When you speak of X-Files the mind races to possible mysteries concealed by agencies as the Cia, which at the beginning of 2016 has declassified ten documents but even the Nasa, the American space agency, seems to have its own secrets and they don’t go back, as meny people think, to Apollo programme and to the Moon landing, but at the beginnings of the American space programme.

Gemini IV, the first space X-File

One of the first space X-Files it’s what happened June 3rd 1965, while on the Gemini IV mission, the second manned space flight in Project Gemini, with James McDivitt (Command Pilot) and Edward White (Pilot). An historical mission because it was the first one to last 4 days and the first one in which a space walk was done by an American (Edward White for about 20 minutes). A third target, a space rendezvous and the following flight in formation with the Titan II upper stage which launched the spaceship into orbit, was not reached, also for the absence of a radar on board of the Gemini 4.

Astronaut James McDivitt (right) in the Gemini IV capsule along with Astronaut Ed White. Credit: NASA

On the other hand McDivitt reported to have seen during the mission an unusual object in the space. Ten years later McDivitt explained: “When I saw it, I thought to myself that there was something in front of me, to the outside” of Gemini 4, “what I have never been able to identify and I believe that nobody will be ever”. The sighting happened while White slept: “I couldn’t see anything in front of me, except that the black sky. Then suddently appeared in the window. It was white, it had a long arm that stuck out on the side. I don’t know whether it was a very small object up close or a very large object a long ways away. There was nothing to judge by”.

What did really McDivitt see?

McDivitt wasn’t able to to esteem the real dimensions of the object because in the space the sense of depth is a little perceptible, which is the same reason why the astronaut had to give up to the rendezvous with the upper stadium of the Titan II. On the other hand he tried to photograph it: “I have grabbed two photocameras and I have photographed it” the astronaut confirmed in 1975, adding that since the Sun reflected it against the surface, dirty, of the window, he operated the retrorockets to return to have the window in darkness, but at that point “I wasn’t abloe to see anything out: the object was gone”.

Astronaut Ed White is shown on his first spacewalk. Credit: NASA

Really was it just a retrorocket?

Upon return to Earth, when McDivitt reported the episode, the Norad’s radar records were checked but the presence of any other object near the Gemini 4 while on orbit wasn’t revealed. The photos taken by McDivitt, equally, didn’t reveal anything: “some Nasa film technicians viewed every frame of the pictures that I had taken” explained the astronauts in 1975 “and selected what they thought was what we talked about and at least I had a chance to review it. But it was not the picture (of what I had seen), it was a picture of a sun reflection on the window”.

According to Nasa, McDivitt would only have photographed a retrorocket detached during the manoeuvres, while for the ufologis it deals with a close encounter with an Ufo that the Nasa, or some other organisation wich could have access to the Nasa’s files, seen fit to hide. In this case it could still exist in some archive all documents related: who knows if and when the Nasa will let be known this and its others X-Files?