Space Shuttle pursued by UFO (edited)

It's not nearly as exciting as my title made it, I'm afraid. Or at least, not as far as we know... but, you know if NASA probed an alien probe that was following the shuttle, they probably wouldn't tell us what it was. So, once again our government and the media asks us to take it all on faith.

NASA probes shiny object trailing shuttle

HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- NASA engineers were trying to identify an object that floated away from Discovery and were analyzing a protrusion found on its rudder Friday, a day before the space shuttle was scheduled to land.
...
They also reported seeing something sticking out from the left side of the shuttle's rudder. "We see a little bump kind of sticking out," shuttle pilot Ken Ham said.
Initial speculation by engineers was that the floating object could be something from the payload bay or a piece of ice. They said the protrusion might be a small piece of thermal insulation sticking out.

If I were them, I'd get a second opinion. I know the something that used to stick out from the left side of my rudder went misdiagnosed (as a small piece of ice from my payload bay as well, coincidentally) for years before a better doctor figured out what it was, and I'd hate for the shuttle to miss out on getting the needed surgery and treatment.

Of course, if there's another shuttle disaster on Saturday, I'm gonna feel like an ass for making light of this. And it could happen - NASAs got a lot of questions to deal with right now:

On Friday, NASA continued investigating what caused extensive damage at the launch pad used to shoot Discovery into orbit two weeks ago.

About 5,300 bricks flew off the pad during the May 31 launch, exposing a thick concrete wall underneath.

Word is NASA has contacted eminent archaeologist Henry Jones Jr to conduct a dig of the ancient concrete site beneath the launch pad, believed by some to have been built by vikings from outer space.