NASA-UAP-D3, Gemini 7 Transcript, 1965
Gemini 7 was the tenth crewed American spaceflight. This document is a transcript of communications between the flight crew, Astronauts James “Jim” Lovell and Frank Borman, and the Manned Flight Center (now known as Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas. The transcript begins with Borman’s report of a “bogey,” contemporary nomenclature for an unknown aircraft, as well as a debris field. Borman described the debris field as consisting of “very, very many […] hundreds of little particles.” He estimated the particles’ distance from the spacecraft to be four miles. Lovell described observing a “brilliant body in the sun against a black background with trillions of particles on it.”
This document also includes handwritten notes documenting the encounter, annotated with the phrase “UFO Sighting by Borman” in the top right corner.
Document Highlights
Note: Highlights are derived from OCR-recognized document passages and file metadata. Please verify important claims against the original scan.
Short overview
NASA-UAP-D3 is a typed transcript of a NASA public affairs (P.A.O.) release of air-to-ground communications from the Gemini 7 flight in December 1965, in which Frank Borman reports a “bogey” and a field of particles and Jim Lovell describes the booster; it is followed by three pages of handwritten notes.
Why this is interesting
The transcript lets the exchange unfold in sequence: Borman reports a bogey at ten o’clock high, Houston asks whether it is the booster or a “natural sighting,” and Borman answers that they have debris up there, that this is an actual sighting, and that they also have the booster in sight. He then describes hundreds of little particles passing on the left about three or four miles away and heading into polar orbit. Lovell’s line about a “brilliant body in the sun” with “trillions of particles” refers, in the transcript, to the booster on his side, slowly tumbling at two o’clock. In closing, the P.A.O. speaks of a third, unidentified object that it calls a bogey, without explaining it further. The handwritten pages are largely illegible in the scan.
Selected passages
- “I SAID WE HAVE A BOGEY AT TEN O'CLOCK HIGH.”
- “IT LOOKS LIKE HUNDREDS OF LITTLE PARTICLES GOING BY TO THE LEFT OUT ABOUT THREE OR FOUR MILES.”
- “A BRILLIANT BODY IN THE SUN AGAINST A BLACK BACKGROUND WITH TRILLIONS OF PARTICLES ON IT.”