NASA, in a statement Monday, says the strange noise emanating from Boeing’s Starliner craft was nothing more than common audio feedback that can be typical of complex communications systems. The ship is still expected to leave the International Space Station uncrewed for Earth on Friday. 

On Saturday, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, Captain Butch Wilmore, radioed Houston to report a strange pulsing noise coming through the station’s speaker system from the Starliner craft, which has been riddled with technical glitches. Many online speculated that it could be signs of some kind of extraterrestrial life, though NASA says the noise is nothing unusual and has already stopped. 

“A pulsing sound from a speaker in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft heard by NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore aboard the International Space Station has stopped. The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner,” NASA said in a statement posted on social media Monday. 

“The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback,” the agency added, “The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations.”

Captain Wilmore called into Houston on Saturday, the audio of which was captured and posted on an online forum by a man named Robert Dale. 

“There’s a strange noise coming through the speaker, and I didn’t know if you could connect into the Starliner and hear,” Captain Wilmore said. He described it to Houston as a “solar ping.”

“I’ll do it one more time, and I’ll let y’all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on,” the astronaut said.