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From: Jim Mortellaro <Jsmortell@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 19:30:36 -0500 (EST)
Fwd Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 07:47:57 -0500
Subject: Re: UFOs, Or A Light Show?


Oberg on Shuttle Spritzing

 >From UFO UpDates - Toronto


 >Source: ABC News

 >http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/ufo990217.html

 >UFOs, Or A Light Show?
 >Science Battles Wishful Thinking

 >By Jim Oberg
 >Special to ABCNEWS.com

 >As humans explore space, it's reasonable to imagine that other
 >beings in the universe are doing the same. Encountering
 >explorers from other planets have been a staple of science
 >fiction for decades.

 >Videotapes from space shuttle missions have persuaded some folks
 >that NASA astronauts have already encountered alien visitors.

 >On the space shuttle mission STS-48 in September 1991, a TV
 >onboard Discovery spotted moving white dots suddenly changing
 >direction when a flash of light appeared. Although nearby debris
 >frequently appears on shuttle videos, the combination of flares,
 >streaks and changing directions grabbed imaginations.

 >Answering a congressional query the following month on behalf of
 >a curious constituent, NASA had four Houston experts - including
 >one astronaut, astronomer Karl Henize - examine the videos.

 >"The objects seen are [Discovery]-generated debris, illuminated
 >by the sun," they reported. "The flicker of light is the result
 >of firing of the attitude thrusters on [Discovery], and the
 >abrupt motions of the particles result from the impact of gas
 >from the thrusters."

 >That didn't wash for some viewers, who believed they
 >were seeing alien visitors or Star Wars-like battles.

 >Popular Interpretation

 >Enthusiasm for the UFO interpretation of space pictures isn't
 >restricted to a narrow band of crackpots, as any Web search
 >demonstrates. Mainstream writers and major TV networks also
 >promulgate these misinterpretations. Aside from enhancing the
 >public's paranoia about government cover-ups, it can have a
 >poisonous effect on public support for space exploration if a
 >substantial portion of voters becomes convinced by such theories
 >that space experts, astronauts and scientists are lying to them.

On the contrary, the effect on the citizenry is to demand MORE
exploration of space in order to prove or disprove the
truthfulness of lack of it, demonstrated by our fearless elected
political leaders. When the truth be known and understood by
all, only by continued exploration will it be so.

Don't be fooled by the hubris of the good Oberg.  Les Auberge
Des Duex Signa, or is that Des Duex Pelicans... Forgive my
Puerto Rican.

 >Such space tapes are no surprise to NASA; the agency shrugs them
 >off as just one more phenomenon of space flight.

But what else is there for NASA to do?  Admit to additional
errors, I mean other than inches to centimeters?

 >The STS-48 images were being collected as part of an ongoing
 >NASA study of unusual lightning.

You guys got that part right.  Good men.  Stout thinking.

 >The project was coordinated by NASA scientist Otha "Skeet"
 >Vaughan, in Huntsville, Ala. He has collected and analyzed about
 >500 hours of tapes over two decades of shuttle flights, probably
 >watching more space video than anyone else.

Coordinated by whom?  I've shot skeet, it ain't nuttin special,
prefer trap and sporting clays myself.  Ah, but that makes me
one a them postal shooters who must be watched closely. Anyone
who carries a nug (I am also dyslexic) must be a bad guy.

 >Just Debris

Just hubris.

 >Vaughan, who retired from NASA last month, said such dots appear
 >frequently. "They're an ordinary part of space flight," he says.
 >"It's obviously just more shuttle debris."

 >Astronauts aboard the STS-48 mission agree.

 >Mission specialist Mark Brown says ice formed on the shuttle's
 >main engine bells after the remaining fuel was dumped in space.

 >"These crystals would break free of the engines and float around
 >the shuttle," he says. "When illuminated by sunlight they looked
 >like small diamonds floating in space, disturbed only when the
 >maneuvering rockets fired - the plumes from the rockets would
 >hit them and send them off in different directions."

 >Shuttle co-pilot Ken Reightler says: "We saw a lot of this on
 >STS-48 because we had a dump nozzle that was leaking." The same
 >nozzle leaked on the shuttle's next mission and "created the
 >same shower of ice particles - but this time apparently no one
 >misinterpreted them as UFOs."

But of course, and as the dump nozzle was leaking, it leaked in
such a manner as to move the spacecraft .... oops, it didn't
move. Well, uh, OK, then it leaked in such a manner as to leak
just in time, whilst spritzing, uh ...never mind.

 >'Fireflies'

Signa, Swans, Pelicans.

 >Small particles flaking off manned spacecraft have been around
 >since John Glenn saw "fireflies" outside his capsule in 1962.
 >Apollo astronauts saw them so often they were nicknamed "moon
 >pigeons." A NASA study in 1971 traced them to propellant leaks,
 >water dumps, pyrotechnic separation and other ordinary events.

Swamp gas.  And let's keep your moon out of this.

 >Yet claims for an extraordinary interpretation of the STS-48
 >images persist, coming from respectable and seemingly rational
 >people. Jack Kasher, a physicist from Nebraska, has published an
 >exhaustive analysis showing why they cannot be debris. "The only
 >feasible explanation," he concludes, "is that they actually were
 >spacecraft out in space away from the shuttle."

 >Mark Carlotto, an imaging specialist in Massachusetts, published
 >a 1995 report in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, claiming
 >that "beyond a reasonable doubt" the objects could not be
 >explained as known phenomena.

 >Shedding Light

Whilst darkening mind, intellect and inspiration.  Not to
mention imagination.

Damn it, I told you not to mention imagination!

 >Two factors - sunlight and the steering-jet pulses - explain the
 >videotape.

Three actually, add a totally closed mind.

 >The shuttle TV cameras observed lightning on the night side of
 >Earth. But as the shuttle circled toward the day side, it rose
 >into sunlight even while the camera remained fixed on the
 >still-dark horizon behind it. So objects near the shuttle
 >suddenly become illuminated - and it's precisely at sunrise that
 >the most famous "shuttle UFO videos" show the appearance of
 >these dots.

 >The autopilot normally fires the shuttle's steering jets to keep
 >the craft on course. Telemetry readouts from STS-48 show exactly
 >such a jet firing at the time of the mystery pulse.

 >Space junk and thruster gas are a lot less exciting than alien
 >visitors and space battles, so the popularity of UFO
 >explanations for such videotapes will persist. But if recent
 >studies prove anything, it is that the less one knows about
 >space flight, the more likely one is to swallow the idea of
 >space shuttles spotting UFOs.

When my dad was a young man, he would stand in front of the
mirror, eyes sharp and piercing, and recite Shakespeare.  "To be
or not to be .. " he would recite the soliloquy from Hamlet.

He is to this day, an inspired man.  Genuinely interested in
those whose indomitable spirits led to great discoveries.  I
remember his telling me the story of Christopher Columbus over
and over again. From when I could remember remembering, he
always said it the same way.  I must've asked pop to "Tell me
the story about Christopher Columbus, Daddy.  Please!??"  a
hundred thousand times. And off he'd go. I could never get
enough.

What that did of course, was prompt my little brain to love the
adventure of discovery.  Even scientists, Old Obe G. Canobe, are
allowed to and in fact, do occasionally have, inspiration.  One
scientists can look at another's work and see Shakespeare.
Another can only see the equations without the philosophical
implications.

That's what a Ph.D. is SUPPOSED to impart.  Such great knowledge
about the subject that the owner of said knowledge lives his
subject. It's a part of him.  It is him. Like the guit box was
to Hendrix. Doesn't mean he's right, nor does it imply he is not
right. It implies that if he's been properly educated and has
the experience to go with the book knowledge (the inspiration,
the flight of the mind into hitherto uncharted areas) that some
credence should be applied at least to the possibilities. And it
shows that what comes out, like with Hendrix, was beauty,
whether or not you dug it.

Unfortunately for us all, the Ph.D. programs do not always
provide such. And in addition, the owners of such wondrous dried
skin of the lamb, with all the fancy sh*t writ all over it, do
not always properly support anything but the knowledge of where
and how to obtain the information. What's the formula?

This, in lieu of, "What are the possibilities."  No imagination.
Imagination has a place in science.  Just like in Hamlet, or in
astronomy or cosmology. To be inspired means to allow for
possibilities other than those which are as plain as that schoze
on your face, Mr. Oberg. Uh, no offence, but I've been meaning
to speak to you about that.

Shoot, my dad would make a better scientist than you could ever
hope to be.  And only because people like you lack that one
ingredient... imagination.  Well, maybe another.  An open mind.
Well, maybe another. An intellect which integrates well with the
rest of you.

"Can you please forgive a poor old man for having no eyes to see
with, no ears to hear with, all these years?"

Of course Mr. Scrooge.

Now about this Oberg cat...

Dr. J. Jaime Gesundt