A former NASA astronaut has revealed a bizarre sighting of mysterious metallic orbs he encountered while flying.
Leroy Chiao is an ex-NASA astronaut who has shared the strange encounter he experienced while flying in his private four-seater plane back in 2023.
He was 9,000 feet above Houston, Texas, when he saw the mysterious orbs.
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As a former Space Shuttle commander, Chiao is no stranger to taking to the skies but this seemingly simple flight turned out to be unforgettable.
And now Chiao has added fuel to debates over whether unidentified flying objects are fact or fiction.
The astronaut recalled how the two orbs were ‘perfectly smooth’ and ‘shiny’.
Speaking to The New York Post, Chiao said: “There was nothing around me other than the panhandle of Texas at nine thousand feet on this instrument flight plan and just suddenly these things appeared. They came right at me.”
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The Pentagon has since released a video of a UFO above a military base in the Middle East in April 2023, which Chiao said reminded him of his own experience.
He continued: “That’s what it made me think of. I wonder, ‘Gosh, I wonder if this is the same thing’.”
Chiao added: “Obviously if I collided with them it would have been really bad. No one would’ve known what happened to me.”
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Other claims made by the former astronaut included details like the ‘air around my airplane’ not being disturbed by the orbs and that they showed ‘no visible means of propulsion’.
Chiao went on to say: “I firmly believe there is other intelligence in the universe. I think it’s the height of arrogance to think that we’re the only intelligent life in this entire universe.”
However, he doesn’t believe that we will ever find alien life because ‘the universe is so vast’, adding that he has ‘trouble believing that aliens have visited us’.
Chiao’s claims have caused a stir online, with many people taking to social media to share their own thoughts on the matter.
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On Reddit, one user wrote: “I’ve personally seen these metallic spheres. They are very very fast and can stop and take off on a dime.”
Another said: “Oh, well looks like the Times Square Ball was a UAP [unidentified aerial phenomenon] all along!”
And a third person joked: “That’s me zorbing.”
There’s no telling whether what the astronaut saw was actually from out of this world.