Preliminary Gemini 4 Crew Debriefing, Part II, 1965

This is the second half of the preliminary transcript of the Gemini 4 crew debriefing, taped aboard the recovery carrier USS Wasp. For anyone interested in what James McDivitt and Ed White saw in orbit, it is the important half, because it contains the session devoted specifically to visual sightings, on pages 196 to 224.

Why this mission draws attention

Gemini 4 is the source of one of the best-known astronaut UFO stories. McDivitt reported seeing an object near the spacecraft that he described as cylindrical with an arm sticking out, and a photo later circulated as the “McDivitt UFO.” Accounts differ on what it was. NASA at first matched it to the large Pegasus-2 satellite, which turned out to be more than a thousand miles away; the space writer James Oberg later argued that it was most likely the mission’s own booster stage, seen by a pilot with irritated eyes. McDivitt himself said the widely published photo showed sunlight striking a bolt and flaring in the camera lens, not his object.

NASA’s description of this file does not summarize what the Visual Sightings section says, so it should not be assumed to settle the question; it is the crew’s first-hand account in the days after landing.

Related records

The rest of the debriefing is in Part I. The controversy over McDivitt’s sighting is laid out in Oberg’s article, which NASA enclosed in replies to UFO mail in the late-1990s correspondence file.