National Solar Observatory, USPS office in Sunspot, NM evacuated for 'safety reasons'

originally posted by: askbaby
a reply to: ToasterBorst

It's more than interesting - this whole story is just weird.... and note in this article:

"A tent belonging to an employee and resident of the observatory was set up near the gate. The employee is allowed to enter the facility to do routine maintenance but can't stay in his home, Escalante said."

What! They won't allow the maintenance guy to stay in in his house - instead they setup a tent!

Haha

What proof he is really a worker there, what if he is a guard which can call is anyone is around the area?

For that matter the boy who said a friend was evacuated could be fake, the only people who have spoken up may not even be Sunspot People. We have not seen a dozen Observatory workers or their Families talking and I think that weird.

originally posted by: wylekat
People are filming themselves wandering what was up till recently, an utterly abandoned facility- wandering around, looking in windows, rattling doorknobs. Literally.

If there's all of these 'eyes' on this place, how come people are (were) wandering it freely, and now, all there is is a couple rent a cops on site for security?

How many people?
The one guy has no youtube stuff before this and yet he has a drone? What if all that footage is fake too?

a reply to: SeaWorthy

I have a drone but do not have a youtube channel... They are not really mutually exclusive

a reply to: MrBuddy

The only thing that would make even a little sense is that the guy is a plant. There to keep an eye on things in case the perp returns to the crime scene?? But even so, there's security there now so the odds of any "perp" doing anything seems slim.

Right! just reached your post this morning, this occurred to me last night, why is there not more of these workers talking? The hill may be in use for something and all the pictures could be old ones and maybe it is not so dead up there.

Winter is coming and they have big storms up there this can;t go one forever.

a reply to: Deetermined

Well, White Sands said there's no testing or anything going on at the missile range to warrant closing the facility and we know the other observatory a half mile away is still open.

Well can't take their word for anything, can we?

The other observatory is completely robotic with zero need for any people.

originally posted by: wylekat
a reply to: MrBuddy

But even so, there's security there now so the odds of any "perp" doing anything seems slim.

Keep in mind- Rent a Cops. A real sneaky spy or whatever would be able to almost saunter past your basic mall security, and they'd never know. If the guy in the tent is a plant, he'd be the one doing the dirty work, not the security.

I think he's a plant, but I'm starting to think he's there to help build hype for their grand , mysterious re opening.

Could they use a US Post office that way? If anyone messed with them it would be a felony.

a reply to: SeaWorthy

I would probably trust their official word more than conjecture on internet forums... Not that I do trust their word 100% but lets be reasonable here lol

originally posted by: Weagle
a reply to: riiver

This seems very odd to me too. Why not just throw some BS story out there? Although, what would it be? Given that there is footage showing that they are not on site, not cleaning up some sort of spill, not actively investigating a crime, AND not letting people back in - what would the story be? Maybe they're still trying to work that out.

Also, I'm just curious - does anyone know who would have jurisdiction if this were an alien thing? Not thinking that's what this is, but just wondering who you'd call to come to the scene if we had a visitor land in a national park.

An alien situation would be military no doubt.

a reply to: BlueAjah

So... it looks like nothing exciting. It was probably something to do with terrorism threats, hacking, or the previously mentioned accidental interception of military transmissions... or something like that?

Well, that's almost a cover story all ready but why are they not reopened.

originally posted by: itswhatev
a reply to: SeaWorthy

I would probably trust their official word more than conjecture on internet forums... Not that I do trust their word 100% but lets be reasonable here lol

If you can't trust their word, you can't trust it. I don't see that as unreasonable at all.
As far as trusting any internet chat we have nothing but speculation, might as well speculate outside the box since we do nothing but.

Not a mouse stirring, no security, no FBI, no residents, but there is a HUGE threat there (BS meter going off). Nothing, but caution tape across the entrance that any Dick Tracy can buy. I am beginning to wonder if it was real Feds.

After searching, I found where I originally read the information about the Post Office being small and inside the perimeter and that it only really serves the observatory and the people living and working there. It was on reddit...and I not really sure if we are allowed to link to that site, so I won’t link it. PM me if anyone wants the link...or go to reddit and search for “closure of national observatory remains shrouded in secrecy” and the person posting with info is oniram.

Here is what was said in that thread...

National Solar Observatory employee here: We, NSO employees, don't know what the hell is going on either. The higher ups have assured us that nothing weird is going on, that there's nothing to worry about. They just can't tell us about it yet. We are in the process of transferring operational control of the facilities in Sunspot to a consortium led by NMSU (New Mexico State University) in Las Cruces. It's been hinted that all this mess is somehow related to this process. Why is NSO getting rid of the observatory in Sunspot? Consider the age of the observatory (built in the 60s), our limited budget set by the NSF, and the fact that we're about to complete construction of a newer, bigger, badder, better solar telescope in Maui, the DKIST. In a nutshell: no conspiracy here. Everybody chill out.

It is definitely weird, no contest there. Sunspot is on federal land, a permanent lease from the forest service, so the FBI has jurisdiction there. Having the FBI involved is not totally crazy but still a bit weird. The blackhawk helicopter makes no sense. There's an airforce base nearby (Holloman) and they routinely fly things around in the mountains for training. When I lived there in the early 2000s we quite often saw the F117 flying around, and I personally have seen military helicopters hovering around. It could just be coincidental.

The post office is inside the town, so if they evacuate the town it makes sense that the post office has to close. And keep in mind that "town" is a strong word for Sunspot. It's just a group of houses to house the observatory staff. There are no businesses of any kind in there.

The post office is actually inside the town, so when they evacuate the town they have to close the post office too. I wouldn't read too much into this. And to call it a town is really a stretch, there's nothing in Sunspot. No store, no restaurant, no businesses of any kind. It's just a group of houses for the observatory staff to live in. The closest grocery store is 30 miles away down the hill in Alamogordo. A few years ago there were probably 70 people living there. Right now the site is being downsized and transfered to NMSU. Almost nobody left.

( question asked to oniram: why evacuate? why have the fbi move your #? why not just tell everyone “hey you’re being reassigned in 2 weeks” and restructure yourself like government programs normally do? sorry not buying this.)

His reply:
The FBI is not moving anything anywhere. So far the site has been evacuated and that's all. The official response says the site was evacuated because of a security issue. The decision to evacuate came from AURA (which manages NSO), not from the FBI. From the little they've told us, the evacuation was done for the safety of those involved.

Trust me there's no funny business here. Just overly cautious people following procedure.

Sorry for not posting the reddit link but I don’t think that is allowed. PM me if anyone wants the link and I will gladly send it so you can read it for yourself without having to search reddit.

a reply to: SeaWorthy

Speculating outside the box is pretty much what this thread is about, have nothing against that. That said, I dont believe everyone is lying or putting out disinfo or covering up on some massive scale either. Sure that's just my opinion but that's a little too paranoid and illogical for me. Without much info to actually go on it's inevitable that we get/have some "out there" theories, it's also probable that at least some of the info we have is not completely true either purposely or accidentally. I just dont think ALL of it should be/can be dismissed as lies and coverups untill we know more, at this point the truth reslly can still be something completely boring and uneventful. Sure that'd be a let down to most of us but there really is nothing signifying that it's out of the realm of possibilites. Sure it could be sone massive coverup to, but for me at least that id s lot less likely given the time that has already passed.

Howdy gents Dave checking in no black bag treatment yet.

If it's SIGINT wouldn't it be the NSA there under the cover of the FBI?

a reply to: xtradimensions

That's about the most credible looking comment I've seen so far, I pmed you for the link.
Thanks for posting that

originally posted by: Creep Thumper
If it's SIGINT wouldn't it be the NSA there under the cover of the FBI?

Warmer....

a reply to: caterpillage

You must not have been reading back several dozen pages ago where I posted pretty much the same thing as the likely explanation.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
As I noted previously, this is all just one great big giant ruse.

Nothing to see here folks! Just one massive orgy of an Interwebz...

LARP!!

Well, I have reconsidered and thought your idea may be a good one. The offseason there should start October I bet and they were only open weekends in the offseason I have not yet found a calendar to show that date. They have really bad storms in the winter and the Post Office may close for the winter anyway.



October 2017
Bold mine

McAteer, who's originally from Belfast, Ireland, is an astronomy professor at NMSU in Las Cruces but holds the observatory close to his heart because its where he conducted his Ph.D. "It became clear that the National Solar Observatory was leaving to Boulder and Hawaii," McAteer said.

"This is an important asset to the state because it does very important science but it's also a tourist sight where people can come and walk around and it also provides well-paying jobs for the local economy. We don't want any of those things to disappear."
The goal became to keep the observatory alive with a new operational system. One way to save the site is for NMSU to run it. "One of the key things is that even when the National Solar Observatory leaves, the National Science Foundation would retain ownership," McAteer said. "All we would do is come in and operate it. We wouldn't own the site, we wouldn't have legal responsibilities because NMSU just can't do that as a state university.

We'd operate it, keep as many buildings as possible, keep as many people as we can here and do the best we can for the research institutes within the state and also nationwide." As NSF pulls out of the site in Oct. 2017, NMSU will become the operating entity. "We want to keep NSF involved," McAteer said. "They're not divorcing us, it's more like a hand-off." NMSU's plan is to operate the site with eight people and putting the focus on what's most important to the site.

"We want to have schools, clubs, veteran's societies and everybody coming up here and seeing what's going on and joining in on our star parties," McAteer said. "We are talking to the state again this year, trying to get funding. Despite state finances being poor, we're still going to ask them because we think it's important to stay on their radar. It's always nice for the legislature to know that this matters to the people in Alamogordo and Cloudcroft." The observatory is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, in the off season on the weekends only and for winter hours call 434-7190.

"We want to have schools, clubs, veteran's societies and everybody coming up here and seeing what's going on and joining in on our star parties," McAteer said. "We are talking to the state again this year, trying to get funding. Despite state finances being poor, we're still going to ask them because we think it's important to stay on their radar. It's always nice for the legislature to know that this matters to the people in Alamogordo and Cloudcroft." The observatory is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, in the off season on the weekends only and for winter hours call 434-7190.
www.alamogordonews.com...

a reply to: itswhatev

I just dont think ALL of it should be/can be dismissed as lies and coverups untill we know more

All is not much is it when you write a list?