​Did Sunita Williams hint about aliens when she said, “There's something in space that we don't know about”

NASA’s astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, are finally set to return to Earth after an unexpectedly extended stay of over nine months on the International Space Station (ISS). On Sunday, as the four astronauts from SpaceX's Crew-10 mission arrived on ISS, Crew-9 commander Nick Hague decided to greet them in a rather ‘space style’. He wore a grey alien mask and welcomed the incoming crew, and the lighthearted moment has gone viral for all the right reasons.
Well, we humans have always wondered what’s beyond this Earth and its beings. The possibilities of aliens in a different dimension have always caught our fancy. Whether aliens exist or not is a heated debate. But do they really exist? You can find thousands of conspiracy theories online, but what do the astronauts and space travellers think?

What does returning astronaut Sunita Williams think about extraterrestrial beings? Does she believe in alien existence? Well, she has once commented about it. In April 2013, when Sunita Williams visited Kolkata, India, she was asked about her views on the existence of God or an unknown force. Guess what her response was? It was of course intriguing and mysterious. “When you look at the darkest areas in space, you feel that there's something out there that we don't know about,” she said. This could mean a lot of things!

When asked if she feels aliens exist, Williams said, “There are millions of stars out there. It is difficult to think that life does not exist in any one of them. One does not how long we'll take to travel to another solar system. But, obviously, it won't happen in my lifetime.”

Meanwhile, astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, along with the Crew 9 members Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are scheduled to depart the ISS as early as Wednesday, March 19, 2025, and all eyes are on them. Williams and Wikmore, who were originally expected to be gone only for eight days when they launched on Boeing’s first astronaut flight, in June 2024 had to extend their stay, due to technical issues. Earlier this month, they have hit 9 months. The astronauts are excited to return to earth, and earlier in a press conference, Williams said that she can't wait to be reunited with her Labrador retrievers. She added that the hardest part about the unexpected extended stay was the wait by their families back home. "It’s been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit more so than for us. We’re here. We have a mission. We’re just doing what we do every day, and every day is interesting because we’re up in space and it’s a lot of fun.”
On the other hand, the four newcomers on the latest crew are Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi, and Kirill Peskov. NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov entered the International Space Station shortly. Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are preparing for their journey back to Earth.