Unbelievable Photos of Space Shuttle Columbia Explosion

I received a forwarded e-mail today with eight alleged photos of the Space Shuttle Columbia exploding in space, under the subject line "SHUTTLE PICTURES - Unbelievable":

Quite hard to believe this; these are amazing!
Attached are pictures of the Shuttle Explosion from an Israeli Satellite in space. I got these from Gerri Sollenberger from the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. I taught some classes with her when she was the FEMA director for region 5 in Chicago.

"Unbelievable" is right. The pictures are frames from the 1998 film Armageddon, which depicts the destruction of a shuttle. Snopes fully debunks this hoax (along with hundreds of others).

There really is a Gerri Sollenberger who has been a FEMA official in Region 5, and somehow her name has been thrown in to lend credence to the hoax.

The mail was sent by a member of Trees for Alabama and included the name and full contact information of a Lockheed Martin military contractor at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., the home of the U.S. Army's Aviation and Missile Command. There also was a link to the Office for Domestic Preparedness.

Here's a quote from the person who forwarded it: "Look particularly at image 2. There appears to be a streak leaving earth and heading straight toward the portion of the shuttle that is already in flames. Are we being lied to about this tragedy?"

To my fellow Americans: Don't you feel safer seeing that a blatantly obvious hoax has been circulated by people involved with emergency preparedness, the military, and homeland security?

Spaceshuttle · Nasa · Hoax · 2003/03/13 · 11 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

obviously it is a hoax. Who took the photo if it wasn't

#1 · Macca · 2007/04/13

And of course the e-mail header information is all correct. It's impossible for the average hacker/spammer to spoof that stuff.

Yeah, I believe because I'm Kooky.

The shuttle was blown up by a beam shot from HAARP.

The WTC towers collapsed from the weight of the chemtrail equipment in the tails of the planes.

Yeah, I beleive.

Kooky

#2 · Kooky T. Klown · 2007/04/14

this is fake, simple to know this, because the shuttle blew up and got destroyed as it was going into the atmosphere, and the shuttle isnt in the atmosphere yet

#3 · visitor · 2008/04/17

No the shuttle did not blow up it disintegrated as it entered the atmosphere. Due to a missing heat-proof tile on the belly of the shuttle. As it apparently fell off during the launch.

#4 · Christopher Lea · 2009/02/10

You just repeat the 'explanation', that NASA gives as a GUESS!

Here is a more plausible explanation, and since 'cosmologists' can't acknowledge any electricity in space (which is chockful of PLASMA):

Columbia downed by Megalightning

#5 · tadowe · 2009/02/10

You're shittin me !
Next they will remove the word gullible from the dictionary

#6 · Brian · 2009/02/24

Brian responds, "Next they will remove the word gullible from the dictionary."

I presume this to be in response to my comment, and the link provided in support of an alternative theory about what caused the destruction to the one you've evidently inscribed in stone for your faith to focus on.

Your cynical personal response certainly isn't any sort of scientific rebuttal to violent electrical discharge as the cause of the shuttle explosion. However, I understand that those who consider themselves "sensitive" and "liberal" are often the most gullible and subject to "journalistic" explanations of governmental organizations like NASA. No one at that organization would ever offer an explanation, even though it might fit all the observations, which opposed "scientific dogma." In this case, it is an increasingly plaintive assertion that there is no electrical activity in space ...

Even the relatively minor science of meteorology knows better:

Upper-atmospheric lightning

Upper-atmospheric lightning or upper-atmospheric discharge are terms sometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of electrical-breakdown phenomena that occurs well above the altitudes of normal lightning. The preferred current usage is transient luminous events (TLEs) to refer to the various types of electrical-discharge phenomena induced in the upper atmosphere by tropospheric lightning. TLEs include red sprites, sprite halos, blue jets, and elves.

In your self-imposed ignorance, these "coincidences" will certainly escape your blinkered attention:

Studies continue on these newly-discovered phenomena. Microsatellites have been proposed to study sprites, along with lighting and other atmospheric discharge phenomena. Observations were made of sprites and elves by the crew of NASA space shuttle Columbia during a flight in the last half of January 2003 as part of an Israeli-designed experiment. Unfortunately, Columbia broke up on reentry and most of the data was lost along with the shuttle and its crew, though some imagery had been relayed to Earth while the spacecraft was still in orbit.

Who is it that is the callow fellow?

#7 · tadowe · 2009/02/25

Actually, Brian, the word "gullible" was removed from the online dictionary, Dictionary.com

#8 · anon · 2009/02/26

They're fake and have been proven so. And the space shuttle didn't even blow up that far out in space. It was already in the earth's atmosphere otherwise the debris wouldn't have gotten inside out atmosphere and fallen to the surface of the earth. The picture are so obviously fake I could laugh.

And no it didn't explode because of a missing tile. It exploded because of the "rubber band" that keeps the heat from harming anything inside the shuttle. It was frozen, then thawed, frozen then thaed, for a whole week due to bad weather. So the rubber band snapped on its way through the atmosphere due to the intense heat.

#9 · Jessica · 2009/05/17

Brian, you're an idiot.

CP3
PhD, Physics

#10 · cp3 · 2010/09/03

If you are not aware of it I will tell you now that there is no oxygen in space-{like we all know} so therefore no flames would seen as fire needs owygen to burn.

#11 · Bill · 2011/05/16