Houston, Texas - NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore reached out to mission control in Houston after hearing a "strange noise" coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft in which he was stationed.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were going about their daily NASA business when they began hearing a strange and ominous banging noise in the Boeing Starliner that is due to undock from the International Space Station on September 6.

A recording of a conversation between Wilmore and mission control in Houston shows the astronaut communicating with NASA, with the curious sound clearly audible in the background.

"There's a strange noise coming through the speaker," Wilmore told NASA engineers. "And I didn't know if you could connect into the Starliner and let me... I don't know what's making it."

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"I don't know if there's something that may be connected between here and there making that happen, but anyway, can you do that?" Wilmore asked.

In response, NASA confirmed that they could configure a test and told him that they'd get back to him as soon as the test was ready.

Wilmore then managed to record the sound and send it through to NASA, which was then confirmed when the person on the other end described it as "sort of like a sonar ping."

"I'll do it one more time, and why don't y'all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what's going on," Wilmore said in response. "Here we go."

After the clip made it into the news, NASA issued a statement on X (formerly Twitter) addressing the incident, confirming that everyone was safe and that there were no major technical issues.

They also confirmed that the pulsing "strange" sound had now stopped and that NASA had figured out what had caused the problem.

"The feedback from the speaker was the result of an audio configuration between the space station and Starliner," NASA explained on X.

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"The space station audio system is complex, allowing multiple spacecraft and modules to be interconnected, and it is common to experience noise and feedback."

"The crew is asked to contact mission control when they hear sounds originating in the comm system."

"The speaker feedback Wilmore reported has no technical impact to the crew, Starliner, or station operations, including Starliner's uncrewed undocking from the station no earlier than Friday, Sept. 6."