One of the most spectacular video footages of a UFO encounter was taken by cameras on board the Discovery space shuttle on 15th September 1991. The video sequence was picked up live by a number of amateurs who were directly monitoring the transmissions. The material has been shown in news broadcasts and circulated amongst UFO researches worldwide.
The video shows several small, bright objects
manoeuvring on screen, apparantly interacting with one another
in a complex fashion. Sceptics have usually insisted these are
merely shots of some of the many small ice particles which inevitably
end up in orbit with every space shuttle.
UFO investigators were quick to dispute this
interpretation, and US scientist Dr Richard Hoagland soon conclusively
demonstrated the objects were actually large sized and many hundreds
of kilometers away from the shuttle.
One UFO in particular appears to rise up from
below the Earth's dawn horizon and can be clearly seen emerging
from behind the atmosphere and the 'airglow' layers. It is certainly
in orbit around the Earth, some distance out in space, and travelling
quickly.
A sudden, bright flash of light is then seen
to the left of the picture, below the shuttle. The UFO then turns
at a sharp angle and heads out into space at very high speed.
Two thin beams of light (or possibly condensation trails) move
rapidly up from the Earth's surface towards where the UFO would
have been if it continued in its original orbit.
Subsequently, careful analysis of the video
shows that:
The light flash and light beams (or contrails) that shoot into space have variously been described as a ground-based attempt to disrupt or destroy the UFO. Hoagland interprets the incident captured by the Discovery's videocamera more specifically as a "Star Wars" weapons test against a Star Wars drone (the UFO). Other UFO investigators prefer to describe it as a Star Wars attempt against an extraterrestrial UFO. Whichever version you prefer, the technology implied is most certainly impressive - at least of Star Wars calibre.
More recently, from New Zealand, investigators
have reveiwed the video and corrected the actual time it was taken.
They have found the UFO incident was recorded over Australia and
not the Philippine islands as was originally thought. Discovery's
trajectory had already taken it across Surabaya in Java and above
the Simpson Desert, Western Australia.
The UFO is first picked up coming over the
horizon when the shuttle is close to Lake Carnegie, WA. Later,
the light flash and one contrail can be tracked back to Exmouth
Bay near the North West Cape military facility. A second contrail
can be tracked back to the Pine Gap military facility in central
australia.
US investigators have been asking their Australian counterparts to provide further information which they don't have and which they probably can't get. All the information we have on the incident so far comes the US and New Zealand. And, of course there are Autralia's stringent secrecy laws to contend with.
The scenario was probably captured on video
purely by chance. Along with other UFO incidents recorded on video
by NASA, this material has contributed significantly towards NASA's
recent decision to discontinue live transmissions from space.