[*] In 1998 NASA took a photo showing an object of unknown origin that they claim is “space debris”.

[*] In the photo (above), NASA posits what you are seeing is a thermal blanket that was lost on a previous mission. This is what a thermal blanket looks like:

[*] Some people believe the photo shows an alien satellite. The theory has emerged over a number of years and connects a few different pieces of bizarre data that the existence of an alien satellite would explain. Those are:

[*] Radio waves we have detected in outer space as far back as 1899, long before there were human made objects in space.

[*] Nikola Tesla was the first person to build a device that was capable of hearing the alien radio waves. He told a reporter: “While experimenting in Colorado…I obtained extraordinary experimental evidence of the existence of life on Mars. I had perfected a wireless receiver of extraordinary sensitiveness, far beyond anything known, and I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1–2–3–4. I believe the Martians used numbers for communication because numbers are universal.”

[*] In 1954, a marine corps naval aviator, writer, and UFO research named Donald Keyhoe said that the U.S. Air Force had detected two satellites orbiting Earth. This was 3 years prior to the first human made satellite, Sputnik 1, being launched.

[*] In 1960, Time reported that a satellite was engaged in a polar orbit of Earth. All known US and Russian satellites were engaged in equatorial orbit instead. The US Department of Defense responded to the article and claimed that what Time reported as a satellite was actually a broken off piece of the Discoverer satellite, not it’s own device. No proof was offered.

[*] At the time of the sighting, the technology to put a satellite into polar orbit was not yet known — by either the US or Russia.

[*] In 1963 an American astronaut, Gordon Cooper, reported seeing a UFO while in orbit. This report is not listed in any official NASA documents.

[*] At a NASA station in Australia, around 100 people also saw the UFO Cooper reported.

[*] In 1973 a Scottish astronomy and science fiction author, Duncan Lunan, wrote that he had “identified and deciphered a hidden radio message” in outer space radio emissions that predate human existence in outer space.

[*] Lunan says the deciphered message said, “Start here. Our home is Upsilon Bootes, which is a double star. We live on the sixth planet of seven, coming from the sun, which is the larger of the two. Our sixth planet has one moon. Our fourth planet has three. Our first and third planets each have one. Our probe is in the position of Arcturus, known in our maps.”

[*] Upsilon Boötis is a real star in the constellation called Boötes.

[*] Lunan argued that the message originated from a planet that orbited another star in the Boötes constellation, Epsilon Boötis.

[*] Some people believe all of these events can be explained by a non-organic, non-humanmade object called the Black Knight satellite that is believed to have been orbiting earth for 13,000 years.

[*] Right now, more than 100,000 other satellites are orbiting Earth. (A satellite is any object placed intentionally into an orbit in outer space. The moon is technically a satellite, so sometimes the phrasing used is “artificial satellite” vs “natural satellite”). The Black Knight satellite is believed to be an artificial satellite, just not one with human origins.

[*] One theory suggests that the origin of the Black Knight satellite isn’t alien but actually an ancient human creation. The idea here is that an ancient race of humans (or other intelligent, non-human animals on Earth) were scientifically advanced and launched the satellite before becoming extinct.