Random Weirdest Things Astronauts Have Seen In Space (14 items)

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  (#7) Leroy Chiao Saw Some Creepy Lights Zoom Past Him

  Leroy Chiao commanded the International Space Station in 2005. While on a spacewalk, Chiao saw white lights aligned in an upside-down check formation whiz right past him. Some people have posited that a string of fishing boats along the South American coast could explain what he saw, but Chiao was 230 miles above Earth when this happened. Those would have to be some seriously strong boat spotlights to be seen from all the way up there.

  Chiao told HuffPost, "I'm skeptical of claims that we've been visited by aliens from another planet or other dimension, but I don't rule it out 100 percent."
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  (#11) James McDivitt Saw Something He Couldn't Explain

  While on the Gemini 4 mission in 1965, astronaut James McDivitt thought he saw a UFO. In an interview with NASA, McDivitt explained:

  I looked outside, just glanced up, and there was something out there. It had a geometrical shape similar to a beer can or a pop can, and with a little thing like maybe like a pencil or something sticking out of it. That relative size, dimensionally. It was all white.

  The press got a hold of the story and ran with it, claiming McDivitt had seen a UFO. It wasn't until years later, after reviewing a photograph he had never seen before, that McDivitt realized what it was: a reflection of some bolts in the window glass.

  He said:

  I went back and then I saw what the thing was. And really what it was, was a reflection of the bolts in the windows. The windows were made up of about three or four or five panes of glass, so that if one got broken we still had some pressure integrity. And these little things, when the Sun shined on them right, they’d multiply the images off the different panes. And I’m quite sure that that’s what this thing was.

  Or maybe that's just what NASA told him to say. 
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  (#3) Yang Liwei Heard A Mysterious Knock Outside His Ship

  In 2003, Yang Liwei became the first astronaut sent into space by the Chinese space program. He's said he heard "someone knocking the body of the spaceship just as knocking an iron bucket with a wooden hammer" on his maiden flight. He looked outside of the ship's porthole but was unable to find the source of the knocking. Considering space is a vacuum, it was even weirder that he heard a sound from outside the ship. 

  Liwei is not alone in this discovery, either; other Chinese astronauts heard the sound on missions in 2005 and 2008.
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  (#8) Astronauts Saw Fire Burn Without A Flame

  From 2009 to 2012, astronauts lit things on fire in space. Not because they were all pyromaniacs, but because they wanted to know how fire behaved in the cosmos. They discovered that fire burns at a lower temperature and with less oxygen and can also burn without a flame in microgravity.

  Forman Williams, the project leader on the experiments, told Space.com: "Thus far, the most surprising thing we've observed is continued apparent burning of heptane droplets after flame extinction under certain conditions. Currently, this is entirely unexplained."
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  (#2) Neil Armstrong May Have Seen A UFO Parking Lot

  Neil Armstrong, besides strolling around the moon and saying some famous words, may have seen some gigantic UFOs in space. According to a source no less dubious than Aliens and Man: A Synopsis of Facts and Beliefs, Armstrong is rumored to have sent a secret message to NASA during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Armstrong allegedly said: "These babies were huge, sir! Enormous! Oh, God! You wouldn't believe it! ... I'm telling you there are other spacecraft out here ... lined up on the far side of the crater's edge! ... They're on the moon watching us!" 

  It's one of many, many such tales associated with the first lunar landing. Armstrong was notoriously tight-lipped about his experiences in space and never commented on this rumor, likely because there simply wasn't much factual basis for the claims that he ever saw or said any such things.
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  (#1) Maj. Gordon Cooper Watched A Green Orb Approach Him Out Of The Darkness

  During Maj. Gordon Cooper's solo journey around Earth, he encountered more than just some space junk. Nearing the end of his 22-orbit trip around the planet, he suddenly noticed a green, glowing object approaching the Mercury capsule he was flying in. In fact, the rapid approach of the object was even picked up by the closest tracking station in Muchea, Australia.

  Cooper even went on to describe the incident to the United Nations: 

  I believe that these extraterrestrial vehicles and their crews are visiting this planet from other planets... Most astronauts were reluctant to discuss UFOs... I did have occasion in 1951 to have two days of observation of many flights of them, of different sizes, flying in fighter formation, generally from east to west over Europe.

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