Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/01/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Douglas? Thanks for the interesting information about the Yorkshire moors. Must have been spooky to work at at Fylingdales?especially at night! Actually, there was nothing particularly secret about these installations. They were just radar stations using technology developed in the 1950s and '60s. They sent their data to a central facility called the CC&DF inside Cheyenne Mountain south of Colorado Springs (which was my last duty station in this system, before I changed gears by going to medical school). Now, the newer installation you mentioned sounds like a phased-array radar, which steers the beam electronically and can generated multiple beams simultaneously; there's maybe some classified technology there. The more nuanced answer to your question about unidentified objects is that we would not likely have recognized one if we'd seen it! The system's mission was to look for space objects with ballistic (i.e., free-fall) trajectories that were either a closed orbit (satellite) or one that intersected the surface of the Earth (as an ICBM warhead would do). Objects with none of these conditions were ignored, and in any case only data relating to position, velocity, and intensity of the radar reflection were generated; a radar doesn't produce an image. Moreover, the radar was programmed to ignore anything closer to it than a satellite in low Earth orbit, say 90 miles or so. Alien spacecraft traveling under power in the atmosphere would be ignored by the computer as being aircraft and/or too close to be a threat object, and one traveling under power in near-Earth space would be ignored as not being ballistic. Such a thing would have shown up on-screen (as a computer-generated blip, not an image), but the data would have been discarded as being irrelevant. An alien craft actually on orbit, like a satellite, and generating a strong reflection, WOULD generate data that would be saved and sent to the CC&DF for analysis, and would lead to the generation of a new-satellite file. Such an unexpected finding would have prompted an extreme-priority designation that would have tasked the sites to gather maximum data on it every pass. When it moved on, out of orbit, disappearing suddenly without "decaying" due to atmospheric friction, this would have generated extreme consternation. I never heard of any such object. Even new Soviet satellites were known about virtually as soon as they were launched, and nothing I was aware of generated the level of intense interest that the sudden appearance of a sizable, previously unknown object in orbit would have. Of course, there are lots of bits of space junk originating from exploding fuel tanks, the occasional collision, etc., many thereby driven into new orbits, and so small as to be marginally or irregularly detectable, that are monitored without their origin ever being identified. Of course, such aliens would presumably be highly capable of evading detection if they wanted to. They could simply stay out of sight of radars that could detect them as unidentified orbiting objects. Or if an alien ship used technology that gave it a low radar cross-section, and were on an orbit that had characteristics typical of satellites and the rocket bodies used to launch space probes, it presumably would not occasion anything other than routine interest, nor would its appearance or disappearance be thought mysterious. I kept constantly hoping, though! ?howard On Jan 20, 2013, at 8:17 AM, Douglas Sharp <douglas.sharp at gmx.de> wrote: > Of course not - that's why there are thousands of entries when you google > on Fylingdales and UFO.:-) > > Even sightings of mysterious, panther-sized black cats, a UFO crash, > lights in the sky and everything else that seems to hang around secret > military facilities. (if it's so secret, why is it so clearly visible in > one of the most exposed areas of Yorkshire?);-) > > The site is built on a medieval corpse way, and the moors were always full > of will of the wisps, corpse candles, boggits, trolls and other things > that jump out and scare unsuspecting travellers - and the giant Horcum > lived not far away, he left a big hole in the ground by throwing rocks at > a rival (It's actually the end of a glacial lake, but that's not half as > spooky). > > Cheers > Douglas > > > On 19.01.2013 20:53, Howard Ritter wrote: >> Why, none?of course! ;-) >> >> ?howard >> >> >> On Jan 19, 2013, at 2:05 PM, Douglas Barry <imra at iol.ie> wrote: >> >>> Fascinating stuff, Howard, but, of course, we all want to know about the >>> inexplicable, or how many likely extra-terrestrial spacecraft turned up? >>> >>> Douglas >>> _________ >>> Douglas Barry >>> Bray, Co. Wicklow >>> Republic of Ireland >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information