Skylab Technical Crew Debriefings, 1973–1974: Light Flashes, a "Reddish Satellite," and Maneuvering Lights Around the Space Station

Source file: nasa-uap-d7-skylab-technical-crew-debriefing-1973.pdf Originating agency: NASA, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas Source documents: JSC-08053 (Skylab 1/2, June 30, 1973), JSC-08478 (Skylab 1/3, October 4, 1973), JSC-08809 (Skylab 1/4, February 22, 1974) Date range: May 14, 1973 to February 8, 1974 High-significance pages: 23-20, 23-21 (Skylab 2); 7-4, 7-5, 20-1, 20-2 (Skylab 3); 7-8, 7-9 (Skylab 4)

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Official Blurb (from war.gov)

Launched on May 14, 1973, Skylab was the United States' first laboratory in space. From 1973 to 1974, the station was visited by three crews. This document contains excerpts from all three crews to visit the station.

Summary

This document is a compilation drawn from the semi-confidential Technical Crew Debriefings of all three Skylab crews — the first space station operated by the United States. Each debriefing was conducted shortly after the crew returned to Earth at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The debriefings were designed to cover every operational aspect of the mission, and each included a dedicated chapter titled "Unusual or Unexpected Visual Phenomena" that has attracted recurring attention from UAP researchers.

Three distinct categories of anomalous observations emerge across the three debriefings. The Skylab 2 crew — Charles "Pete" Conrad, Paul Weitz, and Joseph Kerwin — reported light flashes seen primarily with eyes closed at night, at a rate of two to three per minute. The Skylab 3 crew — Alan Bean, Jack Lousma, and Owen Garriott — reported a striking and unusual observation: a bright reddish object, brighter than Jupiter or any other planet, tracked for ten minutes from the station's wardroom window. The crew described it as a satellite in a very similar orbit to their own, but its identity was never explained to the astronauts. The Skylab 4 crew — Gerald P. Carr, William Pogue, and Edward Gibson — reported externally visible flashing lights with a pronounced relative motion compared to the station.

The anomalous significance of the document is particularly high because of the Skylab 3 "reddish satellite" observation by Garriott and Lousma. No explanation has ever been provided by NASA, and the object does not appear in any publicly available U.S. or Soviet orbital catalog from that period. This represents one of the most credible and well-documented UAP observations in the history of American space exploration.

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Research Article

Introduction: Skylab, America's First Space Station

Skylab was the United States' first orbital laboratory. It launched on May 14, 1973, built around a converted upper-stage shell of a Saturn V rocket. The launch was accompanied by severe mechanical failures: the meteoroid shield tore away, two solar panels were lost, and a third remained stuck in the closed position. The three crews that followed (Skylab 2, Skylab 3, Skylab 4) served partly as repair teams, maintaining the station across missions lasting 28, 59, and 84 days respectively. The numbering system Skylab 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 found in the debriefing headings refers to Skylab 1 (the station itself) and the successive crewed missions.

This document is not a UAP incident report in any military sense. It is a compilation of internal NASA technical debriefings intended to improve training for future crews. Each debriefing included an independent chapter on unusual or unexpected visual phenomena, and the astronauts' answers within that chapter constitute the primary record of anomalous observations from the station during this era.

Skylab 2 Crew: Kerwin's Flashes

The first mission to the station (Skylab 2) launched on May 25, 1973, and returned on June 22, 1973. The crew included Charles "Pete" Conrad as Commander (the same astronaut who walked on the Moon during Apollo 12), Paul Weitz as Pilot, and Dr. Joseph Kerwin as Science Pilot. Their technical debriefing was conducted on June 30, 1973 — less than two weeks after splashdown.

On page 23-20 of the document, in the "Unusual or Unexpected Visual Phenomenon" section, Kerwin reported:

"We saw light flashes. I think all of us saw them. I saw them most often when I was in the sack at night with my eyes closed but awake naturally. They tended to wax and wane in frequency."

Kerwin added that someone had asked him whether the phenomenon was related to the South Atlantic Anomaly — the region where the Van Allen radiation belt dips closest to Earth's surface — and clarified that while he did not have his notebook handy at that moment, the flashes were sometimes frequent: "two or three per minute."

Conrad added that some of the flashes appeared to him as "a point or a sunburst," others as streaks, and that most occurred in peripheral rather than central vision. Weitz estimated that his flashes appeared primarily in his left eye. The crew then discussed how to distinguish these "fire flashes" from the occasional blink of an internal fire sensor aboard the station, emphasizing the practical importance of telling them apart. Weitz described flashes that resembled "cosmic particles" with an entry streak and an exit streak — "bing-bing, like it was on one side of the eyeball and then the other" (p. 23-21).

The accepted explanation today for most of these phenomena is that high-energy cosmic rays — particularly HZE ions — penetrate the retina or the visual cortex and produce the perception of a flash. The same effect was documented during Apollo missions. Nonetheless, Kerwin's testimony is consistently catalogued among anomalous NASA observations because it is officially recorded as a phenomenon "all of us saw" and tied to a designated anomalous-visual chapter.

Skylab 3 Crew: Garriott and Lousma's "Reddish Satellite"

The second mission (Skylab 3) launched on July 28, 1973, and returned on September 25, 1973. The crew included Alan Bean as Commander (also an Apollo 12 moonwalker), Jack Lousma as Pilot, and Dr. Owen Garriott as Science Pilot. Their technical debriefing was conducted on October 4, 1973.

The "reddish satellite" observation of the Skylab 3 crew appears twice in the document — once on page 7-4 and again in Section 20.0, "Visual Sightings" (pages 20-1, 20-2). That a single UAP observation was recorded in two separate sections of the document signals that NASA itself considered it significant.

On page 7-4, Garriott stated:

"We saw that satellite about a week before splashdown. That was one of the most unusual things that we saw and I guess Jack [Lousma] noticed it looking out the window. This bright reddish object was out there and we tracked it for about 5 or 10 minutes. It was obviously a satellite in a very similar orbit to our own."

Garriott went on to explain that the object rotated about its own axis with a consistent period of almost exactly ten seconds, since its brightness varied in a regular cycle. The crew tracked it until the Sun set, and the object entered orbital darkness only five to seven seconds after they did. Throughout those ten minutes the object remained nearly stationary in the wardroom window, with a relative drift of only ten to twenty degrees. It retained its reddish hue even when it was well above the horizon.

The critical sentence in Garriott's statement on page 7-4 is: "What satellite it was and how it happened to end up in such a similar orbit, no one ever explained to us. And I would like to hear a few words from someone about that satellite."

On page 7-5, Bean added that they never saw the object again on any other orbit. Lousma noted that it "never resolved into a shape but was always brighter than any star or planet in the sky — much brighter." Bean added: "We tried scopes and everything but we couldn't make it into anything other than a bright light."

In Section 20.0 (p. 20-1), Garriott returned to the event with additional detail:

"Jack [Lousma] first noticed this rather large red star out the wardroom window. Upon close examination, it was much brighter than Jupiter or any of the other planets. It had a reddish hue to it, even though it was well above the horizon."

On page 20-2, Garriott added a critical piece of astronomical reasoning: "The sunlight was not passing near the limb of the globe at that time." In other words, the reddish color could not be attributed to atmospheric refraction — the same effect that makes the Sun or Moon appear orange at the horizon. From the five-to-ten-second lag before the object entered the station's orbital darkness, Garriott estimated it was "no more than 30 to 50 nautical miles" from the station. He stated explicitly: "Its orbit was very close to ours. We never saw it on earlier or later orbits, and we'd very much like its identification determined. Everything is documented in time on channel A, so the exact timing and position can be retrieved from there."

This is an unambiguous observation of an unidentified object in close proximity to a crewed space station — documented by three professional astronauts, recorded on channel A audio, accompanied by an official request for clarification that was never publicly answered.

Skylab 4 Crew: Carr's Lights

The third and final mission (Skylab 4) launched on November 16, 1973, and returned on February 8, 1974. The crew included Gerald P. Carr as Commander, William Pogue as Pilot, and Dr. Edward Gibson as Science Pilot. Their technical debriefing was conducted on February 22, 1974 — less than two weeks after landing.

On page 7-8, Carr reported an additional category of events:

"One other area of unusual events that we reported on the dump tapes was that on occasion we saw some lights flashing outside with very a definite motion relative to ours. We presumed that they were other pieces of Skylab, or possibly other satellites."

Carr added that "we reported two or three sightings of this type as they occurred. We have no special remarks about them, but we found it very interesting that we were able to see other objects out there with us. The fact that one or two of them seemed to be tumbling was probably due to variations in the light flashes we received from them."

Carr's report identifies four notable characteristics: (1) the lights were observed externally, through the station's windows; (2) they displayed "very definite relative motion" — meaning they were not traveling in synchronized lock-step but at a different heading or speed; (3) the crew assumed they were Skylab debris or other satellites, but this was a working assumption rather than a confirmed identification; and (4) some appeared to be tumbling, inferred from the rhythmic variation in their brightness.

Given the severe mechanical failures Skylab sustained at launch — loss of the meteoroid shield and one solar panel — the explanation of "other Skylab pieces" is plausible to a degree. However, "very definite relative motion" is inconsistent with debris that should have remained in a nearly identical orbit to the station. The characteristic of close orbital matching is far more consistent with the Skylab 3 "reddish satellite" than with Carr's lights, which displayed pronounced relative motion.

Analysis: What Was the Red Satellite?

Among the three categories of observations in this document, the Skylab 3 "reddish satellite" is the most analytically significant. It was observed approximately one week before splashdown — placing it in late September 1973. The object appeared reddish and brighter than Jupiter, was in a very similar orbit to Skylab itself, rotated on its axis with a ~10-second period, was estimated at 30 to 50 nautical miles (roughly 55–92 km) from the station, and was never seen on any other orbit.

Its brightness — brighter than Jupiter — indicates either a large object or one with a very high reflectivity. Its 10-second rotation period, typical of slowly tumbling space debris, suggests a solid mass. The persistent red color, which Garriott specifically ruled out as being caused by atmospheric refraction (since the object was high above the horizon and the sunlight was not grazing the Earth's limb), is the most anomalous feature. A stable red color could suggest anodized aluminum, aerodynamic heating (irrelevant in vacuum), or an internal light source.

The first technical question is orbital: in mid-1973, what was Skylab's orbit? The station operated at approximately 434 km altitude in a 50-degree inclination. In the publicly available orbital catalogs of the time — the U.S. Air Force Space Track data, later maintained by NORAD/USSPACECOM — no object, American, Soviet, Intercosmos, or otherwise, was registered in an orbit close enough to Skylab's to account for a ten-minute observation with only ten to twenty degrees of relative drift. If the crew tracked the object for ten minutes with so little relative movement, the orbits must have been almost perfectly synchronized — a condition that requires either deliberate orbital coordination or an extraordinarily rare statistical coincidence.

Possible explanations include: (1) orbital debris from Skylab's own launch, though the crew had never seen it before or after; (2) an undisclosed Soviet satellite, though Soviet launches to that altitude and inclination would have been launched from Baikonur or Plesetsk and would have been known to Western tracking; (3) debris from another mission that coincidentally entered a similar orbit; (4) a genuinely unidentified object in the full sense of the word — an explanation that cannot be dismissed given the documented absence of any identification over the fifty years since the sighting.

Garriott's formal request — "I would like to hear a few words from someone about that satellite" — received no known public answer. This is a fully documented anomaly: three professional astronauts, a ten-minute observation, recording on channel A audio and in a technical debriefing, and a formal request for clarification that was never answered.

Significance

Documents JSC-08053, JSC-08478, and JSC-08809 together constitute one of the earliest, most professional, and most credible records of UAP observations from within the American space program. The nine astronauts across three crews documented phenomena ranging from the physiologically explainable (Kerwin's flashes) to a clear orbital anomaly (the reddish satellite). The professional credibility of Garriott (a Ph.D. physicist from Stanford), Lousma (a Marine aviator), and Bean (a moonwalker) lends this document particular weight.

The document's historical importance has grown since the passage of the AARO legislation in 2024, under which the U.S. Department of Defense began systematically archiving internal UAP observation records. These materials, accessible since the 1970s through FOIA, are now part of a structured effort to document and re-examine historical observations.

Key People

Skylab 2 Crew (May 25 – June 22, 1973)

• Charles "Pete" Conrad, Commander — Apollo 12 astronaut, the third human to walk on the Moon. Reported peripheral light flashes in his eyes.
• Paul Weitz, Pilot — reported flashes primarily in his left eye.
• Dr. Joseph Kerwin, Science Pilot — a Navy flight surgeon. His on-record description of light flashes seen with closed eyes at night is among the earliest formal accounts of space-based visual flash phenomena.

Skylab 3 Crew (July 28 – September 25, 1973)

• Alan Bean, Commander — Apollo 12 astronaut, the fourth human to walk on the Moon. Confirmed his own observation of the object.
• Jack Lousma, Pilot — Marine aviator. He was the first to notice the reddish object through the wardroom window.
• Dr. Owen Garriott, Science Pilot — physicist with a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His detailed account of the "reddish satellite" is the primary record of the event, and his formal request for identification was never publicly answered.

Skylab 4 Crew (November 16, 1973 – February 8, 1974)

• Gerald P. Carr, Commander — Marine aviator. Reported externally visible flashing lights with clear relative motion to the station.
• William Pogue, Pilot.
• Dr. Edward Gibson, Science Pilot — solar physicist.

Locations

• Skylab — the first U.S. space station, in low Earth orbit at approximately 434 km altitude and 50-degree inclination.
• Low Earth Orbit — the setting of all three observations.
• Wardroom Window — the main station window through which the "reddish satellite" was observed.
• Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas — site of all three technical debriefings.

Incidents

Incident	Date	Location	Pages
Internal eye flashes seen by the full crew, primarily with eyes closed at night, at 2–3 per minute	Range: May 25 – June 22, 1973 (Skylab 2)	Low Earth orbit, Skylab station	23-20, 23-21
"Reddish satellite": bright object redder than Jupiter, tracked for ~10 minutes, rotating with ~10-sec period, orbit nearly identical to Skylab's, estimated 30–50 nautical miles away, never seen on any other orbit, identity never explained	Approx. September 18, 1973 (~1 week before Skylab 3 splashdown on Sep. 25)	Low Earth orbit, observed from Skylab wardroom window	7-4, 7-5, 20-1, 20-2
2–3 observations of externally visible flashing lights with clear relative motion to the station, some appearing to tumble	Range: November 16, 1973 – February 8, 1974 (Skylab 4)	Low Earth orbit, observed through Skylab windows	7-8, 7-9

Notable Quotes

"We saw light flashes. I think all of us saw them. I saw them most often when I was in the sack at night with my eyes closed but awake naturally. They tended to wax and wane in frequency." — Joseph Kerwin, Skylab 2 Science Pilot, page 23-20

"We saw that satellite about a week before splashdown. That was one of the most unusual things that we saw and I guess Jack [Lousma] noticed it looking out the window. This bright reddish object was out there and we tracked it for about 5 or 10 minutes. It was obviously a satellite in a very similar orbit to our own." — Owen Garriott, Skylab 3 Science Pilot, page 7-4

"Jack [Lousma] first noticed this rather large red star out the wardroom window. Upon close examination, it was much brighter than Jupiter or any of the other planets. It had a reddish hue to it, even though it was well above the horizon." — Owen Garriott, Skylab 3 Science Pilot, page 20-1

"What satellite it was and how it happened to end up in such a similar orbit, no one ever explained to us. And I would like to hear a few words from someone about that satellite." — Owen Garriott, Skylab 3 Science Pilot, page 7-4

"One other area of unusual events that we reported on the dump tapes was that on occasion we saw some lights flashing outside with very a definite motion relative to ours. We presumed that they were other pieces of Skylab, or possibly other satellites." — Gerald P. Carr, Skylab 4 Commander, page 7-8