An Alice Springs Video enthusiast thinks he may have some clues on what forced NASA's $2,8 million balloon down to earth on Sunday. He has captured footage of NASA's ill-fated balloon flight showing a second mysterious object moving close to the balloon. NASA scientist have no explanation for why the balloon launched just before 9am on Sunday, developed a leak forcing a landing near Hermannsburg only hours later. The amateur camera man who wished to remain nameless, was enjoying a quiet Sunday at home when the balloon was first launched. He said: "I went out on my patio with a coffee when I noticed the balloon on the south-west. "I grabbed my video and filmed it about 9am, then about 10.am I decided to roll some more footage. "I thought the altitude of the balloon at that time was about 60,000 (18km) when I noticed the intruder and caught it's movements on film. The man who has extensive flying experience, then used binoculars to track the movements of the unidentified object.

He described two other similar bright objects which descended vertically into his field of view also moving in both vertical and horizontal directions over the next 45 minutes. The objects appeared with the balloon near it's maximum height, around 23km to high for all but a handful to military aircraft according to NASA scientist Danny Ball. But Mr Ball who viewed the footage on Tuesday thought it was nothing to get excited about.

He said: "It's clear to me that it's the tow balloon. "We inflated a smaller balloon to hold the top plate up while we inflated the bigger balloon. "It went up 30 minutes before the big one. "All the movement he is seeing is an optical illusion created by Distance." "I wish it was little green men, it would explain a few things." But the cameraman is adamant. He said: "The biggest factor is the movement. "If all that movement was going on for three separate balloons why isn't the big balloon moving as well. And Bureau of Meteorology technical observer Alan Deane agrees. He released a large weather balloon from the airport site only two minutes after the NASA balloon. He said: "A balloon wouldn't be moving around like that, that's for sure.