Author Topic: Apollo 10 mystery sound  (Read 37962 times)

Offline AegeanBlue

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Apollo 10 mystery sound
« on: 02/22/2016 12:51 am »
Currently a trending topic on facebook which has led to a large number of articles is a mystery sound, reminiscent of music, that was heard by the Apollo 10 astronauts while they were on the back side of the moon. Apparently they talk about it on the season premiere of NASA's Unexplained Files. NASA intends to release this sound to the internet, soon. Since I have not seen any thread, I decided to start one. Would anyone like to speculate what the mystery sound may be?

Offline Danderman

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #1 on: 02/22/2016 01:13 am »
probably a system sound that was covered up when there was radio traffic with Earth.

Offline Graham

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #2 on: 02/22/2016 01:17 am »
probably a system sound that was covered up when there was radio traffic with Earth.
I believe a more likely explanation is that aliens were performing Dark Side of the Moon, on the Dark Side of the Moon.  ;)
« Last Edit: 02/22/2016 01:19 am by Graham »
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Offline the_other_Doug

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #3 on: 02/22/2016 02:09 am »
This was actually reported by most of the Apollo missions from 10 onwards.  It was heard over the VHF comm link between the CSM and LM, and has been described variously as a "wooh-wooh" kind of sound, a "whooshing" sound and a sound like wind rustling through tree limbs.  It was heard mostly while the vehicles were talking to each other on the far side, but also at times while they talked with each other via the VHF radio on the near side, as well.

I've never seen any resolution as to where the sound came from, but it's obviously some kind of EM interference in the VHF bands.  Could have been a solar wind effect, I guess, or an effect from the solar wind impingement on the Moon.
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline Eric Hedman

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #4 on: 02/22/2016 02:27 am »
Since this was four years before Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon, it is probably safe to assume that they heard the recording and plagiarized aliens for their music.   ;) 8)

Offline topo334

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #5 on: 02/22/2016 02:49 am »
I saw an article about this on Huffington Post.Huff produced a video made up of still images and their own added synthesizer sounds, zero content. This sort of thing is commonly known as "clickbait". designed to get the viewer onto another page or pages so additional advertising revenue is generated. Father Jack had a word for it; Fek!!!

Offline Warren Platts

Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #6 on: 02/22/2016 03:56 am »
I see Drudge has picked up the story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3456741/Apollo-10-astronauts-heard-mysterious-music-far-moon-newly-uncovered-tapes-reveal-no-wasn-t-Pink-Floyd.html?ito=social-facebook#comments

(Has embedded video that apparently plays some of the "music" toward the last 30 seconds or so.)

What is interesting to me is that it was classified until 2008--nearly 40 years. This tells me that they weren't 100% sure it was not aliens. Which entails that if NASA ever did find any actual evidence of intelligent extraterrestrials, they would keep it a secret. Which raises the question: What else is still classified?
« Last Edit: 02/22/2016 04:02 am by Warren Platts »
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Offline Warren Platts

Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #7 on: 02/22/2016 04:00 am »
Probably it was the result of a couple of factors IMO: the gain on the radio receivers would have automatically cranked up, and thus picked up electronic interference from the other equipment in the spacecraft. Computers in those days were known to project radio emissions that could be picked up by radios. Here is a video of an old DEC computer generating interference that is picked up by a transistor AM radio:

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline kking

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #8 on: 02/22/2016 06:02 am »
I hope we get the audio soon. The internet archive already has a bunch of onboard tapes online from Apollo 10, not all of them. Can't wait to hear the rest.

Offline lcs

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #9 on: 02/22/2016 06:12 am »
Mike Collins said many years ago in "Carrying the Fire" that NASA engineers told him the sound was due to interference between the LM and CSM VHF radios.  It only occurred when they were in close proximity.
« Last Edit: 02/25/2016 02:51 am by lcs »

Offline Star One

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #10 on: 02/22/2016 08:42 am »

Mike Collins said many years ago in "Caryying the Fire" that NASA engineers told him the sound was due to interference between the LM and CSM VHF radios.  It only occurred when they were in close proximity.

What like feedback or is it called howl around?

Offline Proponent

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #11 on: 02/22/2016 08:57 am »
What is interesting to me is that it was classified until 2008--nearly 40 years. This tells me that they weren't 100% sure it was not aliens.

Maybe it's just that NASA was 100% sure that releasing the tapes would generate a lot of nonsense about aliens that it did not want to deal with.

Offline kch

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #12 on: 02/22/2016 09:12 am »
probably a system sound that was covered up when there was radio traffic with Earth.

I believe a more likely explanation is that aliens were performing Dark Side of the Moon, on the Dark Side of the Moon.  ;)

:)

Offline hopalong

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #13 on: 02/22/2016 10:11 am »
Probably it was the result of a couple of factors IMO: the gain on the radio receivers would have automatically cranked up, and thus picked up electronic interference from the other equipment in the spacecraft. Computers in those days were known to project radio emissions that could be picked up by radios. Here is a video of an old DEC computer generating interference that is picked up by a transistor AM radio:



PDP8/e - That takes me back to when I was doing my CSE Computer Studies (UK school exam for 15/16 year olds) back in '75. we had use of a PDP8/e with all of 4K of core store  :)

Offline Warren Platts

Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #14 on: 02/22/2016 10:59 am »

PDP8/e - That takes me back to when I was doing my CSE Computer Studies (UK school exam for 15/16 year olds) back in '75. we had use of a PDP8/e with all of 4K of core store  :)

lol! Reminds of my first computer class--the first ever taught at our high school--must have been around '78 or '79, the Commodore PETS had 8K memory. We used to play those Avalon Hill wargames; my first project was to automate all the dice and charts used in "Tobruk". Maxed out the memory, but we got a chip that doubled it to 16K! ;)
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline Warren Platts

Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #15 on: 02/22/2016 12:00 pm »
What is interesting to me is that it was classified until 2008--nearly 40 years. This tells me that they weren't 100% sure it was not aliens.

Maybe it's just that NASA was 100% sure that releasing the tapes would generate a lot of nonsense about aliens that it did not want to deal with.

Respectfully disagree. Avoidance of nonsense is not a justification for classification. You call it nonsense now--but that is with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight. E.g., after the first few missions to the Moon, the astronauts were kept in quarantine in modified airstream trailers for like three weeks--much longer than the actual mission. We look back on that now and think about how paranoidally crazy that was, but at the time it was considered a legitimate safety precaution.

Which brings us back to the decision to classify the Apollo 10 Dark Side of the Moon tapes. Why would they do that? It couldn't have had anything to with what the Soviets were doing. There was no new technology involved they were trying to protect. If it was normal (inanimate) radio emissions of scientific interest it wouldn't have been classified. If they were 100.000% sure it was just onboard radio interference, it wouldn't have been classified.

Remember, at the time of Apollo 10 (May 1969),the USAF's Project Blue Book was still open, and the Air Force continued to investigate UFO reports through at least the mid-1970's, particularly those seen near atomic bomb tests. Therefore, the NASA at the time would not have been in a position to conclusively rule the presence of intelligent ETs within the inner Solar System.

Indeed, if you think about it, if you were an ET studying human life on Earth, while operating under a version of Star Trek's "Prime Directive" (prohibition of interfering with the evolution of primitive intelligent species like humans), what better place to set up your FOB than the Dark Side of the Moon: close yet hidden from sight.

It was very strange that the "music" only seemed to occur on the Dark Side. Given the state of scientific knowledge at the time, Project Blue Book, speculation about deadly lunar microbes, and the weirdness of the "space music" that only seemed to occur during Dark Side passages, the folks at NASA could not have been 100.000% sure that the "music" was NOT from an intelligent ET source.

Probably they had a team of people that attempted to decipher any hidden meaning to it.

But the question remains: If they were not sure that the "music" was not of alien origin, then why classify it? 40 years of classification goes beyond ordinary data embargoes that last until the scientists get their story straight. The only answer is that there must be a US government policy that extended to NASA, that in the words of the immortal George H. W. Bush, that "Americans can't handle truth" when it comes to the possible existence of intelligent extraterrestrial aliens...
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #16 on: 02/22/2016 01:22 pm »
Probably it was the result of a couple of factors IMO: the gain on the radio receivers would have automatically cranked up, and thus picked up electronic interference from the other equipment in the spacecraft. Computers in those days were known to project radio emissions that could be picked up by radios. Here is a video of an old DEC computer generating interference that is picked up by a transistor AM radio:


Reminds me of when I was in college and the CS kids lift the feet on the VAX 11/780 hard drives and race them down the hall. Good times!
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Offline Rocket Science

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #17 on: 02/22/2016 02:17 pm »
Anything that keeps spaceflight on the minds and wagging tongues of John Q is a good thing... ;D
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~Rob: Physics instructor, Aviator

Offline whitelancer64

Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #18 on: 02/22/2016 02:56 pm »
A lot of the classified information on Apollo was related to the technology involved. NASA was borrowing cutting edge military technology to send people to the Moon, and surveillance cameras from the CIA for lunar imaging, and so on, and that sort of thing was highly classified at the time.

There are various levels of classification and a wide variety of time periods that things can remain classified, anywhere from a couple of years to decades.

Generally, documents can only remain classified for longer than 25 years if they are related to weapons of mass destruction, or military, government, or intelligence operations or there are national security concerns.

Documents can only remain classified for longer than 50 years if they are closely related to weapons of mass destruction or would compromise military, government, or intelligence operations.

Documents or information older than 75 years require special permissions to remain classified.

I would speculate that the reason for the classification of the Apollo 10 audio is that the communications technology was vital to the military. Anything that might interfere with radio transmissions would be of high interest, whether to figure out if it could be used against our enemies or to figure out a way to neutralize it. Radio communications technology, both for transmitting and jamming of signals, remains an area of active military research, which would explain its prolonged period of classification.

No need whatsoever for aliens to be involved.
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Offline Jim

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Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #19 on: 02/22/2016 03:02 pm »
which would explain its prolonged period of classification.

How about apathy as a reason for the long period.  Static condition for most classified information in the past is to remain classified. Declassification is a proactive task.  Somebody has to actively find the record and then work the declassification review, which take resources (time, money, personnel, etc).  Keeping something in a safe, once it is in a safe, doesn't take much resources.

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