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Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, one of only 12 humans to walk on the Moon, provided sworn debriefing testimony describing continuous light flashes during the mission, recorded in a formerly CONFIDENTIAL NASA document from 1973.
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Official Conclusion
Observations consistent with known cosmic ray light flash phenomenon; ALFMED experiment specifically designed to study this effect.
Official Description
Apollo 17 was the ninth crewed U.S. mission to the Moon, and the sixth to land Astronauts on the lunar surface. This document is an excerpt from the Apollo 17 Technical Crew Debriefing on January 4, 1973, in which astronaut Harrison Schmitt reported seeing light flashes. • Page 24-4. [Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt]: “We had light flashes just about continuously during the whole flight when we were dark adapted. I had one which I thought was a flash on the lunar surface. That one period of time when we had the blindfolds on for the ALFMED [Apollo Light Flash Moving Emulsion Detector] experiment there were just no visible flashes, although that evening, that night, before I went to sleep, I noticed that I was seeing the light flashes again.”
Key Findings
This is an excerpt from the Apollo 17 Technical Crew Debriefing dated January 4, 1973, prepared by NASA's Training Office, Crew Training and Simulation Division at the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas. The excerpt (page 24-4) contains statements from astronauts Evans, Cernan, and Schmitt regarding unusual visual phenomena observed during the mission, including light flashes experienced throughout the flight and a fireball sighting during reentry/recovery.
Analyst Notes
The light flashes described by Schmitt are a well-documented phenomenon caused by cosmic ray particles interacting with the optic nerve or retina — a known effect studied under the ALFMED experiment itself. The document does not characterize these as anomalous UAP events. The 'unusual sighting' of an aircraft carrier was immediately explained as a misidentification due to foggy windows. No UAP-specific content is present.
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AI analysis by claude-sonnet-4-6 · May 20, 2026
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