Have you ever heard of an alien satellite orbiting Earth? The enthusiasts even gave him a name - Black Knight. Nice, isn't it? But does he really exist? Or is it just another urban legend, of which there are a great many on the Internet?
Is the black knight an alien mechanism?
Ufologists believe that an extraterrestrial satellite does exist. And it has been in low-earth orbit for over fifty years. It is also rumored that the legendary Tesla himself intercepted radio signals coming from this mysterious object. And someone even claims that this object was actually shot down by the Americans. Because who knows what is on his mind. Better to destroy away from sin … But these are just rumors.
But what if the Black Knight really exists? What could it be? Is there any logical explanation for this phenomenon? Yes, there are several theories on this score. For example, such: it's just space debris or some kind of top-secret spy satellite. Or even a lost thermal blanket from the ISS. Or maybe the remnant of a rocket or a booster. Well, or the version sounded above - the Black Knight is an ordinary extraterrestrial satellite. Choose for every taste, as they say.
But why do so many support the alien version? She fascinates and intrigues. And people like that.
The story of aliens took life in 1954. Two major newspaper agencies have written a couple of stories about a mysterious satellite that was discovered in orbit around our planet. Well, what's wrong with that, you ask? And the point here is that not a single earth satellite in those days was in space. The reports allegedly relied on some source in the US Air Force. And if then we did not know how to launch satellites into space, then who did it then? Who could have put a satellite into orbit (and not just into orbit. But into polar orbit!) At that time?
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The questions are really interesting. But who was this mysterious source of information in the US Air Force?
Intrigue and advertising of books
Some facts indicate that articles concerning a mysterious object in space are associated with a certain Donald Keijo. He worked for the US Marine Corps Naval Aviation publication. And very seriously interested in the topic of UFOs. Many researchers believe that published newspaper articles that mentioned mysterious satellites contained similar information to increase sales of Keiho's books.
In subsequent years, the amount of information about the mysterious satellite became more and more. The Black Knight has allegedly made repeated appearances on the US Navy's radar screens designed to detect "spy satellites." And its orbit was very unusual. According to verified sources, the Black Knight satellite was orbit with an inclination of 79 degrees. He orbited the Earth every 104.5 minutes. And it had an apogee of 1728 km and a perigee of only 216 km. In those years, not a single satellite flew in such an orbit. What made this mystery a very interesting topic of discussion.
However, in 1963, things got even more interesting. Astronaut Gordon Cooper, who flew aboard the Mercury-9 spacecraft, reported that he saw an unidentified object in space. According to Cooper, the object emitted a greenish light. The astronaut's message was confirmed by several radars on Earth.
However, NASA officially reported the following: “The equipment aboard the Mercury 9 experienced technical difficulties. This led to a malfunction of the life support system. So Cooper breathed in too much CO2 … It caused him hallucinations ….
In later years, Cooper claimed that he had never actually seen anything. That he hadn't seen green lights, UFOs, or anything like that. The astronaut noted that the story of his encounter with a UFO was fabricated. And UFO enthusiasts just made it up. However, for some reason, NASA does not want to publish the full transcript of the flight …
Spy satellites
There is one theory that quite plausibly explains some of the observations of mysterious objects made after the start of the space age. You can recall, for example, the US space program Discoverer VIII (Corona). The US Air Force began this work back in 1956. The first satellite, Discoverer VIII, was launched in 1959. The rocket was launched successfully. However, the special capsule did not enter the required orbit. Then she was officially declared “lost”. It is believed that for some time it revolved around the Earth. Making one revolution every 103 minutes. The orbital inclination of the capsule was about 80 degrees. Does it look like the Black Knight? Well, somewhere close.
Image taken during the Endeavor STS-88 mission. Source: NASA.
Do we have images of the Black Knight? Not. Due to the fact that this satellite is supposedly in polar orbit, it is extremely difficult to photograph it in space. The only images that allegedly exist were taken during the Endeavor STS-88 space shuttle mission. The peculiarity of such missions was that they actually flew in an equatorial orbit. Just like the International Space Station. This means that the Black Knight, presumably in polar orbit, would fly past the shuttle at a speed of thousands of kilometers per hour. It is very fast to be seen. Not to mention taking pictures. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the images that we have, most likely, do not belong to a mysterious satellite.
Ufologists claim that NASA's X-37 spaceplane, which made a 675-day mission in space several years ago, was actually studying the Black Knight. Indeed, the tasks that the space plane was solving in orbit for 675 days remain a mystery. As well as the cargo he supposedly delivered from space.
The Black Knight satellite may still be out there in space. It is in a very strange polar orbit. And perhaps his task is to transfer certain knowledge to humanity when it reaches the required level of development.
If it does not destroy itself earlier …