Documents / Official release
This NASA file of astronaut scientific debriefing papers from 1962 collects internal Office of Space Sciences material on the science observations made on early Mercury flights. A February 1962 memo from Maurice Dubin asks for more detail on John Glenn's report of luminous particles and the atmospheric horizon layer. A draft memo concludes that the particles were tied to the spacecraft and were not extraterrestrial. The file also holds a Los Alamos letter that attributes the high haze layer to nitrogen peroxide, and notes on Carpenter's airglow observations.
From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 This file contains memoranda, correspondence, reports, and other materials relating to contemporary scientific interest in investigating the nature of luminous phenomena reported by astronauts John Glenn and Walter Schirra during spaceflight. This collection includes transcripts from NASA interviews and debriefings with both astronauts regarding those observations. It also contains details relating to scientific observations of atmospheric phenomena, including brief descriptions of luminous particles, experiences while aboard spacecraft, and circa 1955 theoretical analysis of meteoric particles entering the atmosphere. Pages 34-35, 55-56, 57-63, 64-113, and 122-127 feature content relevant to the PURSUE initiative.
“Pacific Ocean”1 page
67 opportunity to see a highway, for example, and trace it, because I wasn't over those populated areas such as the Southern United States long enough or had the clear weather to just sit there and observe them. In contrast, I think what you would do if you saw something and wanted to look at it, I think what you would do is that you would pitch down more - to look almost straight down and see it which Scott had the capability of doing and he could really take a careful look at it. O'Keefe - One curious fact that I haven't seen anybody take advantage of is this. It is quite common in triangulation - that two stations which are a couple of hundred miles apart, or a hundred miles apart, and that therefore as far apart as you are from the ground and along a light path which is much inferior - it's nearly parallel to the earth. In order for one of those stations to see the other one - to measure on it - they provide one of them with a 6-inch heliotrope, that's enough. That means that somebody on the ground with a six-inch heliotrope who knew how to point could point a light that you could see even in the daytime if they had a dark background; and conversely, if you had a heliotrope, you could also be seen from the ground. I have never seen this possibility discussed. Of course it also goes with the fact that instead of these tremendous flares, if they knew how to point, they could make a much stronger light where you are with a search light. Schirra - Sure . . .. O' Keefe - The army 5- foot searchlight gives 800 million candles
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 216 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.