Gemini-4, 49th anniversary of first significant "astronaut UFO" sighting

June 5, 1965, the first significant "ufo sighting" on a manned space mission. Classic UFO version:
www.ufoevidence.org...

I think McDivitt still hasn't forgiven me for proposing the theory it was his own Titan-2 second stage, www.jamesoberg.com...

John Schuessler at MUFFON certainly hasn't!!
www.thiemeworks.com...

Do you recall the "bleary-eyed astronaut" comment well enough to provide some context? It does not appear in your article.

originally posted by: Phage
Do you recall the "bleary-eyed astronaut" comment well enough to provide some context? It does not appear in your article.

I suspect Schuessler based his statement on these paragraphs:

Was there anything which might have affected McDivitt's eyesight during this part of the flight? A space magazine reported two items of interest: "The 100 percent oxygen atmosphere created some red eyes during the first day or so of the flight..." Furthermore, "Operation of the waste collection systems was generally satisfactory, except for leakage of urine into the cabin . . . McDivitt at one point told the ground that 'I thought those fumes around 24 hours were bad. You ought to be up here now!' "

The pure oxygen irritated the astronauts' eyes after a day or so of exposure, and a subsequent mechanical failure made it worse. The spacecraft's breathing-oxygen tank overheated and threatened to pop its pressure relief valve, so Mission Control officials decided to vent the excess pressure through the cabin rather than risk the tank's unreachable valve from sticking open and draining everything -- the decision was made because the relief valve in the cabin could be manually closed by the astronauts in case of mechanical failure. To allow this procedure, the cabin air pressure had to rise to six pounds per square inch, significantly higher than the normal level which had already proved irritating to the crew's eyes. This buildup was initiated at Mission Elapsed Time 28 1/2 hours -- about an hour before McDivitt reported sighting his UFO.

Here is how the interview quoted Schuessler:

Jim Oberg’s been really good at putting words in McDivitt’s mouth and even called him “a bleary-eyed astronaut” like he couldn’t see anything which was a bunch of baloney. He would not have been flying if he couldn’t see.

RT: Ridicule is uniformly effective.

It really is. That’s one thing the media likes is those kind of things. They don’t have to be factual. Nobody cares.

If this was indeed Schuessler's basis for the criticism, it reflects poorly on HIS ability to comprehend and then honestly repeat somebody else's argument.

I was reporting on a documented temporary condition that McDivitt himself complained was interfering with his vision, in the interval during which he also saw the UFO.

Schuessler misrepresents this to mock my alleged claim that McDivitt congenitally had bad eyesight. The interviewer unjustifiably added the punctuation to indicate it was a direct quotation from me.

I guess maybe he counted on MUFON members to take his word for it and never to actually check what I really wrote. No, that's not fair to guess, I take it back -- let's ask him why he so grievously garbled my original point.

a reply to: JimOberg

If the debunk is a sighting of his own booster then how come in here he claims that a check with ground tracking (edit: data) confirmed "there were no other objects nearby at the time"? At :35 seconds in…

a reply to: JimOberg

The interviewer unjustifiably added the punctuation to indicate it was a direct quotation from me.

What a surprise.

I guess he counted on MUFON members to take his word for it and never to actually check what I really wrote.

How unusual.

I figured as much. While you can be...um...impatient at times (who isn't). That didn't seem like something you would say about an astronaut.

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: JimOberg

If the debunk is a sighting of his own booster then how come in here he claims that a check with ground tracking stations confirmed "there were no other objects nearby at the time"? At :35 seconds in [video]

Good point, but what assumptions are you making about radar tracking? How would ground tracking radar know what was near him in mid-Pacific? And if the second stage was still in orbit, as it was, WHERE was it then?

a reply to: JimOberg

I'm not going to call him a liar, are you? There is a discrepancy there. To correct something I think he relates a check of ground tracking "data" not stations, Sorry about that misstep… editing…

still, he claims there were no other objects nearby. How could that be considering what you bore out, that the mission objectives included an attempted rendezvous with the booster? Surely he would be aware of that.

Personally, I would also question the claim of his fellow astronaut being asleep and he didn't wake him. I would have with a quickness.

a reply to: JimOberg

If you believe it was his own Titan-2 second stage then what was significant about the sighting?