UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 02 · MAY 22, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · AUDIO · NASA-UAP-D013Mercury Atlas 7, May 24, 1962
This brief recording comes from Aurora 7, Scott Carpenter’s single-day orbital flight on May 24, 1962 — the second American orbital mission after John Glenn’s. Glenn had reported glowing “fireflies” outside his capsule. Here, in just under two minutes, Carpenter gives his own description.
What Carpenter says
He calls the particles white and reflective, says they move about at random, and compares them directly to snowflakes. Some, he says, appeared to be moving faster than the spacecraft itself.
How the story ended
Carpenter’s flight is generally credited with the practical answer to the fireflies question. Accounts of the mission report that when he tapped the capsule wall, a fresh burst of particles flew off, pointing to frost and ice on the spacecraft’s exterior. NASA’s note on Gordon Cooper’s Faith 7 clip gives the agency’s eventual conclusion: frozen condensation separating from the spacecraft. For a later Mercury pilot’s comparison — “lathe shavings” — see Wally Schirra’s Sigma 7 audio.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released May 22, 2026, quoted in full
During the fourth crewed spaceflight and second orbital flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 7 (MA-7), Aurora 7 pilot Scott Carpenter describes white particles in view that appear to move at “random” and “look exactly like snowflakes.” He describes these phenomena as reflective, and that some seemed to move faster than the Aurora 7 spacecraft.