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NASA-UAP-D010, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963

UNCLASSIFIED // RECORD RELEASE 2 · 2026-05-22
AUDIO NASA INCIDENT 5/15/63 · Low Earth Orbit

NASA-UAP-D010, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963

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.

Audio · DVIDS · 1007874
NASA-UAP-D010, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963
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M4A · 2.10 MB NASA-UAP-D010, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963 open ↗

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Metadata

Slug
nasa-uap-d010-mercury-atlas-9-audio-excerpt-may-15-1963
Release
release_2 (2026-05-22)
Agency
NASA
Type
audio
Incident date
5/15/63
Incident location
Low Earth Orbit
DVIDS id
1007874
Content-Type
audio/mp4
Size
2.10 MB
sha256
070f2fe0826a493f77ca5dcfc7e03fc1184fa266c48ca00809a200b5da1556b5

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