Identify this spacecraft object?

[Maury Markowitz]

Check out the "UFO" in this newspaper report:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BroughtYouThisThingYT/comments/1gbxbw8/ufo_proof_undeniable

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/BroughtYouThisThingYT/comments/1gbxbw8/ufo_proof_undeniable/


The article states it was something to do with Little Joe. Now I seem to recall seeing something just like this in some article on NASA history. I think it may have been one of the very early submissions for the Mercury program, when they had a bunch of ideas. I guess it could also be the bottom of the production Mercury, upside down here, but then I'm not sure why the rockets are on the wrong side.

Can anyone ID this?

 

[KSCARLET]

Its at the White Sands Missile Range Museum...

I saw it there many years ago..

 

[publiusr]

Viking aeroshell or something
There was film of the drop.

 

[Justo Miranda]

aero-shell
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/A-general-description-of-the-aeroshell-components_fig1_368746462

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroshell