Gabriella Ferlita
Fears of a UFO have been sparked in Florida after residents reportedly heard a 'sonic boom' on Saturday.
In the early hours of 12 November, a number of Florida residents were awoken in shock by a loud sonic boom, which was apparently strong enough to even shake some houses.
One resident wrote on Twitter: “Just a very normal mysterious sonic boom at 5am. [It] was so loud it shook my back door and I thought someone was coming in kind of Florida morning!”
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“I think it was aliens,” they followed up.
“The sonic boom heard in Tampa and across central Florida? Relax, it was prob aliens,” another wrote.
But, of course, this wasn’t extraterrestrial activity, as what residents actually heard was an unmanned US spaceship returning back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center after circling Earth for three years.
After spending a record-breaking 908 days floating through orbit, the X-37B, a solar-powered spaceship, returned back to solid ground.
Boeing, the aircraft industry company you might associate with the commercial airplanes you might be accustomed to flying on, developed the spaceplane, which resembles a mini space shuttle.
Jim Chilton, a senior vice president for Boeing, said: “Since the X-37B's first launch in 2010, it has shattered records and provided our nation with an unrivalled capability to rapidly test and integrate new space technologies.”
Previously, the shuttle’s last mission lasted an impressive 780 days but beat its previous record with the mission which ended on 12 November.
The United States Space Force confirmed that the reusable space plane had successfully deorbited by 5.22am, hence why so many residents near the Space Centre in Cape Canaveral reported hearing such a loud noise around five in the morning.
Along with its three-year mission, X-37B was home to a service module which led experiments for the Naval Research Laboratory, the US Air Force Academy and more.
The United States Space Force said on their website: “The OTV-6 mission hosted the Naval Research Laboratory's Photovoltaic Radiofrequency Antenna Module. This experiment successfully harnessed solar rays outside of Earth's atmosphere and aimed to transmit power to the ground in the form of radio frequency microwave energy.”
This module was separated from the spaceship before it landed, so that it would be safer on return to the ground.
Alongside this experiment was a satellite called FalconSat-8, which was designed and built by academy cadets in a collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory.
“The U.S. Air Force Academy's FalconSat-8, developed in partnership with Air Force Research Laboratory, was successfully deployed in October 2021,” the site states.
“FalconSat-8 remains in orbit, providing Academy cadets unique hands-on experience as space operators prior to entering active duty.”