The Black Knight Satellite - more questions than answers

I love the mysterious, and nothing is more mysterious in my eyes than the Black Knight satellite. This satellite was first spotted in 1953, 4 years before the Russians launched sputnik 1 in 1957. This satellite had sent a radio signal:

“Our home is Epsilon Boötis, which is a double star. We live on the sixth planet of seven—check that, the sixth of seven—counting outwards from the sun, which is the larger of the two stars. Our sixth planet has one moon. Our fourth planet has three. Our first and third planet each have one. Our probe is in the orbit of your moon.”–signal translation originating from ‘The Black Knight’ Satellite, Time Magazine April 9, 1973

In 1953, The United States Department of Defense Assigned Clyde W. Tombaugh (best known for his discovery of the planet Pluto in 1930) to search for information on this strange satellite. Findings of this study were never released by the pentagon.

The Black Knight returns

“Black Knight” was observed once again in 1960, this time by one of the stations that formed the Northern American Air Defense System. The object was in a polar orbit, something that neither the Americans or Soviets were capable of at the time. Several times larger and heavier than anything capable of being launched with 1960, rockets, it shouldn’t have been there, but it was. The observance sent panic through the U.S. military. Not only did the intelligence agencies have no idea that the USSR had launched a new satellite, nothing in their reports on Soviet space activity suggested they had the capacity to place an object into a polar orbit, or to launch something that was estimated to be in excess of 15 tons. The military scientists were horrified, since they were at least four years away from achieving polar orbits and getting payloads that large into space. Similar waves of shock and anxiety were spreading through the Soviet ranks. They had not launched the satellite and knew they were years away from being able to accomplish such a feat, they also knew that the Americans could not do it either. No one knew where it came from, but it was definitely there.

The strangeness didn't stop there - In the 1930's, ham radio operators were also perplexed by odd radio signals:

If this weren’t enough, Ham radio operators worldwide had been receiving messages from Black Knight. Perhaps the strangest phenomenon associated with the Black Knight was the Long Delay Echo (LDE). The effect observed was that radio or television signals sent into space bounce back seconds (or even days) later, as if recorded and retransmitted by a satellite. First indentified over 30 years earlier by Norwegian geophysicist Carl Stormer and a Dutch collaborator Balthasar van der Pol, the duo discovered that short wave radio messages were followed by mysterious echoes that were picked up at indiscriminate intervals after the original transmissions. Indeed, the delays were so long that they could not be readily attributed to atmospheric quirks, magnetic storms or other natural phenomena. To this day, scientists have been unable to solve the mystery of the echoes.

The Black Knight returns again - sort of

Black Knight made its presence known again in 1974. This time it wasn’t picked up by way of radar or radio frequency, rather it formed a direct link to one man. That man was science fiction author Philip K. Dick, best known for writing the stories on which the movies Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990) were based. Beginning in February of 1974, and continuing for the next eight years, Dick had a series of “mystic” experiences and communications with the Black Knight Satellite that left behind was what he called the Exegesis, an 8000- page, one-million-word continuing dialogue with himself written at night.

Source information here:
circa71.wordpress.com...



So...the questions remain - Who owns this satellite? What is it's purpose?
I have a hard time believing that this satellite was put there by an alien race to observe us. I want to believe that this is earth technology. What are your thoughts?

Black Knight made its presence known again in 1974. This time it wasn’t picked up by way of radar or radio frequency, rather it formed a direct link to one man. That man was science fiction author Philip K. Dick, best known for writing the stories on which the movies Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990) were based. Beginning in February of 1974, and continuing for the next eight years, Dick had a series of “mystic” experiences and communications with the Black Knight Satellite that left behind was what he called the Exegesis, an 8000- page, one-million-word continuing dialogue with himself written at night.

I'd like to know more about this!!!! Do you have any more information on the 8 years of communication and the author's 'mystic' experiences???

reply to post by Night Star


I am sure that I can most likely dig it up Night Star.

More details of Philip Dick's experiences can be found here:
www.excludedmiddle.com...

None of these stories have ever panned out factually. They're just rumors and myth. It's intriguing to think that some "aliens" or even a secret advanced tech program from Earth would be able to accomplish something like that, but it's all just unverified stories.

And besides, the VALIS satellite that contacted Philip K. Dick was supposedly from Aldeberan (Albemuth), although they could have been lying.

Good post but why is it called the
Black Knight Satellite?
And not the Spoof Myth Satellite

And besides, the VALIS satellite that contacted Philip K. Dick was supposedly from Aldeberan (Albemuth), although they could have been lying.

Almost certainly

Cran

reply to post by Rubicant13


I have a theory that the more elaborate crop circles are created by a satellite orbiting the planet. Imagine a satellite that has some type of microwave beam that could literally print images into fields using the wheat as the medium.

Maybe this is what the Black Knight does? Pure speculation by me of course.

Sure. Why not talk about it again.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The Black Knight satellite is a fine tale which, as such tales do, has grown in the telling. The 1953 "sighting" is a bit iffy and it's sort of hard to say that it had anything to do with the 1960 detection.

But last week the Department of Defense proudly announced that the satellite had been identified. It was a space derelict, the remains of an Air Force Discoverer satellite that had gone astray.

www.time.com...

The claim that there were no polar orbiting satellites, along with some other claims, just isn't true. That was the whole idea behind the Discoverer satellites.

Discoverer 2 was a cylindrical satellite designed to gather spacecraft engineering data and to attempt ejection of an instrument package from orbit for recovery on Earth. The spacecraft was launched into a 239 km x 346 km polar orbit by a Thor-Agena A booster. The spacecraft was three-axis stabilized and was commanded from Earth. After 17 orbits, on 14 April 1959, a reentry vehicle was ejected.

nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by Phage
Sure. Why not talk about it again.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

The Black Knight satellite is a fine tale which, as such tales do, has grown in the telling. The 1953 "sighting" is a bit iffy and it's sort of hard to say that it had anything to do with the 1960 detection.

But last week the Department of Defense proudly announced that the satellite had been identified. It was a space derelict, the remains of an Air Force Discoverer satellite that had gone astray.

www.time.com...

The claim that there were no polar orbiting satellites, along with some other claims, just isn't true. That was the whole idea behind the Discoverer satellites.

Discoverer 2 was a cylindrical satellite designed to gather spacecraft engineering data and to attempt ejection of an instrument package from orbit for recovery on Earth. The spacecraft was launched into a 239 km x 346 km polar orbit by a Thor-Agena A booster. The spacecraft was three-axis stabilized and was commanded from Earth. After 17 orbits, on 14 April 1959, a reentry vehicle was ejected.

nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

How is it possible that the two satellites are the same? Black Knight was first seen in 1953. The discoverer one satellite wasn't even launched until 1959.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Rubicant13

Black Knight was first seen in 1953

By whom?
Under what circumstances?
How is it know that the 1953 "sighting" had anything to do with the sighting in 1960?

And...why claim that polar orbiting satellites were impossible in 1960?

reply to post by Phage


Good question. I don't know. But if the two sightings are not linked, the question remains - what was seen in 1953?

I believe in their own not-so-intelligent wording were trying to possibly state that anything that large could not have been put into polar orbit in 1953 with the current technology at the time.


And Phage, you are correct. It was discussed before - I wanted to see what others on here think of this story and get feedback as to what it could possibly be and/or its origins.

reply to post by Rubicant13

But if the two sightings are not linked, the question remains - what was seen in 1953?

Don't you think it would make more sense to answer the latter question before considering the former?

reply to post by Phage


Sorry was eating and tending to my daughter. I am not sure what it matters in what order the questions were answered - just that they were answered.

reply to post by Rubicant13

Ok. Look at it this way.

The object detected in 1960 had certain characteristics. In order to link any siting in 1953 to that sighting, would it not be reasonable to compare any characteristics they may have had? Without some information about the first sighting (or even if there actually was such a sighting), there is no reason to connect them. Without an answer to the second question the first makes no sense. Otherwise it could be something like saying "I saw a duck flying south yesterday and I saw a crow flying east today. I think that duck was actually the crow in disguise."

reply to post by Phage


I completely understand your logic. I however, am not these people that made the connection between the two sightings. I wish I had been. Let's just say that the two sightings are completely different satellites and they were completely mistaken. My question is what was seen in 1953 then? That is the true mystery that remains for me. It is completely possible and even likely that the 1960 sighting was the discoverer satellite.

reply to post by Rubicant13

Let's just say that the two sightings are completely different satellites and they were completely mistaken. My question is what was seen in 1953 then?

Without more information about the sighting...I have no idea. I have no idea if there was such a sighting. I have no idea if it was a satellite.

reply to post by Phage


I agree. But if it did happen, the importance of that sighting is staggering. I love the story of it, and the fact that there is a certain amount of name dropping used in reference to that sighting makes me wonder.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Rubicant13

 

Ok. Look at it this way.

The object detected in 1960 had certain characteristics. In order to link any siting in 1953 to that sighting, would it not be reasonable to compare any characteristics they may have had? Without some information about the first sighting (or even if there actually was such a sighting), there is no reason to connect them. Without an answer to the second question the first makes no sense. Otherwise it could be something like saying "I saw a duck flying south yesterday and I saw a crow flying east today. I think that duck was actually the crow in disguise."

edit on 9/17/2012 by Phage because: (no reason given)

I believe that the reference to "an original sighting" of the Black Knight referred to another story from August 1954, published in Aviation Week, pertaining to the discovery of two "moonlets" orbiting earth.

"Mysterious satellites" were officially reported six times in orbit around the Earth in the 1950s before the first Sputnik of October 4, 1957. Clyde Tombough, the discoverer of Pluto over 20 years before, studied two moonlets in orbit in 1954. The radar detections were: April 1949, first reported by Naval Commander Robert McLaughlin, a rocket expert; 1953: one in a near-equitorial orbit 400-to-600 miles out, and the two at Lagrange Points, then calling the satellites "Toro moonlets"; 1954, an "Aviation Week" report ("Satellite Scare," Aug. 23, 1954) told of Dr. Lincoln La Paz (a government expert on meteors) announcement of a satellites orbiting at 400 and 600 miles out; a search by the Adler Planetarium in Chicago tracked one or two of these "moonlets"; in 1957, three months before the USSR launched the first Earth satellite in October, Italian astronomers tracked a large mystery satellite, also reported in the news, like the others had been.

Sorry, I don't have the time to track this down further. I'm not sure if Lincoln La Paz or Clyde Tombaugh ever provided the evidence that confirmed their "discovery".

reply to post by Rubicant13

counting outwards from the sun

This is the only part that I find a bit suspicious. The word sun is a human word that we have given our own star. The fact that they refer to their star as sun makes me think this is a human generated signal.

This is still extremely interesting nonetheless. Good post OP.

reply to post by Rubicant13

But if it did happen, the importance of that sighting is staggering.

That could be said of an awful lot of things. But it wasn't necessarily a satellite. If it was a legitimate sighting, perhaps it was a large NEO.

reply to post by Phage


Possibly. But will we ever know if it was? All we really have to go on is this story, and the government has never been completely forthcoming with such things.