NASA Releases Archived Audio Tapes of the Eerie Sounds Apollo 10 Astronauts Heard on Far Side of Moon

After remaining in the shadows for decades, new audio between two Apollo 10 astronauts has been brought to the light, and it reveals "weird music" coming from the far side of the moon.

"Did you hear that whistling sound, too?"

"Sounds like, you know, outer-space type music."

"I wonder what it is."

That conversation, which took place as the Apollo 10 flew around the far side of the moon, was between astronauts Eugene Cernan and John Young. The transcripts were released in 2008, but they are just now becoming public.

Image source: Science Channel/YouTube

While on the far side of the moon, Cernan and Young had no contact with Earth, all radio communication had been cut, so the astronauts were not expecting to hear anything on their instruments. But they did, and they referred to it frequently.

"You hear that, that whistling sound? Woooooo," Cernan can be heard saying in the recording. "That sure is weird music."

According to the new Science Channel series "NASA's Unexplained Files," the sound was so bizarre that the Apollo 10 crew debated whether or not to mention the "weird music" to their superiors at NASA. Cernan and Young feared that if they told NASA, it could threaten future spaceflight.

However, as odd as the noise may seem, a NASA technician on the new TV series believes there is a more logical conclusion. According to him, "radios in the two spacecraft [the lunar module and the command module] were interfering with each other."

Astronaut Al Worden disagreed, saying, "Logic tells me that if there was something recorded on there, then there's something there." But Worden stands alone in his belief that the sounds are unexplained.

Apollo 11 pilot Michael Collins, who was the first person to fly around the far side of the moon alone, also heard the "eerie" sounds, but he was unbothered by it.

"There is a strange noise in my headset now, an eerie woo-woo sound," Collins wrote in his book "Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys." "Had I not been warned about it, it would have scared the hell out of me. ... Fortunately, the radio technicians (rather than the UFO fans) had a ready explanation for it: it was interference between the LM's and Command Module's VHF radios."

According to Collins, the strange audio was heard when the two radios in the two vehicles were both turned on and in close proximity. In addition, unlike Apollo 10, the Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the moon's surface, at which point the "woo-woo" sounds ceased.

In the end, the "outer-space type music" might not be music after all — just interference.

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