Declassified UAP

NASA-UAP-D009

Apollo 17 Audio Excerpt, December 7, 1972

Agency
NASA
Format
Audio
Incident date
12/7/72
Released
Release 02, May 22, 2026
Source
DVIDS
Topics
Spaceflight, Debriefings & transcripts

Description from war.gov

During the eleventh and final crewed mission in the Apollo program, Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans report seeing small lights outside the Apollo spacecraft during transit to the moon. The crew describe bright “particles” or “fragments” as being “jagged,” “angular,” and drifting near the Apollo spacecraft and the separated Saturn S-IVB stage. The Apollo 17 crew speculate that paint chips or ice chips are likely the source of these lights and note that they “twinkle” and move away from the Saturn S-IVB stage.

Transcript

After you, uh, very bright particles are fragments, there's something that, uh, go thrifting by as we've been over. I don't understand. See, there's a whole bunch of big ones on my window there. It's just bright. Looks like the 4th of July on Ron's window. Yeah, and they see some of them in shape. They're very, uh, jagged, angular, uh, fragments. They're tumbly. Guys, they look like fluidism, sir. Not too many. They look like pieces of something now. Oh, Roger. They're very bright. Jack, we like omni, Charlie. Oh, yeah. Well, for the most part, these fragments are not, uh, who are tumbly at a very slow rate. I've tried a couple pictures of them, uh, different settings. You may get an idea of what, uh, at least the patterns look like. Roger, I got you. We're all ears on these fragments. Do you think they can figure out what they might be? Well, you know, I, I don't know, I have a number of possibilities. Uh, if you had some kind of, uh, I got the impression maybe they were curved a little bit as if they might be, uh, off the side of the S4B. Uh, it's a wild guess. Uh... Right, I noticed on one chip up the elevator last week, uh, one of the flags. Uh, I thought it was an S2, but it might be an S4 look like we're stealing. Maybe that's what you got. And the S4B maneuver is complete. Okay, it was at two o'clock. Okay, and the, uh, maneuver complete. The fragment field is, uh, essentially static, except for very slight tumbly within the fragment. Roger, cover that. Every once in a while a fragment, uh, considerably higher velocity than the others goes, uh, across my window. But that's very rare. Roger. Okay, that's that, uh, field of view, I saw. I wouldn't, you see it now. Yeah. And Bob, uh, at least there, there's no apparent relative motion between fragments. I didn't hear it. I'll take, uh, two pictures about, uh, minute apart if I can, and it'll be frame 70. Okay, frame 70. And Bob, uh, it's, you know, my impression is that they are, uh, flat, flake-like particles, some, uh, maybe six inches across. And, uh, all others, no relative motion between it to, uh, most of them seem to be, uh, twinkling. And I think, for the most part, they're all moving away from us.
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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.

NASA-UAP-D009 is an audio transcript excerpt from December 7, 1972, documenting a conversation between the Apollo 17 crew — Commander Gene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans — and Mission Control during the crew's translunar transit. The crew reported observing multiple bright, tumbling particles or fragments outside the spacecraft windows in cislunar space. They described the objects as jagged, angular, flat, and flake-like, some estimated at roughly six inches across, moving slowly away from the spacecraft and the separated Saturn S-IVB stage, and exhibiting a twinkling quality. The crew and Mission Control speculated the fragments were likely paint or material shed from the S-IVB stage.

The document is notable primarily because the crew's own in-flight hypothesis — debris from the Saturn S-IVB — is consistent with known spacecraft behavior, making this a relatively low-ambiguity incident. Its inclusion in the PURSUE release likely reflects standard cataloging of all anomalous crew observations rather than any indication of unexplained origin. No significant redactions are apparent in the available OCR text, and no alternative explanations are advanced beyond the crew's own speculation.

Most frequent words

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fragments apollo bright look roger okay particles window yeah tumbly most know maybe fragment module pilot lights spacecraft crew jagged angular saturn stage chips away something part pictures least think

Closest matches by the text of the documents.

  1. NASA-UAP-D002 Apollo 17 Transcript, 1972 NASA Document 1972
  2. NASA-UAP-D006 Apollo 17 Technical Crew Debriefing, 1973 NASA Document 1973
  3. NASA-UAP-D001 Apollo 12 Transcript, 1969 NASA Document 1969
  4. NASA-UAP-D004 Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, 1969 NASA Document 1969
  5. NASA-UAP-D008 Apollo 12 Medical Debriefing - Tape 12, 1969 NASA Audio 1969
  6. NASA-UAP-D011 Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963 NASA Audio 5/15/63
  7. NASA-UAP-D029 Apollo 17 Crew Medical Debriefing (Continued), 1972 NASA Audio 12/21/72
  8. NASA-UAP-D013 Mercury Atlas 7, May 24, 1962 NASA Audio 5/24/62