Apollo 10: Declassified NASA Audio Shows Astronauts Hearing Weird 'Outer Space' Music on Moon's Far Side
The Apollo 10 astronauts allegedly heard a weird "outer space" music playing on their headsets while they were on the far side of the moon in May 1969, based on declassified NASA audio recording.
The recently released NASA audio recording of the Apollo 10 mission was featured in a Science Channel episode titled "NASA's Unexplained Files." Based on the recording, all the astronauts aboard the space craft heard the music, which was described as some sort of a whistling sound, Tech Insider reports.
Apollo 10 astronauts Eugene Cernan, John Young, and Thomas Stafford were practicing how to separate and dock the Moon lander and orbiter when the discussion turned to the weird sounds, Wired details.
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"That music even sounds outer-spacey, doesn't it?" lunar module pilot Cernan is heard asking command module pilot Young in the audio. "You hear that? That whistling sound?"
The full transcript of the astronauts' discussion on what they heard was publicly released in 2008. When they first heard the strange sound, they were not sure if they were going to report it or not. Stafford even said nobody will believe them if they did.
If they exhibited any sign that they were unstable, NASA would ground them, the report explains.
After several decades, the Cassini spacecraft captured a similar sound from Saturn. The transmission was reportedly attributed to charged particles moving around the magnetic environment surrounding the planet, and the distortion of those particles is what produces the eerie sounds.
However, planetary scientist Kevin Grazier points out that the moon does not have a magnetic field.
NASA explains that the sound was caused by interference between the radios on the lunar module and the command module, much like what happens when one holds a cellphone near a speaker.
NASA astronaut Alfred Worden argues that the Apollo 10 crew members were very used to the sounds that they were supposed to hear. Thus, there must have been "something recorded" there.
All three astronauts on Apollo 10 never publicly discussed the strange sounds they heard back then.
