Gemini 7 bogey sighting by Borman, low Earth orbit

Gemini 7 astronaut Frank Borman reported a "bogey" during the December 1965 flight, according to a NASA transcript of the air-to-ground exchange. In the transcript's opening exchange, Borman said "a bogey at ten o'clock high." Houston asked whether it was the booster or a natural sighting. Borman answered that the crew had debris and that it was an actual sighting.

Houston asked for distance or size, and Borman replied that the crew also had the booster in sight. He then described what looked like hundreds of small particles passing to the left at about three or four miles. He said they were going into polar orbit. Jim Lovell described the booster at his two o'clock position, slowly tumbling, as a brilliant body in the sun with particles on it.

A NASA Public Affairs Officer later said the third and unidentified object was a bogey. The PAO added that there were several references to it and put the time at 4 hours 24 minutes into the flight. The transcript gives no size, shape or distance for the bogey. A handwritten copy of the same tape is headed "UFO Sighting by Borman".

A NASA audio file dated 5 December 1965 is catalogued as the Gemini VII recording of Borman's report. A 1998 NASA congressional correspondence package includes a retelling of the incident. It says Gemini Control told Borman he was seeing the final stage of the Titan booster, and that Borman confirmed he saw the booster but also something different. That account places the sighting in the second orbit, and its dialogue differs in wording from the NASA transcript.