Weird music was heard by Apollo 10 astronauts who were in orbit on the far side Moon in 1969, emerged recordings which had been lost for decades revealed. The astronauts were taken aback by the ‘outer-space type music’ because at the time the Moon was blocking all radio transmissions originating from Earth.
How could the astronauts have heard music in their headsets when the Moon was blocking all radio transmissions coming from their home planet? At the time, the Apollo 10 crew did not know whether to report the mysterious event. It appears they eventually decided to say nothing, or perhaps they did and NASA kept quiet about it.
The incident occurred just a few months before the historic lunar landings by the Apollo 11 astronauts.
How did the astronauts feel when they suddenly heard ‘space music’ coming from their headsets, knowing it most probably did not come from Earth? Why did they apparently keep quiet about it? (Image: Wikipedia)
Space music incident never reported
The Apollo 10 crew were in orbit on the far side of the Moon – for a period of about one hour all radio contact with Earth was not possible.
The ‘space music’ incident was never reported to the general public, who were left with the impression that everything had gone smoothly.
Several decades later, the lost recordings emerged, containing ‘strange, otherworldly music’ coming through the Apollo module’s radio, according to NASA’s Unexplained Files, an upcoming Science Channel series.
The Huffington Post quotes the following conversation between the three astronauts as they tried to come to terms with what they were hearing:
– “It sounds like, you know, outer space-type music.”
– “You hear that? That whistling sound? Whooooooooo!”
– “Well, that sure is weird music!”
If a spacecraft or space observatory is on the far side of the Moon, it cannot received radio signals because they are blocked by the Moon. So, how did the Apollo 10 astronauts here music when no signals were coming from Earth? (Image adapted from flickr.com)
Spacemen discussed what to do
The enigmatic music transmission continued for nearly a whole hour. Just before their spacecraft was about to regain radio contact with Earth, the three men discussed whether to keep quiet about what they had just heard or tell ground control about it.
Their conversation went as follows:
– “It’s unbelievable! You know?”
– “Shall we tell them about it?”
– “I don’t know. We ought to think about it.”
Al Worden, an Apollo 15 astronaut, explains on the Science Channel programme:
“The Apollo 10 crew was very used to the kind of noise that they should be hearing. Logic tells me that if there was something recorded on there, then there was something there. NASA would withhold information from the public if they thought it was in the public’s best interest.”
Alfred Merrill ‘Al’ Worden, Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 15 lunar mission in 1971, believes that if it was ‘in the public’s best interest’, NASA would withhold information. There are many incidents where astronauts were flying in space and heard or saw things they did not recognise – one often wonders about all of that, he said. (Image: Wikipedia)
It was not until 2008 that the Apollo 10 mission’s classified transcripts were made available to the public. Since 2008, scientists and lay people have been debating as to the origin and nature of the mysterious sounds the crew members heard.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Mr. Worden said:
“You don’t hear about anything like that until years after the incident occurs, and then you kind of wonder, because it’s such an old memory of those things that you get concerned about if they were making something up or was there something really there? Because you never really know.”
“If you’re behind the moon and hear some weird noise on your radio, and you know you’re blocked from the Earth, then what could you possibly think? We’d had a lot of incidents where guys who flew in space saw and heard things that they didn’t recognize, and you wonder about all of that. I have a very open mind about what could’ve happened. It’s somebody’s hearsay evidence – it’s only a visual or audio event, which is hard to pin down. Recollection is one thing, but actual proof is something entirely different.”
Video – Outer Space Music
Apollo astronauts who were out of radio contact with Earth when they were on the far side of the Moon (in orbit), heard weird ‘space music’ sounds in the headsets. It appears they decided not to report it.