UNCLASSIFIED // PUBLIC RELEASERELEASE 04 · JULY 10, 2026
PENTAGON UFO FILE · IMAGE · NASA-UAP-D032STS-80 Unidentified Object Image 3, 1996
This photograph completes the three-frame STS-80 sequence taken aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on the STS-80 flight, which lasted from November 19 to December 7, 1996. It is the only one of the three in which the object is seen against the Earth rather than against black space.
What this frame adds
The object again sits close to the center of the frame, but now it is superimposed on the Earth below. NASA reads this as the object having kept moving along a path that took it between Columbia and the planet. That detail carries information: it puts the object somewhere between the shuttle and the ground, rather than out in space beyond the Earth’s edge.
In the first frame the object was seen beside the Earth’s limb, against black space, so the sequence follows it from one background to the other.
What NASA does and does not say
NASA’s comments across the three images are descriptive: the object tumbles, as a free-floating body would, and its track crosses in front of the Earth. It does not suggest what the object was, and no times or distances are released, so speed and size cannot be calculated. See the second image for the tumbling observation. As with every PURSUE file, the government’s listing marks it unresolved rather than anomalous.
The official description
From war.gov/UFO, released July 10, 2026, quoted in full
During STS-80, between November 19 and December 7, 1996, astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Columbia captured a series of three images of an unidentified object in low-Earth orbit. In the third photograph, the object is visible near the center of the frame, superimposed against the Earth. It appears to have continued along a trajectory passing between Columbia and the Earth.