Mysterious music on moon heard by Apollo astronauts, lost tapes reveal

Apollo Moon Mission — NASA handout photographs from the various Apollo missions are shown in this combination photograph. The photographs are some of more than 12,000 from NASA's archives recently aggregated on the Project Apollo Archive Flickr account. Reuters/NASA

Apollo mission astronauts were apparently baffled by strange music-like radio transmissions coming through their headsets from the far side of the moon. They were so startled by the music, that they had no clue whether they should report it to NASA, lost tapes from the Apollo mission have revealed.

In a bone-chilling moment, the astronauts entered lunar orbit in Apollo 10. They had to traverse the far side of the moon, which meant their spacecraft would be out of radio contact with Earth for about an hour. No one on Earth could see them or hear them. This occurred in 1969, just two months before Apollo 11’s historic moon landing.

The public now knows that everything went smoothly during the moon mission, but after about four decades later, lost recordings revealed something really unsettling that the three astronauts experienced while flying above the far side of the moon.

According to the upcoming Science Channel series, “NASA’s Unexplained Files,” the taped recordings revealed “strange, otherworldly music coming through the Apollo module's radio.” According to the astronauts, it was music they had never heard before.

“It sounds like, you know, outer space-type music. You hear that? That whistling sound? Whooooooooo! Well, that sure is weird music!,” the astronauts are heard saying.

The strange, mysterious music lasted almost an hour, and the astronauts discussed whether they should discuss this experience with the Mission Control once radio contact was regained with Earth.

“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. NASA would withhold information from the public if they thought it was in the public's best interest, said Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden says on the Science Channel program.

Watch NASA's Unexplained Files regarding this strange music here.