Two objects approaching ISS

[Rotauge]

Hello,
this is my first posting here with an account I created just because of a single video clip I came across "on the Internet" without any additional info or source references. I was hoping that a) this is perhaps an old known hoax or b) you can help me debunking it.

The video was apparently taken from the ISS, showing two objects approaching the station in a peculiar way:

See attached to this posting a longer mp4 version that includes audio with radio chatter between astronauts and Houston as well.

If it was digitally manufactured, matching the camera zoom and focus (see mp4 at 00:33) was pretty well done, as well as matching the voice chatter. The poor resolution hides inaccuracies though.

What I would like to know:
1. does NASA collect and publically release written versions of radio communications so that the phrases audible in the video could be searched for and matched with a time/date/mission?
2. is there any chance to match at least the mission and narrowing down the year it was recorded by analyzing the docked shuttle?
3. was there perhaps any official statement made by NASA or individual astronauts relating to this particular observation of those objects?

If it was just the video I would probably discard it immediately but the zooming/focusing + radio makes me giving it some attention.
What do you think? Any ideas how to investigate further?

Thanks!

 

[Mick West]

It's a fairly old video, back to at least 2009, where it was labeled fake on YouTube (though with no real context)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGEIk7dJ-6c

 

[Hevach]

The radio chatter probably the least convincing part of it. Lot of unsigned chatter and what is signed is "This is Huston, etc etc," and similar. The proper phrasing is "(recipient) (speaker) (message)," so, "ISS Huston, etc etc." Astronauts are somewhat wont to ignore the rules, but the ground control people are generally sticklers about it because their bosses are a lot closer at hand to yell at them.

It's not the ISS, but the STS. In either case, they don't have a lot of windows. The ISS has a few side-facing windows and the big ground-facing ESA cupola, but there's not much hardware blocking the view of the ground like seen here. Either way, the cargo bay door gives away that it's a space shuttle (radio chatter phrasing would be the same, but it would have been "Atlantis Huston, etc etc" or whichever shuttle was flying), in which case there's no window that views back down the side like that. Its windows were all facing forward or outward. To get that view, they would need to be on spacewalk, in which case they wouldn't be using a manual camera but the chest-mounted ones. The robotic arm could also move a camera platform around, but it would be very steady, and it couldn't reach up "over the shoulder" by the crew module to get a view down the side of the craft like that.


Edit: And beaten to the punch by Mick, kudos

 

[deirdre]

and it couldn't reach up "over the shoulder" by the crew module to get a view down the side of the craft like that.

what about once it is docked to the ISS? i cant even figure out what we're looking at in the video.. i sthe picture upside down?

a japanese site (which uploaded about a month after Micks vid) says its Endeavor Nov 15th 2008. (a possible thermal blanket lost but sounds like just photos? https://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts126/081115fd2/index2.html)

The Atlantis did not launch until Nov 16th 2009. so not sure which number is the typo.

endeavor:

 

[Rotauge]

The radio chatter probably the least convincing part of it.

Indeed, now that I can compare it and also realise the different persons with vastly different audio quality involved (why would that be!?), makes me think it has been assembled from different sources.

Regarding the version from Youtube, it's interesting that it appears to be of lower image quality but with a (distorted) wider field of view at the same time. So I would assume there is an original clip where the version I found was cut out from without the nasa logo portion, and the video on youtube is a copy of the original with additional bad compression.

The only sentence matching in both videos is "We got somebody at the front window with a pair of binoculars and a zoom lense and trying to get a pretty good idea about this thing" but in the Youtube version it's again of much lower quality. So for the presumably doctored version I found it must have been taken from a different, common base version I would say.

It's not the ISS, but the STS. In either case, they don't have a lot of windows

Are you suggesting that the video feed itself is entirely fake because there are barely windows that would allow for such a view on the docked shuttle? I would doubt that, as it's easy to find photos that suggest otherwise.

 

[Easy Muffin]

EDIT: Just for clarification, the above post was invisible at the time.

---

Yes, it makes more sense when it's rotated by 180 degrees. You're looking down the side of the orbiter like in a flipped version of this picture here:

The footage source must have been taken during approach to or departure from the ISS; whilst docked, the orbiter was connected to the station via a docking module situated between the crew cabin and the payload bay which would have showed up in the video quite prominently (see this picture for an example: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2013/11/Atlantis_docked_to_ISS).

I say 'footage source' because this video looks to me like a cropped and zoomed edit of the original source with added 'handshake' effects.

The radio chatter seems to be taken from a couple of different sources (and has been chopped up in parts) to create an ominous sounding collage of sorts. If you spend enough time you'll probably find them all but here's two I got. The first is from Gemini 7:

Gemini 7: Gemini-7 here. Houston, how do you read?
Capcom: Loud and clear, Seven, go ahead.
Gemini 7: Bogey at 10 o'clock high.
Capcom: This is Houston. Say again, Seven.
Gemini 7: Said we have a bogey at 10 o'clock high.
Capcom: Roger, Gemini 7, is that the booster or is that an actual sighting?
Gemini 7: We have several, looks like debris up here. Actual sighting.
Capcom: You have any more information? Estimate distance and speed?
Gemini 7: We also have the booster in sight.
Capcom: Understand you also have the booster in sight. Roger.
Gemini 7: Yeah, have a very, very many -- look like hundreds of little particles banked on the left out about 3 to 4 miles.

The other is from Apollo 12 (full PDF transcript here: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/AS12_TEC.PDF):

Apollo 12: We think we have the S-IVB in sight. We've had a -- an object which is in the same place all the time and appears to be tumbling. We've had it ever since yesterday, and it seems to be tagging along with us, so I guess that's the S-IVB. It's usually out our center hatch window when our roll angle is about 35 degrees right now. Maybe that'll give you a clue, and somebody can figure out if that's what we're really looking at.
Capcom: Roger, Pete.
Capcom: 12, Houston
Apollo 12: Go ahead.
Capcom: Roger, Pete. That thing you saw off the hatch, at a roll of 35 degrees, we figured there's probably three possible answers. Number 1: it could be the S-IVB, or possibly a SLA panel, or it could be the backup crew flying trail on you.

Given that the audio has been deceptively edited, I'd wager a guess and say that the video has also been altered by adding these orb-like things to it. Again, with enough time, you should be able to find the original video.

 

[deirdre]

The only sentence matching in both videos is "We got somebody at the front window with a pair of binoculars and a zoom lense and trying to get a pretty good idea about this thing"

wow i never listened to the OP mp4. didnt even realize they were different versions. thank you for pointing that out.

another line (female voice) from the OP video:

Article:

Another 'incident' occurred on 21 October 1995 on board US Space Shuttle Columbia during its STS-73 mission. "We have an unidentified flying object", joked mission specialist Catherine 'Cady' Coleman, when her colleague Michael Lopez-Alegria floated into the Spacelab laboratory module.

Source: https://room.eu.com/article/fireflies-and-saucers

 

[deirdre]

ok so i thought i heard "this is Discovery"... so this guy (2 days after posting the above footage spliced into fake footage of a space shuttle all blown up in space) posted this vid which labels and dates all the communications in the OP vid.

now that i heard the clear version i know it is saying "Houston, this is Discovery, we still have the alien spacecraft under observation" March 13, 1989 is the date this Facebooker says but i dont see where he came up with that. i only see the quote on alien blogs so far.

Article:

Gosh, even the guy who recorded that, Donald Ratsch, a serious UFO 'believer' and a genuinely honest and thorough researcher, concluded that this voice signal was a prank by a local ham radio operator. He announced these conclusions in the last century.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/i4arm1/ufo_footage_that_nasa_hides/g0hdsx3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Article:

Following Donald Ratsch's disclosure of the incident , the so called Discovery Encounter made headlines throughout the world. For their part NASA vigorously denied the claims, and were backed up by the crew of the Discovery who attributed the furore to an elaborate hoax!

Source: http://human-science-research.blogspot.com/2005/05/astronaut-encounters.html

Source: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=589764621694620



Either way, definitely these lines are all from different sources.

 

[Hevach]

what about once it is docked to the ISS?

That's the arm on the ISS, which is almost identical to the shuttle's but longer. There's two, and they can move each other around, so they can reach all around any vehicles docked to the station now, and when the shuttle still flew they could reach everything on it except the belly and propulsion module.

 

[deirdre]

That's the arm on the ISS, which is almost identical to the shuttle's but longer. There's two, and they can move each other around, so they can reach all around any vehicles docked to the station now, and when the shuttle still flew they could reach everything on it except the belly and propulsion module.

i meant we could probably get that angle of video from the ISS, no?

i see we can .. i thought we were only looking at the back end.. but its the whole shuttle we see here. sorry

 

[Easy Muffin]

even the guy who recorded that, Donald Ratsch, a serious UFO 'believer' and a genuinely honest and thorough researcher, concluded that this voice signal was a prank by a local ham radio operator. He announced these conclusions in the last century.

Found this old newsnet post which has some details on it: https://yarchive.net/space/politics/ufo_ratcsh.html

i meant we could probably get that angle of video from the ISS, no?

Yes, it was shot from the ISS. Following the Columbia disaster, they even came up with a 'rendezvous pitch maneuver', during which the shuttle would station keep some ways from the station before docking and perform a slow backflip so that the ISS crew could get a good view at the shuttle's thermal protection tiles and take pictures for the engineers at NASA. I used to have NASA TV on all the time during the shuttle missions and that was always a highlight, haha.

 

[deirdre]

could they just be clouds? Discovery july 6th? 2006. and the film is going backwards?

i find lots of photos but cant find video of the approach even though it must have been videoed i'd think.

Image right: As Discovery approached the space station for docking, the shuttle was positioned so a series of inspection photos could be taken of its underside. Photo credit: NASA + High-res Image

Early July 6, Lindsey piloted the orbiter into a backflip, called a "rendezvous pitch maneuver," within range of the International Space Station. This belly-up position gave the station's Expedition 13 crewmembers, Commander Pavel Vinogradov and NASA Science Officer Jeff Williams, a chance to photograph the thermal protection tiles on the bottom of Discovery.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/multimedia/sts121/121-overview_prt.htm

 

[Easy Muffin]

Not entirely sure this is the correct place so please move if needed (I couldn't find a thread that lists examples of misidentification). Anyway, I was watching a replay of yesterday's Dragon launch to the ISS and this short bit caught my eye - I think it's a good example of how mundane things may appear like something else in footage shot in space, where it can be difficult to judge distances.

So this happened shortly after separation:

What's that thing in the distance? Is it a UFO? A large orb-like craft watching proceedings from afar?



No, just a little piece of the SpaceX assembly that got shaken loose and is floating by close to the camera.

 

[edufeas]

The poor resolution hides inaccuracies though

I found one thing. As the objects pass under the shuttle's wing, a flap is left above. A flaw in the mask.

 

[FatPhil]

I found one thing. As the objects pass under the shuttle's wing, a flap is left above. A flaw in the mask.
View attachment 52404View attachment 52406

That could easily just be glare. If you were faking it, it might even be more effort to include the effects of glare than to make a clip without it. But it's poor quality, there's not enough detail to be sure.