June 25, 1997: Mir & Pathfinder - Richard C. Hoagland | UFO in Storm Chaser Video - Lan Lamphere
Hoagland analyzes the crisis, noting the suspicious coincidence of the Mir accident occurring simultaneously with a delayed Mars Pathfinder mid-course burn. He questions why NASA posted no results from the burn for over 36 hours and speculates the drama may serve as a diversion from Pathfinder developments.
Lamphere then describes a cylindrical object captured on his video camera while filming a tornado near Loco, Oklahoma. Frame-by-frame analysis reveals the object crossed 75 degrees of wide-angle lens in 49 frames, yielding an estimated speed of Mach 25. A second storm chaser two miles away captured the same object, and Lamphere reveals that a high-level NASA contact reached out to him about the footage.
Key Moments
Mir hull breach: cargo craft strikes solar array during manual docking: Art opens with the live news that the Russian Mir space station was struck by a cargo craft during a manual docking exercise, holing the hull and forcing the crew to seal off a section as a hissing sound spread.
Listen to Mir live on VHF 143.625 MHz: Art tells listeners they can monitor the stricken Mir directly on VHF 143.625 MHz and reports that he and his wife had already heard three passes that day, with the crew sounding tired and stressed.
February Mir fire raged 14 minutes; one Soyuz route blocked: Art reads the AP wire revealing that the previously downplayed February Mir fire actually raged 14 minutes, with two-foot flames and molten metal blocking one of the two routes to the Soyuz escape ship - and only one lifeboat aboard for six men.
Lamphere films a tornado on Highway 53 near Loco, Oklahoma: Storm chaser Lan Lamphere describes the shoot - a Panasonic AG-EZ1 mini-DV camera rolling on a tight rear-flanking downdraft on Highway 53 about five miles west of Loco, Oklahoma - when meteorologist Matt Moreland realized a tornado was forming to the right of the mesocyclone.
Frame-by-frame: white object crosses the storm into the hail core: Lamphere recounts spotting an unexplained white object - first mistaken for debris or a baseball - flashing right-to-left across the frame and into the hail core, then taking the tape home and stepping through 49 frames at 30 fps to confirm it was none of the obvious explanations.