Claim:
A NASA astronaut once surprised his crewmates by wearing a gorilla costume aboard the International Space Station.
Evaluation:
Context:
Former astronaut twin brothers Mark and Scott Kelly arranged a gorilla costume stunt aboard the International Space Station that crew members knew about in advance. But contrary to some social media posts, it was Scott, not Mark, who was filmed in space wearing the costume.
Since 2016, the claims spread (Archive) To Social Media (Archive) that former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly was “a complete gorilla costume smuggled on board the International Space Station” (Archive)A Reddit post from 2023 states that he then put it on without warning anyone:
Mark Kelly has a twin brother named Scott Kelly who was also an astronaut. Numerous social media posts have claimed the same thing about him:
In 2016, former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly smuggled a complete gorilla suit on board the International Space Station, but didn’t tell anyone about it. Until one day he decided to sneak up on his crewmate pic.twitter.com/uop15g6bHW
— WTF Facts (@mrwtffacts) 17 February 2023
Although this actually happened, posts like the ones above have muddled some of the details surrounding the #SpaceGorilla stunt. Mark and Scott Kelly had planned the gorilla suit incident together and all International Space Station crew members were informed in advance. Mark Kelly, who was not on the ISS at the time, arranged for the suit to be sent from Earth to Scott Kelly, who was actually wearing the suit in the video.
Both Kelly brothers have written about it on X. We dug through Mark Kelly’s timeline on X (formerly Twitter) and found that he originally wrote the video on February 22, 2016 (archive):
Scott Kelly published (Archive) it the next day and had received more than 23,000 likes:
Our editorial team then searched the NASA archives and found a recapitulate of the #SpaceApe debacle, which the space agency released on February 4, 2020. It confirmed other news reports that Mark Kelly had arranged for the suit to be sent from Earth to his twin brother aboard the ISS.:
To surprise astronaut Scott J. Kelly on his birthday on February 21, 2016, during his year-long mission on board the ISS, his twin brother Mark E. Kelly arranged for a life-sized gorilla costume to be delivered to the station. In addition to some harmless pranks in the gorilla costume that he posted on social media, such as chasing his expedition colleague Timothy N. Peake through the Destiny module, (Scott) Kelly also recorded some educational videos in the unusual garb.
As Scott Kelly said People In January 2022 (archive), the entire stunt was planned – and his fellow astronaut Tom Peak, who can also be seen in the video, was not surprised:
It’s all staged. That’s why he’s floating around, floating in the air, we wanted it to look funny.
It was the end of my year in space…so a little humor is needed.
Scott Kelly, who further increased his fame as a primate fan, even posted an educational video to X on October 16, 2017 (archive) while wearing the #SpaceGorilla suit, explaining “what happens when you cry in space.”
Mark Kelly, who is US Senator from Arizonaretired in June 2011 after 10 years of space flights with NASA and the US Navy, according to his NASA profileScott Kelly was first selected by NASA in 1996 and retired after 20 years of service with the space agency.
Sources:
“Astronaut Scott Kelly reveals the true story behind a video of him in a gorilla costume aboard the space station.” Peoplemaghttps://people.com/human-interest/astronaut-scott-kelly-reveals-real-story-behind-viral-video-gorilla-suit-aboard-space-station/. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
“Home | U.S. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.” Senator Mark Kellyhttps://www.kelly.senate.gov/. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/CaptMarkKelly/Status/701918950678892544.” X (formerly Twitter)https://twitter.com/CaptMarkKelly/status/701918950678892544. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/StationCDRKelly/Status/702239878323372032.” X (formerly Twitter)https://twitter.com/StationCDRKelly/status/702239878323372032. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/Stationcdrkelly/Status/919971753320964097?Lang=en.” X (formerly Twitter)https://twitter.com/stationcdrkelly/status/919971753320964097?lang=en. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
“https://Twitter.Com/Todd_Spence/Status/1480256216618049537.” X (formerly Twitter)https://twitter.com/Todd_Spence/status/1480256216618049537. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
20th Space Station: Birthday celebrations on the ISS – NASA. February 4, 2020, https://www.nasa.gov/history/space-station-20th-celebrating-birthdays-on-iss/.
