Pentagon Files Reveal Apollo 17 Crew Saw Unidentified Dots and Fireworks-Like Sparks

More than 50 years ago, the Apollo 17 crew reported spotting multiple unidentified objects in space, including three mysterious dots and sparks that looked like fireworks, according to newly released Pentagon files.

The details appeared among over 100 documents the Defense Department made public on Friday through a new website with all declassified files on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP.

A NASA photo from the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 captures three dots in a triangular formation in the lower right quadrant of the lunar sky, clearly visible when magnified, the Defense Department noted in an image caption.

The Pentagon stated there is no consensus on the anomaly's nature, though a preliminary analysis suggests it could be a physical object.

The last men to walk on the moon also described bright tumbling sparks and jagged fragments resembling fireworks.

"Now we've got a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver," pilot Ronald Evans said in a transcript released by the Pentagon.

Pilot Harrison Schmitt reported: "There's a whole bunch of big ones on my window down there — just bright. It looks like the Fourth of July out of Ron's window."

Mission commander Eugene Cernan said he struggled to sleep after seeing flashing lights he compared to an imposing train headlight.

Over the next three hours, Cernan described several flashing, rotating phenomena that he judged to be physical objects in space rather than purely optical effects, the Pentagon said.

The documents also feature a transcript from the 1969 Apollo 11 crew debriefing, where astronaut Buzz Aldrin described unusual observations.

"The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out or something pretty close to the moon. It had a sizeable dimension to it, so we put the monocular on it," he said.

Like Cernan, Aldrin described flashing lights while trying to sleep.

"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," he said.

Aldrin added he saw a fairly bright light source the crew tentatively linked to a possible laser.

The Pentagon said it will release additional documents and videos on a rolling basis.