Conspiracy theorists are starting to doubt NASA as the feeds from the ISS are getting cut more and more frequently, conveniently when a UFO appears on the screen. The most recent occurred just earlier this month. Naturally, NASA has released a statement to debunk these theories.
As Snopes recalls, the video was first shared on YouTube by user Streetcap1 on July 9th. The item in the shot does not look like an alien spaceship. In fact, Streetcap1 specifically states that it really was just an unidentified object - an unknown item that was floating about in space. The user that uploaded the footage even offers some explanations of what it could have been, like a meteor or even a spacecraft from another country.
However, what clouds the clip in speculation is that the feed is abruptly cut a few seconds after the UFO is seen. Moreover, this was not the first time that NASA has been accused of cutting the feed just as something out of the ordinary makes its way on the screen.
NASA has since released a statement to logically explain why the feeds were cut. According to Daniel Huot, a spokesperson from the space agency, the footage comes from NASA's High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment. HDEV gets its feed from several cameras stationed all around the exterior of the International Space Station. Further, these cameras suffer from regular outages whenever the ISS is within an area that satellites cannot reach.
As Mail Online quotes Huot, "The station regularly passes out of range of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) used to send and receive video, voice and telemetry from the station." He also explains that whenever a blue screen appears on the feed, it simply means that signal is lost.
While NASA's explanation is definitely a logical one, there is still the question of why the signal was lost just as UFO-like objects appeared on the screen. After all, the incident earlier this month was not the first time this has happened. Just last November, NASA's feeds showed a mysterious object that was in the shape of a horseshoe. The signal was conveniently lost then as well.
