# Did anyone witness the Apolo missions reenter Earth's atmosphere?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-witness-the-apolo-missions-reenter-earths-atmosphere/766481>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 21, 2016, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-witness-the-apolo-missions-reenter-earths-atmosphere/766481 "2016-09-21T01:44:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-witness-the-apolo-missions-reenter-earths-atmosphere/766481/1 "2016-09-21T01:44:59Z")

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It seems like amateur astronomers could have anticipated where and when it would happen.

Did anyone actually do it?

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**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-witness-the-apolo-missions-reenter-earths-atmosphere/766481/2 "2016-09-21T01:57:09Z")

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Seems extremely unlikely, since the capsules landed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I don’t think any NASA footage even exists.

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**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-witness-the-apolo-missions-reenter-earths-atmosphere/766481/3 "2016-09-21T02:14:10Z")

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There are a lot of amateur observations of the Apollo missions listed here. [Bill Keel's Space Bits - Tracking the Apollo Flights](http://pages.astronomy.ua.edu/keel/space/apollo.html)

Skimming the page quickly, I found these two re-entry sightings.

> [@](#):
>
> As reported in National Geographic (May 1969, p. 624), the Apollo 8 re-entry was seen by a planeload of passengers thanks to Captain James Holliday flying Pan Am flight 812, a Boeing 707 en route from Fiji to Honolulu on December 27, 1968.

> [@](#):
>
> The [Apollo 13] re-entry was seen by the crew and passengers on an Air New Zealand DC-8 bound from Nadi (or Nandi, in Fiji) to Auckland.

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**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-witness-the-apolo-missions-reenter-earths-atmosphere/766481/4 "2016-09-21T14:02:53Z")

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Cool. I didn’t know of those incidents.

Damned cool.  
I’m one of many who saw shuttles coming in, when they were sent on the high-ecliptic approach to a Florida landing. Columbia was a huge magenta comet, right overhead… but I didn’t learn for hours that it was already breaking up. But to see an Apollo capsule coming in… holy chute.

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**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2016, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-anyone-witness-the-apolo-missions-reenter-earths-atmosphere/766481/5 "2016-09-21T15:16:06Z")

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> [@chacoguy](#):
>
> It seems like amateur astronomers could have anticipated where and when it would happen.
> 
> Did anyone actually do it?

I seem to recall TV footage of the re-entry of the Apollo missions. I don’t think Apollo 11 was caught before the chutes opened, but by the latter missions, they were pretty good at being able to control where it would land and had cameras on AF helicopters to record the event.