Gemini IV Crew Debriefing Part 2, the Visual Sightings Section (1965)
This is Part 2 of the preliminary GT-4 (Gemini IV) flight crew debriefing transcript, transcribed from voice tape of the McDivitt and White debriefing aboard the USS Wasp on 9 June 1965 and concluded at the Manned Spacecraft Center on 12 June 1965. It is the Gemini IV document that contains the formal Section 10.0 "Visual Sightings," and it records two genuinely UAP adjacent observations: a wiggling "curtain" of parallel light rays seen twice at night near Australia, and the recurring "fireflies." Critically, this transcript does not contain the often repeated account of a McDivitt cylindrical object with a protruding arm or antenna; what the crew actually describe and explain here is set out below.
Key excerpts
“Why don't I discuss t[h]at thing that I saw those two times at night. [...] They were just paral[l]el r[u]nning lines of lights radiating from the earth up toward us but at a distance away, and i[t] sort of looked like a curtain. All of these light[s] rays seemed to be sor[t] of parallel t[o] each other. They looked a lot like the Aurora Borealis, except that they were down below us and they were coming up toward us. (lines 9101 to 9128)”
“This thing was in motion, too. It wasn't a stationary thing. It continued to move the way the lights on neon signs do. It was wiggling back and forth. (lines 9184 to 9189)”
“One of the prettiest things was when we had a urine dump at [s]unset, because we just had mil[l]ions and millions and millions of these fireflies or part[i]cles outside. (lines 9263 to 9267)”
Alternative hypotheses
the documented explanation, most probable).
raised in the broader Gemini IV literature, not in this transcript).
not supported by this document).