SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission makes history; leaves some Americans stunned

SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission successfully launched into space early Tuesday morning but the spacecraft carrying the mission's crew was mistaken by some New Yorkers as a spaceship operated by aliens.

Shortly after the Elon Musk-owned space agency's Polaris Dawn blasted off into space from the Kennedy Space Station in Florida at 5:23am, several people in New York spotted a mysterious orb of light with a sprawling, glowing tail soaring across the sky, the New York Post reported.

Apparently, they had spotted the spacecraft carrying SpaceX engineers Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, billionaire Jared Isaacman and retired military fighter pilot Scott Poteet, who will be the first non-astronauts to perform a spacewalk.

After the successful launch, the mission's crew, who set their sights far beyond the International Space Station (ISS), etched their names in history by flying farther from Earth than any crewed spacecraft since the Apollo program over 50 years ago.

The four-person crew reached an altitude of 1,400 kilometers above the planet's surface on their first day in orbit.

During its first orbit, the Crew Dragon spacecraft reached an apogee of approximately 1,216km, already setting a record for the highest Dragon mission to date.

Videos showing the spaceship across the East Coast making its way steadily across the sky, flooded social media.

Meanwhile, some New Yorkers unaware of the SpaceX journey questioned whether it was something other-worldly.

"That's aliens dawg!" one person wrote.

"There are enough extraterrestrials in NYC, if you ask me," wrote another.

The Polaris Dawn mission aims to conduct the first-ever commercial spacewalk, test new SpaceX-designed spacesuits, and perform various scientific experiments. 

The historic spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday on the third day of the five-day mission.