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.
“King”1 page
Scientific Debriefing -4-
Coo:per: Well first I started trying to get Tfl¥. 180° yaw point. This is
not the easiest thing in the world to get on the night side, and particular~ ... , ,_
......
when you have to go into your ■tar charts 50 ~ute1 ahead ot Where :,ou had •
norn:ia.;uy been used to using them. ir:.finally did find star patterns that gave
'
me the proper orientation. ,I was wiing, around 15 to 120 degrees pitched downi ·,.' ,·.- \ .,, ' ,. :•
I .was just keeping the horizon ~ th~ sort of bottom p~ of the Window ~d ~•:-1·!_·, :./·:~'l~·~ ;{
\ ')" \ •'
I • t .., ,f-
I got_around. ·this area, I then tried varying ·the· attitude ~P and down to- '· • ,•• ·,
look for the light~
. ..
I
1
She:pard: You mentioned' in your repOrt that,--you talked about approx
25 minutes a:f'ter you caged your gyros, that you saw' a ·lot of li'ghtning
par'tfcularly in that area. .: • '.o:.
Cooper: · Well, · this is .,one possibility· that there was a slight compromise
to the .light. 1 Particularly on the first night side there was co~iderabl
large lightning down ther_e. I found concentrations of large thundersto
•right up .in there and saw quite a lot iof -light flashing through fairly
I
large areas. I still don't believe that even on the other night
spite of these I still could\ see the light even with -:this as a ba.ckgroun.• .. ... . . : , ~ ·•· ·- .
It is r~ally not an excuse for ·not seeing it ,and I really honest]¥ _ ••C
I ', . . ~-- ; .- ~ ...... - ----··· - ••
say why I didn•t. . I had 'b~gun ~o doUbt th~t ,1~ was re .. flash
~ .., ~ • • • I • I • Not linked to a story yet.
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.