People who love conspiracy theories believe that the unidentified object, dubbed the Black Knight, is an alien spacecraft orbiting the Earth.
What is it actually? This is what Space writes about.
For many years there has been a legend actively spread by conspiracy theorists that we are being watched by aliens from outer space and that an unidentified object of extraterrestrial origin called the “Black Knight” is orbiting the Earth. Conspiracy theorists believe that over 120 years have passed since the existence of the Black Knight was first recorded. Those who subscribe to this theory cite evidence so disparate that it is not very clear why people string them together. But all of this has led some people to believe that NASA and the US government are actually hiding the fact that not only do aliens exist, but so is their spaceship, which is in low Earth orbit.
Conspiracy theorists believe that the first evidence of the existence of the “Black Knight” appeared in 1899. Then the American inventor and engineer Nikola Tesla detected several unusual radio signals and suggested that they came from an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization. Now scientists believe that this signal actually came from Earth and was misinterpreted. Conspiracy theorists also believe that at the beginning of the 20th century, various scientists received unusual radio signals, which they could not explain, and also connected them with alien spacecraft. But all these phenomena have now been explained by scientists and have nothing to do with extraterrestrial civilizations.
In fact, the legend of the “Black Knight” gained great popularity in 1998, when NASA astronauts first photographed an unusual space object in orbit. This photo was taken by the astronauts of the shuttle Endeavor, which delivered the first American module of the future ISS – Unity – into orbit. It was docked with the Russian Zarya module and thus assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) began. The astronaut photo, which was released by NASA, showed a black object hovering above Earth in low Earth orbit. From this point on, the “Black Knight” theory became mainstream. Proponents and conspiracy theorists have included this photo in the list of many so-called proofs of the existence of an alien spacecraft in orbit. In fact, this object has nothing to do with aliens. According to James Oberg, a former NASA employee, this object is one of four thermal covers designed to protect the Unity module.
During one of the spacewalks on the space shuttle Endeavour, astronaut Jerry Ross accidentally lost a heat-insulating cap and it flew further into space. This escaped black object was listed in the NASA space debris catalog under the number 025570. A few days later, the object fell out of orbit and burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Despite the fact that NASA has long explained what the so-called “Black Knight” actually is, the legend of an alien spacecraft in Earth’s orbit lives on.
