Video · 7 December 1972

Apollo 17: bright “fragments” drifting near the spacecraft, 7 December 1972 (NASA audio, NASA-UAP-D009)

NASA via DVIDS, PURSUE release 02 · 7 December 1972 · 5 min · Watch the original

Apollo 17's crew, in transit to the Moon, describe a field of bright, jagged fragments near the spacecraft and the separated S-IVB stage. They themselves suggest paint or ice from the stage, and note that the flakes twinkle and drift away.

Source: NASA, released by the Department of War in PURSUE (NASA-UAP-D009), via DVIDS. Whisper transcript.

Key moments

  1. 0:00 On the way to the Moon a crew member reports “very bright particles or fragments” drifting by: “Looks like the 4th of July”; “They're very, uh, jagged, angular, uh, fragments. They're tumbling.”
  2. 2:13 Asked what they might be, the crew guess they come “off the side of the S-4B”, the spent third stage, ice or perhaps paint; Houston recalls seeing peeling paint on the rocket the week before.
  3. 3:42 “my impression is that they are flat, flake-like particles, some maybe six inches across”; there is no relative motion between them, “most of them seem to be twinkling”, and they are moving away.

Transcript

From machine transcription (Whisper); names and terms may be misspelled. Check the original video before quoting.

0:00 A few, uh, very bright particles or fragments or something that, uh, go drifting by as we maneuver. Roger, I understand. There's a whole bunch of big ones on my window there. Just bright. Looks like the 4th of July outruns with them. Yeah, uh, now you can see some of them in shape. They're very, uh, jagged, angular, uh, fragments. They're tumbling. Roger, they look like fluid or something, sir? Not to me. They look like pieces or something, uh. Roger. They're very bright. Jack, we'd like omni-charly. Thank you.

2:11 Bob, for the most part, these fragments are not, are tumbling at a very slow rate. I've tried a couple pictures of them at different settings. You may get an idea of what at least the patterns look like. Roger, I got you. We're all ears on these fragments. Do you think you can figure out what they might be? Well, you know, I don't know. There are a number of possibilities. If you had some kind of a... I got the impression maybe they were curved a little bit, as if they might be off the side of the S-4B. That's a wild guess. Okay, RCS logic is... Ice jump, possibly. Maybe there's paint coming off of it. Roger, I noticed on one trip up the elevator last week, one of the flags... I thought it was in the S-2, but it might be on the S-4. It looked like it was peeling. Maybe that's what you got. And the S-4B maneuver is complete. One minute. Okay, we'll set the o'clock. Okay, and with the maneuver complete, the

3:13 fragment field is essentially static, except for very slight tumbling within the fragment. Roger, copy that. Every once in a while, a fragment of considerably higher velocity than the others goes across my window. But that's very rare. Roger. Okay, that's that field of view I saw on my... Jack, you see it now? Yeah. And Bob, at least there's no apparent relative motion between fragments. I do understand. I'll take two pictures about a minute apart if I can, and it'll be frame 70. Okay, frame 70.

4:13 And Bob, as you know, my impression is that they are flat, flake-like particles, some maybe six inches across. And although there's no relative motion between the two, most of them seem to be twinkling. And I think for the most part they're all moving away from us.

Connected files

Official records (PURSUE)

More videos

WHERE ARE THEYUAP · NHI CASE ARCHIVE
About