A debate has broken out in the public eye after images of Mercury being struck by a coronal mass ejection from the sun seemed to suggest something the size of a planet might be just outside its orbit – and the object, whatever it was, appeared to be invisible before being struck. But now NASA scientists are apprehensive to say it’s a UFO, suggesting it might be nothing more than a problem with the filter on the long range camera. But how could an error like this be so big?
The image appears to show a massive flare ejecting from the sun and heading right for Mercury. As it strikes the planet however, just before impacting the surface the flames part as something seemingly invisible becomes temporarily visible, looking more real than most UFO images partially because it’s straight from NASA and shows an object seemingly too large to hoax. The images were taken by the Solar Terrestrial Observations Telescope Stereo A, and may have been also captured by another satellite from a different angle – suggesting to some that this is light years from a simple camera mistake.
The explanation from NASA comes, however, from the extremely detailed digital zoom required. Obviously a satellite operating near Mercury would have to contend with incredible heat, and would likely have been consumed by the CME either from the extreme heat or the magnetic radiation, both of which are often present in coronal mass ejections. As a result, the software used fills in a few of the details that may not otherwise be available from the extremely long distance the planet is from Earth. And so NASA suggests, if pixels from multiple locations were to average out in just the right way between the planet and the fiery plume, it may have created an artifact that looked like a cloaked ship or a hole in space where light was consumed. Still others are not quite so sure.
If the image was the result of something actually on the other side of Mercury, however, it’s difficult to imagine what it could have been, although UFO theories certainly do fill in the blanks quite well. But this explanation is even more shocking than it would ordinarily be, as the object in question was nearly the size of Mercury itself – possibly up to 3,000 miles in diameter. Such a craft would be approximately 1/3 the size of Earth – clearly enough cause for alarm if it did prove to be genuine. Additionally, some have speculated that it may not have been the craft itself that was this large, but the field of protection provided it by the ship’s force field – an idea borrowed from science fiction that more terrestrial scientists are currently working on. But this also begs the question, why would a craft be catching rays so close to the sun? No doubt this will be a topic of discussion between NASA and UFOlogists for some time.