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NASA-UAP-D014, Mercury-Redstone 4, July 21, 1961

This Release 02 item is an official NASA audio row from the 5/22/26 WAR.GOV/PURSUE manifest: row 209, kind AUD, DVIDS video ID 1007878. The manifest title is NASA UAP D014, Mercury Redstone 4, July 21, 1961; the incident date is listed as 7/21/61, and the incident location is li…

Release 02#war-gov#pursue#release-02#official-source#evidence#audio#dvids#mp4

NASA-UAP-D014, Mercury-Redstone 4, July 21, 1961

Investigation reading

This Release 02 item is an official NASA audio row from the 5/22/26 WAR.GOV/PURSUE manifest: row 209, kind AUD, DVIDS video ID 1007878. The manifest title is NASA-UAP-D014, Mercury-Redstone 4, July 21, 1961; the incident date is listed as 7/21/61, and the incident location is listed as the North Atlantic Ocean. The official description places the excerpt during recovery of Mercury-Redstone 4 / Liberty Bell 7 and says the recovery team discusses a dye pack in the water that did not activate. [S1][S2]

The checked source is mission-recovery audio context, not visual UAP footage. DVIDS distributes the item as an MP4 wrapper with a static NASA-logo/waveform visual, H.264 video, and AAC stereo audio. Sampled frames across the runtime show the same NASA-branded audio visual with waveform changes; they do not show spacecraft footage, cockpit imagery, sensor footage, sky footage, horizon footage, object tracking, or external-object imagery. [S3]

The DVIDS caption track is short and useful for source orientation, but it is visibly rough. It includes transcription uncertainty in the first call sign and the word Unintelligable, and it renders dye marker as die marker. Exact quotation should wait for comparison against Mercury-Redstone 4 / Liberty Bell 7 recovery audio or transcript sources. [S4]

What the released item appears to contain

The released item appears to be a roughly twenty-seven-second Mercury-Redstone 4 recovery-audio excerpt. The DVIDS description frames the subject as a recovery-team discussion of a dye pack in the water that did not activate. [S1][S2]

The caption track renders one speaker trying to reach Huntclub, followed by a reply that appears to identify the speaker as Card File 9. The next lines report an object on the line in the water at about one six zero degrees. The speaker says NASA personnel suspect it is the dye marker/dye pack that did not dissipate, estimates it is about three-quarters of a mile from the capsule, and asks whether it should be checked after a later operation rendered in the captions as the lift off. [S4]

This page records those statements as source-caption content only. The official item itself points toward a recovery-marker / dye-pack custody question, not a resolved anomalous-object finding. Any analytical use of the audio should preserve the difference between the manifest description, the DVIDS page metadata, the rough caption wording, and whatever a full mission-recovery transcript may show. [S1][S2][S4]

Source asset review

The individual official media file was downloaded from the direct DVIDS/CloudFront MP4 URL exposed on the DVIDS page, not from the full Release 02 video ZIP. The HTTP source response returned status 200, Accept-Ranges: bytes, Content-Type: binary/octet-stream, Content-Length: 33,843,484, Last-Modified: Fri, 22 May 2026 11:30:53 GMT, and ETag "4c5ab1834d63df344cab150b7ca37ea5-5". [S3]

Downloaded source-media facts:

FieldValue
Direct MP4 byte size33,843,484 bytes
Direct MP4 SHA-256d7727da5cae8faef90f1e3bd77ee5cb9933ff34c6741b7ba2c4903c953c89a06
Direct MP4 CRC3295c90463
ContainerQuickTime / MOV-compatible MP4 media
Runtimeabout 26.86 seconds (00:00:26)
Video streamH.264, 1920×1080, 29.97 fps, 805 frames
Audio streamAAC stereo, 48,000 Hz, about 26.85 decoded seconds
Audio signal checkDecoded audio RMS measured about -16.62 dBFS, peak about -5.54 dBFS; 27 of 27 one-second windows were above -60 dBFS, so speech/audio signal is present.
Caption trackDVIDS public WebVTT, 5 cues, from about 00:00.856 to 00:26.080

Representative frame sampling shows a static NASA-logo audio wrapper on a pale background with a changing waveform line. The sampled frames do not show spacecraft imagery, recovery-camera imagery, sensor video, sky footage, object tracking, or external-object imagery. [S3]

The Release 02 video ZIP central-directory inventory lists the matching entry video_2605_DOD_111721755_DOD_111721755.mp4, size 33,839,454 bytes, CRC32 74dc79cb. The downloaded direct MP4 is 4,030 bytes larger and has CRC32 95c90463, so the direct DVIDS file and the ZIP inventory entry are not byte-aligned at the size/CRC level. The full 5.3 GB Release 02 video ZIP was not downloaded for this page; this mismatch should be preserved as a custody/versioning lead. [S3][S5]

Source custody and provenance

Primary provenance is the official WAR.GOV/PURSUE Release 02 landing page and manifest, followed by the official DVIDS media page. The manifest row identifies this item as Release 02, release date 5/22/26, row 209, agency NASA, kind AUD, DVIDS ID 1007878, incident date 7/21/61, and incident location North Atlantic Ocean. [S1]

DVIDS resolves the page title to NASA-UAP-D014, Mercury-Redstone 4, July 21, 1961 and lists date taken 07.21.1961, date posted 05.22.2026 07:30, category Briefings, VIRIN 610721-D-D0360-5572, filename DOD_111721755, length 00:00:26, and location (UNDISCLOSED LOCATION). [S2]

Important custody points:

  • The manifest item is typed as audio, but DVIDS distributes it as an MP4 with a static NASA-logo/waveform visual and AAC audio. [S2][S3]
  • The public caption endpoint provides only five WebVTT cues and contains obvious transcription roughness; it should be treated as an access aid, not a final mission transcript. [S4]
  • The source-level description points to a recovery dye pack / dye marker that did not activate or dissipate. This page does not transform that recovery-marker discussion into an anomalous-object identification. [S1][S2][S4]
  • This is not a PDF/document row. The Release 02 document bundle hash is preserved at the release level, but the selected source asset for this page is the individual DVIDS media file. [S1][S3]
  • The individual direct MP4 was downloaded and inspected; the large Release 02 video ZIP was used only as central-directory provenance for entry size/CRC. [S3][S5]

Graph context

The current Open Sky graph probe returned no exact graph records for this Release 02 slug, title, or DVIDS ID. That absence is not evidence against the source record; it means this page is operating from official WAR.GOV/DVIDS provenance until Release 02 graph ingest catches up.

No graph-derived finding is made here. Future graph ingest should preserve the distinction between the manifest row, the DVIDS page, the direct MP4, the WebVTT caption file, the Release 02 ZIP entry, the Mercury-Redstone 4 / Liberty Bell 7 recovery context, the source-description dye-pack language, the captioned object on the line in the water wording, and this page's source-review notes. Any Project Mercury, Mercury-Redstone 4, Liberty Bell 7, North Atlantic recovery, Huntclub, Card File 9, dye marker, capsule-distance, recovery-line, or post-liftoff check records should be treated as leads until tied back to this exact source row and source-media hash.

Leads to check

  • Locate Mercury-Redstone 4 / Liberty Bell 7 recovery communications records for July 21, 1961 and compare them against the DVIDS WebVTT before using exact quotations.
  • Resolve the rough caption terms: the first call sign, Card File 9, Huntclub, object on the line in the water, one six zero degrees, die marker versus dye marker/dye pack, and the final after the lift off phrase.
  • Identify the recovery operation context for the capsule, dye marker, line-in-water reference, and the estimated three-quarters-mile distance from the capsule.
  • Separate ordinary recovery-marker/capsule-recovery logistics from any later UAP categorization attached by the release index.
  • Reconcile the manifest location North Atlantic Ocean with the DVIDS location field (UNDISCLOSED LOCATION) while preserving both as source metadata rather than forcing one normalized location.
  • Reconcile the direct MP4 size/CRC with the Release 02 video-ZIP central-directory size/CRC before assuming the two official distribution paths are byte-identical.
  • If graph ingest adds Release 02 nodes later, attach this page to canonical source, media, caption, Project Mercury, MR-4, Liberty Bell 7, recovery-operation, dye-marker, source-custody, and source-description records.

Limits

This is a source-review draft, not a finding. It does not identify the captioned object on the line in the water, dye marker, dye pack, or any recovery-water feature as an anomalous object, spacecraft, sensor target, or unresolved UAP. The checked MP4 is an audio-wrapper presentation file rather than original recovery footage, and this page has not yet cross-checked the excerpt against a full NASA mission-recovery transcript. [S1][S2][S3][S4]

The checked public MP4 is a compressed DVIDS presentation file with static cover/waveform visuals, not original Mercury spacecraft film, recovery-camera footage, or a NASA tape master. The caption track is accessible and useful, but it is rough and short. No exact Release 02 graph node was available at page-writing time, and no independent NASA archival transcript cross-check has yet been completed.

Sources