The Black Knight satellite is a long-running conspiracy theory claiming that an alien spacecraft has been orbiting Earth for roughly 13,000 years. The object is believed by some to be of alien origin, though scientists and space agencies have debunked it many times.
The myth is a patchwork of loosely connected events stitched together over more than a century. Conspiracists often point to Nikola Tesla’s 1899 experiments, where he reportedly detected repeating radio signals he believed might have come from extraterrestrial sources. Some scientists, however, attribute what he recorded to pulsars — dense spinning stellar objects that weren’t even identified until 1968.
In 1927, a Norwegian radio operator observed long-delayed radio echoes. Then in 1954, UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe told newspapers that the U.S. Air Force had detected two satellites orbiting Earth — at a time when no country had the technology to launch one. Skeptics noted that Keyhoe was promoting a UFO book at the time, and the stories were likely written sarcastically, never meant as fact.
Also Read: Aliens Got “Bored” and Stopped Searching Humans, Says Scientist
In 1973, Scottish author Duncan Lunan analysed those long-delayed radio echoes and speculated they might originate from a 13,000-year-old alien probe orbiting the Moon, possibly sent from the Epsilon Boötis star system. Lunan later withdrew his conclusions, admitting he had made egregious errors and that his methods had been unscientific.
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The modern version of the legend was supercharged by photos from NASA’s 1998 STS-88 mission, which showed a dark, unusual-looking object floating in orbit. However, it was a thermal insulation blanket lost during a spacewalk. It was catalogued by NASA and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere a few days later.
Further Reading: Space.com, Wikipedia
