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.
“Coast to Coast AM”3 pages
------- f j _. . Scientific Debriefing -34-! I ;._ ~d _spread. It doesn't take long. As it goes on down you still have this orange I• • • fight on the horizon and this area is all considerably ligliter althou~ black is .,, goming on down. You do · ge~· glow up off it. You could actu~ sWing away and tell l light w ere tlle sun ll&d set a number of seconds after. It is not ray-like. It:,? /, is hard to describe. ~e sky area: is lighter but there are not any rays. , \ Note: At this time there was a general discussion of the night sky ,immediately af'ter sunset. The transcript is too incomplete in this region to give a recorded • account of this discussion. It appears that after describing the sunset and the airglow layer someone Ast. Cooper an additional glow extending vertical above the i position on the horizon 'Where sunset occurred. Obviously reference was beingI made to observation of the Zodiacal light. Cooper: That' s right. After this effect disappears ( glow of sunset) and you • think you're on complete darkness, I would guess on the order a minute after I sunset, you get this other. I gue.ss two different times I saw faint glow but not., very far along. It lfS.S more on the order of 3 to 4 degrees farther on •and a fainter order . ., Roach : Did you 'notice this was cone shaped? Cooper: A little bit cone shaped. J Roach : Did you happen to sweep across it that way? ' ' Cooper: It was a minute or so prior to sunrise and I moved back across and about the time I got back the sun was there. Roach: Did it seem to be confined in your Window'l Cooper : Yes. The bright 0 blue -band grew wider as you moved away. Roach: Was this jus~ before sunrise? Cooper: The sun is . getting ready to come up and at' this particular time I got this glow prior to getting a blue band and in a few seconds the blue widens and ' I . widens. , ... ' .
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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.