Signal Identical To Public Broadcasts On NASA Website

When new mom Natalie Meilinger checked her baby monitor Sunday, the Palatine, IL resident heard a strange voice apparently coming out of her three-and-a-half-month old son's room.

Instead of coos, sighs or baby babble, Meilingher heard "Hello mission control."

The baby monitor has been transmitting a video signal showing such things as the space shuttle Atlantis docked at the International Space Station, a space walk, the earth and mission control, according to WBBM CBS 2 Chicago.

"I'm going why am I picking up NASA or the space station, then I just went to bed. Sure enough put it on in the morning and screamed... 'It's NASA! It's a space station! Why are we getting this?'" Meilinger said.

Meilinger called a friend with the same type monitor, but hers wasn't receiving video from space. She also tried to take it to another location, but that didn't work, either.

The manufacturer didn't know what to do.

"People thought I was crazy," she said.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says it doesn't know how or why the monitor is picking up the signal, and just at Meilinger's house. The frequency, though, is the same one used for public broadcast on the NASA website. CBS engineers are investigating.

The Meilingers say they now keep the monitor on all the time, even when it's not keeping an eye on their infant son, Jack.

"What will we see next and will we see something like this again? I don't know, like I said, there's been space activity the last few years and we've never seen anything like this," Natalie said.

Tom Meilinger, Jack's dad, said, "It's kind of like, rub your eyes again and then here's an astronaut."

FMI: www.nasa.gov