In 1954, newspapers including the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the San Francisco Examiner ran stories attributed to retired naval aviation major and UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe saying that the US Air Force detected two satellites orbiting Earth. At this time, however, no one had the technology to launch a satellite, which has led to many speculations about the origin of the object. Some conspiracy theorists believe it is a 13,000 year-old satellite of extraterrestrial origin. It is commonly referred to as the Black Knight Satellite.