An American satellite orbiting above known as Vela Hotel 6911 detected a bright double flash of light below that seemed to be indicative of a nuclear explosion.
There are journalists who claim that every successive US administration since then has deliberately covered up the truth of what the Vela incident actually was.
Almost immediately upon detection by the Vela satellite the United States and NATO began investigating who may have conducted the secret and mysterious tests.
But they theorized that perhaps a micrometeoroid had struck the Vela satellite and caused it to only appear to detect a double flash in the Indian Ocean instead.
However, after going through the data, this panel curiously came to the conclusion that the Vela incident as was getting to be known was most likely caused by a natural event.
Fearful the Soviets might try to test anyway — perhaps blowing up nukes on the far side of the Moon, where they couldn't be detected — the US launched a series of satellites called Vela.
But in a way that's kind of what makes the Vela incident and other mysteries so interesting, the fact that you don't know all of the answers and the possibility that one day you might.