NASA-UAP-D4, APOLLO 11 TECHNICAL CREW DEBRIEFING, LUNAR MISSION, JULY 1969

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cover-page

This is the cover page for the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, Volume I, dated July 31, 1969, prepared by the Mission Operations Branch of the Flight Crew Support Division.

[HANDWRITTEN: 94] [HANDWRITTEN: 251 pgs]
[STRIKETHROUGH: CONFIDENTIAL]
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

APOLLO 11
TECHNICAL
CREW DEBRIEFING
(U)

JULY 31, 1969

[HANDWRITTEN: CLASSIFICATION CHANGED TO]
[HANDWRITTEN: U]
[HANDWRITTEN: BY AUTHORITY OF E.O. 11652]
[HANDWRITTEN: 6/1/72]
[HANDWRITTEN: 5-11-72]
[HANDWRITTEN: Seely D. Hall]

PREPARED BY:
MISSION OPERATIONS BRANCH
FLIGHT CREW SUPPORT DIVISION
VOL. I

GROUP 4
Downgraded at 3-year
intervals; declassified
after 12 years

NOTICE: This document may be exempt from
public disclosure under the Freedom of Infor-
mation Act (5 U.S.C. 552). Requests for its re-
lease to persons outside the U. S. Government
should be handled under the provisions of
NASA Policy Directive 1382.2.

[STRIKETHROUGH: CONFIDENTIAL]

INDEXING DATA
DATE OPR # T PGM SUBJECT SIGNATOR LOC
07-31-69 MSC R APO (Title) MSC

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transcript

A transcript of the Apollo 11 crew debriefing where Collins and Armstrong discuss the importance of rest during the flight, followed by Aldrin mentioning an unusual sighting near the moon.

CONFIDENTIAL 6-33

COLLINS I think particularly when you get into the later flights of extended EVA's and lunar activity, somehow the crew must place themselves in a frame of mind of looking on the separation of the LM as the beginning of the flight plan and to relax, get plenty of sleep, and conserve their energies in all the events leading up to that point. To arrive in lunar orbit tired can create problems and it's possible to do that if you don't approach it in the right frame of mind.

ARMSTRONG I think Mike's hit the nail on the head. We did precisely that. We got a lot of rest and got into lunar orbit eager to go to work and that's a particularly fortunate position to be in.

COLLINS This is something we've talked about before the flight and I don't know how you can get yourself in that frame of mind but I think it is a frame of mind. You have to get yourself convinced that there will be a nice relaxing couple of days going to the moon.

ALDRIN The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was 1 day out or something pretty close to the moon. It had a sizeable dimension to it, so we put the monocular on it.

CONFIDENTIAL

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transcript

A transcript of the Apollo 11 crew debriefing where the astronauts discuss observing an unidentified object that appeared to be L-shaped or like an open suitcase.

6-34

[CONFIDENTIAL]

COLLINS: How'd we see this thing? Did we just look out the window
and there it was?

ALDRIN: Yes, and we weren't sure but what it might be the S-IVB.
We called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6000 miles
away. We had a problem with the high gain about this
time, didn't we?

COLLINS: There was something. We felt a bump or maybe I just
imagined it.

ARMSTRONG: He was wondering whether the MESA had come off.

COLLINS: I don't guess we felt anything.

ALDRIN: Of course, we were seeing all sorts of little objects
going by at the various dumps and then we happened to see
this one brighter object going by. We couldn't think of
anything else it could be other than the S-IVB. We looked
at it through the monocular and it seemed to have a bit
of an L shape to it.

ARMSTRONG: Like an open suitcase.

ALDRIN: We were in PTC at the time so each one of us had a chance
to take a look at this and it certainly seemed to be with-
in our vicinity and of a very sizeable dimension.

[CONFIDENTIAL]

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transcript

Apollo 11 crew members Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins discuss their visual observations of an unidentified object, noting difficulties in determining its shape and size due to optical limitations and focus adjustments.

CONFIDENTIAL 6-35

ARMSTRONG: We should say that it was right at the limit of the resolution of the eye. It was very difficult to tell just what shape it was. And there was no way to tell the size without knowing the range or the range without knowing the size.

ALDRIN: So then I got down in the LEB and started looking for it in the optics. We were grossly mislead because with the sextant off focus what we saw appeared to be a cylinder.

ARMSTRONG: Or really two rings.

ALDRIN: Yes.

ARMSTRONG: Two rings. Two connected rings.

COLLINS: No, it looked like a hollow cylinder to me. It didn't look like two connected rings. You could see this thing tumbling and, when it came around end-on, you could look right down in its guts. It was a hollow cylinder. But then you could change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by this open-book shape. It was really weird.

ALDRIN: I guess there's not too much more to say about it other than it wasn't a cylinder.

CONFIDENTIAL

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transcript

Apollo 11 crew members Collins and Aldrin discuss unidentified objects or debris observed during their mission, speculating on potential origins such as the S-IVB, the LM, or the high gain antenna.

6-36

CONFIDENTIAL

COLLINS
It was during the period when we thought it was a cylinder
that we inquired about the S-IVB and we'd almost convinced
ourselves that's what it had to be. But we don't have
any more conclusions than that really. The fact that we
didn't see it much past this one time period — we really
don't have a conclusion as to what it might have been,
how big it was, or how far away it was. It was something
that wasn't part of the urine dump, we're pretty sure of
that.

Skipping ahead a bit, when we jettisoned the LM, you know
we fired an explosive charge and got rid of the docking
rings and the LM went boom. Pieces came off the LM. It
could have been some Mylar or something that had somehow
come loose from the LM.

ALDRIN
We thought it could have been a panel, but it didn't
appear to have that shape at all.

COLLINS
That's right, and for some reason, we thought it might
have been a part of the high gain antenna. It might have
been about the time we had high gain antenna problems.
In the back of my mind, I have some reason to suspect that
its origin was from the spacecraft.

CONFIDENTIAL

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transcript

Buzz Aldrin describes observing mysterious light flashes inside the Apollo 11 spacecraft cabin during the transearth coast phase of the mission.

CONFIDENTIAL
6-37

ALDRIN

The other observation that I made accumulated gradually.
I don't know whether I saw it the first night, but I'm
sure I saw it the second night. I was trying to go to
sleep with all the lights out. I observed what I thought
were little flashes inside the cabin, spaced a couple of
minutes apart and I didn't think too much about it other
than just note in my mind that they continued to be there.
I couldn't explain why my eye would see these flashes.
During transearth coast, we had more time and I devoted
more opportunity to investigating what this could have
been. It was at that point that I was able to observe
on two different occasions that, instead of observing
just one flash, I could see double flashes, at points
separated by maybe a foot. At other times, I could see
a line with no direction of motion and the only thing
that comes to my mind is that this is some sort of pene-
tration. At least that's my guess, without much to sup-
port it; some penetration of some object into the
spacecraft that causes an emission as it enters the cabin
itself. Sometimes it was one flash on entering. Possibly
departing from an entirely different part of the cabin,
outside the field of view. The double flashes appeared
to have an entry and then impact on something such as
the struts. For a while, I thought it might have been
CONFIDENTIAL

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transcript

Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong discuss observations of light phenomena inside the Apollo 11 spacecraft, attempting to distinguish between static electricity and sunlight leakage.

6-38

CONFIDENTIAL

ALDRIN
(CONT'D)

some static electricity because I was also able, in moving
my hand up and down the sleep restraint, to generate
very small sparks of static electricity. But there was
a definite difference between the two as I observed it
more and more. I tried to correlate this with the direc-
tion of the sun. When you put the window shades up there
is still a small amount of leakage. You can generally
tell within 20 or 30 degrees the direction of the sun.
It seemed as though they were coming from that general
direction; however, I really couldn't say if there was
near enough evidence to support that these things were
observable on the side of the spacecraft where the sun
was. A little bit of evidence seemed to support this.
I asked the others if they had seen any of these and,
until about the last day, they hadn't.

ARMSTRONG

Buzz, I'd seen some light, but I just always attributed
this to sunlight, because the window covers leak a little
bit of light no matter how tightly secured. The only
time I observed it was the last night when we really
looked for it. I spent probably an hour carefully watch-
ing the inside of the spacecraft and I probably made
50 significant observations in this period.

CONFIDENTIAL

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transcript

A transcript from the Apollo 11 crew debriefing where Aldrin and Armstrong discuss unidentified visual phenomena observed inside the spacecraft cabin.

                                  CONFIDENTIAL                  6-39

ALDRIN          Sometimes a minute or two would go by and then you'd see
                the two within the space of 10 seconds. On an average,
                I'd say just as a guess it was maybe something like one
                a minute. Certainly more than enough to convince you
                that it wasn't an optical illusion. It did give you a
                rather funny feeling to contemplate that something was
                zapping through the cabin. There wasn't anything you
                could do about it.

ARMSTRONG       It could be something like Buzz suggested. Mainly a
                neutron or some kind of an atomic particle that would
                be in the visible spectrum.


                                  CONFIDENTIAL

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cover-page

This is the cover page for the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, Volume II, dated July 31, 1969, prepared by the Mission Operations Branch.

[HANDWRITTEN: 216 pgs 94] [HANDWRITTEN: CONFIDENTIAL] NASA NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION APOLLO 11 TECHNICAL CREW DEBRIEFING (U) [HANDWRITTEN: CLASSIFICATION CHANGED TO U BY AUTHORITY OF E.O. 11652 6/1/72 DATE 3/14/76] JULY 31, 1969 PREPARED BY: MISSION OPERATIONS BRANCH FLIGHT CREW SUPPORT DIVISION VOL. II GROUP 4 Downgraded at 3-year intervals; declassified after 12 years This material c within the mean transmission or prohibited by la NOTICE: This document may be exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552). Requests for its release to persons outside the U.S. Government should be handled under the provisions of NASA Policy Directive 1382.2. United States and 794, the erson is CENTER [HANDWRITTEN: CONFIDENTIAL] INDEXING DATA DATE OPR # T PGM SUBJECT SIGNATOR LOC 07-31-69 MSC [HANDWRITTEN: APO] [HANDWRITTEN: (Sits)] [HANDWRITTEN: DUP?] MSC 078-62

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transcript

This page is a transcript from the Apollo 11 technical crew debriefing, specifically discussing visual sightings during translunar/transearth flight and lunar orbit, including a mention of an optical illusion involving Mars and a bright light source observed near the lunar horizon.

CONFIDENTIAL 21-1

21.0 VISUAL SIGHTINGS

ARMSTRONG Most of the items in Section 21, Visual Sightings, have
been previously reported.

21.4 TRANSLUNAR AND TRANSEARTH FLIGHT

ALDRIN There was only one minor observation returning from the
Moon. Looking back at it, at a time after Mars had passed
behind the Moon, there was one time period where I imagined
that the image of Mars was coming from a region where it
couldn't come from, because it was in a dark portion of
the Moon. This obviously was an optical illusion of some
sort.

ARMSTRONG I suspect that it was, in fact, just immediately adjacent
to the horizon.

ALDRIN We must have looked at it immediately after it had come
from the back side.

ARMSTRONG Yes.

21.5 LUNAR ORBIT

ALDRIN In lunar orbit, following ascent, we did note and mention
to the ground that approaching CDH when the Earth came up
above the lunar horizon, I observed what appeared to be a
fairly bright light source which we tentatively ascribed
CONFIDENTIAL

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transcript

Buzz Aldrin discusses the observation of a bright light source from the Earth during the Apollo 11 mission, concluding it was likely a reflection off a lake rather than a laser.

21-2

CONFIDENTIAL

ALDRIN
(CONT'D)

to a possible laser. That seemed to be the best possible
explanation until we were coming back in the command module
approaching the Earth and were able to observe something
that gave about the same appearance. When putting the
monocular on the light source, it appeared as though it
was the reflection of the Sun from a relatively smooth body
of water such as a lake. I think we've revised our initial
conclusion as to what the source of that light was that we
saw coming from the Earth. If no one owns up to having
beamed the laser toward the Moon at that time, it was more
probably a reflection off a lake. I still think it's an
unusual phenomenon, at that distance, to see so bright a
source of light. In the film, it didn't appear as though
this was going to show up at all. The Earth was too bright.

CONFIDENTIAL