NASA-UAP-D010, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963
Official description
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.
✦ AI summary
This short air-to-ground audio excerpt captures Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7) Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr., roughly one hour and 21 minutes into the final and longest Project Mercury flight, describing what he calls "John's fireflies" — a reference to John Glenn's earlier Mercury-Atlas 6 sighting of the same phenomenon. Cooper reports observing the particles drifting away from and departing the spacecraft, trailing out to the rear at a considerable distance, and describes them as white with an almost green tint, resembling real fireflies. He also narrates the changing light and cloud color as orbital sunrise approaches, and later describes seeing stars distinctly against a dark sky while still on the night side with the sun not yet up. NASA later attributed the "fireflies" to frozen condensation particles separating from the spacecraft and reflecting sunlight.
Generated with AI from the official file — may contain errors.
▸Transcript
[00:00] Cooper: And now, at this time, I now have one hour and 21 minutes, and I am observing John's fireflies drifting away from me. I can observe them permeating [and] departing from the spacecraft, and drifting out to the rear. I can see some of them a considerable distance out to the rear. [00:48] Cooper: Just coming up behind me, I'm beginning to get the glow on the clouds. [01:07] Cooper: Fireflies appear to be white, very whitish, with almost a green [tint], like real fireflies. [01:18] [unintelligible — wind/static noise, approx. 01:18 to 01:45] [01:45] Cooper: Clouds on the Earth below are changing color, are getting quite light. [02:15] [unintelligible — wind/static noise, approx. 02:15 to 02:39] [02:39] Cooper: I am now on the day side. The sun is not yet quite up, and I am observing stars. [02:47] Cooper: The Earth is light below me, the sun is still behind me, the sky looks dark above me, and I can see stars very distinctly.
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
Connected cases
NASA-UAP-D011, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963
NASA-UAP-D012, Mercury Atlas 8 Audio Excerpt, October 3, 1962
NASA-UAP-D015, Astronaut Scientific Debriefings, 1962-1963
NASA-UAP-D018, Gemini 4 Experiment Debriefing, 1967
NASA-UAP-D023, Interview Excerpt with Astronaut Gordon Cooper, 1962
