NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy alerted ground controllers on Monday to an unidentified flying object (UFO) floating near the International Space Station.
While initially this news caused a bit of a stir, it turns out it wasn’t an alien spacecraft.
According to MSN, what was originally thought to be a UFO was actually a piece of the station itself.
“Russian ground controllers identified it as an antenna cover from the Zvezda service module, one of the oldest parts of the station.”
Discovery News stated that NASA TV reported that Cassidy noted the object floating past the station near the station’s Progress 52 cargo ship early Monday morning.
MSN continued on to that this wasn’t the first time station debris caused a UFO stir.
“Back in 1998, during the shuttle Endeavour’s mission to hook the U.S.-built Unity connecting node to the Russian-made Zvezda module, astronauts spotted a blobby object floating away from the scene.
“NASA determined that the object was a discarded thermal cover, but that didn’t stop UFO fans from working the material into their tale of a mysterious “Black Knight” satellite that has been circling our planet for millennia.”
This isn’t the first UFO news to hit the internet recently.
The Inquisitr recently reported on a UFO recorded hovering above a pool in Naples Florida.
Footage of the saucer-shaped object was being investigated by The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), an Ohio-based non-profit, volunteer organization that investigates UFO sightings.
The organization called the footage, which records the object for 30 minutes, “one of the most fascinating videos they have seen in a while.” They do not believe the video is a hoax.
Once the UFO had been identified, NASA began to look at whether or not the antenna cover would collide with the station.
MSN reported that the antenna cover’s speed in relation to the rest of the station was so low, it didn’t pose that much of a collision hazard.
“Controllers were glad to see the debris fade off into the distance, heading for what they expected would be a brief, fiery re-entry in the atmosphere.”
Well, NASA’s Chris Cassidy didn’t identify an actual UFO spacecraft, but that won’t stop stargazers from continuing to search the stars for other signs of life in the universe.