What the Apollo 10 astronauts heard as they flew over the far side of the moon

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

“These sounds are like music from outer space. Do you hear this? During the Apollo 10 mission in 1969, three American NASA astronauts heard cryptic but distinct sounds coming from their radio. At that time, there was no connection with the Earth, since the astronauts were on the other side of the Moon.

The objective of the Apollo 10 mission was to make a test flight around the moon before the next mission made the first landing on an Earth satellite. Each time they skirted the moon and lost sight of the Earth, communication with the base was interrupted and the astronauts were left on their own. It was at this moment that the astronauts heard strange "whistling sounds," which they likened to "music from outer space."

None of the astronauts knew where these sounds came from and how they could be explained. "I wonder what it might be?" one of the astronauts asked. At that time, three men took part in the mission: Eugene Cernan, Thomas Stafford and John Young. "Nobody will believe us," John Young commented then.

Later, when NASA began to listen to the recordings of astronauts during the mission, this part of the recording was declared classified, since none of the specialists could explain the nature of incomprehensible sounds in a space module completely isolated from the outside world. In 2008, however, almost 40 years later, NASA did publish recordings of the conversations, commenting that the sounds heard by the astronauts then were nothing more than radio interference - the result of radio waves layering.

NASA published the audio recording of that conversation even later - almost 50 years later (in 2016). An annoying, drawn-out whistling sound was clearly heard on the recording, which literally drowned out the voices of the astronauts. The sound sounded with different intensities for about an hour. Interestingly, Mike Collins, an astronaut of the Apollo 11 mission, also heard the same sounds - he wrote about this in his book published in 1974. In his notes, he recalls that hearing this sound was very, very strange. "If I had not been warned about him, I would have been scared to death there."

Apollo 15 astronaut Al Warden, however, is confident that it is not radio interference. "Logic tells me that something else was recorded then," says the astronaut in the Discovery documentary NASA Secret Files. - "I think there was something there then." Why was it necessary to hide the records for so long and what really became the source of "space music" - NASA did not provide an answer to these questions.

In due time in our article "NASA archives declassified" we have published photos from the first landing of astronauts on the lunar surface - we advise you to see them.