Sussex astronaut Tim Peake 'thought we were facing a UFO' but it 'turned out to be leaking urine'

Chichester’s Tim Peake – who was awarded the rare honour of Freedom of the City in 2018 – became the first British astronaut to join the International Space Station when he spent six months aboard the orbiting laboratory in 2015.

He is now embarking on a national tour to talk about his experiences as well as the history of space travel, stopping off in Birmingham to speak to an enthusiastic audience on Wednesday night.

During his time on board the ISS, Major Peake said he once saw ‘three lights moving in formation’, before they were joined by a fourth.

He told an audience at the city’s Symphony Hall that , because of the blackness of space, he believed they were from some kind of spacecraft – and that the only explanation could be a UFO.

But it then dawned on him that the lights had a source that was far closer to home – it was created by droplets of urine that were leaking from the space station.

“We were perplexed, until we realised that what we thought were the far away lights of alien spaceships were actually very close small droplets,” Major Peake said.

“What was happening was liquid leaking out of a Russian probe vehicle, crystallising instantly and reflecting the light. What we were seeing was Russian urine.”

Toilet habits were something of a theme for Major Peake’s two-hour show in front of a near-capacity Symphony Hall.

He revealed how Alan Shepard was left on the launch pad for so long ahead of the US’s first orbital flight that he was forced to ask permission to urinate in his spacesuit.

After that, condom-like contraptions were issued to astronauts in an effort to help their predicament.

But they rarely worked and Buzz Aldrin’s first step on the Moon was using a boot that was full of his own urine.

Nowadays all astronauts wear a form of adult nappy – and they also have an enema on Earth ahead of take-off in order to prevent any bigger accidents in space.

He also revealed how Pete Conrad, America’s third man on the Moon, was renowned as a joker among the US astronauts on the Apollo programme. He said Conrad was so fed up with the amount of probing, prodding and giving samples that he once presented his bosses at Nasa with a stool sample in a gift-wrapped box, complete with a ribbon on top.

Major Peake is still involved in space, acting as an advisor for US-based commercial space operator Axiom Space.

His presentation at the Symphony Hall took in the early days of space right through to current projects to get back to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

He revealed the development of space stations over the decades, saying the current ISS is the size of a football pitch, which is cavernous when compared to earlier versions such as the American Skylab or Russian Soyuz.

The astronaut answered a series of questions from the audience, including one who asked him if he ever got scared.

He revealed that it took him a long time to come to terms with the vastness of space when he first arrived at the ISS.

He said: “It is vast and very black and you are looking out into affinity. But you get used to it.” He said life on board the ISS was hard work but also great fun, treating the audience to a video of himself and his fellow astronauts larking about in the zero gravity of space.

The tour, called Astronauts – The Quest to Explore Space, continues until the start of October. He will be at the Regent Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, on September 11.