PURSUE archive · catalogue card
NASA-UAP-D011
Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963
This card reproduces what the official catalogue publishes. Our own analysis (cross-checked sources, timeline and hypotheses) will come when its turn arrives in the weekly review.
- Agency
- NASA
- Incident date
- May 15, 1963As the catalogue writes it: “5/15/63”
- Place
- Off the globe: Low Earth orbitAs the catalogue writes it: “Low Earth Orbit”
- Published in PURSUE
- May 22, 2026
- Records
- 1 record · Audio
01 Official description
During the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. describes the brilliant blue of sunrise beneath the haze layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. As he approaches sunrise, he describes small, luminous, brilliant white particles drifting away from the spacecraft. Cooper describes observing “fireflies” after deploying beacons, which are spherical mission-related equipment with xenon strobe lights.
02 Catalogue records · 1
NASA-UAP-D011 · Audio · NASA · May 22, 2026
Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963
5/15/63 · Low Earth Orbit
DVIDS · broken link in the catalogue (checked Oct 5, 2026)
03 Related cases
Other catalogue cards from the same area or the same decade.
04 Sources
- [1]
Record · U.S. Department of War
Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE)
Card, descriptions and comments: PURSUE catalogue, U.S. Department of War. The files are not hosted here; they open on their official site.
Checked on Oct 4, 2026 · Open the original ↗
May contain errors by the AI and the editor · always check the official source.