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.
“Tibet”2 pages
',, ' ; Scientific Debriefing •. -16- . >fl' ' '· ' ,. Cooper: No. It was just a bit :further to the l.e:f't than I thought be. Bill: More toward'. the · center of' the window? Cooper: Noo More slight]¥ to the le:f't of' the window. I coul.d have been yawed ·off a l.ittl.e. I thought the pattern of the l.ittl.e town, .it was by was rea.l.ly more distinctive than the l.ight. , If' I hadn't "imown _the light was there I 'WOul.dn_'t have sel.ected it in preference to· l.ots of other lights I saw' on t he ground,--•if' it hadh't been for the l.ittl.e horseshoe-shape towno ,Bill Armstrong: What brightness did you see at thi's attitude? • I . . I woul.d sq it , was about between third and fourth magnitude BaW it. '7· . Bill: AB you continued to obse;rve it · did Y9U notice ~t dimming?,, Cooper: Noo I coul.d see it f'or se:veral. s_econds-. One f'alicy of the ground lights is ·that you are moying on the ground pretty rapidlyo_ You don't have mariy seconds to ·observe any ·:f'ixed points op. the groundo It's moving right on past you and gone fair]¥. rapid]¥. . ·of' course as it gets on .out it gets dimmer ·t ,, ,. ~ : ; ' \ and dimmer • •,Question:· / Havet yOU .&J;IY idea how~_lo~· you ·~ able -to ob,serve it?
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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.