THE UAP MAPCASE FILE← ALL CASES

Building 30, Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas; claimed image concerned Hadley Rille on the Moon, United States

A NASA Fire Technician on the Apollo 15 Hadley Rille Object

In 2005 an anonymous former NASA contract fire-and-safety worker described watching a round object on a Mission Control display during a lunar EVA, with his patrol partner Jim Baker. The publisher suggested Apollo 15 and the witness agreed; no contemporary report, footage, named first-person witness

Date1971-07-30/1971-08-02 (retrospectively inferred)
LocationBuilding 30, Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas; claimed image concerned Hadley Rille on the Moon, United States
TierTier 3
Evidence Score2/10
Media Score1/10

Why This Case Matters

A useful control case for the map because the Apollo 15 setting is verifiable while the extraordinary claim is not, demonstrating how to distinguish accurate background detail from evidence for the event itself.

Chronology

  • Apollo 15 lunar operations 30 Jul–2 Aug 1971
  • alleged observation in Building 30 during an EVA, exact date not independently fixed
  • witness says he wrote a signed report that night
  • claim first published in 2005
  • 13 Mar 2005 addendum says witness 'looked it up' and identified Apollo 15

The Witnesses

Anonymous former NASA contract fire/safety employeesole surviving claimant
Jim Bakerpatrol partner named by claimant, died 1983 and cannot corroborate
Robert GilruthMSC director, named as present but no corroborating statement
B.J. Booth and Eileen Nesbittpublishers/researchers.

Evidence

The following evidence types are documented for this case:

Evidencelate anonymous testimony
Evidencepublisher correspondence
EvidenceNASA mission history that verifies setting but not UFO claim

Conventional explanations: Imaging/display artifact, reflection, flare, bloom or later memory reconstruction are sufficient live alternatives. The claim contains a significant anachronism—placing James Oberg's office in Building 30 in 1971 although he joined NASA in 1975—and the mission identification itself was supplied decades later.

What Remains Unresolved

Key Takeaways

Sources

Primary and secondary sources for this case file: