Space Music from the Apollo 10 Mission

While orbiting the moon in 1969, the Apollo 10 team heard 'weird music'
They were on the far side of the moon, so it couldn't have come from Earth
The team debated whether to tell NASA command back home
Recordings of the event were declassified in 2008, and will be played on Science Channel's NASA's Unexplained Files this month

Declassified audio of the Apollo 10 mission has brought attention to a moment when NASA astronauts heard strange "outer spacey" music during their trip around the Moon. While transcripts of these exchanges were released in 2008, some of the new audio has made it into an upcoming episode of NASA's Unexplained Files, a show on the Science Channel that features dramatized stories from the US space agency.

The story in question here seems to stem from an incident that did happen. Apollo 10 was the last mission before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon during Apollo 11. One of its main objectives was to practice the separation and re-docking of the lunar module (the Moon lander) and the command module (the orbiter). During the hours that the two craft were separated, all three astronauts intermittently discussed the sounds. "Boy, that sure is weird music," lunar module pilot Eugene Cernan says at one point. "We're going to have to find out about that," command module pilot John Young responds.

The sound began once the capsule was on an hour-long trip around the far side of the moon, out of the range of any Earth broadcast. At one point the baffled astronauts can be heard discussing whether they should tell NASA command or not.

'You hear that? That whistling sound? Whooooooooo!' one of them says.

Another astronaut says he can: 'It sounds like, you know, outer space-type music.'

'Well, that sure is weird music,' his companion agrees.

And no, the 'music' was nothing to do with Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, which was released four years later.

The sounds lasted almost the whole hour that the capsule was on the far side of the moon, and back on Earth the recording was shelved by NASA until 2008, when it was declassified. Now it has resurfaced in the upcoming third season of Science Channel's series, NASA's Unexplained Files.

On the show, Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden says: 'The Apollo 10 crew was very used to the kind of noise that they should be hearing. Logic tells me that if there was something recorded on there, then there was something there.'

The show discusses some of the possible solutions, which include a magnetic field or atmosphere interfering with the radio — but according to experts in the show, the moon has no magnetic field and not enough atmosphere to cause such issues.

The origins of the noises may, it seems, remain a mystery.

A sneak preview of the the third season of NASA's Unexplained Files screens on the Science Channel on Sunday February 21 at 10 pm; the series proper returns on February 23.