were undertaken for the DoD, but these inuolued special cameras and exclusiuely ear th surface targe{s. In neither case would it be possible to withhold any hypothetical UFO photographs from the public. Astronaut photographs are indexed by a code which specifies year taken and frame number. S66- 12387, for example, would be a NASA photo (not necessarily a space photo) taken in 1966. Beginning w i th Apollo, space photos were also indexed w ith a mission code, r oll number and frame num ber (neither of which were repeated on later {lights). For example, ASJ 6·108-13005 u•as taken on the Apollo-16 {light, with the 108th roll of the Apollo project (liglit film. Mouie film is indexed per magazine with similar numbers. Euery photograph euer taken by American astronauts for N ASA is on file w ith Bara Studios and can be obtained by anyone wifling to pay for them. Writers who produce ‘secret NASA UFO photographs’ which they claim are being hidden from the American public are doing a gross disseruice to one of the most open and cooperatiue public informat ion offices of any federal agency.
an o bserver on Earth can see a number of orbiting objects with only half an effort. Out or this “backg?ound noise”, can we separate the “signal” which will indicate the existence of UFOs? These problems all are of interest to space officials, and numerous studies have been made. Fragments might imply a structural failure (a rescue ship was almost sent to Skylab-3 because of the crew’s observation of leaking fuel droplets). Debris inside t!1e cabin can irritate eyes and damage the electronic gear behind the instrument panels. Other satellites might be dangerous due to the potential of coll ision o r they might be of intelligence interest if they are frcm somt! other nation. Therefore, any mysterious space sighting might as easily be vital for
39
NASA to know about as it might be a true UFO: Careful investigations are called for. What are some of the most famous cases, and what are the facts? Interpre tations may differ, but productive thinking can only be done when all the information is at hand. Some o( It is hard to find or understand; other information, available to some researchers, may have been deliberate ly withheld. ·some classical cases may consist of made-up fantasies. You can soon judge for yourself. Has there been any attempt to “cover up” space sightings (a common plea when no t!Vidence is available, even in this age of sieve-like government secrecy)? Are astronauts “muzzled” about UFOs? Has fifteen
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The “McOivitt UFO”, pr ize-winning astronaut photograph taken on Gemini-4. Actually, McOivitt_axplained later after tho flight that the sun was coming across the window as the_spacecraft rolled, the sun rays struck a metal bolt, causing the’Ci lares in the camera lens”. NASA photo 65-H-1013.
years of manned spaceflight uncovered
any evidence at all which even
remotely suggests that Earth is being
visited and observed by advanced
spacesliips from another world? Let’s
look at the evidence.
On June 3, 1965, rookie astronauts
Jim McDivitt and Ed White blasted
of( from Cape Kennedy (now again
Cape Canaveral), squeezed into their
Gemini-4 capsule. The two youngest•
ever . American spacemen were to
spend four days in orbit, tripling the
previous US record. They would be
the first American space crewmen to
have time to sightsee in space, once
major experiments like a booster
rendezvous and a walk in space were
completed.
Approximately thirty hours into
the flight ( while White was asleep) ,
McDivitt reported that he had seen an
object in space near his space capsule.
It appeared to be cylindrical with ·‘an
arm sticking out”, possibly on a
collision course. Interested NAS.-
officials in Ho uston asked NORAD
which other space satellites were near
Cemini—1 at the time of the sigh ting,
and NORAD came up with a list of
about a dozen objects. All of them
were pieces of tiny debris or small
scicntit”ic satellites except one: the
giant, ” winged” meteor satC’llitc,
Pegasus-2. It seemed to iit the descrip
tion radioed down by McDivitt, so
NASA announced that the object had been identified. But Pegasus had been more than a thousand miles away, and McDivitt clearly saw an object much closer, much more detailed, and in an orbit very close to his own (“Collision course” to a pilot means that the relative angle of sight is unchanging, which would not be the case for any satellite crossing McDivitt’s orbit). The object became a UFO when nobody could identify it. It has remained a UFO up until today, but not any longer. McDivitt’s hasty attempt to take a photograph of the object thrqugh his smeared window was apparently fruit• less, since the object’s motion combined with the slow stabilization spin of the spaceship carried it into the glare of the sun after about 30 seconds. The astronaut later recounted how he went through all the films of the flight (every roll of film is accounted for on a flight manifest, so they do not disappear) and found many over exposed or blank. This mission had been the first night in which space photography was a major experiment, and the glaring sunlight of space had invalidated many pre-flight exposure settings. :\lcDivitt did not find any• thing which looked like ""his UFO”. What was it he ,aw? Why has it become such a prominl•nt UFO case?
40
And if the pictures did not turn out, where did NICAP get its “top four” photograph (which shows, not a winged cylinder, but a smeared blob)? We can answer these questions at last. The first hint as to the true identity of this space UFO can be found in McDivitt’s own words, given at a press conference a week after the flight when his memory was fresh: “It looked a lot like an upper staie of a booster”. Gemini does have a booster just like it, and McDivitt had been carrying out maneuvers near it early in the flight. Why didn’t the -list from NORAD include the Gemini-4 boost er rocket? NORAD had been tracking the objects, but NASA had not asked about Gemini-4 and its own associated debris- it had asked about Gemini—! and any other earlier satellites. Anyone familiar with computerized information systems (one of my professional specialities) can guess what happened : the computer was given a “query” which told it to compare Gemini—t with the other satellites. The computer never knew where the Gemini booster was relati\•e to the spacecraft, since it had not been asked. :\lcDivitt had been visually tracking the thirty foot long cylind1r at a range of only 75 miles a few hours earlier, but this large satellite never made the “NORAD list” because
Arti1t’, ronrliti on o t thu ,ntron,,u1s· vlow o f 1ho ro n do.r
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pod after it hai boon jotti1oncd from the Gemi ni adaptor ioc t iun. Gorn,ni
r;,dar locked o n to evaluation pod.
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Scott Carpenter took th is photo of a s ubsatellit e balloon jettisoned by h is
£’ . .
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ance and even make i t l ook like two
objects. The potato-shaped grey b lob is the pod’s in sulation blanket.
T h i • sequence of p ictures illustrate• the problem o f Identi fying photographs of objects in tho glare o f space.
41
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nobody thought to ask about it! The
list was incomplete!
What we do know from the
complete
Gemini-4
transcripts
(including the on-board tape recorder
as well as space-to-ground links), is
that the UFO appeared at the same
point in the Gemini orbit where the
booster had been rept-3tedly spotted
earlier in the flight. ‘.\fcDi\•itt had once
described seeing his booster with
straps hnglng from it. Furthermore,
on at least one occasion on the first
day, McDivitt had at first been unable
to recognize the booster when he ·saw
il because it was close to the glare of·
the sun! Thi5 had been :it a range of
less than ten miles.
Yet another iniport:int factor
unknown to t!1e Cr1nciL•11 report w:i,
that ‘.\leDivin •.•::t.; C\J1:1p!:iini:1i;: ro thl-’·
ni ht. Hi:; eyesht surgt:on abou 1. his t’Yl’$ight
duri1\g this phoc of th:) tli
were red and teary due to a reaction
with the cabin atmosphere and an
accidental massive urine spill. “I didn’t
think I was going to be able t~ hack
it”, McDivitt later had radioed to
Earth.
This famous UFO case now
becomes that of a pilot with watering
eves catching sight of an object in
prallel orbft, an object which he had
already misidentified a few hours
earlier. As to the photograph, an inves•
tigator must go through all the film of
the night to realize how common such
. blobsof
light
(o\·ere.’<posures,
rtlcct i0m. glare. etc. ) ll’erc. Both
NAS.-l. and ;\lc:Di\·itt han• agrel.‘d that
tl-ie sc,qucnCI.’ ot’ mo\·ie irames are a
,iew out t!u: winc.uw. showit~ sunlii::ht
rtl ain:;~ the dirty
window
·cti11 off a br\t. alas.
’.~ !C..\F’
thinks
dii’forently b,:c:tu~e <)t t!ll’ b:!tk of its
cop,· of th<! ph,Ho is a handwritten
42
note (nobody known by whom) stating that McDivitt {nobody• knows when) had communicated .{nobody knows how) the fact that the picture showed “his UFO”. (This was made clear by a telephone conversation between the author and Jack Acuff of NICAP on March 5, 1976). Why has this case achie’ed such notoriety’? It probably resulted from the enthusiasm of UFO believers. the naive openness of NASA public relations officials, and the publicity seeking opportunism of some of the principals. \lcDivitt himself did little to clear the case up. instead using it as a ticket onto natil•nal TV talk shows and news interviews (especially after his rr.tirement in 19~. To add to the mystPry. th~ former spaceman assl’rts. “I have never bcrn ablt- to it.:entify it, and I don’t think anyone ever will.”
•• • • ••• •• g ,Cla:: t ,an
·—:a:.::-.;
On a recen t “U FO rncorcli:ig”
rrll-asrd by Columbia, calt.:d “UFOs:
The Credibility Facto r”, :VlcDi\·itt
clrarly shows h ow h is mcmorirs have
ch:u1ged o r bc,m cl1a11g(•d to enhance
the mystery ot’ hi3 C’Xpcricnce: “They
(NAS.-) chcck,‘d :‘iOR..\D… to sec
what they had up on radar ancf there
w:isn ‘t anything within very close
range of us.” Readers can measure the
credibility of this statcmnt against .
the facts.
If McOivitt was fooled by his own
booster ten years ago, is it too much
to expect him to admit it now? What
would that do to all of his public
assertions of mystery? There is an
easier way out, and i’vlcOivitt took it
when I sent him an advance copy of
my manuscript. After keeping it two
months, he wrote back, ”[ was not
able to read it very thoroughly and I
cannot offer any extnsive comments.
I do not foresee the opportunity for
me to provide any further re~w.”
There weren’t any errors in my
analysis, he implied, but it woulc! be
better kept quiet.
NASA never had any real doubts.
“We believe it to be a rocket tank or
spent second stage of a rocket,” wrote
a high space official on July 1, 1965.
NORAD officials, confronted with my
scenario,
endorsed
it:
“Your
comments on the NORAD role related
to the case appear to pe logical,”
wrote NORAD Public Information
Officer D.W. Kindschi on Feo. 23,
1976.
So the “~lcDivitt case” is closed.
The best space UFO case has now been
identified. Do not expect to see any
change in the UFO press, however.
Such results are simply ignored.
Photographs made in space show
negative effects, such as the “McDivitt
UFO” aura, often. Spacecraft ·and
astronauts may be engulfed in a
strange aura caused by overexposure
to sunlight brighter than ever seen on
Earth. Blowups of photographs of
known space objects show them
appearing as “blobs” due to the
enlargement process and to the·
courseness of the grain. Ordinary space
pictures are full o f clouds o f debris,
constellations of man-made starlike
points fluttering through space.
The Condon report was fascinated
with the ~lcOi\·itt cas<’, and fe\· UFO
enthusiasts have not heard of it. But
n,:itlwr the Condon r£>st)archers nor the
average reader had ever had all the
facts. Now people can m:ike up thei r
I havl’ ”” d ,iub~ th;,t
lcl)i”itl w:i
th•!
appearance of an artifici.!l earth
satellite, and that is e:actly wh:it
\kDivitt thought it \•:.:s. There is no
information to suggest it w.:_s anything
else.
Another Condon favorite is a
Gemini -7 case. The report of sightings
of a cloud of debris right at the
moment of boostt•r separation (these
particles included frozen fuel droplets,
the booster itself. assorted insulation
and structural fragments from where
the explosive bolts were fired, and
other smaller objects never identified
and never cared about) is not very
impressive. The crew, on their first
space mission, saw a few pieces they
had nol expected (the pilot guessed
wrongly-that they “were in polar
orbit”). Only a partisan digging for
evidence, and desperate to find such
evidence, would make much of this
common event.
But a sign of desperation is indeed
own minds.
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43
,.. ,,,
h /V◄ i
,
round in 1’1)1111: •ction l’.‘isli Lill! t, ;~mi!! i·
I GFO cat’. It is not th clc::1w ra•.i1a ~
0f gtn·criun•_
•nl oflici, I:; t~y i11!{ to c:ur••r
up t.he truth ahoul GfU:;. R;,hrr, it :s
thr dl’spernlion of some outsider
tryi:1~
t rJ
m:t~:;f:-,.-:- tu:c1
co u ni .~rf,.i,
“astrnnaut L:FO” <?videnc~. Jn acli·. ;r. \·
which should not be nc>ce:s;a,y if th~
” rt’al”
L: FO evidence w~rC’ as
persuasive as many thint.
It involves :i photograph showing
two very strange glowing ocjects. Each
is he:,agonal in shape, ~·:ew!c’d at an
angle, nd supported by ;;. dazzling
“force field” below it. A cloud
covered earth is se.?n in the
background. s~~ p\cd 1 ~ :l.8
This photograph h as appeared in
books, magazines, newspapers, and
pamphlets. It is part of the travellina
slide show of UFO lecturrs from th;
Mutual UFO Network (i!VFON) and
elsewhere. I have heard it described
as •\showing a typical UFO force field
propulsion system”, and “similar to
other UFO photograph taken on
Earth the same year”.
The photograph is a forgery. It is a
hoax. What the anonymous counter
feiter did (I have reason to suspect a
·—·:®
l J
The outhor .>nd NASA photo an.:ilvn R ichard Undorwood show “•p~ce UFO” photos to Or. J. Allun Hynok, dirolctor o f the center for UFO
n udios. July . 1976. t l vn4k -subsuquPn’;‘fy ,.,.,_
dorscd Ob0rLJ’S conclusions.
Saturn booner S-IV-b and f our open “SL.A” panels. On moon flights tho four “petals.’.’ fly free and, together with the empty boo:<t •r. tum.ble through spaca a faw miles from the Apollo capsule. They were often seon as ·bright flashing lighn as they reflected th o powerful sunligh t . On Apollo-1 2 , astronau t desc r iptions of theH fra;imonts wore m i s Interpreted by UFO buffs and metamorphized Into alien spacecraft.
“Mysterious” bulls aye object wen and photographed by Gam lnl-6 astronauts I n December, 1965. Unfortunately for flyi ng 1aucer buff~, It Is not• UFO; it Is an out of focus photo of the approaching Gemlnl-7 spacesh ip, noH on. NASA photo S 65-65296. 0
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44
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Photo of Gemlnl-7 from G..,mini-6, December 1965. The brlghtnus aura is a common space photo effect and often makes point 1ourcH appear to be surrounded by a “force field” or an ” e xhaust i:rail”. NASA photo S-65-65304.
Japanese UFO organization) was take an ordinary photograph oC Earth made Crom the Gemini-7 spaceship on December 4, 1965. The nose of the spacecraft fills the lower part of the frame, and on the nose, catching the glare of the sun, is a pair of roll ·c ontrol rocket thrusters used to acijus t the attitude and spin rate of the Gemini. The original photo (NASA S65-63722, which I have personally
examined) was then retouched by the unscrupulous hoaxter to eliminate the edge of the nose from view. so the dark surface of the sp!lct-ship merged into the dark Earth beneath. This left the two now mysterious lights seemingly suspendt:d in space, as it were. A no rmal space touri., t photo was turned into conrincing UFO evidence, and thousands of people were fool ed.
45
American spacemen are not the only ones reporting UFOs, according to the popular press. Stories tha t allegedly come from Moscow tell about UFOs followin g Soviet man ned spacecraft in the Vostok and Voskhod series ten years ago. But such secrecy surrounds the entire Soviet space effort that these stories cannot be checked out. That very secrecy. ho wever, is itself
!l
pn\·:•· , ( .. I
t11·;.:~1n1. 1i l
;i_! :~iu ,i
,;,.;
vahdit:1 of th·! ru,:i u. •. Sn r,1.,n’.)
o rri,d clu:icly
with Hich:ird Cndrrw,h)d at thL• NAS A
Jo hnson Sp:ice c•11t~r (forrn,•rly rnc
:.-..:nt.v i ~ p;, ..,•,·r.lfl Ccnl,·r) 1i.-ar
li,,,i, t,,r,. U 11cl,•f\’ 111h 1 1s an cXfl’Jl’i•
er.-: ,•u pilotu in trrp, c ter v: hu h;,s
c:,:iminl•d ,J’cry si11;:lc pho lo1;r.1 ph
bYuu;;ht b.:cl; from o rbit :ind beyond,
a111.l h1;; in credible memory can
iJL·1, ,: 1y a d:?rad,J old p:1otc.i:n1µh,
dl·cribe tr.l! si .:.uatio n. and fi nd th
citJLi o;1 in :i,<’ o ld record books within
minutes. ‘rile o flicc o i this pho togra
mc-lric engir;c,el’ is full o f slacked iilm
i.:ans, light t.ibles, world and le.cal maps,
and piles of lette rs from ex-astronauts
and ordinary citizens alite.
Has he ser: n any UFO,;? Underwood
answered lhat with a smile : “I’ve nt?n!r
fou n d anything in these pictures that
puzzled me for lo ng, and I’m kind of
disappointed. It would be terribly
exciting to find evidence for someone
else’s spaceship!” When UFO writers
hint broadly about a “NASA coverup”
or “space censorship», they are
essentially calling Dick Underwood
and his colleagues a pack of liars.
Distortion and withholding of the
truth is no t a strange r to Underwood’s
o flicc , ho wever. Wht!n a li FO researcher named Al;i 11 Sa ndler was w•irkin!l on a book and a m o’ic (“lffOs: Past. l~csenl and F’ularc”. lo he ad·,ert1sed as ;i “documentarv •’) he “isited Underwood ‘s of[ir.c and looked through do7.ens of rolls of lilm. wriling down ordt!rs for prints of :inything that looked interesting. This is a standard service provided by NASA to journalists. SanrllP.r rhose a set of photographs for his movie, pnotographs which Underwood advised him probably o nly showt?d dust particles in fron t of the camera, de bris outside the spacecrail, or glare on the windows (this was easy enough to prove by looking at pictures ahead of and behind the shots in question). Two photographs were particularly upsetting. They both showed a black back• ground with a string of lights in the middle o( the photograph. In the book (with the same name as the mo\·ie. • although written by another author, Robert Emeneggar) the two shots are
.,
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;>r,o ~~ ,:,r Ag,, t>.:• 12 f ro m Go-nlr,;. 12 . T h ;, ,, pan of a seQuenc:e o f photos w h ,ch ta~ • trio
A-;en t1 frm l 1tJ nt 11 .tu d .lrk . After o ..1rk , o n ly t h e runn i ng lighu are v•i•b le. One r e,oarchet
h:,s w,aorv pubh • hcd t h •S IJ 1tcr p ho to gr a p h as a ” UF O” . .,, a ,d by N AS A te> be Agena trac:k • ing 1;9hts” .
NASA p t,o to S 6 6 -63 101.
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;f “Said to be ranging lights” on Gemini-12, according to Sandler. Compare with
earlier ph.:ito showing Agena in the sunlight. Deliberate slanting of e•1idence.
reproduced with the caption: “Shot during Gemini XII o n Novamber 13, 1966, and said to be Agena Ranging Lights prior to docking”. The erroneous implication of these twisted words is that this is another NASA excuse for some remarkable UFO photographs. Said to be ranging lights, indeed, sneers the book! “‘that’s exactly what tney were!” Underwood told me plaintively. “They are p art of the complete sequence of twenty photographs showi11g the • Agena as it moves from the sunlit side of Earth inLo the shadow”. As Underwood anJ l stood in the photo laboratory inside buildini,: No. 8 at the historic Hou$ton sµac.:e center. the 1;equence was rii:ht thcrt) in fro11t of our eyes 011 the gluwin~ viewing board. How did the ‘·UFO rcscarc.:hcr” react to this expl:rnalion, [ asked°!
He continued to explain: ” I took
the whole sequence with me to
Hollywood along with other films
which NASA was providing. I showed
the sequence to Sandler. He wasn’t
interested. Unfortunately he went
ahead and used the phot_ographs
anyway”. Thousands more people
v.-ere deceived.
The flight of Gemini-11 h:5an a
long battle between astronattt Ch:irles
“Pete” Conrad and UFO belieVPI”. The
astronauts had taken three even more
remarkable
photogr::iphs.
“Pete”
Conrad had spotted a mor ir.g ubj..-ct
outside his ·sindow and had s.1apped
off a few frames of film, varying the
.:xpo:;ure on t•ach sh,H in an :.ittempt
to get at least 011t) oud ,ic·v which
w<rnld show ;omclhin.
Pt-r a rcque,;t from NASA, NORAD
soon reported th:it the object ha d b~en
47
I’ .’<.>tull . :;_
LO .\ i I° r,, l”’::
it ·soul :I ha,,~ .::; ,-;,;.:(J
Gemini’s orhil sv,.-ral l111 i1d;-,J r,1;ks
t,,-ilind Lh,• $p,,,:<;crart. Yet t it is c,bj..-.:!
wa~ in .i diftc’<cnt di:c·<.:tinn ;i ,1 d 1•. a.,
nt\l (’ h l ;)O do•;C. It ’,‘/a; :I lir O’.
Dt)spilc these, objc.::tio.1.,. NOR ..\D
wJ,; right i;:ir the wro11g re:1.,cns. T ;:l’
object w,:s indeed P1:otor.-3, Hen
tJ1ot, 6h
tlt •J
Aeri:tl
Phe,:om,mo:’:
Research Organizatiur, (A PRO) and it~
research directo,·, Dr. James Harder, has
made much of the cfocrepa,:cy and
consid1m this the h?st Gemini l =FO
ever seen. c~(:_ plttf-5 111g1q >1. ‘3,\f’)
Few researchers hJ\ “P. noticed. a;1d
none had recogniz,,d the significacce
of the fact, that the Proton-3 sateIii te
was only hours away from burning up
in the atmosphere. As its orbit
decayed toward a fiery doom, it
circled Earth fastPr and faster, run-r.ing
ahead of the schedule pre dicted by
NORAD.
The simple truth, oft2n ig11ored or
distorte d by many writers, is that
NORAD does not “track e’erything in
space” like the rada:.- screens of sor.1e
air traffic control center. Inste:!d,
objects which pass through tha beatt15
of a handful of worldwide radar sit<‘s
(at a range of a thousand miles or Jess)
are observed and catalogued, a:id their
orbits are calculated . These calcyl a
tions are then projec ted for’.’.‘ard in
time (the mathematical term is ··extra
polated”) to plot where the spacecr:11t
should be if its orbit hasn’t been
changed.
Gemini’s orbit had been changed by
a rendezvous rocket firing. Proton’s
orbit was changed by its decay. I
ordered microfilm copies of the la.;t
few NORAD predictions from the
Tracking Reports Section at the NASA
Goc!dard Space Center in Greenbelt,
M;u-yland, and as soon as I read them l
knew the answer.
The predictions were off by Se\·eral
hundred miles per da: ! Each new
projection made a correction to the
previous one. Using a combination of
these figures, a new dtitude difference
between Gemini and Proton could
easily be compul.:?d. It 11·:is entirdy
close e nough to coincide with th.
astron:.iuts’ sighting.
Furthermore, th.i astronaut~ r.ad
made a visual :.is ·,1·1.‘ll ;i~ a i:;hoto5rJ,1hic
record. T heir t• y c11 i1,·,.:-.;s lestin:,>ny
dcscrib.:s a sat,)lliw that looks [;;.e
Proton-3 look.-d. a.-; shown by exhibit.;
in Rus.,iail muse11111:;: a stubbv cyli.itkr
c:0111 pulet,.
:\ci;()r:] ti,;_;
----- with four lar::e triantlular canted solar
p.,nrb. (Conract compared lhc sight to
the strap-on lwosters of a Titau•3
rocket.) F:vcu the photographs show
this when ludicd with real Proton-3
photographs close at hand.
Atrn:::?:.:~ Co::~::d :-:d th:! l.iFO
people clashed again ovr his. next
space mission. Apollo•12. According
lO the Research Director of A.PRO, Dr.
Harder, Conrad reported that he was •
bei11g followed by a UFO on the way .
to the moon. Conrad claims that it was
just a joke about the large panels which
enclose the lunar module during
launch but are jettisoned later in the
flight and which tumble through space
a few miles from the Apollo all the
way to the -moon. Harder says that
Conrad, under pressure from a secret
government agency, is lying.
These
are
Conrad’s
words:
“They’ve been after me for years
because we were followed by a UFO
on · the way to the moon. That, of
course, was untrue. The guy who came
up with it was going by our transcript
where we saw debris from our own
rocket and we were joking with the
ground crew about it. He took this out
of context…I called the ground and
said, ‘hey, gang, we’re being followed,
there’s· some flashing object out there’.
Some scandal sheet took that a.,d
t… Oul>ris from open hatch on G omini• t 2.
…
;. .
t ltn
~-··.
f
Fragment i n focus at range of 3 to 5 feet-Sandler calls it
0
unidentiflabJe”, and
Malian and Barry also use It.
e11lo.~zx..,1..t-0, 16)
ra?’\
~ Blowups of Gemini-11 photos of Proton-3. Sun glare and el<treme magnification contribute to bizarre appearance,
t.:: ’ .’ ”’.. ·:--- … … ..,,,..y;..,·,..,,.”’,,..•...”..,.e..••…, •…:..J .•.r”-·- ·..,…,..:;,,•·. ..__ ~ .__ _ _ _ ___…
… … . .•,…,,.,,.,, •• • • wcc:r::a-. •
48 ···— …
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made a helluva story out of it. But it was nothing like anything I was connected with”. Conrad has left NASA and lives in Denver, presumably beyond the reach of any NASA censors. He describes a phenomenon common to all Apollo moon flights; the claim that he saw a UFO is also common, but hardly as valid. Conrad confirmed these quotations in a letter to me dated April 12, 1976. “I hope your paper is widely printed.·• he added. Ref,ming to Harder’s claim of coverup, Conrad could only say: “I think you have more than your share of Kooks.”
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Geminl-11 photo of Proton-3 (arrow) i nd extreme enlargement of image. UFO magaz ines often pront funv blobs without indicating that object w a s h ighly magnified. f; llrn ertlf,icts cause “blobblneu”.
Let’s take a moment to look at the Apollo—12 flight more ca·re(ully. It probably rates as one of the most “UFO-ridden” space flights ever made, and ·p robably did more than any Apollo mission to encourage the stories o( astronaut sightings of UFOs. . What lies behind all these stories? Who started them? What is the “official” NASA position? Apollo-12 was launched on November 1-l, 1969, on the second m oon landing m1ss1on. The crew co;‘ISisted o( Gcmini-11 veterans “Pete” Conrad and Richard Gordon, and space rookie Alan Dean (Conrad
NASA photo S-66-54661 .
had also nown into space on Gemini-5.) Taking off during a thunderstorm, t he craft was twice hit by lightning which threatened to abort the mission.· Instead, the night proceeded successfully to t he first pinpoint moon landing fou r days later. Astronauts Conrad and Bean flew their Luna.r Module in to a precision to uchdown near the Surveyor-3 automatic moon probe. During a scheduled moon walk, the men retrieved samples from the robot crnft. The return on Eanh was “routine”, if f?ights to the moon can ever be considered routine.
49
On the outbound leg, Conrad had
radioed to Earth that the Apollo was
“being followed”. This message, trans
mitted over the open radio link, was
heard by hundreds of newsmen and by
millions of Americans. It im:nediately
gave rise to new UFO stories.
According to the account best
known to UFO believers (publishe d in
Saga magazine, May 1970, entit led
” Apollo l 2’s Jysterious Encounter
with Flying Sauct’rs”, written by T.G.
Beckley and H. Salkinl. the astro nau,;
watched Lwo nashing lights near ch~ir
Command Module about 150,000
miles out from Earth. At first, the
A pollo -I 1 U F O, 19G9. Obro ct hun bh.’\J p .1s t wind o w im,n r.d i\Jt•j ly
altar A1Joll o p ull~<1 aw ay f rom
Sa turn bo osto r. Metamo rpho-si s of obvi ous sp ac:ec:r aft i n sul atlon l r ~qrno n t i nto “odcl •sha o od UF O ” is c ourtesy of Bob Barry o f tho fri n g e ” 20th Century UFO Bureau ” . Hon> Hotze,·, ” Ulonoua” ( 1976) assig r,s o bj ect to Joh n Gle n n ‘s flight. i nvents f ictitious c:o m ment ory a nd con tin ues weavi ng my th• un lotterod by I ecu.
ground thought it was their S-IV-8 booster rocket but quickly calculated that it would have been in a different direction. Next, they suggested that the lights could have been pieces of the Lunar Module “garage”, called “SLA Panels”, which are quite lar ge and highly reflect ive. Conrad, so the UFO story goes, remarke d that this was unlikely since one of them had suddenly taken off at a high velocity, something that a piece of space debris simply could not do. Finally, the .
.
’ A •’ ’
astronauts decided to ignore the apparently harmless escort and carry on with their mission ln lunar orbit. new (or perhaps the same) UFOs dogged the spacemen. During the descent to the lunar surface, millions of television watchers on Earth saw bright objects crossing the field o f view of the Apollo TV cameras. Simila.r objects were seen during the launch from the moon and during the final approach to Earth. Here, then, is a major case for
n
f’~ .,,.,.,”~ Ft.>.•:J 6
~ ~ 4 ” : C - , ! S’Jr,1Jffe»%ffifl ~ ¾4’""
\ I(’ • •
• • • • r . ”;’” •••.:-.:•i ••,,;
:-’_.:~—~ ~
l
··astrcnuut UFO sightings”. Besides
the three astronauts, millions of
Americans saw the TV images and
heard the voices of the crewmen
wondering what the objects could be.
They were obviously unidentified,
they were flying in space, and they
were objects of some sort. Hence, they
were UFOs.
The “Fawcett List” of space UFOs
says that the astronauts “said a UFO
accompanied hem all the way to
within 132,000_ miles of the moon.
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on-9 1r:ime l O ~nappi ng p ic tures o f linip blll oo n sub•,atell ite .he no”t r v1ti1h, atro n n :ct ""tl
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(?-2) T wo obiecu drifting out of open hatch (lowe, r ight) of Geminl-12. Both spe_cks are out of focus and hence are within sevoral feet of camera. -which h ad• very large depth of field. Object on right, in f ocus, i • a scrap of paper. NASA photo S-66-62871.
preceding them all the way.” The origin of that mileage figure is obscure, but it lends unwarranted authenticity to the report. Observatories in Europe also watc:ied the two UFOs. ether sources re’eal. Embellishing the story. another UFO source claims that “Next day, the 15th, at 21.15 hours, one bright
revohing light approached the Apollo 12 spacecraft.” Fawcett, not to be outdone, also claims that the astronauts photographed the UFO (or UFOs). One of the loudest proponents of the Apollo-12 UFO is APRO research director Or. James Harder. At a UFO symposium at the University of
51
California at Santa Cruz on November
8, 1975, Harder claimed that one CFO
“followed Apollo l’.! on three orbits
around the moon”. Further, “N,\SA
suppressed the UFO incident~ for fonr
of p,1 nic”, but Harder was ahle to
discover the sihting b”cau$e it ” was
disclosed by a member of the space
team” who he refused to id1:ntif:: .
!.iinc:l’ all thf” m:ill.‘riill ll;m.lcr used to
..prove” the r xistcncc Qf the inddcnts
werl.’ public information ( Harder could
have read it in Saga, which is hardlr a
top scc;rrt )!O’crnmcnt r:!port), his
rdcrcnce to a co\·eruµ and to sr.cret
inside informatiu,1 were clearly only
gimmicks t\1 imprer; the news, media
with the value of his •‘information”.
NASA, meanwhile, says that no
such UFO event took place. The lights,
according to Dale Myers (Associate
Administrator for Manned Space
flight: quoted in a letter dated Feb. 5,
1973 to Mr. Donald Ratsch of APROj,
were spacecraft fragments: “During all
of our Apollo lunar missions. objects
have been sighted by the various
crews. Subsequent to the crew
sightings,
the
flight
controllers
determined the observations were
probably either the S-IVB booster, the
spacecraft lunar adapter (SLA) panels,
or smaller objects such as mylar foil
particles. Because of their large size
and highly reflective surfaces, the
S-IVB and SLA panels should be
visible at great distances in the space
emironment…”
Astronaut Conrad, as quoted
earlier, claimed that the flash ing lights
were obviously SLA panels but that he
was ‘joking with the ground. He
denounced the Saga story explicitly
and gave his opinion that Harder was a
“kook”. Astronaut Gordon has
publicly stated that he has never seen a
UFO on any .;pace flight. Alan Bean,
the only one of the three still on active
NASA duty, issued a statement soon
after Harder’s latest charges went out
over the news media late in 1975. In a
UPI dispatch:
“Astronaut Alan Bean…said that
at no time during his mission did he
ever see an unidentified objecL Bean
said that there were some metallic
parts which floated behind their sp:>r.e
craft after the Apollo-12 !Uf’l.?r module
lifled off from t•• r:oon. He said
these small p:.-<’::.; were visible until
they (tht> …•!:onauts) made an engine
burn ‘f’:c: metallic objects wer par ts
er <!“,e insulation which came off the
lunar module during the launch phase
and lunar orbital phase. ’ At no time
•did we see anything which was not of
our spacecraft, either during lunar
orbit or during the voyage to and from
the moon,’ Bean stated.”
To
Harder and his “N,\SA
cuv~rup”, these statements are just
mo re lies designed to confuse the
American public. So let’s go back lo
the key r\pnll 11-l 2 LlFU c111:ountcr and try lo determine just wh:1 is confused. Lale on No,.·embcr 15th. 1969, about 150,000 statute mi!es from Earlh. the Apollo crew was talking to cilDSllle communicator astronaut Ger~rJ C:m about SQmc lights they were watching out their wir.do w. Apollo: The object is very bright and it is obviously something that is tumbling. It is tumbling (at) one and one half rev(olution)s per second, or at. least it is flashing at us (at) about that (rate)… CAPCOM: Roger. We are standing by. CAPCOM: (Apollo) 12, (this is) Houston. Apollo: Go ahead. CAPCOM: As best we can tell, looking at things down here, on those SLA panels, we assume they weren’t imparted with any great amount of delta-V (velocity change)-like anything more than one or so feet per second when they separated (thirty-three hours ago). Your SLA panels would probably be only about 300 (nautical) miles (345 statute miles) away fro m you right now. **** The following reply by Conrad has been claimed by UFO believers to indicate that the lights (the so-called “SLA panels”) have suddenly pulled away from the Apollo, something that a tumbling piece of debris could not do. To clarify the meaning, punctuation and a few extra parenthetical words have been added by the UFOiogists: Apollo: That could be true, but gee whiz, when I (just) turned around I saw one of those “SLA panels” leaving the area at a high rate of speed, and it loo ked to me like it was leaving us pretty (fast)-at a pretty rapid clip, like it got a lot more than a foot per second or so. CAPCOM: Well, since we don’t really have any idea how they left, or what their t rajectory could be, it’s kind of tough really to say just what the heck that could be. Apollo: Okay. We’ll assume it’s friendl y anyway, OK? The UFO reasoning, as worded by APRO member Srad Sparks. goes as follows: ”After the SLA panels separated and the S-IVB’s tanks were emptied (on No \·. U) they could not change their ·,t>locity simply because they had no form of propulsion to do so. But Conrad saw one of the “SLA panels” (on Nov. 15th ) suddenly leave
52
its position at a ” high rate of sµccd … an i:11;,ossib1lity, unless it really was a m.lal!uvcrable spacec raft of some ::-ort. nut where docs one find a spacecrait nearly maneuverable 150,000 miles from the earth? The :inswer: (excepting ,\ pollo 12 itself) in November of 19C9 th~re weren’t any. The conclusion is inescapable: One (possibly two) maneuverable spacecraft not of man-made origin were following our Apollo 12 on November 14 and 15, 1969.” To anyone familiar with the flight plan of an Apollo moon flight, Conrad’s words imply nothing of the sort. Two facts must be brought to mind. First, Apollo and the Capcom were discussing the present position of the SLA panels based upon their initial separation velocities from the spent S-IVB rocket stage. Second,. the SLA panels break free after the Apollo pulls off from the booster; the astronauts then perform a maneuver called the “turnaround” the Command Module returns to the booster to dock with the now-exposed Lunar Module, before pulling the LM free from its “garage”. Striking the UFOlogist’s punctua tion and clarifying words from the communication, and putting it in proper perspective, what Conrad was saying was: Apollo: That could be true (that the SLA panels were flying off at one or so feet per second), but gee whiz, when I turned around (right after they flew free, thirty-three hours ago) I saw one of those SLA panels leaving the area (of the LM “garage”) at a high rate of speed, and it looked to me that it was leaving us pretty…at a pretty rapid clip, like it got a lot more than a foot per second or so. The UFO believers’ reasoning-and the entire basis for Harder ‘s and for the Saga article’s Apollo-12 UFO sighting-is phony. The most generous description of it would be a mistake, a misreading of the transcript’s meaning in an attempt to “prove” a UFO incident that never really happened outside of the fertile imaginations of certain UFO believers. Conrad’s statement, Gordon’s statement. Bean ·s statement. and the NASA letter must stand validated on this case: Apollo-12 was not followed by a t;FO on its to the moon. But how about on the way back? “A light of indistinct shape” was spotted just prior to re-en try,
-
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Publisn ed n~wsp!per story on UFSs captions this p11oto:“Theso two UFOs wo , u
photographed on July 19, 1969-the day before Apo:lo’s historic: moon landing during Buzz A ldri n’• scheduled lunar photo session. Noto the s imilarity to the •hot snapped throo years oarlier during Gcminl-12.”
according to UFO sources. Saga
reports that ” …at 11:47 a.m. on
November 24th, the spokesman for
Apollo 12 reported in a startled voice
that they were all’ watching a bright
red object flashing brilliantly against
the earth.” This incident was carefully
analyzed by Brad Sparks of APRO (I
am indebt£:ci to his letler to Saga of
August 28, 19i0, a letter Saga editor
ne’er bothered to answer), who
objects that “the astronauts did not
report that the object. they were seeing
was red, and they stated specifically
that ‘it’s a steady light’, not flashing.”
It was seen between th“‘m and the dark
earth , somewhere off the coast of
India by a guess of the cr“‘wmen.
Perhaps it was a ship’s searchlight,
perhaps a fire, perhaps a violent
lightning storm…there is no reason to
suspect that it was a craft in space.
The astronauts lost sight of the light as
they turned the Apollo to take a series
of photographs of the sunrise.
The wild fantasies printed in Saga
dn no t end here. Beckley and Salkin
claim that the astronauts had been
“startled by unaccountable seismic
disturbances o n th.:- lunar surface.”
This event never occurred; there were
no such earthquakes during their visit.
Beckley and Salkin refer to “a
mysterious blue halo encircling one of
our spacemen.” Sparks of APRO
consicfors thi:; lo ha,·c bE’t?ll lun3r dust
•kicked up •.,·h1le thu crcwmt’,l were
walkii;g around. Photo analyst Dick
lind,,r·.rood sutgestect that it is a
defect in the denilopmeut of the
photo cuusE>d h,· thl’ , l’id solar i:larc
oil’ oi’ a liihly ,Hlcti,·e s11 fi·ace:
Undt•rwood quil’kly located half a
do1.e11 ~imilar “ltalou5” on other space
photos taken during the? 1960s. Whatever it was, this “halo” appE’ared only in the photo, and was n«?ither seen nor remarked on by the astronauts. Houston radio commentator and UFO enthusiast Frank Haley has his own theory about why the Apollo-12 TV camera did not work on the moon (NASA says Bean accidentally pointed it toward the sun). Says Haley, “The i::amera was intentionally shut off to avoid showing something on the moon that disturbed the astronauts” (“Haley’s Comment” newsletter, Mar. 22, 1976). It is only a matter of time before this nonsense is absorbed into the lore of the “Apollo-12 UFOs”. But Apollo 12 did see some unidentified flying objects, and NASA engineers were justifiably concerned that they could have been debris from important spacecraft systems which m ight indicate unexpected failures, or which might interfere with other spacecraft equipment. Hence, the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston (now the Johnson Space Center) gave a contract to Lockhe£:d to study the objects seen on the TV pictures and on some movie film. The Lockhc-ed report was quietly issued on March 18, 19i0, about the same time that the sensationalized and fictionalized Saga story was being printed. Titled “linidcntifhid Visual Phenomena Associated with Space Flight” (:-.iA$A Contract ’.‘i . \S 9-5191. LEC; HASO No. 071-80-013), the report documents tlw “moon pigc:Qns” (a term “coi11E:d by :‘.\S.-\ enl:{inc:t.‘r.; lo dcscribu UIH!Xpcctcci 1Jbjccls seen in operational photo1:r:iphy that ddy positive identification”) of .-\polio• 12.
5.i
l’o11f.r:1rl t.‘lll!i111•1•r:; wen• F. D. Ul•att~
and ,I.G. !l:nrm.
“Unidenli rkd ‘bua! plwnon:C’:1.1
asoci:ilcd with space flight were
rather common opc,,:tionally.” rcn,aJ
lhe authors.” but. ”. .little or no
clou111clllJli1111 ll1 p,1,~ cvc11t.; has i,e..-11
macie.” Rcfore UF’O bclle,·crs jump uµ
and d1Jw11 with confima,ion of a
whole new family of ”astronaut
sightings of UFO3”, the authors
announce?
their
intention
of
demonstrating that 1’such evenl were
spacecraft debris associated with an
earlier pyrotechnical operation, or ice,
or window reflections. Cases for each
of these theories have been presented
and exhibits of similar occurenccs are
included. Positive identifiation was
not possible… The quality of tile
imagery precludes a precise definition
of the object under question… In
general,
it
takes
much
more
information to identify an object that
if does to detect it.”
Sixteen millimter color magazine
11651\1, exposed on Apollo-12. shows
three objects, called “A”, “B”, and
“C”. The objects appeared during the
Ll\·l jettison man«?uver in lunar orbit.
“A” is believed to be a small segment
o f the docking channel; “B” was
identified by engineers as a portion oi
the docking ring, possibly
the
fiberglass seal; “C” was probably part
of the electrical harness. All were near
the spacecraft and were tumbling.
From this and other examinations,
Beatty and Baron concluded that
“most ‘moon pigeons’ have as their
source a programmed pyrotechnic
event and are the normal debris
associated with such an incident. They
are often spectacular… The main
thing to be learn«?d from this study is
that the event (in question) was, in all
probability, a normal result of routine
spacecraft operations… These data
will undoubtably be of use to the
engineering, scientific, and public
relations communities.” The closing
reference clearly indicates that Beatty
and Baron were aware of the “Apollo•
12 UFOs” controversy and felt that
their study would be useful in
demolishini: any UFO buffs’ wild
n1mor;.
unfortunately. tht? ·‘moon pigeons”
rrport seems to ha\·e been tiled a\ ay
in the :—i..\S.-\ archi,·C’s. Baron. who still
wurks at the Joh11,;011 Space Cerlll’ r,
told me early in H)i6 that ht! ne\ l!r
got any feedback on his report, e,·t’n
thoui:h it was fun doini,: it and it had
…
~
..
-· ’·
}{
This photo was snapped only moments af ter Aldrin’s other Apollo 11 sho t . Here the two UFOs ~
have begun their separation and a halo -li ke force field between the two is c/ea,/y shown .
p retty o bvious implications for UFO
repor ts. NASA apparently decided to
le t the UFO writers spread their
;-umors, hoping tha t the stories would
fade away if ignored.
Wh at had ha ppened. though. was a
riew shot in the arm for ·‘astronaut
UFO cases”. The explanations could
never catch up with the miinlerpreta•
tions
and
w1ong
impressions
engendered
by
the
onirlteard
conversations and l’iewt’d i111a).(r (mm
Apollo-12. :\lillions of ,\meric..ins were
practically eyewitnesses to a “space
UFO”, and were suitably impressed.
“E x clusive NASA Photos” and NASA cJ nsorship is another part of myth . Theso Apollo-11 spots are highly magnified
window reflection, in Lunar Module dee ~ in ,pace (Aldrin turned the .:amer.> on by ac c ident w hile c hec k ing equ ipment) .
55
When presented with the Saga story and with APRO’s (and MUFON’s) account of the “maneuverin g alien spacecraft at 150,00u m iles from Earth”, the a\·erage· citizen could only assume that iL might indt“‘d be true. If N.-\SA was denying it, ‘.l’e!l then, the government has bcl’n kno’/,1 to lie to us in the pa~t. It is a vai:i hop<! to im :.gine that the truth will ever .:.1tc:h up co the Apollo12 a11<l oth,•r C [· Os..-\ s clL-c:iilc<l h ere, th.:: Apollo•I:! C FD 1H•rcr e:-..istt!d. Somc,how, milliuns or pl•oplc beli£:Vc that il did . There is s,1ffi<:icnt blame
for this delusi on lo be :.ien( rousl y
dislributed to public affairs
UFO buffs, ~AS.-
officers, sc1ii:ation
sceking news media, and lal.y readers. And the “astronaut UFO” ge11r•: is not
yet complrtc. Let’s return to some more examples. Another example of selective omission of facts occurs in the
(
Gemtnl-7 photo of sunl ight glinting oft roll thruster rockots on nose. Photo forgers airbrushed the nose/Earth bound• ary out, making tt,e two lights appear t o be float ing in sp:ice. NASAphoto SGS-63722 .
.
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Forgl!ry c.>n oo “‘ttn r ,nt1t•J ,n 1r.•tt..t or c:oov
roghl ,09ula11ons oecauso ,,.,,. ,s a N~SA photo, Evon ro\ouch ed, i t cannot bv COPV”9hl8d.
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56
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and below) as published with erroneous captions.
“Fawc:dt list” of astronaut sightings. Geori;e t·awcett is a respected and level-headed UFO researcher in Maiden, North Carolina. But an example of his work gives a different impression: “Gemini-XII: Jim Lovell and Edwin Aldrin saw four UFOs linked in a row. Both spacemen said the objects were not stars” (quoted from The Edge of Reality, Hynek & Vallee, 1975, page 64). From the GT-12 Astronaut Debriefing, page K/3.4, Lovell relates: “During the last EVA we discarded, in addition to the ELSE (life support system), three bags. About 2, maybe 3 or possibly 4, orbits later at sunrise condition, we looked out again and saw 4 objects lined up in a ro,v and they weren’t stars I know. They must have been these same things we tossed overboard.” The original distortion of this entirely ordinary event, according to the Condon Report, is the responsibility of UFO wnter, John Keel, Fawcett took it and embellished it. Another of Fawcett’s favorites is M~rcury-7: “Scott Carpenter reported th<1t he had what looked like a good shot of a saucer.” E!sPwhere he claimed that Carp,rnter “look a photograph of a classical saucer-shaped UFO with dome tha t foll owed his capsule.” ~(._ pla.t,;:, J,l In fact, the photographs s!iow an entirr.ly ordinary object: a space balloon ejected from the capsule for
tracking practice. The balloon did not inflate but spun in a limp oblong sack. The flight schedule and the voice transmissions confirm this unexciting explanation-and confirm Fawcett’s fantasizing. An example of the difficulty of ” disproving” an “astronaut UFO sighting” is the Mercury-9 case in 1963. Well established in the UFO lore, the story claims that on the 15th orbit, over Muchea, Australia, the astronaut (Gordon Cooper) saw a green object. More than one hundred people at the trac king station saw the bogie on a radar screen (this wasn’t Shot during Sky Lab Ill second manned Sky Lab Flighl 263 day of 1973-1645 Zulu Time. NASA Photo =sLJ- 118-2 140 (4 shots taken) Listed as unrden1,r.ed ob1ec t or satellite by NASA Pho to E,·aluat,on Lab
rt
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57
.
- .·•• · •-
3A
’ for rir:tional •‘far.t”
scn~:itinnal rn•.•‘ll(h
·,l”ril n Fr•111 ;.; Ed ·: ar-1;: hi) had two
hundrf’rl peopll• ar.luatl)i me Lhc
ohjt·ct.).
The source of the story secll!S to
have bren an NBC newsm:t!l in
Australia. But the prob:crn ecms tll b.:
th:it Cooper has nc,.·er heard of it. He
has b-:cn out of tile spat’e program for
SP.Ven years. and talks freely about
urus lo reporters, to the Columbia
“UFO recording·•.. to Mike Douglas,
to friends and associates. Somehow he
k:iows nothing abou t. “his” space
UFO-and he has no reason to be
silent. His space UFO never existed.
Confronted by this evidence,
Fawcett (letter of May 10, 1976)
insists that “I sincer<?ly believe some of
the ashonaut sigh tings are bonafide,
based on some of my sources of
information.” John Keel, too, recalls
0etter of .March 26, 19i6) that “ex•
NASA engineers have told me all kinds
of fascinating UFO tales.. .” Always
these writes fall back on “secret
reports” and “private information”
when their published reports and open
articles disintegrate in the face of the
truth.
On October 18, 1973, the famous
Mansfield,
Ohio
UFO
sighting
occurred, for which Captain Lawrence
Coyne and his helicopter crew later
were to receive the ‘Best UFO Case of
the Year” award (and check) from a
weekly tabloid’s ‘blue-ribbon panel’ of
UFO experts. A few months later,
Coyne said he was told by the panel
chairman, J. Allen Hynek, (the
respected head of the Center for UFO
Studies) that Skylab astronauts had
photographed the same UFO from
space. (Hynek ultimately denied this.)
A
reputable
ma~azine,
“Army
ReserYe” published the story with an
intriguing photograph it had received
from NASA and which it labeled
“NASA: Skylab”, clt>arly indic;iting
that this was the astronau t photograph
which had buzzed Coyne.
It would ha’e been a neat trick for
the Skylab astronauts to have photo·
graphed anything on October 18th.
since they weren·t even on board the
space s tation. The prc’ious crew had
returned to E:irth a 111011th before and
thei r relie f ere ·.\· was not sr.lwduled to
blast off for anothl·r thrPe weeks. The
pho tograph prin!rd in the rn:il(a7.ine
was clearly labt•lt·rl rm its backsidl’ as
r.j,•(‘fNI
frnm
hi, spaf’(•cr;1rt in an
Lall’ in 197:J, ;i strange ob!c••:t did appNtr in Skylab sp,,Cl’ photograph,. Takrn on Conrad’s S kylab fl igh t i11 June, Lhe objcct was not 11oticE’rl bl· UFO researchers but bv govE>rnmcn·t photo analysts. pl..t~ ‘33 • Rather than ·•swP.ep thc t;FO under the rug”, the officials look the other tack : it might be a mysterious So,·itit SatP.llite and could be of great value to
:lll!.’ lllpl Lo gl’t. “isual lrackilll’. pr:tctic,: (11:is photo is often referred to :is the
“cl:issical domed UFO” shnt). UfO re$c:Jrchers anrl mai;azine edi tors had dearly not made Hen a minia1u111 of effort to verify thes•? t ransparent errors and mistakes. but instr:ad p.!ssed 011 the false data to the public. ThOU$ands more were dcceivr.d.
,…’;’-,· -·
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“UFO.. -seen fro,n Skyl oh-2. Tho e1O,1901tcd ou ,~c t i, actually an air1:lrip
ta krn hy S.:,>tl C:irp,.•u(,•r Oil .\ll’rcuryin the Bra :d,an 1un 9 ,.,. Enlargomont of NASA pho t o SL2- 16-1 09,
7 morn than t1•n years before. II c-fl,t .
show,•d a limp ball non C:i rp<‘nter had ”)..\ c..a-…"" !
58
’ for fii:t illnal “far.t”
senJlinnal l’ll••‘lh
writ,•r Fi ·1n;_ !~d·: ;wl;: hr. had two
hundrrri p<?oplt• ar.tually ree the
ohjt-ct.).
The sou rec c,f the ~tory seems to
have bren an NBC newsman in
J\t15tralia. But th,:, problem ,;eems to b.:
that Cooper h:is nc•:er hc-ard of it. Hr.
has b<:>cn out of ti1e spat•e program for
SP.Ven yrars. and t;ilks freely about
Ur us lo reporters, to the Columbia
“UFO recording”., to .·Jike Douglas,
to friends and associates. Somehow he
knows nothing abou t, “his” space
UFO-and he has no reason to be
silent. His space UFO never existed.
Confronted by
this evidence,
Fawcett (letter of May 10, 1976)
insists that ” I sincerP.ly believe some of
the ashonaut sightings are bonafide,
based on some of my sources of
information.” John Keel, too, recalls
(letter of .M arch 26, 1976) that “ex
NASA engineers have told me all kinds
of fascinating UFO tales.. . ” Always
these writers fall back on “secret
reports” and “private information”
when their published reports and open
articles disintegrate in the face of the
truth.
On October 18, 1973, the famous
Mansfie!d,
Ohio
UFO
sighting
occurred, for which Captain Lawrence
Coyne and his h elicopter crew later
were to receive the ‘Best UFO Case of
the Year” award (and check) from a
weekly tabloid’s ‘blue-ribbon panel’ of
UFO experts. A few months later,
Coyne said he was told by the pa11el
chairman, J . Allen Hynek, (the
respected head of the Center for UFO
Studies) that Skylab astronauts had
photographed the same UFO from
space. (Hynek ultimately denied this.)
A
reputable
maazine,
” Army
ReserYe” published the story with an
intriguing photograph it had received
from NASA and which it labeled
“NASA: Skylab”, clt>arly indic;1ting
that this was the as tronaut photograph
which had b1Jzzed Coy ne.
It would h a’e been a neat trick for
the Skylab astronauts to have photo•
graphed anything on OC’tobcr 18th,
since they weren’t even on board the
space station. The prerious crew h ad
re turned to E:irth a 111011th bl’fore and
their relie f crP.w was not schl’ouled to
r.ji•rlt•d fC’.lrn hi, spac·1·cr:ifl in a11 .1ttc111pt to g1·1 \·isual tr.ic:kin~! pr:1c:tic1? (!Lis photo is o ften referred to ;is the “cl.issical domed UFO” sht>lJ. UFO researchers anri ma::azine edilors had dearly not made e\·en a minimum of effort to verify thew transparrn t errors and mistakes. but instead 1nssed 011 the false data to the public. Thou~ands more were decei\·rd.
… ’
•:
… :
La te i11 197’.l, a str;ine objr,;t did
aµpt’a r in Skrlab sµ,11:t’ photograph.
Takl’n on Conrad’s Skylab flight i11
June, lhe object was not 11oliced b\·
UFO researchr1s but by go’ernm.:n·t
photo :111alysts. pl,t._ ‘33
Rather than ·•swi?ep the lJFO unde r
the rug”, the officials look the other
t.ick: it m ight be a mysterious So,·iet
Satellite and could lie of great value to
. … : . .,•. •
’
… •·.
-.- ..•·
.,.
l
r
t
i.
·.,.
,.,
blast o ff for ano!hl•r thrre weeks. The
.. ! .. ··., ·:—. · .•..;’-..:. :…-,;,,: ,;..’•.,•.,,., :::.,.., ; ;.,,,/ ~ ;,,..;.r,..+.,;.~~@..:·-~photogr:iph prin!t·d in the magazine
33
w<1s clt>arly labl’ll·rl 1m its backsidl• as
..UFO .. 1ee,n fro,n Skvlot,.:?. The ‘!tongatcd ou,“c t i1 actually an a ,rstrio
t<1hn hy S-:<itt <:.::iq.>ent<•r on …;i._lt>rcury.
’” the 8r:il,a” 1ur,91.i,. ElllMgomo”t of NASA photo SL2-16-109.
7 morl’ than tPn years before. It t-pl,{q
show,•d a limp balloon Ca rp<‘nter had ’)..\ “‘a”;” !
58
… …:… .
,
..
:,
f
rn;lit:1ry i11t1·lli~cncc. /\ prompt and
about 20 feet long a mile away or 2000 feet long a hundred milrs away. A careful investigation revealed the surprising answer. the UFO was actually thousands of feet in length, but its altitude was zero! lt was an airstrip in the Brazilian jungles! Further checking showed that the objected appeared at the same spot in Skylab photos taken months later; the airfield was also found on an inter national aviation chart. Recent UFO books and articles h:ive resurrected the X-15 rocket plane sightings of fifteen years ago. This has prompted the NASA Headquarters Public Affairs Office to reissue a photograph taken by a belly camera of the spacecraft at an altitude of about 60 miles (photo 76-H-139). v\o:\-'!. 34 Published reports speak of "fleets of UFOs" at a range of 30 feet from the X:15. But even a casual reader with any familiarity with spacecraft systems will recognize the effect for what it was: "fireflies". This is a phenomenon seen by many Mercury, Vostok, and later spacemen, as flecks of paint chipped off the spacecraft. On the X-15, it was flecks of ice clinging to the liquid oxygen tanks. The pilot clearly describes the pieces as being close-in, small, tumbling, and drifting along with his vehicle through the vacuum. Considering these cases as I have described them (and there arc other lesser ones which [ have also investi gated to a successful conclusion), what can we now say about authors who present such evidence of "astronaut UFOs"? While speaking ominously about a NASA coverup and of secret agencies which muzzle space• men, these same researchers list such quotations as: J ohn Young: '.' Odds are UFOs exist" . Edgar '.\-litchell: "\Ve all k'now UFOs are real". Eugene Ceman: "I believe UFOs belong to someone else and that they arc fro m some other civilization". Cordo n Cooper: " [ brlieve that UFOs, under i11telligcnt con trol , have ... _.. - .· . ,;-.. j r. .. . :·. - . ·. .." ' .. .. . , .... -,/ : . ' . . ... ·•. F lake of ice floating off of the X-15 rocket plane. Somo i nvcsti g:,1or~ call thi• a " large UFO". NASA photo 76 -H-139. 59 ..-V--~~.., ......,,, . , , , , , , ~ ~ ~..... .,,,--:-__,_...___ ~ _ ••· .. - -, . ~ ~to,~J,._<.,.Q.""' . •""'"W.~ ..,....._~ ,...,,, . .. f ► OJ, 11:'C ♦ l♦IJ ."!" "-~--:"1\i ,, f l • I J ,; ,. Clouds of debris su rrou nd the Saturn booster rocket following Apollo ,opera t ion. Blow-up photos ot individual pieces ot debris inside and outside the cabin have been called "UFOs". NASA photo AS17- 148-22687. visited our planet for tho usands of years". None of these me n claim to ha\·e seen UFOs in space. By now it should be obvious to open-minded im·estiga tors that no other aHronaut claims to ha\·e seen any either. Suggestions that they have rt>ally done so are either misconceptions. mi; repn•s1•ntalions. o r frauds on the part of L: FO writers. Yt>t another cast: in poi!lt has just bt>en given, and it deals with the J ohn Young quotation. Young, in Seattle in 1973, said that the chances were good that there were in tell igen t civilizatio ns on other planets (AP, Nov. 27, 1973). The newsman started the article with the lead, "John Young says that the odds are that unidentiiied Flying Objects do exi$t'', even though none of Young's quoted words indicated that at all. Beforr. you could say "UFO tlap·•. th~ l.iFO writers had a new authority : John Yo ung says, " Odds are UFOs exist". It seems clear that astronauts as a class or the population do n ot possess any special knowledge about CFO:; which they may have gained from their own experiences. They are about as well informed (or more truthfully. as badl y misinformed) as the anirage citizen. To quote them as above with the sugiiestion that they are special authoritit>s on UFOs is a misleading 60 . • • w . - - •--· - · ... - -- - - ~ .., and inll•llectually dishonest tactic. Three ti llll' space veteran Wally ::ichirra, who according to lffOlogisls saw "glowing masses"( actually lightning-lit clouds, over the Ind ian Ocean) hos written. "I do not know enough about this subject to render an opinion of any kind. The o!lly information l ~ave is that which has been released to the public through the years by the various news media". UFO writers would ha,·e us belieH~ that this is part or a ,·ast conspiracy of lies which only they can penetrate. ,Accil~ t:l.,. The actual answi!r to the "shapeless light" mystery illustrates the wa~· NASA races real space mysteries. The crew was puzzled by the sighting but reported it to space officials who made • no e ffort to conceal the incident. If NASA were trying to co,·er up actual UFO sightings by astronauts, this was a good candidate for one-and it would never have been publicized. Astronaut Dick Gordon revealed to me the unpublicized solution to the publicized mystery. In a letter dated Septemhcr 15. 1976, Cordon wrote: Conrad on Gcmini-11 and Apollo-1 2. " I ,•i\'idly re..:a!I the inciden t which writes that " I never s:iw a l.Jf'O". oc.:11rrcd when a light of indistinct Astronaut "Dcke" Sla}·tor, claims t!1at shape and size was spolled on o ur "[ don't recollect anyone u,porting return to earth... (it) did appear lo be any UFOs on any of our nights''. in the Indian Ocean. ln our discussions "'Buzz" Ald rin went to the moon and debriefings that occurred l:iter. on Ai,ollo-11, on which the l.iFO Schwcikart provided the Rusty press lists at least three separate UFO answer. He simply said, 'how about incldenls. There were no UFOs: the moon's reflection?' and, of course, "There are people who say there's a that is what it was... How often those go\"ernment conspiracy to covu up the of us in aviation have seen the moon's • existence of flying saucers." Aldrin reflection on the water in the course told a Reuters reporter in 1973, of a nom1al flight. We simply did not "That's a lot of hogwlsh." put it together in returning from lunar The L.M pilot on the next fligh~. distance, where we had the black back Apollo-'12, was Alan Bean. Following a ground of space, the dark night of the new press conference in 1975 when earth. and the moon behind us." James Harder repeated his stories of Other spacemen have been asked to Apollo-11 and Apollo-12 UFOs, Bean answer these questions). They have told UPI that at no time during his been forthright in their denials: "I mission did he ever see an unidentified never ha\'e personally seen anything I object. "At no time did we see could identify as a UFO", says John anything which was not of our Glenn, now a Senator Crom Ohio. spacecraft, either during lunar orbit or Astronauts Grissom and Young said, during the voyage to and from the "We have never seen any UFOs". moon," Bean stated. Richard Gordon, who was with A common sourco of space and othor UFOs is shown hore. The aura and the lens-shaped disc Is actually a sunrise photographed from Skylab. NASA photo SL3-118,2177. 61 II Th:.: AH:CJ ll1d l ·t111 \ Fdi. l!J io J c:011li1n1c