What did astronaut Jack Schmitt photograph on Apollo 17?
“On December 11, 1972, Apollo 17 Lunar Module Pilot Dr. Harrison 'Jack' Schmitt photographed three discrete dots in a triangular formation in the lunar sky north of Grimaldi crater. PURSUE notes that 'New preliminary US government analysis suggests the image feature is potentially the result of a physical object in the scene.'”
Catalog entry NASA-UAP-VM6 in PURSUE Release 01 is an Apollo 17 lunar-surface photograph captured on December 11, 1972 by Lunar Module Pilot Dr. Harrison Hagan 'Jack' Schmitt — the only professional geologist to have walked on the Moon. The photograph depicts three discrete dots in a triangular formation in the lunar sky, located in the lower-right quadrant of the frame, north of Grimaldi crater. NASA's PURSUE-released analysis notes that the U.S. government has obtained the original film from the Apollo 17 mission for further study and that 'New preliminary US government analysis suggests the image feature is potentially the result of a physical object in the scene' — a notably less-resolved conclusion than NASA's cosmic-ray-flash explanation for the Apollo 12 'streaks of lights' audio. The Apollo 17 image is one of four NASA lunar-surface UAP records in PURSUE alongside three Apollo 12 photographs (NASA-UAP-VM3, VM4, VM5).