Astronauts on missions to the moon reported hearing peculiar music that frightened them.
If you’ve pondered what space might sound like, a few astronauts assert they heard cosmic tunes during their journey to the moon.
This phenomenon is technically inexplicable, due to the absence of air in space needed to transmit sound waves. Space is a near-perfect vacuum, lacking the atoms or molecules necessary to produce or carry sound.
This is such a significant issue that astronauts cannot hear one another through natural means when outside a spacecraft. They must rely on radio waves for communication, although they can communicate within the pressurized spacecraft.
So, how did astronauts from two different missions hear music out there?
Astronauts aboard NASA’s Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 missions both reported hearing unusual ‘space music’ on their lunar journeys.
The first instance was during the Apollo 10 mission when astronauts Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan picked up strange sounds in May 1969, as part of a rehearsal for the historic first manned moon landing.
Although NASA didn’t release the recordings for 50 years, they did caution the Apollo 11 team about the eerie sounds before their mission.
For Apollo 10, the unsettling noise began when the lunar module detached from the command module as they orbit the moon for over 10 hours.
Following their orbit, they planned to reunite with the landing module.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbVZuqrLdUY
However, when on the far side of the moon, away from their base, the astronauts heard a ‘whistling’ sound. The audio suggests it was far from a chart-topping hit.
Describing the sound, footage from the shuttle shows Cernan asking: “Can you hear that? That whistling sound?”
Stafford affirmed: “Yes,” with Cernan imitating the sound: “Whooooo!”
Young added: “Did you hear that whistling sound, too?”
Cernan described it: “Yeah. Sounds like, you know, outer-space-type music.”
The footage was then archived in a NASA database for years.
As Apollo 11 prepared for launch, NASA reportedly briefed the crew about the potential for similar ‘space music’.
Astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong also experienced similar sounds, hearing them when the lunar module separated from the command module, with the noises ceasing once the module landed on the moon.
Collins later recounted the experience in his book, “Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys,” writing: “There is a strange noise in my headset now, an eerie woo-woo sound.”
He noted: “Had I not been warned about it, it would have scared the hell out of me.”
NASA has since clarified that the noises were due to interference between the VHF radios of the lunar module and the command module.