UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 02 · MAY 22, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · AUDIO · NASA-UAP-D009Apollo 17 Audio Excerpt, December 7, 1972
This four-and-a-half-minute recording catches the Apollo 17 crew early in their journey to the Moon, shortly after the spacecraft had separated from the Saturn V’s third stage, the S-IVB. All three astronauts — Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt and Ron Evans — can be heard reacting to bright specks drifting around them.
What the crew says
They describe the particles as “jagged” and “angular,” and refer to them as both “particles” and “fragments.” The specks hang near the spacecraft and the discarded rocket stage, twinkling and drifting away from the S-IVB.
The astronauts float their own explanations as they watch: chips of paint or chips of ice, shed by the stage. Nothing on the recording suggests they regarded the sight as mysterious in any deeper sense; it is a working conversation about debris near the vehicle.
Hearing it alongside the transcript
The same exchange appears in writing in the Apollo 17 air-to-ground transcript, which also covers later sightings on the mission, including a distant flashing object the crew thought was the S-IVB tumbling in sunlight. The audio adds the tone of the moment — the pace and the casual banter — that a transcript flattens. In the written record Cernan calls them flat, flakelike particles that twinkle as they move away. Related observations from earlier spaceflights include the Mercury “fireflies”; see Gordon Cooper’s Faith 7 clip.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released May 22, 2026, quoted in full
During the eleventh and final crewed mission in the Apollo program, Apollo 17 Commander Gene Cernan, Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt, and Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans report seeing small lights outside the Apollo spacecraft during transit to the moon. The crew describe bright “particles” or “fragments” as being “jagged,” “angular,” and drifting near the Apollo spacecraft and the separated Saturn S-IVB stage. The Apollo 17 crew speculate that paint chips or ice chips are likely the source of these lights and note that they “twinkle” and move away from the Saturn S-IVB stage.