John Glenn's Fireflies
On America's first orbital flight, John Glenn watched a swarm of glowing specks drift around his capsule at sunrise, like fireflies.
What was reported
On 20 February 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, in the capsule Friendship 7. As the Sun rose over the Pacific on his first orbit, he saw thousands of tiny luminous particles drifting around the capsule, greenish-yellow and glowing, moving slowly past the window.
'They look like little stars,' he told the ground, and later compared them to fireflies. He saw them again at each sunrise, and nobody on the ground could tell him what they were.
Explanations offered
Three months later, on Aurora 7, Scott Carpenter saw the same 'fireflies' and found he could release clouds of them by tapping the inside of the capsule wall. They were flakes of frost from the spacecraft's outside, lit up by the rising Sun.
- When
- 20 February 1962
- Where
- In orbit over the Pacific, aboard Friendship 7
- Witnesses
- Astronaut John Glenn
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.