The Best of Science Fiction 12

01 15 24 P: This is Friendship Seven. I'll try to describe what I'm in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles that are brilliantly lit up like they're luminescent. I never saw anything like it. They round a little [sic]; they're coming by the capsule, and they look like stars. A whole shower of them coming by.

01 15 57 P: They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window and they're all brilliantly lighted. They probably average may be seven or eight feet apart, but I can see them all down below me, also.

01 16 06 CC: Roger, Friendship Seven. Can you hear any impact with the capsule? Over.

01 16 10 P: Negative, negative. They're very slow; they're not going away from me more than maybe three or four miles per hour. They're going at the same speed I am approximately. They're only very slightly under my speed. Over.

01 16 33 P: They do, they do have a different motion, though, from me because they swirl around the capsule and then depart back the way I am looking.

01 16 46 P: Are you receiving? Over.

01 16 55 P: There are literally thousands of them.

01 17 16 P: This is Friendship Seven. Am I in contact with anyone? Over.

(John Glenn, transcript of first orbital 'Mercury' flight, in The Coming of the Space Age.)