NASA-UAP-D010 is a NASA audio record released in PURSUE Release 02 on May 22, 2026. The contributing agency is NASA, the incident date is May 15, 1963, and the location is low Earth orbit.12
"John's Fireflies" Aboard Faith 7
The excerpt is from Mercury-Atlas 9 (MA-9), the final and longest flight of Project Mercury. Approximately one hour and 41 minutes into the mission, Faith 7 pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. notes that he sees "John's fireflies," referring to John Glenn's term from the earlier Mercury-Atlas 6 mission. The audio clip is hosted on DVIDS and a direct MP4 rendition is publicly accessible.34
NASA's Determination
According to the release note, NASA later determined that the "fireflies" are attributable to frozen condensation separating from the spacecraft body. The white, green-hued appearance of the phenomenon results from sunlight reflecting off the frozen condensation.
What The Record Supports
NASA-UAP-D010 preserves Cooper's in-flight audio reference to the firefly phenomenon first reported by Glenn, together with NASA's stated cause: frozen condensation separating from the spacecraft exterior. The record does not describe an unidentified external object, and no aspect of the phenomenon remains unresolved in NASA's own accounting.