A nosy gopher snoops under the shadow of a Russian space rocket as it prepares for blast off.
Inexplicably the rodent appears to have stationed its own burrow directly beneath the launchpad, at Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome.
But rather than run for cover before the rocket takes off for outer space, the nonchalant animal casually goes about its business, probing the alien camera lens with its snout.
The bizarre footage was taken after a news cameraman accidentally left his camera rolling near the world's largest functional launchpad.
As the gopher sniffs around the camera lens, scientists and engineers go about their work preparing a huge rocket for launch.
Seemingly unaware of the looming space ship in the background, it inches closer towards the camera lens before tentatively nibbling the glass.
Even when a huge launch pad is trundled over the gopher's burrow towards the launch site, the rodent does nothing, watching the preparations unfold.
The fate of the gopher is unclear after the rocket took off for space.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome, also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility.
Located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about 124 miles east of the Aral Sea, it is leased by the Kazakh government to Russia and is managed jointly by the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Russian Space Forces.
It was originally built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as the base of operations for its space program.
