Translunar coast: Apollo 11 crew observes unidentified tumbling object near the spacecraft
During Apollo 11's flight to the Moon in July 1969, about a day out, astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins observed a bright, sizeable object near the spacecraft that appeared L-shaped or like an open suitcase through the monocular and like a hollow tumbling cylinder in the sextant; Mission Control placed the S-IVB stage 6,000 miles away, and the crew reached no conclusion about what it was.
Background
The Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing of 31 July 1969 (excerpt, pages 6-33 to 6-39 and 21-1 to 21-2) records three observations. First, about one day out from Earth on the translunar coast, the crew noticed a brighter object among many small particles; it seemed to be within their vicinity and of sizeable dimension, right at the limit of the eye's resolution. Through the monocular it looked L-shaped or 'like an open suitcase'; in the sextant it appeared as a hollow tumbling cylinder or two connected rings, changing with focus. They asked Mission Control about the S-IVB stage and were told it was 6,000 miles away; they ruled out the urine dump and speculated about a panel or Mylar from the lunar module or part of the high-gain antenna, but reached no conclusion on its identity, size or distance. Second, Aldrin described faint flashes inside the darkened cabin about once a minute, which Armstrong also observed on the last night; the crew guessed at particles. Third, approaching the Earth-rise in lunar orbit, Aldrin saw a bright light source on Earth tentatively ascribed to a laser, which the crew later judged more probably a sun reflection off a lake. The document contains no official determination. The details are taken from the records released by the U.S. Department of War (record code NASA-UAP-D4) and do not represent an independent determination by From Beyond Space.