Footage purportedly showing a mysterious UFO passing like a “streak of light” behind the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit has sparked heated debate on online UFO conspiracy theory forums.

The alleged UFO, spotted on a recording of NASA’s Live ISS feed on Thursday, appears momentarily as a “streak of light” with white, yellow and red colors (see footage below).

A UFO hunter commented that it looked like a “fireball” streaking past in the vicinity of the ISS.

The footage was excerpted from a recorded live ISS stream. The source may be viewed here on Ustream, with the alleged UFO appearing around 15:25 of the stream.

The recorded footage was uploaded to Facebook where it sparked a heated argument between viewers who thought it was a meteor or a piece of space junk burning brightly after it entered the Earth’s atmosphere and those who thought it was a UFO spacecraft speeding through space close to the ISS.

The footage was also uploaded to YouTube on June 3, 2016, by online UFO hunter Secureteam10. It sparked a lively debate among followers of the YouTube channel.

“This amazing piece of ISS footage that was just emailed to me a few minutes ago has got me very excited,” Secureteam10’s Tyler Glockner says in the video.

Glockner explains that he received the footage from a UFO hunter who reported spotting a “fireball-like” object whizzing past the ISS while watching recorded live ISS footage on Thursday.

“He says he sees what looks like a fireball of some sort streak in behind ISS,” Glockner explains.

Although the source thought the mysterious object looked like a fireball, Glockner explains it could not be a fireball because meteors do not burn in airless space.

“There is this bright object that can’t be a fireball, because there’s no air in space, hence there can’t be fire,” he said. “My mind is just blown. What is this thing?”

“It comes out of nowhere, flies up behind the ISS and we can actually see just before it disappears some red lights shining on the ISS.”

Some viewers thought the object was likely a meteor or piece of space junk, such as a spent rocket stage re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

“This was a meteorite hitting the Earth’s atmosphere and either burning up or bouncing off back in to space,” a viewer said. “This is a good film of a fire ball coming in to the Earth’s Atmosphere from the perspective of space.”

A NASA astronaouts conducts Extra-Vehicular Activity outside the International Space Station [Image via Shutterstock]

One viewer suggested that cameras on board the ISS may have captured the fireball that exploded over Arizona on Thursday as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Looks like a view from the ISS of the meteorite exploding over Arizona,” YouTube user Neil Conafray said.

But other YouTube users disagreed, saying the object was more likely a UFO flying past the ISS because the light was bright and appeared to be close to the ISS. Others argued it was unlikely that a flash of light from a small piece of space junk or a small meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere would be captured by ISS cameras at an altitude of 330 km to 435 kilometers (205-270 miles).

UFO enthusiasts insisted that the footage shows a UFO spacecraft speeding close to the ISS in space and disappearing.

One enthusiast pointed out that UFOs appear very frequently on the live ISS stream, implying that no one should be surprised to spot a UFO streaking past the ISS like a “fireball.”

While debating, enthusiasts ignored recent statements by a NASA spokesperson denying claimed UFOs sightings near the ISS.

The Inquisitr reported in April that a NASA spokesperson responded to recent claims that UFOs were sighted near the ISS and that NASA often shuts down live ISS stream when UFOs appear on the live feed, saying that most alleged sightings were caused by reflections from the station windows, parts of the spacecraft projecting in front of the camera or lights from Earth that appear in the photos and videos.

NASA also denied allegations that it shuts down live transmission when alleged UFOs appear, saying that the agency never intentionally shuts down the live feed and that cases of loss of video were due mostly to loss of signals from the ISS.

But UFO hunters ignored NASA’s explanation, while many alleged that the agency was lying “as usual.”

And no sooner had NASA issued its rebuttals than UFO hunters made new claims of sightings of mysterious UFOs swarming around the International Space Station in low Earth orbit.

UFO hunter Streetcap1 claimed (see YouTube above) to have spotted a disc-shaped UFO with a conspicuous metallic glint hovering in space near the ISS.

Some UFO enthusiasts challenged NASA to explain away the new sighting, saying that the alleged UFO was obviously not a “reflection from the station window.”

A few weeks later, UFO hunters came up with even more fantastic claims.

According to a UFO hunter Pete WDHCo, a series of images taken for the live ISS feed suggested that Pentagon had weaponized the ISS.

The conspiracy theorist presented as evidence a series of images that appeared to show a missile released from the ISS towards Earth.

UFO hunters agreed that Pentagon was possibly test-firing a kinetic energy weapon by launching it from the ISS against a land-based target.

[Image via Shutterstock]