NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao immediately called Mission Control after spotting “five bright lights” by the International Space Station (ISS) in a situation that left him fearing for his safety.
The space station currently serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory for astronauts in space and was a joint project between NASA, Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA and CSA, and cost more than £150billion when it was launched in 1998. The space agencies carry out various experiments on board the satellite, as well as occasionally heading outside for a spacewalk. But, in 2005, during his last mission for NASA, Dr Leroy Chiao had a bizarre experience that left him both shocked and confused, the Science Channel’s “NASA’s Unexplained Files” revealed.
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He revealed in 2014: “You’re very aware, hyper-aware when you’re doing a spacewalk as you are in a pretty dangerous situation.
“It’s exciting on many levels and also stressful too because you don’t want to mess up your last one.
“But if that tether becomes undone, you are just going to float away from the station and it’s pretty much curtains (closed).
“Suddenly, I look up and I see these five lights and they seem to fly by.
“There were four in a line and my heart just leapt up into my throat and they just flew by the station.”
The series went on to reveal how Dr Chiao then called Mission Control, where former NASA engineer James Oberg was observing.
Mr Oberg gave an insight into the call, revealing: “He reported that he’s just spotted five lights.
“When you see something in space, the possibility always is that your life could be on the line.”
The series went on to reveal how the mystery went unsolved for a long time, until a breakthrough was made by another NASA employee.
It explained: “His Russian crew-mate was facing away from the lights and saw nothing, even the space station camera on board missed the action.
“But the incident does trigger the curiosity of former NASA engineer James Smith.
“He digs out satellite images from around the time of Chiao’s encounter.
“The images confirm Chiao’s story, but what did he actually see?
“Smith begins to search the record of satellite paths and even military Air Force exercises, but he finds nothing.
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“He then turns his attention to ground-based activities because in the waters of South America commercial fishing fleets use huge arrays of lights to fish at night.”
Dr Chiao revealed how he accepted this explanation, but still has wonders over what more could be waiting in space.
He added: “It turns out these boats were deployed in a line up the coast and it was the rotation of Earth that made it appear that they were flying.
“I have no doubt there is other life in the universe, but I don’t think we’ve found each other yet.”
Yesterday, NASA astronauts planned to head to the ISS on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, blasted off from the Falcon 9 rocket in Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre.
But the mission, which would have been the first from US soil in nine years, was cancelled due to bad weather.
The next launch opportunity for the mission known as SpaceX Demo-2, which will carry veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, is on Saturday at 3.22pm, with another at 3pm Sunday.
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Sourse: www.express.co.uk
