DISCLOSURE / FILE
A NASA audio excerpt from the Mercury Atlas 8 (Sigma 7) mission on October 3, 1962, in which pilot Walter M. "Wally" Schirra Jr. describes small white objects drifting near his capsule and an unexplained burst of light in the window.
NASA-UAP-D012, Mercury Atlas 8 Audio Excerpt, October 3, 1962
A NASA audio excerpt from the Mercury Atlas 8 (Sigma 7) mission on October 3, 1962, in which pilot Walter M. "Wally" Schirra Jr. describes small white objects drifting near his capsule and an unexplained burst of light in the window.
This file documents an audio excerpt from NASA's Mercury Atlas 8 mission, flown by astronaut Walter M. "Wally" Schirra Jr. aboard Sigma 7 in low Earth orbit on October 3, 1962. Schirra describes little white objects that appear to come from the capsule itself and drift off, later calling them "particles" and "lathe shavings." He also reports a burst of light in the window whose source he cannot identify, and speculates it coincided with the sun passing below the horizon at sunset. The record is an image or external audio asset; no transcript text was extracted for verbatim citation.
Extracted text · Page 1
Page 1 · audio transcript
I have some pretty stars in sight, and also I have the little white objects that seem to come from the capsule itself, and drift off.
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Page 13
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Concatenated page-by-page transcript. Born-digital pages came through pdf.js; scanned pages were transcribed by Claude vision OCR. Pages marked unreadable failed multiple OCR retries (heavy redaction, microfilm artifacts, or blank separators) and are kept in place for audit.
I have some pretty stars in sight, and also I have the little white objects that seem to come from the capsule itself, and drift off.
And if they are a yaw check, it's fantastic. I suspect that the star, see, is up to us. It would be very interesting. It is neither.
It is one of the white objects.
So I have two stars that are studying quite still. The white object actually looked like it came toward me, but it wasn't.
I can actually see the particle of that playing on it, and I have the chance to start it as a wave shaving. It's a very good description of it.
My rates are now just about zero in all three axes.
I still have white in the first open course. I'm looking straight up. And yet, at this point, Mr. G, that my object is, I get my couch here. I really can't pick it too well, y'all. Just about inverted at this point.
And if my nose is above the horizon, as a result, I notice that these particles keep tending after me, relative to me, at any time.
Periscope is blocking out another rapidly, and sunset is almost blocked out completely at this point, and is really not used to me.
[sound of waves]
[sound of waves]
I'm getting a real burst of light in the window, and I really don't know what it is. This point, I should be coming up on a sunset, five hours and fifteen minutes.
Periscope is dark. I must be just getting the last bucket in the horizon, getting back down on it.