Astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell reported an unidentified bright object while orbiting Earth during the Gemini 7 mission in June 1965 [1].

The disclosure of this incident highlights the long-standing interest of the U.S. government in unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and the historical secrecy surrounding space-based sightings.

According to declassified Pentagon files released in 2025, the incident was among 162 unsealed UAP reports [2]. The documents reference a 60-year-old encounter where the crew observed a luminous object moving through space [2]. During the event, the astronauts said, "We have a bogey" [1].

One crew member described the sighting as a "brilliant body, like a star, but it was moving" [2]. The report indicates that the object appeared to be closing in on the spacecraft while the crew was in orbit [1].

Despite the crew's alarm, NASA Mission Control provided a more conventional explanation. Officials later said the object was likely the mission's own booster rocket [1]. The rocket would have been reflecting sunlight, creating the illusion of a mysterious vehicle moving independently in the vacuum of space.

The release of these files comes as part of a broader effort to provide transparency regarding historical UAP encounters. While the 1965 event was initially treated as a potential scare, the subsequent analysis by NASA aimed to categorize the sighting as a known piece of space debris, specifically the hardware used to launch the Gemini 7 capsule into orbit [1].

“"We have a bogey."”

The release of these documents reflects a shift in how the U.S. government handles legacy UAP data. By including a 1965 NASA encounter in a larger set of declassified files, the Pentagon is acknowledging that sightings of unidentified objects have been a consistent part of the spacefaring era, even when agencies like NASA provided terrestrial or mechanical explanations to mitigate crew anxiety.