The object McDivitt saw on Gemini 4

In June 1965, James McDivitt and Ed White spent four days in orbit aboard Gemini 4, a mission remembered for the first American spacewalk. During the flight, McDivitt saw through the window an object with what looked like arms or protrusions, and he tried to photograph and film it before it disappeared from view.

The account became one of the most repeated UFO cases of the space age. The images released later, however, showed light reflections on the window, and the astronaut said they did not match what he had seen. McDivitt never claimed to have seen an alien spacecraft, only something he could not identify. Researchers point to a likely explanation: the second stage of the Titan rocket that launched the capsule, traveling in a nearby orbit, or some other fragment lit by the Sun.