What do you do in case of a strange transaction on your credit card? Or if you find out that your account has been accessed by someone other than you? You quickly call your bank right? But what if the computer used to access account was not present on this planet. Aliens then?
This case is out of this world. Literally.
Decorated NASA astronaut Anne McClain has been accused by her same-sex partner of accessing her bank account details from space. Summer Worden, Anne's spouse, has alleged that McClain accessed her account without her permission. She says McClain accessed the account from International Space Station (ISS) orbitting around the earth.
NASA is currently investigating the case. If found guilty, Anne McClain will be the first person punished for a crime committed in space.
Anne McClain, the decorated NASA astronaut who faces the allegations.
Anne McClain and Summer Worden, both have impeccable service records. McClain is a Lieutenant Colonel in US Army while Worden is former intelligence officer at US Air Force. Both of them are raising a son together. But both of them are locked in bitter divorce proceedings.
During the proceedings, Worden got suspicious after McClain seemed to know information about all her spendings. Being a former spy, Worden put her skills and contacts to use and found out that her account was accessed from a computer from a network registered under the name of NASA.
An interesting discovery was yet to be made. Worden found out that her account was accessed during the time McCain was in space!
Worden then lodged a complaint with NASA and accused McClain of identity theft and breach of privacy.
"I was pretty appalled that she would go that far. I knew that was not OK," Summer Worden has been quoted as saying by various media outlets.
Anne McClain is now back on earth. She was questioned by NASA officials as part of an internal probe.
McClain conceded that she accessed Worden's account from space but asserted that she was trying to be sure that Worden had enough money to care for their son.
Such a case is unheard of. Even NASA officials have been quoted by the media saying that they have not come across such a dispute all these years. Everyone is eager to know what happens in this investigation.
Science and technology may cross new frontiers with each passing moment but there is no saying as what boundaries human nature and conflicts may draw for it.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe!" is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein.
This particular case may not involve stupidity per se. But other vices of human nature may surely be at play.
Watch | ISRO shares first Moon image captured by Chandrayaan-2
