Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, 1969

This is the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing, dated July 31, 1969 and prepared by the Mission Operations Branch, Flight Crew Support Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is a confidential transcript. In it, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins describe a bright L-shaped object seen about a day out from the Moon, which they could not identify and suspected came from the spacecraft. They also report light flashes inside the cabin and a bright light from Earth that was probably a reflection off a lake.

From the source:Release of 2026-05-08 Apollo 11 was the third crewed mission to the Moon and the first to land Astronauts on the lunar surface. This document is an excerpt from the Apollo 11 Technical Crew Debriefing (Volumes 1 and 2) from July 31, 1969. The document highlights three observations: one, an object on the way out to the Moon; two, flashes of light inside the cabin; and three, a sighting on the return trip of a bright light tentatively assumed by the crew to be a laser. • Page 6-33 (Vol. 1). [Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin]: “The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was 1 day out or something pretty close to the moon. It had a sizeable dimension to it, so we put the monocular on it.” The crew speculated that it could have been the S-IVB stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle. • Page 6-37 (Vol. 1). [Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin] “The other observation that I made accumulated gradually. I don’t know whether I saw it the first night, but I’m sure I saw it the second night. I was trying to go to sleep with all the lights out. I observed what I thought were little flashes inside the cabin, spaced a couple of minutes apart…” • Page 21-1 (Vol. 2). [Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin] “I observed what appeared to be a fairly bright light source which we tentatively ascribed to a possible laser.”

ARMSTRONG We should say that it was right at the limit of the resolution of the eye. It was very difficult to tell just what shape it was. And there was no way to tell the size without knowing the range or the range without knowing the size.

ALDRIN So then I got down in the LEB and started looking for it in the optics. We were grossly mislead because with the sextant off focus what we saw appeared to be a cylinder.

ARMSTRONG Or really two rings.

ALDRIN Yes.

ARMSTRONG Two rings. Two connected rings.

COLLINS No, it looked like a hollow cylinder to me. It didn't look like two connected rings. You could see this thing tumbling and, when it came around end-on, you could look right down in its guts. It was a hollow cylinder. But then you could change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by this open-book shape. It was really weird.

ALDRIN I guess there's not too much more to say about it other than it wasn't a cylinder.