FBI Mysteriously Closes New Mexico Observatory (popularmechanics.com) 261
Alien conspiracy theories are swirling after an observatory in New Mexico has been unexpectedly closed due to an unnamed "security issue," prompting evacuations and a visit from the FBI. "The Sunspot Observatory is now currently closed to both staff and the public, with no word on why or when it will be open again," reports Popular Mechanics. From the report: "We have decided to vacate the facility at this time as precautionary measure," said spokesperson Shari Lifson to the Alomogordo Daily News. "The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy who manages the facility is addressing a security issue at this time." Lifson said that the facility was first evacuated on September 6 and has remained closed since then. According to Lifson, the observatory has no date for reopening yet.
As part of the investigation into the security issue, the observatory has contacted the FBI, which has been reported on the scene with multiple agents and a Blackhawk helicopter. According to local sheriff Benny House, the agency has been working with local law enforcement but refuses to share any details. The sheriff speculated that the evacuation could be due to some kind of threat made against the facility or its staff, but expressed confusion as to why local police would be left out of the loop. "If that's the case, why didn't they call us and let us deal with it?" he said. "I don't know why the FBI would get involved so quick and not tell us anything."
UPDATE (9/22/18): A warrant application filed in the case suggests the closure involved an FBI investigation into child pornography.
As part of the investigation into the security issue, the observatory has contacted the FBI, which has been reported on the scene with multiple agents and a Blackhawk helicopter. According to local sheriff Benny House, the agency has been working with local law enforcement but refuses to share any details. The sheriff speculated that the evacuation could be due to some kind of threat made against the facility or its staff, but expressed confusion as to why local police would be left out of the loop. "If that's the case, why didn't they call us and let us deal with it?" he said. "I don't know why the FBI would get involved so quick and not tell us anything."
UPDATE (9/22/18): A warrant application filed in the case suggests the closure involved an FBI investigation into child pornography.
Aliens (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not going to say it was aliens. But it was aliens. Ancient alien investigators agree.
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Maybe they've come back to build us some more pyramids.
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Andromenda Strain anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
So the Andromeda strain is here.....
for some strange reason, I loved that movie as a kid. On the other hand, that might explain a lot nowadays...
More like BSG... (Score:2, Funny)
Aliens who want to enslave all humans by burrowing into their brain Could explain the GOP...
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More likely a training exercise.
Eight story structure in the middle of nowhere near a large Army base.
Less people to freak-out than if you did it in NYC or LA.
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Why hide a training exercise? Why not tell the local law enforcement?
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This is actually not farfetched.
While the telescope was scoping out Andromeda, the observer at the scope licked the glass membrane that separates the photons that hit the mirror from also hitting the tongue.
Using the field equations put forth by Ben Carson, we find that contamination on one side of the eyepiece and the photoelectric effect on the other side can, within the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, enable quantum tunneling by the Boring Co. ball cap that the observer was wearing at the time.
Whether
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There's a very good chance that it couldn't even image Andromeda - either the constellation, or the nearby galaxy on he borders of that constellation.
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Oh. Then it's "Anathem" Sorry, wrong novel....
And somehow, locking up the smart people for the common AND their own good sounds somehow appealing nowadays.
First probable cause (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First probable cause (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea, they were running out of show ideas and were tired of talking about the Pyramids, so they got proactive and went out there and created their own news.
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The air conditioner went out
Local resident here. (Score:4, Informative)
At first I thought it was a manhunt, but they wouldn't exclude local law enforcement, and they wouldn't stay in one area for so long. Then for giggles I watched parts of some of the conspiracy videos on YouTube, and I ran in to a comment that had some resonance. The poster said that he saw a comment on another conspiracy vid (therefore it must be true) that a Chinese spy had been caught with 8 computers spying on Holloman Air Force Base. First off, HAFB is a training base flying F-16s and MQ-9 UAVs, the former have been around for decades and the latter aren't that interesting. Not much secret going on there. Now, perhaps the spy was spying on White Sands Missile Range? He would have done better positioning himself in the Organ Mountains on the other side of the basin, except that's pretty rocky, it would've been much more comfortable hiding in the forest over here. Who knows.
Some of the other conspiracy theories were amusing. The sun went out! (we'd know it 8 minutes later, and we know how our sun will die). Something dark passed in front of the sun! (several observatories around the world watch the sun all the time and no one else reported anything - and they would have reported it). They found Planet X! (no one else reported it - see previous).
If we ever get actual information as to what went on, it might be interesting. Or it might not be.
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(I'm scanning down to see if anyone else has mentioned it.)
Espionage ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty Simple really:
1)Overlooks White Sands Missile Range.
2)Large Tower.
3)Suspicion of surveillance devices placed on tower/systems that should not be there.
Re:Espionage ? (Score:5, Interesting)
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That doesn't make a lot of sense.
Re:Espionage ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Espionage ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Secrecy also protects suspects who may be innocent.
Hypothetically speaking, rather than announce that "Chinese scientists are spying for China" and end up tarring the reputation of a dozen people, they could do a careful investigation and winnow the suspect list down to the actual 1 or 2 people who are responsible for a particular suspect device.
Plausible but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems to be about 50km away, googling the formula SquareRoot(height above surface / 6.752) = visible distance to horizon (distance in KM, height in cm)
So about 1688 metres above sea level to see that dar, and Apache Point is 2788m, so its high enough.
But your talking 50km zoom, like this guys 40km zoom, which clearly cannot be 40km because the horizon would be only about 5km away, he's just not high enough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=94&v=l118uREKNZo
Meh. Same as this one, claims 50km (Cr
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You know what really owns the libs? Surfing. Storm surge waves are the best ever, and don't let The Man try to convince you otherwise!
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Clinton didn't get elected.
False equivalency.
But thanks for playing.
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Sorry the left gave up ANY AND ALL pretense of having ANY morals at all when they didn't call for her ass to be thrown in prison.
Let's think about that. A GOP controlled executive branch. A GOP controlled house and senate. A GOP appointed justice dept. A GOP that can literally do anything they please right now. You really ought to look at who you voted for and ask why they are letting HRC get away with these terrible crimes. Seems like you voted for the wrong people maybe?
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How many dems called for her to be thrown in prison? I rest my case.
They didn't call for her to be thrown in prison for the same reason the Rs aren't throwing her in prison now. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure it out.
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The governor of Puerto Rico is a D. So is the mayor of SanJan.
Those are the chief assholes involved.
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Re: Espionage ? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Espionage ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or if you have to get men and equipment out there, and do it quickly enough so as to not give someone warning before your arrival.
Re:Espionage ? (Score:5, Interesting)
> The sane response to that would be to send a geek with a screwdriver to unmount it, and have it analysed in a lab. Not to lock everything down, and send a Blackhawk.
No, because tampering with evidence in what may become a serious federal investigation may get you into even more trouble.
If this hypothesis is correct, then it makes sense that government spooks would be all over it; They want to secure the device ASAP, keep everyone without adequate security clearance away, and keep the details as secret as possible for as long as possible. Nothing good can come from letting a potential enemy/spy learn about what you may or may not know.
=Smidge=
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> Instead, they sent the cavalry.
Without knowing exactly what's going on, there's no way to know if this response is appropriate or unreasonable.
=Smidge=
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and keep the details as secret as possible for as long as possible.
Exactly... which is why it is more likely whatever the threat is puts the entire facility or people there in immediate danger to require the evacuation and closure -- this is probably not some surveillance device they discovered.
Putting in the News headlines "Sunspot Observatory closed due to security problem" is not quite keeping their discovery secret, and likely the last thing they would want.
Likely the response wouldn't be "evacu
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If it was why would the feds come in and make a big deal? That stuff is usually handled quietly. Plus the local post office was shut down. Most likely someone mailed something they shouldn't.
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Probably something involving a response to some threat someone made or a possible biological agent received.
My thinking is if the security folks found something like an explosive or suspicious package, they would have already sent the bomb squad and detonated it after evacuating for a day or less --- although there might be difficulties doing so at such high altitude: the news headlines would already say what the threat is.
On the other hand, if they have INFORMATION that a potential hazard will exist w
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The evacuation and continued site closure just means that the FBI doesn't trust that the staff aren't responsible for the suspicious item. That's not to be confused with the FBI suspecting members of the staff are responsible for it. This is just a move to protect the site from tampering by the actors that placed the suspicious item and possibly to try to get the perpetrator anxious enough to flinch in a way that outs themselves.
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Error, does not computer. That would the Inspector Clouseau method https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. The way a real investigatory agency would handle it of course, would be to very, very quietly disable the device and see who would come to repair it, spy vs spy for dummies volume 1. Now of course if they were looking to install secret devices for some reason without anyone looking, well, then yes, some bullshit story to hide installation of the device or devices from all staff at the facility they are app
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So apparently they suspect someone at that facility of being somewhat naughty. Shutting the facility down, means hiding it inside the facility, people at the National Solar Observatory, you are now being watched, probably in more rooms than you suspect
If that was true, they still wouldn't close the whole facility --- they would work with management on the staffing schedules to figure out the off-hour times perhaps at 3AM when their team could be in and out in 10 minutes with nobody noticing for each
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They also closed the local post office. So there must have been evidence of something being shipped to the observatory.
It may have been physical evidence, or it may have been some kind of intelligence gathered.
I remember one incident when I-25 was shut down because of a shipment of radioactive rebar from Juarez [orau.org].
A lot of the press coverage back then was focused on the environmental concerns. I was an undergrad at New Mexico Tech [nmt.edu] at the time. All of us science and engineering geeks immediately started t
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The entire "town" of Sunspot is half a mile in diameter and consists of the observatory, the post office, and a few dozen houses. Probably has nothing to do with the post office. The FBI probably just evacuated the whole place and the local postmaster was a convenient point of contact for the media to interview.
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It's a distraction (Score:5, Interesting)
(Or they share my sense of humour, and are doing this just to mess with crazy people)
Re:It's a distraction (Score:5, Informative)
Or it's because the observatory lies on federal land, a national forest.
The FBI does this quite often, according to a former FBI agent friend of mine. A national forest will have a police force from the US Forest Service but if it's more than they can handle for some reason then they call in for help from the FBI. On some federal properties the FBI is the primary law enforcement. As this observatory, and the land it sits on, is managed by multiple federal government agencies I'm guessing that there are FBI agents there regularly.
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But that still does not explain why they closed the observatory.
This is embarrassing. (Score:4, Funny)
Look, guys, it's not whatever you were thinking. I hate to admit it but I'm the reason they shut the place down. Honestly, I had no idea that RIAA would go so crazy that I was torrenting/seeding a crappy Justin Bieber album and ignored the DMCA notices. I'm really sorry, I didn't think it was that big a deal, really. ;)
Let's have some fun! (Score:4, Funny)
Big rock coming our way, discovered by that facility. Silence needs to be kept, FBI will do the job.
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This particular observatory is staring at the sun; not looking for big rocks.
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Arizona laboratory codenamed (Score:5, Funny)
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Wake up, Mister Freeman. Wake up and ... smell the ashes.
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Black Mesa
Well, the place is technically full of G Men now
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That was a joke. Ha Ha. Fat Chance!
Occams Razor has ruined fun. (Score:3)
I can't read comments to stuff like this anymore, or imagine away fantastic things.
It's very likely something exceedingly mundane and or probably the FBI over reacting to something.
Example, they discovered aliens? Oh no! Shut it down! It's not like any other obs towers exist on earth...
(Etc)
It'll be fairly basic stuff. Man be lovely it was some kind of Melancholia scenario but I doubt it.
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Must have accidentally caught a glimpse of ... (Score:2)
Hacked by Chinese? (Score:2)
My guess is that the observatory's computer system was hacked, and they're being quiet because initial data points towards China/Russia. I bet observatories have info on where all the black satellites are. Or maybe they just wanted to disable it.
Sunspot Aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
It says "Sunspot Observatory", I had to Google it and turns out that's actually it's name, but it IS a solar observatory, one that's dedicated to observation of the closest star to our planet. Ie. the Sun. This makes it exceedingly unlikely they would have anything to do with any alien discovery, unless they're some sort of Sun-dwelling variety, it'd be more likely to run into one at a Walmart.
It also should go without saying (But I'll say it anyway) that it isn't the world's only solar observatory, and the world includes many more countries than USA, so any discovery relating to Sun couldn't be hidden by shutting down this one, nor would it make sense as it'd stop further observations.
According to article I quickly skimmed, the observatory was founded for radio observations of the sun, and there's mentions of the feds being very interested in the "antennas", so the espionage angle seems almost certain and would necessitate evacuation to prevent tampering with evidence (Perhaps not allowing them to pack their stuff when leaving though, as one article claimed) and continued espionage. Main argument against this is that all sensitive communications would be encrypted nowadays, but still just the existence of certain communications would be a security issue.
Another training camp for school shooters? (Score:2)
Missing person (Score:2)
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"11 years old" sounds suspicious in the context of a sunspot observatory.
Mercury - the metal, not the planet (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe this has all been planned in advance:
NMSU - SSOC Transition Plan [nmsu.edu]
There's probably less to this story than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe.
The telescope sits on a liquid mercury bearing. From the linked document (p8):
Further, the TCS contains significant risk in its older server motors, mercury float bearings, and control software. Regular inspection and
maintenance is key to the longevity of the TCS. Fully documenting maintenance and risk, and implementing upgrades greatly reduces the risk associated with the TCS. As such, the telescope will be less expensive to operate, and much less liable to catastrophic failure. At minimum, the SSOC will require one telescope control engineer ready to assume full control and maintenance of the TCS in Oct 2018.
So a mercury spill could be quite hazardous, and if you were of such a mind, that large amount of mercury could be an inviting target to steal.
Re:Mercury - the metal, not the planet (Score:5, Informative)
When a train car full of chemicals spills does the FBI show up? No the DEP and EPA handle that. The FBI isn't trained to contain mercury spills and a facility that uses mercury should be able to handle it anyhow.
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Planned in advance!
So you're saying this goes way deeper than we could have possibly imagined!?
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I wouldn't expect the FBI to get involved with that though, unless it were already stolen. Best explanation yet though.
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No. [wikipedia.org]
Viral Marketing? (Score:2)
I'm half-expecting a new blockbuster movie to come out soon featuring that observatory; the FBI were hired as part of the stunt to generate interest. Or maybe they're actors dressed as FBI. Either is probably unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility I suppose.
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I choose Asimov over Stephenson (Score:2)
At first I was all Anathem, but then I realized that a telescope that's just looking at the sun is clearly causing a real-life Currents of Space. We better get going on our insterstellar escape vehicles while we stilll have a chance. (and for the #tinfoilhat group, clearly this info is being locked down until the Important People can get away on the first rockets)
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until the Important People can get away
So, The Marching Morons [wikipedia.org]?
My guess ... (Score:2)
Big Question Here (Score:2)
So the big question is; which of this morning's news events are causing the conspiracy theorists to jizz themselves the most; This observatory being shut down; or the exploding homes in Massachusetts?
Plan10? (Score:2)
Weâ(TM)re fucked if (Score:2)
They spotted a meteor heading straight for us.
Update from AURA (Score:2)
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In that case you don't publicize that you're swarming around the area, you send a single computer geek to the observatory to plant fake data for the equipment to sniff, then see where it ends up.
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In that case you don't publicize that you're swarming around the area, you send a single computer geek to the observatory to plant fake data for the equipment to sniff, then see where it ends up.
I think in such a case FBI would be justified, and due to press freedom ("still") the word would spread, however evacuation is pointless in case of spying.
Evacuation indicates some bio-hazard, however the question would remain "why there", there is nothing significant about it, except science equipment.
The FBI silence is fueling speculation, however as unnerving it is, I guess it is a standard protocol for FBI - they don't say anything because they do not have to.
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Tell the client that there are 6 "Judas pages", the correct version of which you'll release when they find them in their proof reading. Of course, there are only 5 actual deliberate errors, so the client has to do their proof reading carefully.
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It is similar to how mapmakers would sneak in tiny factual errors, like a teeny-tiny side road in the middle of nowhere; if that road suddenly appeared in a rival's maps you knew he was copying you.
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Clearly this is the work of the patriarchy.
FBI finally realizes that Stormy Daniels came from Planet Pussy
And her relationship with that orange one ...
E.T. bone home.
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Does anyone have links to stories about those sites being closed as well?
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Does anyone have links to stories about those sites being closed as well?
Does anyone have links to stories about those sites being closed as well, from someplace that isn't a complete fucking nutcase?
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Mostly flavorless. Makes rice savory by comparison...
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It was just a little black spot on the sun today, just the same old thing as yesterday.
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It was just a little black spot on the sun today, just the same old thing as yesterday.
King of pain ...
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So... Christianity? After all white Christian men are responsible for almost all terrorist attacks in the U.S., and nobody ever hesitates to name names when there's even a remote chance that some other religion might be involved. Or when they don't know who did it yet. Or when they know it was a Christian but that doesn't make for good "news".
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So... Christianity? After all white Christian men are responsible for almost all terrorist attacks in the U.S., and nobody ever hesitates to name names when there's even a remote chance that some other religion might be involved. Or when they don't know who did it yet. Or when they know it was a Christian but that doesn't make for good "news".
No, nobody is the least bit reluctant to name that one. In fact they are eager to do so. Try harder.
You literally just proved my point, lol.
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I'm trying to think of another. Islam is blared across all the media as soon as any attack occurs (story to be rapidly dropped when it's discovered the perpetrator was a WCM). Buddhism doesn't spawn a lot or terrorists. Judaism - well they're generally well behaved other than the Israeli government. What other religion spawns enough terrorists to even spring to mind?
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Perhaps. You think all the school shooters, abortion clinic bombers, etc. are all dancing on someone else's strings, rather than being an expression of the culture we've created?
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Based on recent history ... big law enforcement action and nobody saying anything ... at least 50/50 chance that it involves the militant wing of the religion/worldview that must not be named.
I don't think it's the religion you have in mind. More likely to be this one:
https://deepgreenresistance.or... [deepgreenresistance.org]
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