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 km/h) 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.

This didn't last long though, as a new object appeared from bottom right. The object circled is what we will follow. Although the field of view is moving steadily north east as Shuttle sails along on orbit, this new object looked to the human eye to have a direct course toward centre screen. The arrow reflects this illusory direction. This optical illusion was caused by the telescopic lens on the camera rapidly backing out. In actuality, the direction of travel for the object is depicted in the next two still frames.

At the start of this individual event, the camera is in zoom mode looking down on a prominent thunderstorm formation. The anomaly enters from the right side of the screen, and the camera is zoomed out, creating an optical illusion that the object made a 90° right turn. Then, as the object appeared to catch the attention of the INCO, the telescopic lens is zoomed in again. BUT, the feed was cut off very suddenly, just before we might have been afforded a really good chance to see this thing up close.

Did the personnel at NASA continue to observe this phenomenon after they denied it to the public? There is no proof for this, but it does seem likely. A friend of mine, who has experience with NASA video practices told me, in late summer 1999, that the sudden cut off of the live feed was probably caused by NORAD. Maybe so, but again there is no proof for this possibility.

WHY did the INCO zoom in for a closer look if this was ONLY ice or space junk? Based on the fact that the telescopic zoom was used to close in on this object, it seems unlikely that it was very nearby to Discovery. We can also see for ourselves that this object appeared relentless in its trek toward the center of the lightning storm.

Why? Who knows. One might speculate that it was "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