Two Astronauts Saw Flashing Lights in Space

During the Gemini 9 mission, Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan saw flashing lights and flashes in space, according to a summary of NASA’s debrief with the two astronauts after the flight.

They were in space from June 3 to 6, 1966, on a mission that included a spacewalk and experiments. But the summary devotes only a few words to the lights. The transcript is supposed to contain their descriptions, but the supplied text doesn’t reveal what they actually said.

Lights in the Debrief

Gemini 9 launched in June 1966. After the mission, NASA held and recorded a debrief with Stafford and Cernan. According to the document’s summary, certain pages include the astronauts’ reports of “flashing lights” and “flashes.”

Those are the only details about the sighting: two crew members in space noticed lights and described flashes. The summary doesn’t say whether they saw them together, whether the lights moved, or how long the sighting lasted.

The Transcript That Doesn’t Tell the Story

The document is a transcript, a written record of a conversation. But the text provided does not include the discussion of the lights. Much of the scan is blank or garbled, making the account of the sighting impossible to read.

The legible pages deal mainly with experiments: photographs, test results, and particles collected in space. They explain what the crew did on the mission, but not what the two astronauts saw. So their words cannot be quoted beyond the brief description in the summary.

What Remains Unknown

The readable material offers no details about the lights’ appearance or when they showed up, and no ordinary explanation for the sighting. The summary itself suggests no cause, so it’s impossible to determine what produced them.

The transcript promises a more detailed account, but in the scan available here, the lights themselves have almost vanished.