Author Topic: Apollo 10 mystery sound  (Read 37966 times)

Offline the_other_Doug

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3010
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Liked: 2191
  • Likes Given: 4620
Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #60 on: 02/25/2016 01:06 am »

NASA does not and never has had a policy for dealing with aliens. Nor does any other spacefaring nation.

So it's the Air Force's or USSTRATCOM's job?

No, no US government agency has a set policy regarding the discovery of aliens or alien contact. Nor, so far as I'm aware, does any other nation or any other nation's agencies, nor nearly all other international agencies.

The only (so far as I'm aware) international agency on Earth with a set policy of what to do if they discover evidence of or make contact with aliens is SETI. Basically their plan is to call in experts to triple-check to see if what they have is real and then they call up the UN to set up an international press conference.

That's probably also along the lines of what would happen if NASA or any other government agency (or any other nation or their agencies) discovered evidence for aliens.

The U.N. talked about setting up a specific policy about five years ago, but I can't find any indication that they actually adopted one.

The best info on the web about this seems to be Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-detection_policy

This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the radio interference heard on Apollo missions' VHF radio sets.

At all.
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline Ronpur50

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2117
  • Brandon, FL
  • Liked: 1028
  • Likes Given: 1884
Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #61 on: 02/25/2016 12:07 pm »
I have just found this story, and I am a bit confused.  I remember reading something about radio noise on Apollo flights behind the moon when I was about 12 or 13.  That would have been the mid 70s.  My memory is rather fuzzy on it, was a long time ago. Why is this suddenly being claimed to have been classified before now? 

I suppose I could be remembering something else......

The noises heard on the VHF radio sets behind the Moon on the Apollo missions have been known -- not classified -- since at least 1973, when Mike Collins' book Carrying the Fire came out which described what he heard on Apollo 11.

The transcripts of the on-board recordings were classified for several years, and were then declassified, something like 12 years after the flights.  The recordings themselves weren't classified all this time, they just weren't archived in a publicly accessible format until relatively recently.

The recording in question, from Apollo 10, has been linked to at the Apollo Flight Journal website for some time.  So, it hasn't even been recently released.

The furor is media-generated and exacerbated by poor reporting.

Collins' book is exactly where I read it in.  My school library had a copy that I checked out a few times over the years.

Offline jak Kennedy

  • Full Member
  • **
  • Posts: 261
  • Liked: 134
  • Likes Given: 743
Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #62 on: 02/25/2016 12:23 pm »
How do they have recordings from the dark side of the moon? I didn't know they carried tapes and recording equipment on the space craft. Seems like a lot of unnecessary weight if so.
... the way that we will ratchet up our species, is to take the best and to spread it around everybody, so that everybody grows up with better things. - Steve Jobs

Offline the_other_Doug

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3010
  • Minneapolis, MN
  • Liked: 2191
  • Likes Given: 4620
Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #63 on: 02/25/2016 12:45 pm »
How do they have recordings from the dark side of the moon? I didn't know they carried tapes and recording equipment on the space craft. Seems like a lot of unnecessary weight if so.

Oh, but you're wrong.  Both the CM and the LM had onboard tape recorders -- called DSE equipment -- which they could turn on and off, or the ground could turn on and off remotely.

The reason was that several critical maneuvers on an Apollo mission occurred out of radio contact with Earth, on the far side of the Moon.  The DSE recorded both the voices from the cockpit and the telemetry stream normally transmitted back to Houston.  Thus, not only the crew comments but also detailed engineering data about the spacecraft performance were recorded.

The on-board recordings were transcribed and those transcriptions have been available online for literally decades.  They make for some entertaining reading at times -- especially from more of the colorful crews, like Conrad's Apollo 12 crew...
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline notsorandom

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1740
  • Ohio
  • Liked: 438
  • Likes Given: 91
Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #64 on: 02/25/2016 12:57 pm »
The on-board recordings were transcribed and those transcriptions have been available online for literally decades.  They make for some entertaining reading at times -- especially from more of the colorful crews, like Conrad's Apollo 12 crew...
I always thought that the more interesting noise coming from the Apollo 10 communications systems occurred when they staged the LEM and ignited the ascent stage.

Offline Warren Platts

Re: Apollo 10 mystery sound
« Reply #65 on: 02/26/2016 03:34 pm »
Does anybody know anything about the 1977 study? Guess that would have been under President Carter. Strange...

A report summarizing the events of 1977 can be found here:

henry.pha.jhu.edu/aaaLibrary/ufosNASA.pdf

Copies of the original letter from the White House and the subsequent correspondence from NASA start on page 17

Basically, the White House wanted to shift the burden of dealing with UFO reports and inquiries from itself to NASA. NASA looked into the previous ten years of UFO reports, decided that there wasn't anything worth investigating, and declined, with the caveat that if there were any hard evidence of UFOs available in the future, then NASA would be only too glad to investigate it.

Thanks for the link. The Journal for Scientific Exploration may not be the most prestigious journal on the Planet, but that is a good article by an actual NASA scientist working at Washington HQ at the time. Turns out that Jimmy Carter himself had reported seeing a UFO while he was still the governor of Georgia. I can see him bugging the Air Force for the Truth at Area 51 and thinking he was getting stonewalled!  ;D Apparently he was more interested in the heavens than most presidents--according to the article, he asked if he could borrow a telescope from NASA to take with him to Camp David over a Thanksgiving weekend. A telescope was promptly flown up from MSFC!

Anyway, the result was probably the closest thing to a NASA policy statement concerning UFOs that is out there (see attachment below):

Quote
if a new element of hard evidence that UFOs exist is brought
to NASA's attention from a credible source, NASA will analyze the
unexplained organic or inorganic sample and report its findings....

There is an absence of tangible or physical evidence
available for thorough laboratory analysis. And, because of
the absence of such evidence, we have not been able to devise a
sound scientific procedure for investigating these phenomena.
To proceed on a research task without a sound disciplinary
framework and an exploratory technique in mind would be wasteful
and probably unproductive....

I wish in no way to indicate that NASA has come to any
conclusion about these phenomena as such; institutionally, we
retain an open mind....

As for the classification of the Apollo 10 transcript, I took a look at the facsimile that SpaceCollector linked to. As he stated, the whole thing was marked "CONFIDENTIAL", but it may have been declassified even before 12 years was up (1981) as the NASA Information Sheet 78-1 (dated February 1, 1978) states that "The air-to-ground tapes of all manned missions are available at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, for review by the serious researcher."

As for the outer-spacey music, it seemed that the guys were more impressed by the awesome scenery going by, and more worried by the all the master caution alarms going off, not to mention fuel pressure gauges that were reading zero!  ;)

« Last Edit: 02/26/2016 03:37 pm by Warren Platts »
"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

Tags:
 

Advertisement NovaTech
Advertisement Northrop Grumman
Advertisement
Advertisement Margaritaville Beach Resort South Padre Island
Advertisement Brady Kenniston
Advertisement NextSpaceflight
Advertisement Nathan Barker Photography
0