During a routine ISS observation, NASA astronauts were stunned to spot what appeared to be a U.S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird gliding near the edge of space—an aircraft retired over two decades ago—sparking shock, secrecy, and speculation that a new generation of hypersonic spy planes may already be flying above our world.

It was supposed to be a quiet observation shift aboard the International Space Station.

On February 17, 2025, at 3:41 a.m.UTC, NASA’s Expedition 72 crew—Commander Ethan Reyes, flight engineer Dr.

Marissa Kline, and cosmonaut Pavel Novikov—were conducting a standard photographic survey of the Pacific Rim when something strange appeared on their live feed.

At first, it looked like a sliver of darkness gliding just beneath the thin haze of Earth’s atmosphere.

Reyes thought it might be debris.

Kline assumed it was a weather satellite.

But as the object moved closer, cutting across the terminator line between night and day, the shape became unmistakable—sleek, arrow-headed, and impossibly fast.

“Marissa, zoom in on that,” Reyes said, leaning toward the monitor.

The image sharpened.

Two engines.

A slender fuselage.

And then—letters.

Clear as day.

U. S.Air Force SR-71.For several seconds, the astronauts sat in stunned silence.

The SR-71 Blackbird, a Cold War reconnaissance jet retired in 1999, was a legend of aviation—famed for its ability to fly faster than a bullet and higher than any other manned aircraft.

But it had never, officially, reached the edge of space.

“Houston, this is ISS,” Reyes finally radioed.

“We’re observing an object below orbital altitude.

It looks like… a plane.”

Mission Control took several moments before responding.

“Copy that, ISS.

Confirm visual description.

Are you able to record?”

“Affirmative,” Kline replied, starting a continuous capture feed.

The mysterious craft maintained its trajectory for nearly four minutes, flying parallel to the station at an altitude estimated between 85,000 and 90,000 feet—well above the stratosphere, where no conventional jet could sustain flight.

Its silhouette shimmered slightly against the thin atmosphere before vanishing into the darkness over the Bering Sea.

Within minutes, NASA’s data teams at Johnson Space Center were scrambling to analyze the footage.

The object’s radar signature, captured by both ISS sensors and U.S.

Space Command tracking data, appeared to match the SR-71’s dimensions within inches—107 feet long, with twin-engine nacelles visible in thermal imaging.

But that only deepened the mystery.

All known SR-71s were accounted for—20 of them preserved in museums across the U.S., including the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center and the Blackbird Airpark in California.

None were flight-capable.

And yet, the astronauts’ footage showed what appeared to be one of them moving at speeds consistent with Mach 5 or higher—almost twice the SR-71’s known limit.

“This thing was alive,” Dr.Kline later told debriefing officials.

“It wasn’t tumbling or breaking apart.It was flying.Controlled.Deliberate.”

The sighting quickly leaked to the press after snippets of the internal NASA footage surfaced online in March.

A 12-second clip, showing a black, wedge-shaped craft gliding just beneath the ISS, went viral within hours, amassing 40 million views on social media before NASA requested its removal “pending analysis.”

Aviation experts have been split ever since.

Some believe the crew saw a classified prototype—the long-rumored Lockheed SR-72, a hypersonic aircraft said to be capable of reaching speeds above Mach 6.

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division, the same shadowy program that built the original Blackbird, has never confirmed or denied its existence, though reports of high-speed test flights over the Pacific have circulated since 2018.

Others argue the astronauts may have witnessed an optical illusion or a misidentified X-37B spaceplane—an unmanned orbital vehicle operated by the U.S.Air Force.

However, the SR-71 markings, as described in the crew’s written report, remain unexplained.

A retired Air Force colonel, once stationed at Beale Air Force Base where the original Blackbirds were housed, hinted that the story may not be so simple.

“Let’s just say,” he told reporters, “not everything that was retired stayed retired.

Some aircraft have longer lives than anyone’s willing to admit.”

NASA’s official stance remains cautious.

A spokesperson stated that the agency is “still reviewing sensor data and optical records from the February 17 anomaly,” but emphasized that no official conclusion has been reached.

Privately, sources within the aerospace community are whispering about something far more audacious—a joint NASA–Lockheed experimental platform that briefly crossed into near-space for testing before being lost from radar.

If true, it would mark the first time in history a manned or unmanned aircraft from Earth reached the boundary of space and returned undetected.

When asked weeks later about the incident, Commander Reyes gave a short, uneasy answer: “All I can say is that we saw something flying where no plane should ever fly.

And it had an American flag on it.”

Whether it was a Cold War ghost, a secret prototype, or something else entirely, one fact remains: on that February morning, high above Earth, the Blackbird—or something born from its shadow—seemed to soar again.