Battletar Galactica’s Katee Sackhoff Finally Confirms What Happened to Starbuck

During the third season of Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica, the character of Starbuck — the fan-favorite Viper pilot played by Katee Sackhoff in the series — was killed when her ship disintegrated. A few episodes later, she was back, without a clear explanation ever taking place on camera, leading to a wide variety of fan theories over the years, one of which has now got the Sackhoff seal of approval. Answering a fan question on Instagram, Sackhoff confirmed that there was something supernatural at play, and that Starbuck wasn’t “back” in the traditional sense, so much as she was used as the representation of something bigger.

It’s fair to assume that a lot of people already figured this out; Starbuck stuck around for most of the show’s fourth season, but literally just…vanished…in the season/series finale, after her mission was done and she had successfully guided the heroes back to Earth.

“She was a spirit brought to guide humanity to earth and salvation,” Sackhoff wrote on Instagram.

Back in 2022, Sackhoff had made a joke about this question when European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, on her second visit to the International Space Station, appeared on-camera to speak with people back on Earth…while cosplaying as Sackhoff’s version of Starbuck.

In response, Sackhoff tweeted, “We finally know what happened to Starbuck! This is so Frakin cool!”

While the world is no longer in the place where astronauts are celebrities merely for being astronauts, there are some who have found fame by taking this incredibly serious and dangerous job, and having a little personality and fun with it. Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is one of the classic examples, having made pop culture headlines numerous times during his career, and embracing his celebrity and nerd cred now that he’s back on terra firma.

The series ran for 4 seasons, but also had some follow-up movies on Syfy. It was an adaptation of a series from the 1970s, in which the character of Starbuck was a man, played by Dirk Benedict, who famously met with Sackhoff years later and posed for a social media photo where they were drinking coffee together…at Starbucks.