What was that UFO in space?

Ten days before Christmas 1965, as a distant war was intensifying and the city of New Orleans was slowly recovering from a hurricane's devastation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration got an early holiday present: astronauts Walter M. "Wally" Schirra Jr. and Thomas P. Stafford, aboard Gemini 6, rendezvoused in space with Gemini 7, piloted by Frank Borman and Jim Lovell.

Schirra and Stafford maneuvered their capsule to within a few feet of the sister ship for the first, historic, prearranged meeting in space.

The maneuver required the most exacting pilot and computer control of a space vehicle yet attempted. Its success demonstrated to Mission Control that when it came to linking two vehicles in space, Houston did not have a problem.

Then, just before Stafford and Schirra were scheduled to re-enter Earth's atmosphere Dec. 16, the pair reported they had sighted some sort of UFO. Schirra recounted the moment when Stafford contacted Mission Control in "Schirra's Space," a memoir he wrote with Richard Billings:

"We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit. ... Looks like he might be going to re-enter soon. ... You just might let me pick up that thing. ... I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit."

Then ground controllers heard the strains, both familiar and otherworldly, of "Jingle Bells," played on a harmonica backed by -- what else? -- miniature sleigh bells.

Today that harmonica, a tiny, four-hole, eight-note Little Lady model manufactured by Hohner, as well as five small bells of the kind that might embellish a Christmas wreath, reside in a gallery on the second floor of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The quirky artifacts, which Schirra and Stafford donated in 1967, are included in a display of personal items astronauts have taken into space, along with such standard-issue gear as long underwear and survival knives.

According to curator Margaret A. Weitekamp, the harmonica and bells were the first musical instruments ever played in space.

The right stuff may be a critical requirement for astronauts. But in the early days of space exploration, there wasn't much room for stuff of any kind, though each astronaut was allowed to bring along a handful of personal items, usually consisting of small souvenirs the astronauts wanted to bring back as presents.