NASA-UAP-D1, Apollo 12 Transcript, 1969
Agency: NASA
Incident date: 1969
Incident location: Moon

Apollo 12 was the fourth crewed U.S. mission to the Moon and the second to land astronauts on the lunar surface. This document is an excerpt from the Apollo 12 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription, November 1969, highlighting two periods in which astronauts reported observing unidentified phenomenon: a one hour period on the fifth day, and a two minute period on the sixth day. These transcripts contain contemporaneous observations by the flight crew reacting to unidentified phenomenon.
•	Day 05, Hour 19, Minute 14, Second 58 through Day 05, Hour 20, Minute 12, Second 14:
o	At 05:19:27:25, the pilot of the Lunar Module (LMP-LM), Astronaut Alan L. Bean, described observing particles and flashes of light “sailing off in space” via the onboard Alignment Optical Telescope (AOT). He characterized these phenomenon as “escaping the Moon.”
•	Day 06, Hour 00, Minute 21, Second 42 through Day 06, Hour 00, Minute 23, Second 33:
o	Mission Commander, Charles “Pete” Conrad, described observing floating debris outside the lunar module, which had been illuminated by the module’s onboard tracking light. At 06:00:21:51, Conrad assessed that the tracking light had burnt out because he could no longer see the debris from the module.

05 19 14 58 
05 19 16 31 
05 19 16 35 
05 19 16 37 
05 19 16 45 
05 19 20 05 
05 19 20 09 
05 19 20 14 
05 19 20 22 
05 19 20 27 
05 19 21.J 31 
05 19 20 36 
05 19 20 53 
05 19 20 59 
05 19 21 10 
05 19 21 20 
05 19 23 14 
05 19 23 20 
05 19 23 39 
05 19 23 52 
05 19 23 57 
05 19 24 05 
) 
cc 
CC 
CDR-I.M 
CC 
CDR-I.M 
CMP 
cc 
CMP 
cc 
CMP 
cc 
CMP 
cc 
CMP 
CC 
CMP 
CDR-I.M 
CC 
cc 
CDR-LM 
C~ 
cc 
Tape 90/3
Page 742 
That's affirmative. 
We're ready for the E-MOD. 
Intrepid, Houston. 
Go. 
If you will give us PO0 and ACCEPI', we'll give 
you a CSM state vector and RLS update. 
You have POO and ACCEPT. 
Hello, Houston; Yankee Clipper. 
Yankee Clipper, Houston. 
Loud and clear. 
Well, hello there, stranger. 
How are you? 
Morning, Dick. 
We are fine. 
How are you? 
Well, pretty good. 
I hope you would like to have 
some company for a change. 
Roger. 
Go~ the house clean? 
As a matter of fact, I Just finished that. 
I 
sure do; got everything in order; ready to go 
towards the IM and bring back . . . 
That's quite 
a chore; keeping this thing clean. 
Roger. 
You got a couple of coal miners coming 
up to see you. 
That's okay. I'll be glad to see them. 
Intrepid, Houston. 
The computer is yours. 
Break. Yankee Clipper, if you will go P00 and 
ACCEPI', we have an uplink. 
All yours . 
Houston, you got the lift-off time for me? 
Stand by. 
Intrepid, Houston. 
Your lift-off time is 
142:03:47, 
I copy 142:03:47.00. 
Affirmative. 
Clipper, Houston. 
Computer's yours.

05 19 24 11 
05 19 24 23 
05 19 24 43 
05 19 24 52 
05 19 25 33 
05 19 25 40 
05 19 25 41 
05 19 25 48 
05 19 27 17 
05 19 27 20 
05 19 27 25 
05 19 27 56 
05 19 28 25 
05 19 28 42 
05 19 28 44 
05 19 29 10 
CMP 
cc 
cc 
CMP 
cc 
CMP 
cc 
CMP 
CDR-IM 
cc 
IMP-LM 
cc 
cc 
CMP 
cc 
CMP 
Tape 90/4 
Page 743 
Okay. 
And Jerry, will you find out what they 
want to do about this battery charge, be~~use 
. I'm using the bus tics during the rendezvous? 
Roger. 
Yankee Clipper, Houston. 
Why don't you figure 
on terminating the battery charge at LOS? 
All right; I could let it go until I 
just 
before lift-off. 
That way it might take it 
all the way up. 
Clipper, Houston. 
We prefer that you terminate 
at LOS on this pass. 
Roger. 
Roger. 
That would be one less thing for us to 
keep track of prior to lift-off. 
Okey. 
Say, Houston, Intrepid. 
Intrepid, Houston. Go. 
Roger. 
When you look out the AOT in the dark 
quadrant? You can see these lights - particles 
of light. flash~s of light just seem to come 
from - in this case, I'm looking in quadrant 1 
which is the left one. It's coming :from behind 
me, the left, and they're just sailing off in 
space. 
I was thinking they're dropping from my 
water boiler. but it looks like some of those 
things are escaping the Moon. 
They really haul 
out of here and just press off at the stars. 
Roger. 
Yankee Clipper~ Houston with a P22 tracking PAD. 
Go ahead. 
Roger. 
Your target is LM; T1 is 139: 57:39; 
T2 is 140:02:38; ~outh 05; latitude is 
minus 3 
Hoger. 
T 112 ­

-
05 20 08 23 
05 20 09 25 
05 20 09 30 
05 20 09 34 
05 20 10 00 
05 20 10 06 
05 20 10 52 
05 20 10 59
) 
05 20 11 03 
05 20 11 32 
05 20 11 37 
05 20 11 39 
05 20 11 56 
05 20 11 59 
05 20 12 01 
05 20 12 08 
05 20 12 11 
05 20 12 14 
) 
cc 
LMP-IM 
cc 
IMP-1..M 
CC 
LMP-IM 
LMP-LM 
CC 
CDR-LM 
CC 
LMP-LM 
cc 
CDR-LM 
IMP-IM 
cc 
CDR-IM 
CDR-IM 
cc 
Tape 90/9 
Page 748 
_)
Clipper, Houston. We'll give that data a good 
evaluation before we do anything with it. 
Houston, Intrepid. 
Intrepid, Houston. 
GO. 
Got sort of an interesting thing going on AGS 
right now. 
I didn't notice earlier, but it may 
just be because the lights i:,.re brighter now. 
I'm getting an all 81 s flash on both the address 
and the information registers at about one-
fifth the brilliance of the normal numbers. 
And 
a - It's pulsing every second. 
Roger, Al. 
If I turn dmm the illumination level just a 
little bit, it's not noticeable. 
Hello, Houston; Intrepid. 
You ready for my RCS 
hot fire? 
Intrepid, Houston. 
Roger. 
Fire aw~. 
Okay. 
Intrepid, Houston. 
Go. 
Roger, Al. 
Fredo is here. 
He and I have both 
seen that phenomena on your DEDA during t estin:', 
of most a.11 the spacecrafts up at Bethpage, and 
it's probably an EMI. 
That's what ve' ve been talking about, but we 
thought we'd just tcucb in on it. 
When you go to your roll rate, roll lef't, pitch 
up - ­
Roger. 
I think TRW's got a v0rkup on this 
problem. 
Okay? 
Here yo~ go, Houston, with roll, pitch, and 
yav. 
Roger, Pete. 
-~---·- ··•···•-·-------- ----
---.--·- -- -···----- -·- -··---·­

.. 
06 00 21 42 
06 co 21 51 
06 00 22 11 
06 00 22 22 
06 00 22 26 
06 00 22 27 
06 00 22 28 
( 
06 00 22 33 
06 00 22 47 
. 06 00 22 53 
06 00 22 59 
06 00 23 11 
06 00 23 19 
06 00 23 26 
06 00 23 33 
) 
CMP 
CDR-IM 
CC 
LMP-LM 
CC 
LMP-LM 
cc 
CDR-LM 
CC 
CDR-IM 
CC 
CDR-IM 
cc 
CMP 
CDR-LM 
• 
Tape 93/8 
Page 778 
But I don't have you in the sextant, That's 
okay. 
Your blinking light's Just not blinking, 
that's all. 
Hey, Houston. It looks like our tracking 
llght's burned out. Dick hasn't been able to 
find us in this sextant. And on the first 
nightside pass we had little bits and pieces 
floating along vith us and we could tell that 
the tracking light va.; flashing on them. 
And 
we still have, I've presumed to think, bits 
and pieces floating along and nothing' s flashing 
on them, so I'm pretty sure it burned out. 
Roger, Pete. 
Yes, sir. Okay. 
Hi, Intrepid. 
Okay. 
This is Houston. 
How'd your sweepdown fore 
and aft go? 
It's getting much cleaner in here running this 
way; and, also, Yankee Clipper informs me he 
bas the television all set up. 
When we come 
around the hor~1, ·we' 11 come around with the 
television on in VOX. 
Roger . 
Who knows, you may get to see the first 
wbiffer<l.ill. 
Roger, Pete. Our electrical watchers say that 
the current indicates that your tracking light 
is on. 
Okay. 
Now ve just turned it off. 
How does the 
current show that? 
It - It sure does, Pete. 
You're - they're - You're flying thr0ugh the 
air b~ckward3, then, Pete, because I don't see 
it. 
Well, my ball tells me I'm pointed at you, Dick, 
and so does my radar.