It’s like every conspiracy theorist’s dream came true – NASA freely posted an image of what it describes as a crashed ‘flying saucer from out of space’.
Adding spice to the admission, the space agency also admitted that the mysterious object in the Utan desert had been ‘tracked by radar and chased by helicopters’.
But no little green men were involved – and no mysterious alien corpses were hauled out of the wreckage for autopsy, NASA says.
In fact, the ‘flying saucer’ is the Genesis sample return spacecraft – which landed with a bang when its parachutes failed to open in 2004.
NASA said on its Astronomy Photo of the Day website, ‘The saucer, pictured here, was the Genesis sample return capsule, part of a human-made robot Genesis spaceship launched in 2001 by NASA itself to study the Sun.
MORE: UK business leaders sign letter calling for second Brexit referendum
MORE: Former racing driver, 102, dies after being trapped on his roof for three days
‘The Genesis mission had been orbiting the Sun collecting solar wind particles that are usually deflected away by Earth’s magnetic field.
‘Despite the crash landing, many return samples remained in good enough condition to analyse. So far, Genesis-related discoveries include new details about the composition of the Sun and how the abundance of some types of elements differ across the Solar System.’