In a rather surprising turn of events, NASA has come forward to debunk a purported UFO spotted by anomaly hunters and making the rounds online. The 'craft' in question caught the attention of flying saucer enthusiasts late last month when the space agency's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), which observes the sun and occasionally captures planets passing the solar body, seemingly caught a glimpse of a wheel-like structure with a cross inside of it.

The sizeable nature of the oddity and its seemingly artificial nature led a number of observers to conclude that the STEREO project had inadvertently filmed an alien craft which many likened to the tale of Ezekiel's wheel from the Bible. However, not everyone was convinced, specifically fastidious UFO researcher Scott Brando, who argued on Twitter that the 'UFO' was really just "a recurring image artifact caused by internal reflections of a planet."

Remarkably, Brando's diagnosis of the video clip was echoed by NASA, who rarely take the time to respond to alleged UFOs seen in their photos and videos. In this instance, the space agency explained in an online update this past Friday that, indeed, the 'craft' seen in the footage was merely "an internal reflection of the planet Venus within the telescope optics" and noted that "this effect has been seen many times before" with examples provided in their update.

Although UFO enthusiasts will be understandably disappointed to learn that the fantastic 'craft' was really no such thing, one can't help but appreciate that NASA even bothered to weigh in on the subject since normally such space mysteries receive no official response from the agency. Why, exactly, this particular instance caused them to change their stance is anyone's guess, though one can surmise that conspiracy theorists will say that they were forced to do so because the image was 'too close to the truth.'