The Skylab-Area 51 Incident 334
IZ Reloaded writes "The Space Review has an interesting story written by Dwayne Day about the 1974 incident when astronauts onboard Skylab took photos of a facility that did not exist in the US called Area 51. From The Space Review: What the memo indicates is that there was a difference between the way the civilian agencies of the US government and the military agencies looked at their roles. NASA had ties to the military, but it was clearly a civilian agency. And although the reasons why NASA officials felt that the photo should be released are unknown, the most likely explanation is that NASA officials did not feel that the civilian agency should conceal any of its activities. Many of NASA's relations with other organizations and foreign governments were based on the assumption that NASA did not engage in spying and did not conceal its activities."
A Closer Look (Score:5, Interesting)
Good story, but it would have been interesting to see the actual picture taken by the astronauts in 1974, rather than the Geological Survey pic taken in 1968.
By the way, if you're interested in a higher-resolution look at Area 51, just point your Google Earth to 37 d 14' N, 115 d 49' W.
Area 51 is not Unidentified (Score:5, Interesting)
I watched a History Channel documentary on Area 51 recently titled 'History's Mysteries: Area 51: Beyond Top Secret,' it was very interesting.
Link: http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id
Interesting Area 51 facts:
Area 51 has the longest runways in the world.
Area 51 was the test site for the U2, SR-71, B2, and F-117 aircraft.
Area 51 is heavily guarded, and can only be seen from a mountaintop 24 miles away with a high-powered telescope.
You can scavenge aircraft wreckage from around its perimeter with a metal detector and sometimes are able to see the craft name and manufacturer on some of the pieces.
Area 51 employees bury most of the wreckage of crashed aircraft on its site in order for them not to end up in public scrap yards.
Area 51 has captured Russian Mig and other Russian aircraft which they flew and tested.
Area 51 was first officially acknowledged to exist in 1995 due to lawsuit from some of its employees against the US government.
Area 51 has the largest collection of fully-functional extra-terrestrial spacecraft in our Solar System (okay, I just made that last one up.)
Re:A Closer Look (Score:4, Interesting)
Timely piece (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing more is known of this Skylab photography incident than the fact that the photograph was not released. NASA and the State Department clearly lost the argument. But the opponents of releasing it preserved national security, as they defined it.
It seems that similar discussions are happening around current issues, with leaks aplenty. I wonder who will win the argument now?
Re:A fun little theory (Score:5, Interesting)
They also argue that when the government fails to confirm the obvious, it both undermines governmental authority and legitimacy, and contributes to wild speculation, such as aliens and soundstages in underground hangars at Area 51.
Part of inteligence is counter inteligence. If you make enough "noise", the truth will be hidden amongst so much wild speculation no one will be able to figure out what actually goes on there. It probably also serves as a nice decoy for other facilities.
Not as big as some other projects tho... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or the MKUltra project where they tried to find truth syrums and abducted/kidnapped and forced marines, soldiers, and homeless people to do experiments.
Or the attack on the USS liberty by the Israeli's to trick America into war against their enemies.
Or the Chemtrails, where they do weather modification experiments using airplanes.
Or HAARP which produced a fucking aurora borealous over New York not too long ago.
Then there's the massive underground highway that apparently exists all over the USA that they use at their convenience.
What did you guys think? The US government, taking damn near 1/3rd of everyone's paycheck PLUS fiat taxing everyone on the planet through printing off dollars PLUS taxing corps up the wazoo isn't going to be doing a lot of secret stuff? How expensive do you really think road paving, policing, and military expenditure really is?
Do you really believe all that dough halliburton has been getting, now probably nearing 100 billion, is going into the pockets of the wealthy so they can buy tootsie rolls and nice cars? Rummy just admitted that the pentagon can't account for 2 TRILLION! Do you think that just vanished into thin air?
It isn't logical to believe so I'm afriad.
Re:Timely piece (Score:4, Interesting)
If we weren't detaining people, tapping their phones, and beating information out of someone, I'd be pissed. I'm paying the government to protect me. Short of naming Kreskin to a newly-minted cabinet position of Secretery of The Psi-Corps, I'm not sure how else this would be best accomplished "in our current environment."
Now, you can quibble that we're detaining, tapping, and beating the wrong guys, or not enough guys, and that's fine, we're an open society, get angry and discuss away, but I find it tough to argue against any of these procedures in toto.
Nothing to see here - please along...literally (Score:1, Interesting)
The alledged testing (I say alledged so you keep reading, because this stuff is documented by multiple testimonies given under oath by verifiable ex-military personnel and ex government contractors) of earth-built anti-gravity discs goes on elsewhere in the Groom range, and they are stored in facilities built into the side of mountains, with the rock faces covered with doors made to look like the rock face itself, obvious given the amount of spy satellites (not all owned by the US military) floating around.
Other rather more exotic research and command and control exists at various other locations, including an underground facility in the desert at Utah reachable only from the air, also Edwards AFB and other AFBs. This stuff is again knwon about through sworn testimony from verifiable personnel.
Of course there is a lot of BS about Area 51, aliens, flying saucers (woooo!) etc. And the subject and area attract wackos like wasps to a honeypot. And yes, you can take the nonsense until proven truth line. But there is truth, it is out there, and you can get to it. It's not all rubbish, there are cover ups, and the truth is stranger than fiction. The Aurora spyplace for example has now been verified to exist through testimony, photographs and other documents.
Re:Not as big as some other projects tho... (Score:1, Interesting)
OMFG mod that one FUNNY!!!! ROFL!!!
Re:A fun little theory (Score:3, Interesting)
It is also where Nasa has been recovering some of it's space probes.
Re:Area 51 is not Unidentified (Score:3, Interesting)
Area 51 has the longest runways in the world. Well, perhaps, if you count a dry lake bed as a runway. Many other places have longer concrete runways:
>Area 51 is heavily guarded, and can only be seen from a mountaintop 24 miles away with a >high-powered telescope.
Nope, you can go to many a web site that has 1 and 2 meter resolution photos of the place.
>You can scavenge aircraft wreckage from around its perimeter with a metal detector and sometimes are able to see the craft name and manufacturer on some of the pieces. Let's do the math: Area 51 has a perimiter of about 32 miles, an area of about 60 square miles. Let's assume if you can still scavenge aircraft parts, given reasonable patience, there has to be a part every 1000 feet. Also let's assume a crashed plane throws parts as far as 500 feet. That means ther have been about SIX THOUSAND airplane crashes in and around the place. That sounds kinda high, by a factor of at least 100 times.
>Area 51 employees bury most of the wreckage of crashed aircraft on its site in order for them >not to end up in public scrap yards.
There are no other alternatives? The only two are: bury or take to a public scrap yard? What about those little pickup-truck sized smelters they use at airplane scrap yards?
>Area 51 has captured Russian Mig and other Russian aircraft which they flew and tested.
"Captured" is hardly correct. We've been given some by the Israelis, and at least three from Russian and North Korean pilots. I don't think the US has actually "captured" any planes in the last five decades or so.
>Area 51 was first officially acknowledged to exist in 1995 due to lawsuit from some of its >employees against the US government.
I guess it depends onwhat you mean by "acknowledged" and by whom. Several books mentioned the place long before then.
>Area 51 has the largest collection of fully-functional extra-terrestrial spacecraft in our >Solar System
Well, that part *is* correct. Zero is the largest number in the set { 0 }.
-->
Re:A Closer Look (Score:3, Interesting)
I did this before but now, I think, the images are even more Hi Res than they were a few months ago.
Hehe P&T:Bullshit was right. (Score:4, Interesting)
One thing though, if they were unable to "hide" this base, probably newer secret bases have been made underground. They could still be easily located with a satellite thermal scanning (or similar tech). But hey at least they wouldnt appear clear as daylight in satellites.
They don't care (Score:2, Interesting)
Btw, why are such areas as that so low-res on Google Map while so good on Google Earth? Also, why are some governmental building edited out in Google Maps, while apparently (didn't check all) not in Google Earth??
On a similar note (Score:3, Interesting)
Area 51 is irrelevant (Score:3, Interesting)
Similarly, once everyone learned about the UN's black helicopters, they repainted them in other colors.
Re:Mig Pilot: The Final Escape of Lt. Belenko (Score:3, Interesting)
And then we got our hands on a MiG-25 and found out..... it wasn't advanced at all, just a big fighter with a ton of horsepower. It was closer to strapping a man on a Chinese New Year rocket than it was a sophisticated machine of doom. Very low tech.
As always, the brass and politicians worked under strange math:
If the enemy threat was really bad, they asked for lots of money.
If the enemy threat turned out to be not so bad or a freaking joke, they still asked for the same money and usually hyped up the threat anwyay until they started believing their own reports.
Re:Protect and Serve (Score:3, Interesting)
1. You describe Al-Qaeda as "a very well-defined group originally trained up by the US to fight in Afghanistan in the '80s."
It's difficult to believe that anyone familiar with Al-Qaeda would describe it this way. Al-Qaeda is not IBM; it is not "well-defined" in any sense I am familiar with. It is a loose confederation of individuals and cells who all have varying motivations. Individuals involved with Al-Qaeda may or may not belong to other terrorist groups, sometimes concurrently. Indeed, Al Qaeda is *ill* defined.
This sort of leads into my next point. Saying Al-Qaeda was "trained by the U.S. to fight in Afghanistan" suggest there is a more-or-less linear, well-defined process or relationship. There is nothing of the sort. First, there was no such thing as "Al-Qaeda" back then. The Afghan mujahadeen began resisting Soviet occupation before the U.S. got involved. Later, *some* of those mujahadeen got involved, at different times, with Al-Qaeda.
2. You write several things along the lines of "You are more likely to die from the flu than a terrorist attack. Shouldn't the government spend more money on flu vaccines?"
Many, many people, including many anti-war liberals, have noted the fallaciousness of this line of thinking. Put it this way -- in the month of December, 1941, many, many more Americans died of [flu/auto accidents/heart disease/etc. etc. etc.] than died at Pearl Harbor. Does this mean Roosevelt should have put "Fighting World War II" in a list of priorities organized by the number of fatalities? Of course not -- that would be absurd.
(Jim Emerson, the quite liberal blogger on rogerebert.suntimes.com, provides another very good takedown of this argument here: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti
3. You categorically state: "US government's current actions are increasing the likelihood of dying at the hands of terrorists, not decreasing the risk." You present no evidence for this, because, of course, you can't -- there is none. Sure, it's a *possibility,* but you state it as empirical fact. Meanwhile, there is *anecdotal* evidence that the opposite is true. After 9/11, who would have guessed that it would be five years and counting, and we still haven't experienced another major terrorist attack? Remember, many of the people who perpetrated 9/11 (including, presumably, the mastermind) are still out there. Logic suggests that, if they *could* have attacked again in the last five years, they would have.
4. Finally, you suggest the American goal is "US military dominance and empirialism in the Middle East."
Well, let's take a look at the places the U.S. has invaded, and their current governments. France - democracy. Germany - democracy (except the part we didn't occupy, and even that eventually democratized when it reunited with the part that we did). Japan - democracy. Phillipines - democracy. Panama - democracy. Grenada - democracy. Korea - democracy (except the part we didn't occupy). Vietnam, where we failed - dictatorship.
I just don't get it. The U.S. has certainly committed sins, sometime egregious ones. But our general philosphy is clear -- to promote democracy and *self* government. Using "imperialism" in that sense simply serves to drain any meaning from the word.
Bush has stated that our goal is to a) free the Iraqi people from one of the world's most brutal dictatorships, then b) help the Iraqi people form a new, democratic government of the people. So far, everything that has happened has borne this out.
I don't mean to ramble here, I just find this whole thing inexplicable. You talk about the "moral" fallout. So do I understand that the "moral" thing to do would have been to leave millions of people to suffer under a murdering, torturing, fascist regime? I just don't get it.
- AJ
Re:Offtopic (Score:4, Interesting)
The Slashdot effect is a drop in the bucket. When I worked for IMDB, they quoted me the statistics from Amazon (this was several years ago): Amazon gets more hits every hour or so than Slashdot gets every day (or something like that).
The effect only really affects those servers that aren't used to a large load.