GettyA top-secret experimental plane has landed in Florida after a two-year mission that’s supposedly a complete secret.
The X-37B plan is capable of flying itself and began its mission back in May 2015 but the U.S. Air Force have refused to reveal what it’s been doing during its two year journey, The Independent reports.
Of course the air-force’s silence has convinced conspiracy theorists something untoward is going on and they’ve claimed that the jet is some kind of dangerous new weapon capable of taking out satellites or monitoring the public.
GettyThe X-37B has spent 700 days in orbit, conducting unknown experiments making it the fourth – and lengthiest – mission so far for the secretive program, managed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.
According to the Air Force the plane which is known as an Orbital Test Vehicle, has been performing ‘risk reduction, experimentation and concept-of-operations development for reusable space vehicle technologies’.
Yeah we’ve no idea either…
GettyAnyhoo, the Secure World Foundation, a group who promote the peaceful exploration of space and know more about this stuff than us, claim the high level of secrecy surrounding the plane suggests the presence of intelligence-related hardware being tested or evaluated aboard the craft.
Other suggestions have been made that the plane was sent up to test a new electromagnetic thruster or that it was spying on China’s Tiangong-1 space station module.
Regardless of its mission the Air Force will launch the fifth X-37B from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station later this year.
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.