Astronaut Scott Kelly photographs a UFO

Astronaut Scott Kelly has photographed and shared an image of an unidentified flying object – in the most rudimentary sense of the term. One of the many photos shared by the man that's spending a year in space has appeared with a bright shiny light in its upper right-hand quadrant, without instant explanation – prompting every big-haired UFO theory maniac to suspect that he's hiding something! Does this photograph prove there's alien life hovering above our Earth right this minute? No, not really.

On Day 233 of Scott Kelly's year in space, he photographed a magnificent scene over Southern India. There, aboard the International Space Station, he wished the world a fine Good Night. The above image (original photograph by Kelly) was marked (save the little green men) by Neuroscientist Santosh.



Of course the image, having a lovely set of bright lights and a line connecting them, caused instant controversy. UFO-sighting websites went wild, and alien existence was proved real! Only not. Not even a little bit.

While the image is indeed spectacular, and the light in the upper right was not explained by Kelly, no aliens have yet been found. Mostly because that light comes from the ISS.



As explained by Astrophotographer Olivia D'Souza, the image is EASILY explained by ramping up the levels in the photo to light. There you'll see the brightness in the upper right-hand corner coming from a piece of the International Space Station itself. HDEV equipment to the rescue. Simplicity.

Now if only we could teach UFO seekers to use Photoshop. Can you imagine?