The folks at NASA are feeling the heat yet again as alien enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists accuse them of attempting to cover up potential extraterrestrial life and/or intelligence spotted outside the International Space Station (ISS) just a few days ago on September 30.

The ISS was doing a live stream via NASA on Friday when an unidentified object appeared on camera. Seconds later, the connection to the livestream was mysteriously interrupted. The screen went blue with some static, before the “technical difficulties” message appeared from the High Definition Earth Viewing experiment.

Is NASA covering up the existence of alien life?

UFO hunters sure seem to think so. The strange object and subsequent loss of connection was noted by a YouTuber under the name Streetcap1, who was able to disseminate the news fairly quickly thanks to his nearly 40,000 subscribers.

The ISS live stream shows earth’s horizon glowing in the light of the sun, and indeed, if you watch the video that was streamed before being interrupted, there is a strange object that appears to be floating in the distance over the horizon. As cliché as it sounds, the object does have a vaguely “flying saucer” appearance to it.

The official story is that the object isn’t an object at all, but rather a lens flare on the camera.

And the interruption of the live stream wasn’t an intentional attempt by NASA to cover up a UFO sighting, just the HD Earth Viewing project switching cameras or temporarily losing the signal from the ISS. However, some argue that what appears on camera must be an object because it is illuminated more strongly from the left side, the direction of the sun from that perspective.

Video and photos of NASA UFO cover-up attempt

Additional evidence in the form of photos taken from other perspectives seems to substantiate the claim that, whatever it is, it is in fact an object. And it does appear to be flying. For the moment it is certainly unidentified.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has anything to do with extraterrestrial life.

But it is definitely odd, and the loss of connection just seconds after it appears seems rather convenient. I’m not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but it does seem that some pieces of the puzzle are missing from this story.