UFO UpDates Mailing List
From: rudiak@garnet.berkeley.edu
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 17:31:00 -0800 (PST)
Fwd Date: Fri, 13 Dec 1996 02:37:34 -0500
Subject: Re: MJ-12 and Area 51
On Wed, 11 Dec 1996, UFO UpDates - Toronto wrote:
> From: egs@netcom.com (Edward G. Stewart)
> Subject: Re: UFO UpDate: Re: MJ-12 and Area 51
> > From: fsphys@brunswickmicro.nb.ca
> > Date: Tue, 10 Dec 96 12:04:45 -0400
> > Re Ed Stewart and downed satellite. At least do your homework and read my
> page
> > 164 in TOP SECRET/MAJIC . how in the world can you say nary a peep
about
> > sattelite.. "Another obvious concern was the mention of "downed
> satellites"...
>
> My apologies.
>
> This is what you wrote on page 164:
>
> "Considering that the first Sputnik wasn't launched until 1957, was
> this a goof by a forger? I dug out some pre-1954 books about space flight and
> checked back issues of the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature for uses
> of the term SATELLITE. I found several articles that used the term for a
> manufactured object in orbit around the earth prior to April 1954. There had
> also been an active program led by Clyde ombaugh, who had discovered Pluto
> as a very young amateur astronomer in 1930, to search for artificial
> satellites near Earth."
>
> Any reason why you failed to provide your readers with the actual references?
Please see my original response to your post in which I extensively
reference the story of Tombaugh's search and an earlier attempt by
astronomer Fritz Zwicky to launch projectiles into orbit with explosives,
dating clear back to 1946.
The first public reference to Tombaugh's search was by Dr. Lincoln La Paz
in the Feb., 1954 Astronomical Society of the Pacific Journal. La Paz
said Tombaugh was searching for NATURAL satellites, not artificial ones.
On March 3, the public information office at White Sands, put out a story
that Tombaugh was looking for "moonlets" which had recently gone into
earth orbit, with the idea of using them for natural space stations. This
would imply that these alleged natural satellites were in near earth
orbit.
> I strongly suspect that each and every one of these articles you found are in
> the context of what could be done in the future and not in the context that
> it was an acceptable fact that artificial satellites were in orbit.
These 1954 articles were about NATURAL objects having taken up orbit
RECENTLY around the earth. That goes back to at least the March, 1954
White Sands press statement. The Aviation Week story in August said that
there were two objects, 400 and 600 miles out, which had thrown the Air
Force into a panic during the summer. The story was immediately denied by
the Air Force, but the N.Y. Times claimed that a source close to the
project told them the story was true. More on this below.
> There is no doubt that there were plenty of papers in the scientific
> community as well as the popular literature that discussed the placing in
> orbit of artificial satellites during the first 57 years of this century.
> The concept was not invented in 1957. But 1957 was the first year that an
> artificial satellite was placed in orbit.
All this is true, but as I mentioned in my other post, attempts had been
made to blast projectiles into orbit from New Mexico starting back in
1946. After August, 1947, public comment on the project ceased -- at
least I can't find any further articles on it in the N.Y. Times Index. It
was the unsubstantiated belief of Los Alamos chemist Leon Davidson (best
known for his critique of Blue Book Special Report #14), that these
"artificial meteors" were responsible for the green fireball sightings
that started over New Mexico in late 1948.
> But how you rationalize that to vindicate the SOM reference to "downed
> satellite" is simply beyond my comprehension. There was also a lot of press
> in the fifties to what was commonly referred to as "mystery satellites"
> which was mostly based on conjectures and speculation. Rumors were rampant,
> but none ever panned out.
However, a story had been put out there in March, 1954, that natural
objects had entered orbit around earth. The "downed satellite" in SOM
isn't specific about natural or artificial satellites. Not that it makes
any difference. It would be a lot easier to say an ordinary meteor had
impacted that to mention one of those "natural satellites" crashing to
earth.
> My original point remains valid. Any such "cover story" of a "downed
> satellite" by a government agency would not have kept the media away. It
> would have brought the media down on any alleged "recovery operation" as
> flies on honey. It sounds to me that the MJ-12 think tank were nothing but
> a bunch of idiots.
I have to agree. Using a satellite cover, "natural" or artificial, would
have invited massive inquiry. That's the same reason I think the theory
that Roswell base issued a flying disc recovery press release as "cover"
for a Mogul balloon crash is idiotic as well.
> In regards to Clyde Tombaugh, the program he was involved in was tasked to
> find ANY satellite previously undetected in Earth orbit. The Moon is a
> satelllite. We all know of that one. Please cite the
> expecific reference you failed to mention that states "artificial satellites"
> in connection with Clyde Tombaugh's work?
Friedman got the "artificial" part wrong. But there was definitely
something a little weird about Tombaugh looking for natural "moonlets" in
near earth orbit. With the discovery of two predicted, cloudlike natural
"moons" in the gravity-neutral "Lagrangian points" out at lunar orbit, the
New York Times on June 22, 1961 (p.33) reported:
"In 1953 a search of the heavens for natural minor satellites of the earth
was initiated by Dr. Clyde Tombaugh ... who is now at the New Mexico State
University's research center. He scanned the skies, going farther and
farther out and getting "nibbles" now and then, as he said in a telephone
interview last night. None of the nibbles proved out, and the study was
terminated in 1958. Dr. Tombaugh's search did not extend as far out as
the moon's orbit, however, except for the inspection of another
astronomer's photographs of one of the two regions there where minor
satellites "ought" to be if they were anywhere, he said."
"These regions are known as Lagrangian points, after Count Joseph Louis
Lagrange, the French geometer and astronomer who in 1772 calculated the
behavior of an infinitesimal body in relation to two larger ones in a
three-mass gravitational system. He found two points where the
gravitational force is weak, allowing a body -- the infinitesimal one --
to remain in them quite stably. These are the points in the earth-moon
system lying sixty degrees fore and aft of the moon in its orbit."
The point here is that astronomers had known for nearly 200 years that
natural "satellites" would be expected out at the moon's orbit in the
Lagrangian points, but had no reasonable expectation of finding something
like an asteroid taking up orbit closer in, where Tombaugh concentrated
his search. The odds against this happening are mathematically very
remote. But instead of searching the likely spots and making a new
discovery, Tombaugh searched the unlikely regions closer to earth.
Back on Aug. 29, 1954, the N.Y. Times reported that Tombaugh's search was
being supported by the Army Office of Ordnance Research, with the purpose
of finding natural satellites that could serve as ready-made space
stations, but that nothing had been found. In the same article, the Times
said a person close to the project (whom they didn't identify), stated
that two objects had indeed been found in near-earth orbit and Dr. Lincoln
La Paz had been involved in trying to identify them, just as the Aviation
"Leak" story on Aug. 23 had originally reported. La Paz denied being
involved (even though he originally described Tombaugh's search back in
February), but didn't deny the truth of the rest of the story. [As many of
us already know, La Paz was deeply involved in New Mexico UFO
investigations for the Air Force, perhaps dating clear back to the
original Roswell crash. La Paz's first UFO sighting was just two days
after the Roswell story broke and just 80 miles away.]
I might add, that when Dr. Hynek did his astronomer survey for Blue Book
back in June, 1952, and Tombaugh related his three UFO sightings, Tombaugh
told Hynek that he was willing to put his New Mexico telescopes at the
disposal of the Air Force. Tombaugh meant this originally for transient
UFO sightings. But it indicated Tombaugh's willingness to use his scopes
to search for UFOs. [Hynek's report is reprinted in "Project Blue Book"
by Brad Steiger.]
A month after the Aviation Week story, on Sept. 18, 1954, Ed Ruppelt
stated that the green fireballs reappeared over Colorado and northern New
Mexico. La Paz was called back into investigate. Ruppelt also reported
that back in 1952, he visited Los Alamos, and the scientists there opined
that the green fireballs were probes coming from spaceships orbiting
several hundred miles above.
And in Oct. 1954, Donald Keyhoe ("Aliens From Space") said NACA issued a
press statement that they had picked up strange signals from an unknown
orbiting object. [Unfortunately, I haven't had an opportunity to run this
story down to see if Keyhoe got this right. Maybe somebody else out there
knows.]
I think this stories of mystery orbiting objects taking up recent
residence near Earth goes somewhat beyond mere press rumor. And for what
little it's worth, they started coming out at about the same time as the
date on the SOM, with its mention of a "downed satellite" cover story.
David Rudiak
UFO UpDates - Toronto -
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