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).

There have now been many NASA Space Shuttle flights during which strange and unexplained objects have been seen and videotaped. Although relatively unknown, some of the most amazing occurred on the mission of STS-96. This page presents the very first anomaly discovered by myself. I video taped the entire flight on my VCR, and later went through the tapes looking for "highlights" with which to produce my own home documentary of the events and activities of the mission. Little did I realize the amazing things hiding within those tapes.

Several days after Shuttle Discovery had landed, I was looking through one of my raw video tapes. This was the afternoon of 10 June 1999. Up to that time, I paid very little attention to those "boring" sequences from the payload bay cameras, focusing instead on footage of busy Astronauts and Cosmonauts working in the interior spaces of the fledgling ISS.

As I was using the fast forward feature of my VCR to skip a longish night scene from outside the Shuttle/Station complex, I noticed something very bright whiz across the field of view. I said "What Was THAT?" out loud, and swiftly rewound to see it again, and again... I called my wife to see it too, then my sons. I was shocked, to say the least. I had found my first NASA U.F.O.... That object is presented for you on this page "The Flyby". I subsequently continued to record all manned space flights available to me on my cable TV provider, and conciously search for anomalous objects in the resulting tapes. The Flyby forever changed the course of my long term interest in space exploration.

By 3 June, the Astronauts had completed their assigned tasks aboard the Space Station. The hatches between Shuttle and the Station were closed and sealed. Some forty-five minutes later, the Shuttle crew executed a series of maneuvers designed to boost the orbit of the complex. During this time, one of the payload bay video cameras, aboard Discovery, was trained on the Solar panels of the Zarya Module, to observe how they fared during the rocket firings. Whilst this was going on, something bizarre, and unexpected, took place. A surprising object "buzzed" past the Shuttle/Station complex, through the camera's lower right field of view, at approximately 5:50 AM CDT (10:50 GMT). It was very bright, very close, and exhibited a pulsating characteristic. This event occurred in full darkness, over the Pacific Ocean, east of New Zealand. The camera was set for infinity, and the object displayed a sharply focused, rounded outline. This tells us that it was quite a bit further away than just a few feet from the camera lens, yet it's brightness in the absence of Sunlight indicates self illumination.

There are those who will say that this object is just another out of focus ice particle, or fragment of debris. They will say that it's light source is merely reflection from the payload bay lamps, which were on at the time. Fortunately, the debunkers can be shown to be the ones mistaken in this case. In the minutes before and after the object buzzes the orbiting complex, a number of genuine bits of ice and debris manifest themselves. Easily seen and identified, these are very different in appearance from the unknown object. They have random shapes, can be seen to tumble. They are far duller in the light of the payload bay lamps than the Unknown. Taking into account the facts of this case, one must conclude that a self luminous, self propelled object, passed close to the Shuttle/Station complex the morning of 3 June, 1999. This object is obviously not associated with any publicly known Earth based space program, so it must be something else. What? Your guess is as good as mine.

This is a full still frame of the object which is of interest to us. The object appeared to be self luminous, and it was pulsating as it crossed the screen from bottom left to middle right.

Next, the full size animated GIF of the flyby object.

In this animated GIF, the object is slowed down to about one third real time speed. It was faster in the original video. Please note how very BRIGHT this thing is, and remember that there was no sunshine available. This object even visibly pulsates, in similar fashion to The Hovering Orb, seen in almost this very same spot over Earth one orbit earlier.

The Shuttle/Station complex was orbiting high over the Pacific Ocean several hundred miles east of New Zealand, and it was quite near local midnight. There was a floodlight attached to the payload bay camera, but it was not capable of brightly illuminating anything further away than a few yards ( meters ). Also please take note that the anomaly displays no hint of any tumbling motion.

Following are three enhanced animations, each composed of 16 frames, to further clarify that this object was NOT something ordinarily encountered in manned space exploration.

Now we will look at a genuine piece of ice or debris which passed in front of the camera lens a few moments AFTER the anomaly. A still frame is presented first to familiarize you with its appearance (left).

This is what a REAL ice chip looks like. Notice how dull it is, even in the floodlight mounted on the camera. Next is an animated GIF of this ice flake to show its movement past the camera.

It is, as you can see for yourself, dull and not very reflective. Toward the end of its transit, one can even see that it is tumbling slowly. This piece of ice bears little or no resemblance to the anomaly seen before.

The anomaly seen in this event is eerily similar to others seen at later dates. They are available here:

STS-101 The Louisiana Sequence 5/00

STS-115 Incident Over "Oz" 09/06

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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