OUT OF THIS WORLD Inside the legend of the ‘Black Knight’ satellite orbiting Earth that some believe is a 13,000-year-old alien spaceship
A MYSTERIOUS object orbiting our planet has become a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories, with some claiming it might be a 13,000-year-old alien spaceship.
From a millennia-old spacecraft to a UFO shot down by the Illuminati, tales surrounding the "Black Knight Satellite" go back decades, fuelling what may be one of the greatest space myths.
The legend’s origins are often traced back to the early 20th century when none other than Nikola Tesla claimed to have received strange radio signals from space in 1899.
Tesla believed these signals could be of extraterrestrial origin.
While these signals were likely natural or man-made phenomena, they have been retroactively tied to the Black Knight legend by conspiracy theorists.
Fast forward to the 1920s and 1930s, when radio operators began reporting what they called Long Delay Echoes (LDEs).These were unexplained echoes of radio signals, returning after an unusually long delay, sometimes several seconds.
The phenomenon puzzled scientists, and while they eventually proposed various theories—ranging from ionospheric reflections to equipment malfunctions—some conspiracy theorists found a more intriguing explanation.
Some conspiracy theorists believe these echoes were caused by the Black Knight satellite reflecting signals back to Earth.
The plot thickened in 1954, when media reports, fueled by UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe, claimed that the US Air Force had detected two unidentified satellites orbiting EarthThis was a full three years before the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite.
The question lingered: if these objects weren’t man-made, what were they?
The most concrete "evidence" of the Black Knight’s existence emerged in 1998, during the STS-88 mission—the first Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station.
Astronauts aboard the shuttle captured a photograph of a dark, oddly shaped object floating in the void.
The image quickly gained notoriety among UFO enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists, who declared it proof of the ancient satellite’s existence.
It wasn’t long before the photograph was dubbed the "Black Knight."
Over the years, the legend of the Black Knight satellite has grown, fuelled by technology's ability to spread stories far and wide.
The latest wild claim in this series of conspiracy theories emerged in 2017.
Believers claimed the Illuminati had shot down a UFO, namely the Black Knight, which had been orbiting Earth for more than 13,000 years until leaders of the secret society took action.
NASA, however, had a far more mundane explanation for the decades-old legend.
DEBUNKING THE MYTH
The mystery object, they said, was nothing more than a thermal blanket—a piece of space debris that had accidentally been lost during a spacewalk.
Thermal blankets are common on spacecraft, used to protect sensitive instruments from extreme temperatures.
Occasionally, these blankets become detached, drifting away into the endless abyss of space.
To NASA, this was simply a case of mistaken identity.
In the years since he wrote about them, Tesla's odd radio signals have also been explained.
Most scientists agree that he most likely came into contact with electromagnetic signals from pulsars, which were not detected until the 1960s.
But in the world of conspiracy theories, simple explanations are often the least satisfying.
For believers, the official story did little to dampen the intrigue surrounding the Black Knight.The idea of an ancient alien satellite, silently watching over from up above, was way too tempting to dismiss.
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