The flight of STS-96 began with the liftoff of Space Shuttle Discovery from Launch Complex 39B, Kennedy Space Center, on 27 May 1999 at 6:50 AM EDT (10:50 GMT).

The mission to the new International Space Station was named ISS Flight 2A.1. It was devoted to stocking supplies aboard, and an EVA ( Extra Vehicular Activity or spacewalk ) installing a Russian made exterior crane known as "Strela" ( Russian for "Arrow" ).

The Crew did a fine job, meeting all the goals set for them. The flight lasted just over nine and a half days, landing safely back at Kennedy Space Center, on Runway 15, at 2:03 AM EDT (6:03 GMT) on 6 June 1999.

At this time, ISS was uninhabited, and would remain so for well over another year, the First Expedition Crew arriving 1 November 2000. In Spring 1999, ISS consisted of just two modules, the Russian Zarya (FGB Russian acronym for Functional Cargo Block - top module at right), and the American Unity Node (lower module at right).

By 4 June 1999, the STS-96 resupply mission to the ISS was in it's last days. The Shuttle Discovery had undocked from the International Space Station the day before. The Crew was enjoying some much deserved rest, and were in their sleep period during this incident.

Outside the ship, the payload bay video cameras were being employed extensively to provide views of the Earth below. By day and by night, orbit after orbit, the onboard cameras were bringing back wonderful live shots from space.

The wee hours of 4 June were a quiet time aboard Discovery, and at Mission Control as well. The ship was making a night time pass over the Gulf of Mexico, heading notheast above Miami Florida, and out over the Atlantic Ocean. As Discovery sailed past Florida, her path took her nearly parallel to to the east coast of the United States.

I have called this entire seven minute live downlink The Florida Sequence. In my personal opinion, it is possibly THE MOST IMPORTANT NASA U.F.O. footage I have ever captured myself. It is FAR too complicated, with too much going on, to be confined to a single page at Project P.R.O.V.E. So, it has been divided up into segments, with a page concentrating on each set of anomalous objects in order of appearance.

Within moments of passing over Miami, it became apparent that there were powerful thunderstorms raging on the ocean far below. Equally visible amongst the lightning flashes were a number of anomalous objects. Over the next nearly seven minutes some 18, or more, Unidentified Objects manifested themselves.

Two distinct kinds of object could be seen down there amongst the clouds. Some were quite large and bright. These moved rather slowly, and seemed attracted to the lightning discharges. The other class of objects were much smaller, and moved at extremely high speed, but also appearing to head for the lightning discharges. Researcher, USAF Major (ret.) George Filer of New Jersey, and Filer's Weekly Files fame, calculated the speed of these smaller objects to be in the neighborhood of 100,000 miles per hour ( 160,000 kph ) IN THE ATMOSPHERE! The small objects were also observed to DECELERATE, enter the clouds, and become lost to sight.

I see little chance that any of these objects might be meteors or aircraft. Meteors burn out rather quickly, often leave trails, and NEVER visibly decelerate. None of these objects exhibited any of the characteristics of meteors or any other astronomical phenomena. Even the largest of aircraft would be too small to be visible from the altitude of the Space Shuttle's orbit (220 miles, 350 km) and are not capable of the velocities observed. Besides, no pilot in his right mind would willingly take his airplane into a thunderstorm, let alone twenty fliers in seven minutes! It would be suicidal! The lighting conditions during these events changed from total night at the beginning, both above in orbit and below on the surface, all the way to Sunrise at sea level by the time the downlink was cut. Yet, the aspect of the objects did not change throughout the entire sequence of events.

Ordinary debris, and bits of ice, are frequently seen against the Earth during twilight, both at sunrise and sunset. But, as the Sun rises and illuminates the surface, these rapidly become lost against the bright background of the Earth and Oceans below. These objects remained bright and easily seen right up to the point that the live downlink was unceremoniously cut off.

It is fairly obvious that it took some time for the people in Houston to notice what was going on out in the Atlantic. When they did notice, it was too late. The whole series of events had been captured by my VCR. It would have been nice though, to see what that last object looked like in extreme close-up.

Now you can watch this animated GIF, of the second group of objects we are examining. As can be seen, the lightning activity was vigorous. The "blob" of light in the lower left corner of the screen is a city or town on the Atlantic coast of the USA. I just have to wonder if people outdoors that morning could SEE these things out to sea. Toward the end of this bit, you can see that the INCO was "fooling around" with the camera. He played with the iris, closing it down severely, and panned the camera "down" to face the payload bay of the Shuttle. At that point, the view from the Earth below was obscured for a period of time. Later, the camera was returned to its former position and iris setting.

In the upper left, you can see one of the previously mentioned smaller, faster, objects. This will be dealt with on another page.

Here we are primarily concerned with the three bright orbs entering the scene from the upper right. The first two almost seem to be dancing a waltz together. The third "member" of the trio comes in at a much higher rate of speed. Eventually, it slows and stays with the other two. The behavior of these three objects is quite reminiscient of a trio of anomalies milling around over the limb of Earth in the now famous STS-80 footage, seen on a number of broadcast television programs.

As with the fast objects examined in Part One of The Florida Sequence, these things seem to be attracted to the lightning discharges in the storms far below on the sea.

Why? Who knows. One might speculate they were "charging batteries", if artificial. It's been said that ONE lightning bolt carries enough energy to power a town of 50,000 residents for an entire YEAR! Now that's a LOT of power!

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At all times during this incident, the camera was under the control of the INCO in Houston Mission Control.

(INCO - INstrument & Communication Officer - The man in Houston Mission Control Center who is responsible for operating the Shuttle payload bay, and robotic arm, cameras. He also remotely operates the helmet cameras in space suits. In the case of ISS, this officer is referred to as the CATO - Communications And Tracking Officer. In both cases, these persons CONTROL everything which is PERMITTED to go out on broadcast to the public. It is a commonly believed falacy that the cameras are operated by Astronauts & Cosmonauts on the Shuttles, and Space Station. Very little camera work is done by the crews. They're way too busy for that.)

At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.

© 2005 Jeff Challender