Swedish astronomer Dr. Beatriz Villarroel from the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics has uncovered statistical evidence that hundreds of thousands of technological objects were orbiting Earth in the 1950s—seven years before humanity launched its first satellite.
According to her research with the VASCO project (Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations), analysis of nearly 300,000 transient events from pre-Sputnik astronomical photographs reveals objects with mirror-like surfaces positioned in geosynchronous orbit. "For me, this looks technological. Maybe there's a new physical phenomenon that nobody knows about yet, but to me it looks very high-tech," Dr. Villarroel stated in her NewsNation interview.
The most significant discovery shows a 3.9 sigma statistical significance—meaning only a 0.01% chance these alignments occurred randomly. According to research conducted with Stephen Bruehl at Vanderbilt University, these mysterious transients correlate directly with nuclear bomb tests and UFO sightings from the era, with objects appearing 45% more likely during nuclear test windows.
Dr. Villarroel's team estimates 70,000 to 200,000 such objects may have been monitoring Earth during the dawn of the nuclear age, positioned perfectly for planetary surveillance at 42,000 kilometers altitude. The statistical evidence reached an unprecedented 21.9 sigma when testing Earth's shadow—making coincidence virtually impossible.
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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_multiple-transient_events_in_the_First_Palomar_Sky_SurveyOld, digitized astronomical images taken before the human spacefaring age offer a rare glimpse of the sky before the era of artificial satellites. In this paper, we present the first optical searches for artificial objects with high specular reflections near the Earth. We follow the method proposed in Villarroel et al. (2022) and use a transient sample drawn from (Solano et al. 2022). We use images from the First Palomar Sky Survey to search for multiple (within a plate exposure) transients that, in addition to being point-like, are aligned along a narrow band. We provide a shortlist of the most promising candidates, including one with 3.9 σ statistical significance. As in previous cases (Villarroel et al. 2021, Solano et al. 2023), no known astrophysical or instrumental explanations fully account for these events. We explore remaining possibilities, including fast reflections from highly reflective objects in geosynchronous orbit, or emissions from artificial sources high above Earth's atmosphere. Notably, the 3.9 σ candidate coincides in time with the Washington D.C. 1952 UFO flyover, and another (a 2.0 σ candidate) falls within a day of the peak of the 1954 UFO wave (Figuet 1980). We also find a highly significant ( 22 σ ) deficit of transients from Solano et al. 2022 within Earth's shadow, supporting the interpretation that sunlight reflection plays a key role in producing these events. This study should be viewed as an initial exploration into the potential of archival photographic surveys to reveal transient phenomena, and we hope it motivates more systematic searches across historical datasets.