Universe Today
Perusing
You Tube
, there are lots of UFO videos, which are usually grainy, shaky videos showing nothing that can be proved definitively. But there are a couple of videos that are different -- and have generated a lot of interest -- because they were filmed by NASA astronauts during space missions.
I'd like to recommend everyone read an
article published today by Popular Mechanics
where the astronauts who were behind the camera for two of these videos speak out about what is actually in the videos, and NASA's supposed "cover-up." The two astronauts, Tom Jones and Mario Runco "reveal" what the videos are really showing.
"There's no way to keep people from using public domain footage for silly purposes," former astronaut Tom Jones says in the article. "If a shuttle beams back 10 hours of Earth views each day, there are bound to be images and scenes that are misunderstood or taken out of context."
And "out of context" is what many UFO theories and proponents rely on, says writer
Erik Sofge
. And NASA tends to never make official statements debunking any of the UFO claims, which helps fuel the flames. One clip, taken by Runco is of the PAM-STU satellite that Runco and his crew deployed during the STS-77 mission in 1996, outfitted with reflective materials. During the entire clip, however, Runco or mission control never says exactly what they are filming, but keep referring to it as "the target," typical for pilots and NASA astronauts. There are other oddities about the clip, with lights moving in the background, but Runco says the lights are likely to be stars.
Another clip, taken by Jones is simply "ice crystals or flakes of thruster residue in the near field are floating by, get hit by a thruster exhaust plume and zip out of the scene," Jones said.
It's one thing to believe that alien life is a statistical likelihood, and quite another to interpret lights in the sky as intergalactic contact.
Check out the great article,
and kudos to Jones and Runco for speaking out.
