68 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
68 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
SUBJECT: UFO's and the Shuttle FILE: UFO45
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PART 1
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I am posting the following file that I received from James Oberg, a
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well-known writer on the space program. He is discussing the same
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videotaped footage from NASA's STS-48 mission that has been endlessly
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showen as a supposed "UFO." Richard Hoagland, a major promoter of the
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"Face On Mars," claims that NASA cameras accidentally caught a secret
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"star wars test". Here is Oberg's rebuttal.
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James Oberg, Rt 2 Box 350, Dickinson, TX 77539
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Re: Did STS-48 view a "Star Wars" test?
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The STS-48 mission was the 43rd shuttle launch, the 13th flight
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of OV-103 Discovery, with the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite
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(UARS). The crew was John Creighton, Ken Reightler, Jim Buchli,
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Mark Brown, and Sam Gemar. It was launched from KSC Pad A at
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2311GMT Sep 12, 1991 (twilight),landed at EAFB on Sep 18, 0738GMT
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(night), duration 5d08h27m. The orbit was inclined 57 degrees to
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the equator at an altitude of about 570 km, second only to the
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616 km altitude of the Hubble deploy mission a year and a half
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earlier. Due to radar experiments with the deployed UARS
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satellite, I was present in the control room for two planning
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shifts (my job was as "Guidance and Procedures Officer" for
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actions related to orbital rendezvous, such as the planned
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checkout of the radar which had shown performance anomalies on
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several earlier missions).
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I have reviewed the videotape by Richard Hoagland alleging that
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the notorious STS-48 videotape shows a "Star Wars" weapons test
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against a target drone with astounding propulsion. In my
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judgment, the facts, analysis, and conclusions presented by Mr.
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Hoagland are entirely wrong.
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Is the object really very far away? Hoagland's argument depends
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on proving that the object is at or beyond the physical horizon,
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"1713 miles away". Proving this depends on optical analysis of
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the image and of its motion. All of Hoagland's analysis is
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invalid.
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First, Hoagland alleges that the videotape shows the object
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suddenly appearing at the edge of the Earth, as if it had popped
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up from behind the horizon. But a more cautious viewing of the
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tape shows this is not accurate.
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The object does NOT rise from "behind the horizon". It appears
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(arguably, it becomes sunlit) at a point below the physical
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horizon, just slightly below, to be sure, but measurably below
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the edge of the Earth (the "limb").
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It has been suggested (Dipietro) that the object's sudden
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appearance is due to sunrise. This is plausible. I suggest a
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variation on this, that the object became visible when it moved
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up out of the shuttle's shadow just after sunrise. Since the
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video was taken near sunrise, the shuttle's shadow was pointing
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back nearly parallel to Earth's horizon, and the ground was still
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dark (bright ground reflection later lights up debris even if
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they are in the shuttle's sun shadow). This would require that it
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be close to the shuttle. The proximity to the horizon line would
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be coincidental.
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continued in part (2)
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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