Apollo 10 astronauts heard eerie 'music' on the far side of the Moon, NASA audio reveals

In May 1969, three NASA astronauts were circling the Moon on what would be the last mission before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on its surface a few months later. When the astronauts paused on the far side of the Moon, they heard strange, unexplained noises that they described as “outer space-type music”. Now, the audio recordings of the event have resurfaced, and you can listen to them in full online. “You hear that? That whistling sound?” Apollo 10 astronaut Eugene Cernan asks his crewmates. “Boy, that sure is weird music.”

The full transcript of the encounter has been publicly available since 1973, but the audio has gone largely unnoticed until this weekend, when it was featured in the new Discovery series, NASA’s Unexplained Files (watch below).

What’s perhaps even more remarkable than hearing this ‘space music’ for the first time is seeing how freaked out the Apollo 10 astronauts, Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan, were about what they heard:

Cernan: “You know that was funny. That’s just like something from outer space, really. Who’s going to believe it?”

Young: “Nobody. Shall we tell them about it?”

Cernan: “I don’t know. We ought to think about it some.”

If you read the full transcript, at different points in the conversation, both Cernan and Young lament that, “No one will believe us.” 

Why would they even hesitate sharing what they heard with mission control? Quite rightly, NASA puts the safety of its astronauts above all else, and back then, even the most subtle signs of psychological troubles could see a mission instantly aborted.