NASA-UAP-D001, Apollo 12 Transcript, 1969
Official description
Apollo 12 was the fourth crewed U.S. mission to the Moon and the second to land astronauts on the lunar surface. This document is an excerpt from the Apollo 12 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription, November 1969, highlighting two periods in which astronauts reported observing unidentified phenomenon: a one hour period on the fifth day, and a two minute period on the sixth day. These transcripts contain contemporaneous observations by the flight crew reacting to unidentified phenomenon. • Day 05, Hour 19, Minute 14, Second 58 through Day 05, Hour 20, Minute 12, Second 14: o At 05:19:27:25, the pilot of the Lunar Module (LMP-LM), Astronaut Alan L. Bean, described observing particles and flashes of light “sailing off in space” via the onboard Alignment Optical Telescope (AOT). He characterized these phenomenon as “escaping the Moon.” • Day 06, Hour 00, Minute 21, Second 42 through Day 06, Hour 00, Minute 23, Second 33: o Mission Commander, Charles “Pete” Conrad, described observing floating debris outside the lunar module, which had been illuminated by the module’s onboard tracking light. At 06:00:21:51, Conrad assessed that the tracking light had burnt out because he could no longer see the debris from the module.
✦ AI summary
This is a NASA air-to-ground transcript excerpt from the Apollo 12 mission (November 1969), covering communications between the Command Module Pilot (CMP, Richard Gordon in Yankee Clipper), the Commander/LM Pilot in the Lunar Module Intrepid (Pete Conrad, Alan Bean), and Mission Control (Houston), spanning roughly mission elapsed times 05:19 to 06:00. Most of the material is routine operational chatter: state vectors, P22 tracking PADs, RCS hot-fire checks, battery charging, and sweepdown procedures. Two passages relate to anomalous observations: (1) while looking through the Alignment Optical Telescope in the dark, a crewman describes flashes/particles of light sailing off into space from behind him, initially wondering if they were water dump particles; (2) a crewman reports a pulsing 'all 8s' flash on the DEDA address/information registers at about one-fifth normal brightness, which ground and a colleague attribute to likely electromagnetic interference (EMI) seen previously during spacecraft testing at Bethpage. A separate segment discusses a tracking light appearing to blink erratically, which crew and ground attribute to the light being burned out. No conclusive UAP identification is stated; phenomena described are consistent with known spacecraft effects (water/waste dumps, EMI, equipment malfunction) as interpreted in the raw transcript.
Generated with AI from the official file — may contain errors.
▸Transcript(4 of 4 pages legible)
[PAGE 1] 05 19 14 58 05 19 16 31 05 19 16 35 05 19 16 37 05 19 16 45 05 19 20 05 05 19 20 09 05 19 20 14 05 19 20 22 05 19 20 27 05 19 20 31 05 19 20 36 05 19 20 53 05 19 20 59 05 19 21 10 05 19 21 20 05 19 23 14 05 19 23 20 05 19 23 39 05 19 23 52 05 19 23 57 05 19 24 05 ) cc cc CDR-I.M cc CDR-l.M CMP cc CMP cc CMP cc CMP cc CMP cc CMP CDR-IM cc cc CDR-LM c~ cc Tape 90/3 Page 742 That's affirmntive . We're ready for the E-M0D. Intrepid, Houston. Go. If you will give us P0O and ACCEFT, we'll give you a CSM state vector and RLS update. You have POD and ACCEPT. Hello, Houston; Yankee Clipper. Yankee Clipper, Houston. Loud and clear. Well, hello there, stranger. How are you? Morning, Dick. We are fine. How are you? Well, pretty good. I hope you would like to go towards the LM and bring back . . . That's quite a chore; keeping this thing clean. Roger. You got a couple of coal miners coming up to see you. That's oka,y. I'll be glad to see them. Intrepid, Houston. The computer is yours. Break. Yankee Clipper, if you will go POO and ACCEPT, we have an uplink. All yours. Houston, you got the lift-off time for me? Stand by. Intrepid, Houston. Your lift-off time is 142:03:47. I copy 142:03:47.00, Affirma.ti ve. Clipper, Houston. Computer's yours. [PAGE 2] 05 19 24 11 05 19 24 23 05 19 24 43 05 19 24 52 05 19 25 33 05 19 25 40 05 19 25 41 05 19 25 48 05 19 27 17 05 19 27 20 05 19 27 25 05 19 27 56 05 19 28 25 05 19 28 42 05 19 28 44 05 19 29 10 CMP cc cc CMP cc CMP cc CMP CDR-IM cc IMP-LM cc cc [discussion of orbit/rendezvous] Roger. Yankee Clipper, Houston. Why don't you figure on terminating the battery charge at LOS? All right; I could let it go until I just before lift-off. That way it might take it all the way up. Clipper, Houston. We prefer that you terminate at LOS on this pass. Roger. Roger. That would be one less thing for us to keep track of prior to lift-off. Okey. Say, Houston, Intrepid. Intrepid, Houston. Go. Roger. When you look out the AOT in the dark quadrant? You can see these lights - particles of light. flashes of light just seem to come from - in this case, I'm looking in quadrant 1 which is the left one. It's coming from behind me, the left, and they're just sailing off in space. I was thinking they're dropping from my water [heater/dump?] ... per Houston with a P22 tracking PAD. Go ahead. Roger. Your target is LM; T1 is 139:57:39; T2 is 140:02:38; south 05; latitude is minus 3 Roger. T112 - [PAGE 3] - 05 20 08 23 05 20 09 25 05 20 09 30 05 20 09 34 05 20 10 00 05 20 10 06 05 20 10 52 05 20 10 59 ) 05 20 11 03 05 20 11 32 05 20 11 37 05 20 11 39 05 20 11 56 05 20 11 59 05 20 12 01 05 20 12 08 05 20 12 11 05 20 12 14 ) cc LMP-IM cc IMP-1..M CC LMP-IM LMP-LM CC CDR-LM CC LMP-LM cc CDR-LM IMP-IM cc CDR-IM CDR-IM cc Tape 90/9 Page 748 Clipper, Houston. We'll give that data a good evaluation before we do anything with it. Houston, Intrepid. Intrepid, Houston. GO. Got sort of an interesting thing going on AGS right now. I didn't notice earlier, but it may just be because the lights i:,.re brighter now. I'm getting an all 8's flash on both the address and the information registers at about one-fifth the brilliance of the normal numbers. And a - It's pulsing every second. Roger, Al. If I turn down the illumination level just a little bit, it's not noticeable. Hello, Houston; Intrepid. You ready for my RCS hot fire? Intrepid, Houston. Roger. Fire away. Okay. Intrepid, Houston. Go. Roger, Al. Fredo is here. He and I have both seen that phenomena on your DEDA during testing of most all the spacecrafts up at Bethpage, and it's probably an EMI. That's what we've been talking about, but we thought we'd just touch in on it. When you go to your roll rate, roll left, pitch up - - Roger. I think TRW's got a workup on this problem. Okay? Here you go, Houston, with roll, pitch, and yaw. Roger, Pete. [illegible - garbled transmission line] [PAGE 4] 06 00 21 42 06 00 21 51 06 00 22 11 06 00 22 22 06 00 22 26 06 00 22 27 06 00 22 28 ( 06 00 22 33 06 00 22 47 06 00 22 53 06 00 22 59 06 00 23 11 06 00 23 19 06 00 23 26 06 00 23 33 ) CMP CDR-IM CC LMP-LM CC LMP-LM cc CDR-LM CC CDR-IM CC CDR-IM cc CMP CDR-LM Tape 93/8 Page 778 But I don't have you in the sextant. That's okay. Your blinking light's just not blinking, that's all. Hey, Houston. It looks like our tracking light's burned out. Dick hasn't been able to find us in this sextant. And on the first nightside pass we had little bits and pieces floating along with us and we could tell that the tracking light was flashing on them. And we still have, I've presumed to think, bits and pieces floating along and nothing's flashing on them, so I'm pretty sure it burned out. Roger, Pete. Yes, sir. Okay. Hi, Intrepid. Okay. This is Houston. How'd your sweepdown fore and aft go? It's getting much cleaner in here running this way; and, also, Yankee Clipper informs me he has the television all set up. When we come around the horizon, we'll come around with the television on in VOX. Roger. Who knows, you may get to see the first whiffer[?ball]. Roger, Pete. Our electrical watchers say that the current indicates that your tracking light is on. Okay. Now we just turned it off. How does the current show that? It - it sure does, Pete. You're - they're - you're flying through the air backwards, then, Pete, because I don't see it. Well, my ball tells me I'm pointed at you, Dick, and so does my radar.
Generated with AI from the official file — may contain errors.
Source: U.S. Department of War / AARO — public domain · war.gov/ufo
Entities in this document
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NASA-UAP-D008, Apollo 12 Medical Debriefing - Tape 12, 1969
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NASA-UAP-D019, Gemini 5 Technical Debriefing, Part I, 1965
