There are widespread claims about UFOs photographed on X-15 rocket plane flights in the early 1960s. This photograph is most famous but is usually misrepresented as showing a 'large craft'. It was reissued by NASA Headquarters' press office after some media inquiries in 1976, and the explanatory caption is reproduced below (White described the object, evidently something peeling or flaking off his own vehicle, as being about the size of his hand). The flight in question was X-15 Flight-62 on July 17, 1962, which
set an FAI world altitude record for winged vehicles of 95,940 meters; White became the first man to earn USAF 'astronaut wings' in the X-15 program.
 

Filed Feb 23, 1976
Photo 76-HC-91 or 76-H-139

Officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Flight Research Center at Edwards, California released photographs taken during U.S. Air Force Major Robert M. White's recent X-15
flight to 314,750 feet.  These pictures, extracted from a film of a movie camera mountad in the lower tail of the aircraft, showed an undetermined sized object of a grey-white color tumbling above and behind the X-15.  The frames showing this object were correlated by NASA technicians with other flight data and indicate that this series of photographs was taken as the X-1S climbed through 219,000 feet.  NASA officials reported however, that it was impossible to positively identify the photographed object as the same one as seen by Major White.  They also reported that it was impossib1e to identify or explain the object's presence at this time. Major White reported after landing,

"I started noticing some things. . . it looked like perhaps it might have been residue or frost or very small things going by. . .and at one time, a piece of something about the size of my hand, which looked like a piece of paper, went past, just going along with the aircraft." Objects were observed in the film of the same camera mounted on a flight made by NASA's chief project pilot, Joseph A. Walker, on April 30 to an altitude of 246,700 feet.  After detailed examination and study, NASA officials found these objects to be particles at ice flaking off the frosty sides of the research aircraft.