A former astronaut has shared some incredible insight into why he thinks everyone on Earth is living a total lie.

Former NASA cadet Ronald Garan experienced a ‘lightbulb’ moment after having an uninterrupted view of our world.

The 63-year-old spent a total of 178 days in space throughout his career and travelled more than 71 million miles in 2,842 orbits of Earth.

That also includes 27 hours and 3 minutes of EVA (performing tasks outside of the spacecraft) in four spacewalks.

Former NASA cadet Ronald Garan (Carla Cioffi/NASA via Getty Images)

His first mission was in 2008 when he flew to the International Space Station (ISS), returning again in 2011 for a five-month stay.

It goes without saying that Ronald felt the ‘overview effect’ more than once, which is the ‘unexpected and overwhelming emotion’ astronauts have when looking down at Earth from space.

In a 2022 interview with Big Think, Ronald said: “When I looked out the window of the International Space Station, I saw the paparazzi-like flashes of lightning storms, I saw dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them.

“And I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet’s atmosphere.”

In that moment he was suddenly ‘hit with the sobering realisation that that paper-thin layer keeps every living thing on our planet alive’.

Ronald had a realisation in space (NASA via Getty Images)

The former astronaut added: “I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life.

“I didn’t see the economy. But since our human-made systems treat everything, including the very life-support systems of our planet, as the wholly owned subsidiary of the global economy, it’s obvious from the vantage point of space that we’re living a lie.

“We need to move from thinking economy, society, planet to planet, society, economy. That’s when we’re going to continue our evolutionary process.

“There’s this light bulb that pops up where they realise how interconnected and interdependent we all are.

“A little over 50 years ago, humanity as a whole had a collective out-of-body experience.

“On Christmas Eve, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 came out from behind the far side of the moon on their fourth orbit.

“They took a famous colour photograph, and that photo is called ‘Earthrise’.

Earthrise (NASA)

“Earthrise is the first colour photograph to see the whole planet hanging in the blackness of space, and the first to capture that for the rest of us, and this image revolutionised how we see the world, how we see ourselves.

“There is no such thing as them. There’s only us.”

Featured Image Credit: Carla Cioffi/NASA via Getty Images/NASA via Getty Images