The new TV series “NASA’s Unexplained Files” from the Science Channel will release its first season this Tuesday and an upcoming episode of the show will focus on an odd situation that Apollo 10 astronauts experienced during their journey. They heard “weird music” while on the dark side of the moon.
The Apollo 10 mission was launched in May 1969 and it was the second mission to orbit the moon after Apollo 8. They were the first mission to be able to broadcast moving color images from inside a lunar capsule. This journey was considered a “dress rehearsal” for landing the moon for the first time. Its success allowed Apollo 11 to accomplish that mission in July 1969.
In 2008, classified NASA materials from Apollo 10 mission were discovered and made public after being locked for over 40 years. The materials included a series of tapes of the astronauts aboard the capsule saying they were hearing strange sounds while they were passing around the dark side of the moon.
Outer space-type music
The music the astronauts heard was definitely not like the songs from the Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon album. Gene Cernan, John Young, and Thomas Stafford, who were the three astronauts on board, described those sounds as odd whistling or “whooing” sounds
On the tape, it could be heard how the astronauts make comments about these sounds. One of them says it was like “outer space-type music”.
To make matters worse, the astronauts lost all radio contact with mission control when they were at that other side of the moon and began hearing the noises. Anyone can notice that it was a frightening situation for the astronauts as being far away from their planet and having no one to ask for help.
Shall we tell NASA?
On the tapes, it could also be heard how the astronauts discuss if they should or should not inform NASA about what they heard.
“Shall we tell [NASA] about it?” one of them asks.“I don’t know, we ought to think about it” another one replies, as published in the related article on Fox News.
The astronauts were worried about being taken as delusional and having lost their minds, which could ruin their chances to fly on a future mission. Back on Earth, the tapes were transcribed, classified and then archived, and the astronauts chose not to talk much about their weird experience.
Trying to find an explanation
In the TV series, there is a segment were they discuss a series of similar sounds that were recorded by the Cassini spacecraft around Saturn, but they explain those sounds come from charged particles moving through the magnetic environment of the planet.
They explain that the moon does not have an atmosphere nor a magnetic field so the sounds could not possibly come from it.
Another theory to explain the sounds says that they were hearing the resulted noises of radio interference between radios in their capsule when they lost contact with mission control. However, Apollo astronaut Al Worden opposes to this theory since astronauts do know the sounds they are supposed to be hearing.
“Logic tells me that if there was something recorded on there, then there was something there”, he says on the TV show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjLZBrQ-Oq4
Source: Fox News