A moment of levity during NASA’s frustrating attempts to launch Atlantis – a spider crawling on the lens of one of its cameras appears as a monstrous, shuttle eating beast.

“Add ‘exterminator’ to the list of preflight checks for January’s launch,” says WJBF.

British paper Metro has the real scoop though: “experts viewing the footage suggest that it is a clear indicator that the Earth is about to be plunged into an all-out space war with a race of 150ft-long demonic spiders who live on rocket fuel”.

Watch the full video and make up your own mind.