NASA-UAP-D012 is a NASA audio record released in PURSUE Release 02 on May 22, 2026. The PURSUE the release record identifies the contributing agency as NASA, the incident date as October 3, 1962, and the location as low Earth orbit.12
White Objects From The Capsule
The excerpt is drawn from the Mercury Atlas 8 mission. The PURSUE release note records that Sigma 7 pilot Walter M. "Wally" Schirra Jr. describes observing "little white objects that tend to come from the capsule itself and drift off." Schirra also refers to those objects as "particles" and "lathe shavings."
A Burst Of Light At Sunset
Schirra additionally describes seeing a burst of light in the window whose source he cannot identify. He speculates that his observation corresponds with the moment the Sun passes below the horizon during sunset. The audio clip is hosted on DVIDS and is available as a direct MP4 rendition.34
What The Record Supports
NASA-UAP-D012 preserves Schirra's first-person, contemporaneous descriptions of small objects drifting from Sigma 7 and of an unidentified burst of light. Schirra himself offered a provisional tie between that light and the sunset horizon, but the record draws no further conclusion. The objects' origin and the light source remain unresolved and unidentified within the audio excerpt itself.