NASA-UAP-D010, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963

Low Earth Orbit·5/15/63

Declassified

Government description

Approximately one hour and 41 minutes into the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. notes that he sees “John’s fireflies,” referring to John Glenn’s term from the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission. NASA later determined that the “fireflies” are attributable to frozen condensation separating from the spacecraft body. The white, green-hued appearance of this phenomenon results from sunlight reflecting off frozen condensation.

Caption issued by the U.S. Department of War on war.gov/ufo. Verbatim, unedited.

Originating agency

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Record type

AUD

Incident date

5/15/63

Incident location

Low Earth Orbit

Release tranche

Release 02 (May 8, 2026)

Distribution

Cleared for public release

PURSUE = Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters. Records released by the U.S. Department of War on May 8, 2026 are unresolved cases for which the government cannot make a definitive determination, and the Department has invited private-sector analysis.