NASA-UAP-D001

Apollo 12 Transcript, 1969

Agency: NASA
Format: Document, 4 pages
Incident date: 1969
Place: Moon
Released: Release 01, May 8, 2026
Source: war.gov
Topics: Spaceflight, Military aircrew, Debriefings & transcripts

Description from war.gov

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.

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 CDR-IM CC CDR-IM CMP CC CMP CC CMP CC CMP CC CMP cc CMP CDR-IM CC CC CDR-IM Tape 90/3 Page 742 That's affirnative. We're ready for the E-MOD. Intrepid, Houston. Go. If you will give us POO and ACCEPT, we'll give you a CSM state vector and RLS update. You have P00 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 have some company for a change. Roger. Got the house clean? As a matter of fact, I just finished that. I sure do; got everything in order; ready to g towards the IM 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 okay. 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. Affirnative. 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 Tape 90/4 Page 743 CMP Okay. And Jerry, will you find out what they want to do about this battery charge, bessuse I'n using the bus ties during the rendezvous? CC Roger. CC CMP 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. CC Clipper, Houston. We prefer that you terminate at LOS on this pass. CMP Roger. CC Roger. That would be one less thing for us to keep track of prior to lift-off. CMP Okay. CDR-IM Say, Houston; Intrepid. CC Intrepid, Houston. Go. IMP-IM 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 I was thinking they're dropping from my water boiler, but it looks like some of those things are escaping the Moon. They really haul out of here and just press off at the stars. Cc CMP Roger. Go ahead. Yankee Clipper, Houston with a P22 tracking PAD. Cc Roger. Your target is IM; Ty is 139:57:39; Tz is 140:02:38; south 05; latitude is minus 3 - - CMP Roger. T 112 -

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 Tape 90/9 Page 748 CC Clipper, Houston. We'll give that data a goo evaluation before we do anything with it. IMP- IM Houston, Intrepia. CC Intrepid, Houston. GO. IMP-IM Got sort of an interesting thing going on AG: right now. I didn't notice earlier, but it may Just be because the lights are 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. CC IMP-IM Roger, Al. If I turn down the illumination level just a little bit, it's not noticeable. IMP-IM Hello, Houston; Intrepid. You ready for my RC. hot fire cc Intrepid, Houston. Roger. Fire away. CDR-IM Okay. CC Intrepid, Houston. LMP-IM Go. CC Roger, Al. Fredo is here. He and I have bott seen that phenomena on your DEDA during testing of most all the spacecrafts up at Bethpage, and CDR-LM IMP-IM CC CDR-IM CDR- IM cc That's what we've been talking about, but we thought we'd just touch in on it. uper you go to your roll rate, roll left, pitch Roger. I think TRW's got a workup on this problem. Okay? Here you go, Houston, with roll, pitch, and Roger, Pete. )

Page 4

) ( i 06 00 21 42 06 CO 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 Tape 93/8 Page 778 CMP But I don't have you in the sextant. That's okay. Your blinking light's Just not blinking, that's all. CDR-IM 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. 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. cc IMP-IM CC Roger, Pete. Yes, sir. Okay. Hi, Intrepia. IMP-LM Okay. CC This is Houston. How'd your sweepdown fore and aft go? CDR-LM 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 hors, we'll come around with the television on in VOX. cc CDR-IM Roger. Who knows, you may get to see the first whifferdill. CC Roger, Pete. Our electrical watchers say that the current indicates that your tracking light CDR-IM CC CMP Okay. Now we just turned it off. Now does the current show that? It - It sure does, Pete. You're - they're - You're flying through the air bockwards, then, Pete, because I don't see CDR-LM Well, my ball tells me I'm pointed at you, Dick, • and so does my radar.

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Machine summary

Written by Claude Sonnet 4.6 (Anthropic) on May 22, 2026, from the record's text and war.gov's description. It is not part of the record and can contain errors; check it against the document.

This document is an excerpt from the Apollo 12 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription, dated November 1969, released by NASA on May 8, 2026. It covers two periods of crew-reported anomalous observations during the lunar mission. On Day 5, Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean described seeing particles and flashes of light through the Alignment Optical Telescope, characterizing them as "sailing off in space" and appearing to escape the Moon's gravity. On Day 6, Mission Commander Charles Conrad reported floating debris outside the lunar module, visible only when illuminated by the module's tracking light, which he subsequently concluded had burned out.

The document is notable as a contemporaneous, on-mission record of anomalous observations by trained NASA astronauts, recorded in real time during communication with Mission Control. The transcript provides no definitive explanation for the particles or light flashes Bean observed; Conrad's debris sighting received a mundane explanation tied to the tracking light's status. The record contains no apparent redactions. Its significance lies primarily in establishing that crew members formally reported these observations during the mission rather than after the fact, making it relevant to the broader cataloguing of UAP-adjacent incidents in government records.

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houston roger light intrepid clipper okay your second pete tracking yankee hour minute module tape lift moon lunar observing phenomenon through floating ready give accept hello dick sure thing yours