Alan B. Shepard Jr.
1923-1998

Freedom 7 & An U.F.O. - 5/5/1961

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The roots of Project Mercury actually go back to the beginning of time. Man has always dreamt of space travel. The way things turned out though, the late 1950s, and the entire 1960s, saw space exploration become a political and ideological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. There was virtually no cooperation in research, development, or operations. Ultimately, this attitude lead to a great deal of wasteful duplication. Each side was trying to top the others' achievements for propaganda and prestige purposes. True science took a back seat to "beating the other guy" to the finish line. And in those times that finish line was the surface of the Moon, as defined by President John F. Kennedy in his famous speech of 25 May 1961.

Project Mercury was the first American step on the road to a Lunar landing. The project was initiated in early 1958 during the Eisenhower Administration as a response to Sputnik 1. It acquired the name Project Mercury on 7 October that year. Great trouble was taken to find, evaluate, and choose the seven men who would become the first Astronauts. This legendary group was introduced to the world on 9 April 1959.

The specific Goals of Mercury were really quite basic. To launch a man into space, keep him alive there whilst recording data on his physical and mental performance, retuning him alive and in one piece. The six manned flights met all of these requirements satisfactorily.

After many tests, and failures, the first American to venture into space was Alan B. Shepard Jr. on 5 May 1961. His 15 minute 28 second sub-orbital hop above the atmosphere aboard MR-3 (Redstone booster) inside his Freedom 7 capsule was something of an anti-climax however. Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had reached orbit nearly a month earlier in Vostok 1, on 12 April 1961. But America was on her way none the less.
The Mercury 7
MR-3 Launch
The View
Recovery
Presidential Contratulations

The second flight (MR-4) on 21 July 1961, with Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom at the controls of Liberty Bell 7 went well (15 minutes 37 seconds), but a fault in the emergency hatch caused it to open prematurely and the capsule was lost at sea. This shot was also sub-orbital atop a Redstone booster.

The third flight (MA-6), on 20 February 1962 carried John H. Glenn Jr. in Friendship 7 to orbit atop an Atlas booster (Dangerous and not entirely reliable at the time). He was the first American to accomplish this. His flight lasted three orbits (4 hours 55 minutes), and featured NASAs first real scare. Glenn's instruments indicated to ground controllers that his all important heat shield might be loose. He was ordered to retain his retro-pack into reentry, and come home earlier than planned. All went well however, and he landed safely in the ocean.

Flight four of the program was MA-7, with Scott Carpenter flying his Aurora 7 capsule for 4 hours 56 minutes on 24 May 1962, to confirm the success of Glenn's flight three months earlier.

The fifth shot (MA-8) launched on 3 October 1962. Walter M. Schirra flew capsule Sigma 7 for six orbits around the Earth. After 9 hours 13 minutes he splashed down in the ocean safely.

The final Mercury flight (MA-9), with Astronaut Gordon Cooper aboard Faith 7, went 22 orbits in 34 hours 20 minutes on 15 and 16 May 1963. "Coop" performed flawlessly, but it must have been difficult to be confined to a space smaller than a telephone booth for so long a period. It was a spectacular end for the Mercury program.

Project Mercury was a resounding success, and paved the way for the entire future of American space exploration.
THE EVENT
On the morning of 5th May, 1961, Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. lifted off from Cape Canaveral in his Mercury Redstone (MA-3) named Freedom 7 to become the first American in outer space. His flight followed the first Russian, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, by just under a month.

The bit of footage which concerns us here was obtained from the American television network known as TBS, and was shown within a documentary program called "Moon Shot", aired in July 1994. The object which appears in the film clip was presented in the program as being seen during the descent phase of Astronaut Shepard's mission.

The film of the parachute descent was shot from a camera mounted in the nose of the Mercury capsule, but may not actually be from the flight of Shepard and Freedom 7. This cannot be verified for certain, but it is definately a Mercury parachute descent.

In any case, the object passing high above the spacecraft is not explained. As the film progressed, the anomaly bounced rapidly across the screen beneath the cloud canopy, and proceeded out of view.

It displays the "saucer skipping on water" behaviour as reported by Mr. Kenneth Arnold of his UFO sighting of 24th June 1947. Arnold's description, as interpreted by the newspaper men of the day, resulted in the term "flying saucer".

Some might say it's a bird flying by as the parachute opens. This is absurd, since at the altitude at which these parachutes were deployed was above the ability of almost all birds.

Since the object crosses the field of view horizontally, it seems very unlikely that it originated from the capsule itself.

All in all, a most intrigueing event in the early days of the US space program.

We have prepared a visual presentation for you to look at for yourself. These include some to orient you with circumstances, a "full view" animation showing the three second clip as it appeared in the television broadcast, and some enhancements to bring out the anomaly for better viewing.

Let's take a few moments to study the evidence now, shall we?
SETTING THE SCENE

The animation at left is composed of two diagrams from NASA. The first illustrates the Mercury capsule in its pre-launch configuration.

The second diagram is used to show where the camera used to film the parachute was mounted (circle), and the direction it was pointed (red arrow).
There was a camera aboard the Mercury craft in order to specifically film the parachute deployment. This was for engineering evaluation at a later time. These 'chutes represented a critical part of the system, and if they didn't open correctly, death and failure would follow. So even if the parachute did NOT open right, and the pilot was lost, engineers would be able to find out how and why from the recovered film.
THE MERCURY ANOMALY
This is the "full view" version of our 16 frame animated GIF of the event. The anomaly starts out at the extreme right center, and flutters its way across the field of veiw, where it disappears near the closest of the parachute straps attached to the capsule.
ENHANCEMENTS
The red box shows the approximate area covered in the 200% enlargements below. The zoom versions track along with the object, unlike the full view in which the anomaly is allowed to passively cross the field of view as in the original NASA film.
   

Here we have the normally colored 200% zoom. That background which looks like rivers or cracks in a distant surface is actually a cloud deck high above.

Now we can see the anomaly quite well, and it doesn't behave like anything this writer is familiar with.
   
This time, colors are reversed with dark being light, and light is dark. For some, the anomalies stand out better this way.
 
Lastly, we have this embossed version of the same 16 frame zoom. Now the object has a 3D effect against a neutral grey background.

This event is the earliest I've recorded to date from the NASA flights. It is in the neighborhood of 45 years old, and still defies conventional explanation. It is not a bird. It isn't debris. It CERTAINLY isn't an airplane or helicopter.It moves far too fast and erratically for a balloon.

At stated before, it's flight pattern resembles the "saucer skipping on water" description offered by Kenneth Arnold for disks he observed over Washington State in June 1947.

After a careful review of the facts in this case, I must classify this object as unknown.

At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.

 

© 2006 Jeff Challender