Retired astronaut Scott Kelly has finally shared the real story behind the famous viral video showing a gorilla seemingly roaming the corridors of the International Space Station.
The clip, which has circulated online for years, appears to show a giant gorilla bursting from a storage container and chasing a frightened crew member through the station’s weightless modules. While many viewers were amused by the bizarre footage, few knew the surprising story behind it.
According to Kelly, the prank was masterminded by his identical twin brother, Mark Kelly. Wanting to bring some laughter to his brother’s year-long mission in space, Mark arranged for a vacuum-sealed gorilla costume to be sent to the space station aboard an unmanned cargo mission operated by SpaceX.
The plan faced an early setback when the first cargo rocket carrying the suit exploded shortly after launch in 2015. Refusing to give up, Mark sent a replacement costume on a later mission, which successfully reached the orbiting laboratory.
Once the gorilla suit arrived, Scott embraced the joke. Although the well-known chase sequence featuring British astronaut Tim Peake was carefully staged for the cameras, Kelly also used the costume to surprise unsuspecting crew members by hiding in their sleeping quarters and jumping out at them.
After providing plenty of laughs in orbit, the gorilla suit was eventually discarded along with other station waste, bringing an end to one of the most memorable and unusual pranks ever carried out in space.
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