As a lifelong supporter of our space exploration efforts I  
have observed many hours of NASA footage. Never have I seen  
events such as those recorded by STS-48. Lighted objects  
could most certainly be debris or ice crystals illuminated  
by the sun, however, I can conceive of no possible scenario  
that could explain the objects that are travelling in  
opposite directions. Presumably, thruster plumes should  
propel debris in one direction only. Another potential  
explanation would be meteor storms or space debris from  
previous launches. But again, these explanations cannot  
account for the observed trajectories .  
  
According to our source, NASA no longer distributes a live  
downlink from shuttle missions, instead using a delay  
similar to that used by talk radio stations to censor  
offensive remarks. Sanitizing video downlink from shuttle  
missions, and deleting sections of the official archives is  
not in the interest of the taxpayers who fund NASA. The need  
for further official scientific inquiry is obvious.  
  
In the meantime, the anomalous events recorded by Discovery  
astronauts during STS-48 can only be classified as UFOs, in  
the strict sense of the term.  
  
Note: Vince DiPietro's report to FUFOR (the Fund For UFO  
Research) provided the descriptions of events for which  
video was unavailable to HUFON Report. Interestingly,  
DiPietro, a NASA employee at the Goddard Space Flight Center  
now publicly endorses the "ice crystal" explanation.  
  
  
Copyright 1992 by Houston UFO Network / Vince Johnson  
  
End of File  
  
The following copyrighted article first appeared in the  
September 1992 HUFON REPORT, the newsletter of the Houston  
UFO Network, all rights reserved. Non-profit publications  
may reprint this article as long as its source and author  
are attributed. See accompanying article "Sts48.Txt"  
and graphic "Event2a.GIF." For more information call  
(713) 850-1352.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------  
  
The Strange Case of STS-48  
by David Mayo  
  
It was 1:43am Saturday morning, June 6, 1992.  My wife had  
retired for the evening and I was flipping through the cable  
channels as men are compelled to do.  Just by chance (or  
providence), I landed on KHTV (Ch 39 locally) where the  
program "HardCopy" was airing.  The host was stating  
"...amazing videotape taken by a space shuttle astronaut,  
astounding evidence of UFOs!"  Well, For over a year and a  
half I have been compiling UFO-related television segments  
from various programs.  I jumped up and shoved my latest  
tape in the VCR and hit record.  What followed was  
intriguing to say the least.  Don Ecker, staffer to UFO  
Magazine, had obtained footage filmed from a recent shuttle  
mission and had brought it to "HardCopy."  The footage  
showed a dark Earth positioned in the lower two-thirds of  
the screen.  Banded around its middle, the lights of a major  
city sparkled.   The Earth's curvature ran from right mid-  
frame to upper left corner.  Above this, dark space was  
punctuated by a few stars.  A small bright object suddenly  
appeared midway down the visible edge and traveled right to  
left at a fast rate following the curvature.  There was a  
brief flash of light that bloomed from the upper left corner  
and the object made a sudden sharp right hand turn, picked  
up velocity and sped off into the darkness of space!  A  
split second after this unusual turn, another object  
streaked upwards from lower in the frame and whizzed past  
the approximate point where the first object would have been  
had it not made the right hand turn.Don Ecker expounded that  
this was an alien spacecraft making an evasive maneuver just  
before something is shot at it.  
  
Mr. Ecker's opinion not withstanding, NASA's official  
explanation was that it was ice crystals formed from waste  
water.  "HardCopy's" stance was that this piece of film was  
either the UFO smoking gun or space debris.  I found the  
entire footage to be something unique and possibly  
important.  Still, this was "HardCopy" after all, not "60  
Minutes" and with most news events the truth follows some  
time later.The next day I called a few people I knew to  
inquire whether they had seen it.Vince Johnson and Bill  
Eatwell had not.  
  
However, later, Bill called me back with a mysterious  
message.  He said that after speaking of this program to  
some of his friends, an unnamed caller instructed him to  
contact me and ask that I refrain from speaking about the  
footage any further and, in particular, not publish anything  
about this in HUFON REPORT. If I agreed and showed good  
faith, I would receive more information about the event.  At  
first,this rubbed me wrong.  I could understand that if the  
footage was a "smoking gun" and if an investigation was  
underway, the need for secrecy may be justified.  What I  
couldn't accept was hearing all this third hand.  If I am  
asked to spike a story, I want to know who is doing the  
asking.  Instead, I was mollified by the promise of straight  
answers to any 10 questions I wished to ask about the  
HardCopy footage.  My curiosity, at this point, had grown  
exponentially.  Being the beggar and unable to choose, I  
agreed.  
  
On June 8, I faxed the 10 questions I had compiled to Bill.  
He, in turn, faxed them to a neutral fax location (number)  
he was given.  The questions were as follows:  
  
1)      What is the entire scenario of what I witnessed  
    (i.e., what was transpiring)?  
  
2)      Which shuttle mission did this occur on?  
  
3)      If the object is an alien spacecraft, what was its  
    size, speed and distance from the camera?  
  
4)      Was this object taking evasive action to avoid  
    some sort of weaponry?  
