Did Apollo 17 astronauts witness UFO on moon? What’s in disclosure files

Apollo 17 astronauts were the last humans to set foot on the moon, and apparently the three crew members saw some very interesting sights during the mission.

While astronauts were scanning the lunar surface for interesting rock samples to take back to Earth in 1972, they also reported witnessing a mysterious event. space. Between them? The twinkling lights lit up the sky “like the Fourth of July,” one crew member said.

This statement was among the new dossiers on UFO reports the government released on Friday, May 8; these are now officially referred to as the less stigmatized “unidentified anomalous phenomena”. The announcement marks the latest chapter amid renewed public interest in UFOs, spurred by a series of high-profile Congressional hearings on the subject in recent years.

Here’s what you need to know about the strange sights not only witnessed by the Apollo 17 crew, but also apparently experienced by other Apollo and Gemini-era astronauts.

What was NASA’s Apollo 17 moon mission?

Apollo 17 The 1972 mission was the ninth and last U.S. crewed mission to the moon under NASA’s iconic program.

Following in the footsteps of Apollo 11, the first mission to put a boat on the lunar surface, Apollo 17 was the sixth and last time astronauts landed on the moon. But NASA is in the midst of returning humans to the moon as part of the Artemis campaign, which sent four astronauts on a trip to the far side of the moon before landing in April on the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17.

Apollo 17 astronauts were largely tasked with collecting lunar regolith samples, but the crew also witnessed a number of strange sights above the lunar surface.

Did Apollo 17 astronauts witness UFOs above the lunar surface?

New documents released by the Pentagon reveal that Apollo 17 astronauts reported observing an unidentified phenomenon during three consecutive days of their mission. A. communication transcript The statement published details of the crew members’ meetings with the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

On the first day of operations, crew member Ronald Evans reported observing “very bright particles or fragments” drifting and “tumbling” nearby. Harrison Schmitt also stated that this phenomenon “is similar to the Fourth of July.”

The next day, Mission Commander Eugene Cernan reported detecting “some series of lines” accompanied by an intense light flashing between his eyes, which he compared to a train headlights. Over the next three hours, Cernan said he observed more flashes as well as rotation phenomena that he said corresponded to objects in space.

On the third day, Schmitt announced that he observed a flare on the lunar surface in the northern part of the Moon. Grimaldi (crater).

To explain some of the phenomena they observed, the astronauts hypothesized that the source might be different stages of the Saturn V rocket that propelled them to the moon.

Pentagon to investigate Apollo 17 photo

The Pentagon also included a previously released photo showing three bright lights appearing in a triangle formation above the lunar surface, which it said was currently being investigated.

“There is no consensus on the nature of the anomaly,” the Pentagon said in disclosure filings. “New preliminary analysis from the US government suggests that the image feature was potentially the result of a physical object at the scene.”

Trump and Pentagon release UFO disclosure files

The transcript was included in a series of files that the Pentagon posted on its new website on May 8. war.gov/UFO.

The statement came after the President Donald Trump He had previously signaled that he was appointing the Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and other government officials to publicly release “government files regarding alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”

The documents come from the White House, the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, NASA and the Department of Energy.

Hegseth said in a May 8 press release that the Pentagon was “in lockstep” with Trump “to provide unprecedented transparency regarding our government’s understanding of Unidentified Anomalous Events.”

Other NASA missions, including Gemini VII, are also included in UFO files

It looks like Apollo 17 is far from the only NASA mission to observe unidentified objects in space.

The Pentagon’s first release included Apollo 11 and 12, as well as Gemini VII and skylabAn orbital outpost that was the predecessor of the International Space Station.

The Gemini VII mission to Earth orbit in 1965 was NASA’s 10th crewed spaceflight ever. Here is what was said in a shared communication text: newly released files During the mission between crew members Jim Lovell and Frank Borman at what is now Johnson Space Center in Houston:

• Borman reported seeing a “bogey” and a debris field, referring to an unknown aircraft.

• Lovell described observing “a bright object on the sun against a black background with trillions of particles on it.”

• The accompanying document also includes handwritten notes detailing the encounter, annotated with the phrase “Borman’s UFO Sighting.”

Apollo 11 and 12 astronauts witnessed unidentified event, Pentagon report says

Apollo 11 made history in 1969 as the first mission to successfully land astronauts on the moon. But one released information A document dated July 31, 1969 suggests that the crew may have witnessed all three UFO sightings.

The observations highlighted in the document written by Buzz Aldrin — all made during the crew’s return trip to Earth — include an object heading toward the moon that the astronauts speculated might be the Saturn V launch vehicle. The astronauts also witnessed two flashes of light in the crew cabin and a bright light tentatively assumed to be a laser.

During Apollo 12 in 1969—the fourth crewed mission under the program and the second mission to land astronauts on the moon—astronauts twice reported observing an unidentified phenomenon above the surface. files.

Based on the files, excerpts from Apollo 12’s “air-to-ground technical audio transcriptions” say the following:

• Alan Bean, the pilot of the lunar module, said that on the 5th day, he observed particles and flashes of light “sailing through space”, which he described as “escaping the moon”.

• On Day 6, Mission Commander Charles “Pete” Conrad described observing debris floating outside the lunar module illuminated by the module’s onboard tracking light.

Contributors: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, Bart JansenUSA TODAY

Eric Lagatta is a Space Connect correspondent for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com.

This article first appeared on USA TODAY: Trump’s statement includes Apollo 17 UFO files. what did they see