A NASA astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday reported hearing a "strange noise" coming from the Boeing Starliner spacecraft just days before it is set to leave the station and return to Earth on autopilot.

The astronaut, Butch Wilmore, radioed Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston to inquire about the noise. 

On an audio recording of the exchange, Wilmore holds up a phone to the speakers so that Mission Control could hear the noise he was referring to. A pulsating sound emanating at steady intervals can be heard through Wilmore’s device. 

"Butch, that one came through," Mission Control says after not hearing it the first time. "It was kind of like a pulsating noise, almost like a sonar ping." 

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"I’ll do it one more time and let you all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what’s going on," Wilmore tells Mission Control, playing the sound one more time. 

Mission Control tells Wilmore the recording will be passed along and that they'll let him know what they find.

Wilmore clarifies that the sound is emanating from the speaker inside the Starliner. 

The bizarre sound was first reported by Ars Technica, which cited a recording first captured and shared by Michigan-based meteorologist Rob Dale. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Mission Control and Boeing to inquire if the source of the sound has been identified. 

Starliner is slated to undock from the ISS, empty, and attempt to return on autopilot with a touchdown in the New Mexico desert. 

NASA decided it was too risky to bring back Wilmore and Suni Williams until February. The astronauts were originally slated for a weeklong trip in early June, but the mission has been mired in problems after thruster failures and helium leaks.

Boeing had counted on Starliner’s first crew trip to revive the troubled spacecraft program after years of delays and ballooning costs. The company had insisted Starliner was safe based on all the recent thruster tests in both space and on the ground.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

People caught in possession of hard drugs will once again be at risk of state criminal penalties after the state of Oregon opted to recriminalize possession of drugs such as fentanyl, heroin and meth.

Oregon became the first state in the country to decriminalize possession of small amounts of hard drugs in response to a 2020 ballot measure, but it will now recriminalize those offenses under a new law that takes effect Sunday.

The new law, HB4002, will give those caught with small amounts of hard drugs such as fentanyl, heroin, and meth the ability to choose between a charge of possession or treatment programs that would include being mandated to complete a behavior health program to avoid fines.

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A personal-use possession will be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, while the law encourages, but does not mandate, counties in the state to set up treatment alternatives to divert offenders away from the criminal justice system.

According to the report, the new law will now make it easier for police to crack down on drug use in public, a problem that has become widespread in some parts of the state over the last few years. The law also introduces stiffer penalties for selling drugs in public places, such as near parks.

Offenders who choose treatment programs will have to meet strict eligibility criteria to avoid charges, Portland police chief Bob Day told the Guardian, mandating that those caught in possession have "no other charges, no warrants, no violent behavior, medically stable."

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If someone caught in possession of hard drugs chooses and is eligible to participate in a deflection program, officers will call their county's deflection dispatch line and connect to a mobile behavioral health outreach team.

"If the behavioral health people cannot be there within 30 minutes, we’re going to go to jail. We’re not able to just wait around," Day said. "There is certainly a lack of equity in that. But I would argue that it’s not necessarily common. I’m not saying it’s right."

Nevertheless, detractors of the new law have argued that it is too complicated, noting that every county will have different resources and rules that could confuse drug users who face possible criminal penalties.

The report notes that 28 of the state's 36 counties have so far applied for grants to fund deflection programs, with more than $20 million in grants set to be released by the state's criminal justice commission in the next year.

"It’s going to be this very complicated system, where essentially people who use drugs won’t know their rights and what to expect, because it’s different in every single county," Kellen Russoniello, the director of public health at the Drug Policy Alliance, told the Guardian. "Whether or not you are connected to services or you are just churned through the system will depend very heavily on where you happen to be in the state."

Others, such as Democratic state representative Jason Kropf, a supporter of the law, expressed optimism about the new direction for the state.

"I have optimism, and I have hope," Kropf told the Guardian. "I’m also realistic that we have a lot of work ahead of us."