Shooting a UFO, STS mission (video)

Kasher Proof 3: Any particle in the thruster plume would be accelerated nearly to plume velocity, at least 96%. Kasher’s ‘Appendix B’ proves this, and since the main object was NOT accelerated to this speed by the thruster firing (which Kasher claims lasted 0.4 seconds, as measured by the duration of the pulse), it could not have been a particle.

Disproof: In general the velocity induced on drifting particles depends on how far off the plume centerline they are, and how long the thruster fires. Since the low limit for particle acceleration is clearly zero (as seen by several particles in the video), there must be a range of from zero up to full plume velocity, dependent on factors not measured by Kasher.

In an email to Kasher , a MUFON photo expert made this observation: “Although you don’t state it directly, you appear to base your argument on the correctness of the exhaust-acceleration theory. But this contradicts your conclusion that ‘they were spacecraft out in space away from the shuttle'’and obviously not accelerated by a mere thruster. This appears to be an inadvertant reductio ad absurdum argument. If it is exhaust-acceleration, your conclusion is wrong. If not, then the arguments leading up to your conclusion are wrong, and your conclusion is unsupported. No conclusion can be inconsistent with the arguments leading up to it.” In other words, Kasher claimed to prove that the motion could not be caused by thruster exhaust, but the proof required assuming that it WAS caused by thruster exhaust.

Kasher Proof 4: The main object remained at rest for about half a second during the period of the main flash (following a shorter pre-flash earlier), and then accelerated sharply. “Presumably this was the time the rocket exhaust was moving through vacuum up to the ‘ice particle’”. If it were ice, it would have been a lot closer to the thruster, so the half second delay is too long for the fast-moving exhaust, and it must have been much farther away.

Disproof: This argument is based on Kasher’s misunderstanding of the nature of the flash, which he assumed was the entire thruster firing. Actually, the flashes were brief interludes within the full thruster firing of about 1.2 seconds when throat-clearing or brief propellant ratio mismatch led to a visible flow in the normally invisible plume.

Another observer agrees: “Presumptions are dangerous to proofs. As the flash is known not to correspond to the thruster firing, this proof fails.”

Kasher Proof 5: Since any particle hit by a thruster exhaust would have to reach a speed of 8300 ft/sec, it would be too far away at the end of the thruster firing to be visible.

Disproof: This depends on his ‘Appendix B’, where Kasher attempts to prove that a particle entrained in a thruster plume will be accelerated to nearly the full plume velocity. He uses mathematics to show that this is exactly what happened with the main object in the video. As is usual with mathematical fallacies, the error is not in the algebra but in the assumptions.

“The 1.7 second acceleration time is flatly contradicted by the raw data it is based on.... [It] is not shown to be anything more than an artifact of the heavy smoothing used in the curve-fit, and is not shown to be a better fit than a simple 1-second linear acceleration due to a 1-second vernier firing which occurred at the time of the event. Practically any curve-fit of a sloped line connected to a flat line will ‘round out’ the end of the slope and make the slope resemble an exponential curve.”

Dots can appear suddenly in the field-of-view when they drift out of the Orbiter's shadow. Since the camera is deliberately pointed 'down-sun', back towards the still-dark Earth surface, the shadow is being cast into the space in that field of view -- but it can only be 'seen' when objects cross the boundary.

The camera used was the aft right PLB camera, and it was looking off to the left and way up above the bay sill. What portions of that space was in sunlight, and what in shadow?

The ‘beta angle’, the angle from the orbital plane to the line-of-sight to the Sun, was 44.7 degrees, positive to the left. At sunrise, therefore, if facing forward the sun will appear slightly to the left, and also slightly below straight ahead because the true horizon is somewhat lower than the inertial horizon.

The Orbiter’s attitude was under control of the Digital Autopilot (DAP) which had been instructed to maintain a plus/minus deadband of one degree, using the gentle vernier jets. The commanded attitude was left wing pointed to Earth, belly “to the wind” (forward), and nose to left of track but pitched down about 10 degrees.

Therefore the left wing was casting a shadow from lower right to upper left across the field of view, but at larger ranges (10-20 ft) the shadow zone was lower because the wing tapers. Hence, an object drifting AWAY from the Orbiter will start in shadow and emerge into sunlight out over the wing -- as the main zig-zag object appears to have done.

And over the wing is exactly where the thruster plume bounce-back can be felt.

This prosaic explanation is consistent with all known lighting conditions and with typical shuttle-generated debris behavior.

STS-48 was conducted by Orbiter-103, ‘Discovery’, on its 13th mission. It was launched at 23:11 GMT on September 12, 1991; the notorious zig-zag occurred at GMT Day 258, at 20:39:24 GMT.

According to the ‘As Planned FD 3’ overnight Execute Package faxed to the Orbiter, the crew would be sleeping until 02/21:00 MET (2 days, 21 hours, zero minutes), or ‘Mission Elapsed Time’, on the 44th orbit around the Earth. This corresponded to a CDT (local time at the mission Control Center) of about 15:11 and a GMT of 20:11. The first order of business would be a turning maneuver to a ‘supply water dump’ attitude to release waste water accumulated overnight from the Orbiter’s fuel cells. This would occur during a three-hour block allocated to ‘POST SLEEP’, which included breakfast, toilet time, reading overnight email and faxes, and review of the day’s planned activities.

According to the 100-page post-flight report “STS-48 Scene List”, which catalogued ALL video transmissions from the Orbiter to the ground, the traditional musical ‘wake up call’ (“Bear Necessities”, as it happened) was broadcast from Houston a few seconds after the scheduled time (at GMT 20:11:07). The Orbiter was in a night pass over the USSR, and PLB camera B was viewing passing city lights. At GMT 20:17:28, the Orbiter passed out of range of the eastern TDRS satellite and entered the brief ‘Zone of Exclusion’ (ZOE) directly opposite in longitude from the TDRS ground station at White Sands, New Mexico. Communication was established with the western TDRS satellite a minute and a half later.

For the next several minutes, as the Orbiter flew over China, the INCO controller in Mission Control switched between PLB cameras B and C (the two aft cameras) seeking the best view of horizon lightning. At 20:27:04, the logbook shows ‘Some lightning visible’ over China and the Bay of Bengal. The logbook relates that the Orbiter “continue[s] over Burma, Malaysia, and Indonesia.” INCO had switched from camera B back to C at 20:30:09.

According to graphical plots of telemetry data (“DAP ERRORS, IMU BODY RATES & RATE ERRORS”, period of GMT 20:26:00.000 to 20:42:00.000), the Orbiter’s pitch was slowly rising from 20:36:20 when it had hit the negative deadband ( -1.0 degree error) and a pair of nose jets had briefly fired. It hit the other side of the deadband (+1.0 degree error) at 20:39:23 after drifting for about three minutes.

According to a graphical tabulation of all RCS thruster firings, the DAP commanded both aft down jets on to counter the reaching of the attitude error limit. Jet L5D (left pod) turned on at 20:39:23.79 and turned off at 20:39:24.99, a firing of 1.20 seconds. Jet R5D (right pod) turned on at 20:39:23.31 for 1.68 seconds.

Meanwhile, the Orbiter had been flying south-eastwards and was overtaking the Sun. Based on computations from the Orbiter’s trajectory, sunrise began at 20:38:02 and lasted for 8 seconds. That is because the orbital rate of the spacecraft was 4 degrees per minute, and the Sun is half a degree in angular width. This event at this precise time is also clearly evident on the video in two forms: a dim glare appears in the camera field-of-view (probably forward scatter from the deployed Ku-band antenna assembly, which later in the video sequence was seen to be illuminated even as the PLB was still in darkness), and the simultaneous appearance over a period of several seconds of three drifting dots in the lower field-of-view. Over the following minute or so, some new dots moved linearly into the scene and two of the three original dots exited.

The RCS thruster firing occurred approximately eighty seconds after sunrise began. A few seconds before, one bright dot appeared in the middle of the scene, moving from right to left just below the horizon.

The zig-zag was at Day 258, at 20:39:24 GMT. If you order video, request it begin by 20:36 (pre-sunrise) and run at least to 20:42 (well after the zig-zag). Plus time-tag.

This is a lot to digest, so there's no hurry.

But I hope it's clear that this represents the level of detail needed to assess what actually caused the images on the video in question.

And a related question is this: how much of this should have been published fifteen years ago when the pro-UFO interpretation was first being promulgated?

Leevi, were you going to answer any of those questions I posed about the video you bragged about? If you can't find the answers, say so and we'll develop a plan to get the information.

If you don't WANT the answers, of course, keep on playing make-believe with incomplete information and with no protection against disinformation.

I have no information about the STS-80 footage except that it was filmed on the
1 December 1996. I hope it was a broad daylight because we can see the Earth's surface..( I'm not sure if the footage was taken using infrared camera).

As to the text on the screen that "estimated size of UFO 1.5 miles diameter", that's really cute -- something that size in orbit 300 miles up would be about half a degree in angular size, as big as the Moon. so -- millions of people down there on the ground, what did THEY report when they saw a moon-sized UFO drifting across their sky? What corroborating independent visual sightings are on record?

Well, it could simply not be seen behind the thick clouds. Who knows.

Lastly, what did the space shuttle crew say about these lights? They were the on-the-scene primary witnesses, after all.

I don't know. Where can I find this out ?

JimO, I really appreciate your point of view and I respect your rich knowledge. It's just not that I don't believe you (your explanations about STS-48 fenomena are absolutely meaningful). But you know.. there are so many events going on in space, so many videos which raise even more questions.. Do you remember a piece of footage where a crew from the shuttle couldn't find a MIR space station among so many appearing, pulsating and flying in different direction objects ? I cannot realize how is that possible not to tell a MIR space station from debris, it's just entirely incomprehensible to me. There are even more interesting pieces of footage, but I understand that this thread is not really meant to discuss them with you.

Anyway, thanks a lot for your great input.


[edit on 1-9-2006 by Leevi]

Mr.Oberg, here is some evidence for you that these disk-shaped objects (STS-75,80 like) ARE actually seen from Earth.

www.rense.com...

...and it appears that the 2001 and 2001 UK images have captured the very same remarkable and monstrously sized craft. Not only does the STS-75 footage substantiate the UK images from a totally unique vantage (ie, miles above the earth with expert equipment), but one can clearly see in the Quicktime footage #2 above that whatever the bright object is being videotaped at the start of the clip, when it is seen against the backdrop of the neighborhood -- a yard lamp, house and tree for some reference -- is extremely bright and extremely large. Anyone who has ever tried videotaping at night knows stars, even the brightest, scarcely even register on tape. This object was massive in size and intense in light.

[edit on 1-9-2006 by Leevi]

Originally posted by Leevi
I have no information about the STS-80 footage except that it was filmed on the
1 December 1996. I hope it was a broad daylight because we can see the Earth's surface..( I'm not sure if the footage was taken using infrared camera).

OK, we really have unsurmountable problems here, Leevi, since you are still willing to assume and guess facts to support conclusions you've already made, and your technical undertstanding is so deliberately, helplessly inadequate. You could have found out what kind of cameras were used by doing internet research, but you were too lazy and made an erroneous supposition (the cameras are normal visible-light cameras). Your 'hope' for 'broad daylight' is in vain because the surface of the Earth in this scene is not sunlit, as even the most superficial experience in viewing sunlit-earth space video would have told you. You are the perfect patsy for the UFO-deceivers who know they can feed you any nonsense and you will eagerly swallow it -- and defend it. And now, when challenged, you will be offended and outraged and will redouble your defense of, and loyalty to, the original hoax -- perhaps because admitting you had been hoaxed is too hard a self-criticism to tolerate.

Originally posted by Leevi JimO, I really appreciate your point of view and I respect your rich knowledge. It's just not that I don't believe you (your explanations about STS-48 fenomena are absolutely meaningful). But you know.. there are so many events going on in space, so many videos which raise even more questions.. Do you remember a piece of footage where a crew from the shuttle couldn't find a MIR space station among so many appearing, pulsating and flying in different direction objects ? I cannot realize how is that possible not to tell a MIR space station from debris, it's just entirely incomprehensible to me. There are even more interesting pieces of footage, but I understand that this thread is not really meant to discuss them with you. Anyway, thanks a lot for your great input. [edit on 1-9-2006 by Leevi]

Well, this is the ultimate defense of the indefensible -- an appeal to your own mental incapacity. "I cannot realize how it is possible.." is a statement about YOU, not about the hard evidence.

And thanks for the kind words about the evidence I have presented, despite your candid admission you are simply not going to believe it.

And having admitted you are not expert enough to understand this (a situation you have the ability to remedy, but apparently, not the willingness to do so), and that the people you chose to trust have omitted (by superficiality or by devious design) critical information, you are faced with the choice between them and those who DO have the information and DO present it fully (and verifiably) -- and you chose the former.

I do not believe such an approach is conducive to developing a sound understanding of the universe around you. It does help, however, in allowing imagination and fantasy to run unconstrained, and to avoid having to actually prove anything you believe is more or less true than anyone else's opinions.

Lots of people are doing things this way, these days.

Originally posted by Leevi
Mr.Oberg, here is some evidence for you that these disk-shaped objects (STS-75,80 like) ARE actually seen from Earth.[edit on 1-9-2006 by Leevi]

Or evidence that camera lenses function in the same way on Earth as in space.

How do you know the objects are disk-shaped? Why couldn't they by round? Is it simply that you WANT them to be disk-shaped so that is the way your mind will perceive them?

I didn't ask about viewing such objects in general -- I asked about the ones supposedly seen by STS-80.

And if the objects shown in this video really were a thousand miles away and tens of miles across and glowing in the dark, why do you suppose there was only one videotape made by the hundred million people within range of it?

Originally posted by JimO
Here's a list of links with background data and back-forth argumentation:

Hi,

I thought it might be useful if I contributed to this thread merely to note some references (from my draft UFO Chronology) to discussion of the STS-48 footage in various books.

The discussions of this footage in these books are generally considerably shorter than the articles at the links helpfully provided by James Oberg. However, Internet links have a tendency to become out of date rather quickly. Also, the discussions in these books include some further references, so the following notes may be useful in the future:


Birnes, William in his “The UFO Magazine UFO Encyclopedia” (2004) at pages 298-299 (in an entry entitled “STS-48”) of the Pocket Books softcover edition.

Hamilton, William F in his “Alien Magic: UFO Crashes, Abductions, Underground Bases” (1996) at pages 53-54 (in Chapter 5) of the Global Communications softcover edition.

King, Jon in his “Cosmic Top Secret” (1998) at page 132 (in the chapter entitled “Document 04”, “File 16”) of the NEL paperback edition.

Marrs, Jim in his “Alien Agenda” (1997) at pages 22-23 (in Chapter 1) of the Harper Collins paperback edition.

Plait, Philip in his “Bad Astronomy” (2002) at pages 208-209 (in Chapter 20) of the Wiley softcover edition.

Randles, Jenny in her “Alien Contact – The First Fifty Years” (1997) at page 119 (in the chapter entitled “1989”) of the Collins and Brown hardback edition.

Sheaffer, Robert in his “UFO Sightings: The Evidence” (1998) at page 104 (in Chapter 6) of the Prometheus hardback edition.

Wright, Susan in her “UFO Headquarters” (1998) at pages 149-150 (in Chapter 8) of the St Martin’s Press softcover edition.


Kind Regards,

Isaac Koi

Oh I'm fed up with your critics, Mr. Oberg. I'm not posing myself a professional or anything else. And I don't impose my point of view and my thoughts on anyone else. Your experience in this area is incomparable to mine and I understand it. I know more than enough for my age and I'm specializing in a completely different area. Your above-written comments are cheap because they don't bring any benefit to anyone. You're only talking about ME and my choice of words. If you are a professional debunker then you can easily explain every video taken from space without any "side-effects", don't you. And I'm sure you haven't checked the link I provided and haven't seen the videos. It's a pity.


[edit on 2-9-2006 by Leevi]

Leevi, look at yourself carefully. You are substituting personal comments for examination of hard evidence. In my criticism of your posts I had intended to criticize things you had said, not things you ARE -- and if I mucked up the distinction, I apologize.

Now, can you grapple with any of the technical issues that have been raised, or does it come down to personalities?

If so, I hope (but have seen no reason to expect) that you use more care in selection of economic, health, business, and political choices -- but sound reasoning skills tend to come as a package and are applied (or mis-applied) fairly uniformly, in my experience. And people, as well as nations, suffer the consequences of bad choices.

The good news is that both through experience and study and practice, people can improve their thinking muscles. But not if they get defensive about preserving self-images and pride and honor above other considerations.

That's why I value discussions about these kinds of topics -- they are good practice and they offer the chance to examine ambiguities and debates that have reasonable chance of credible resolution (i.e., we're not arguing over religion or gender-roles or similar never-settlable differences of opinion). And once you see how careful reasoning can converge on trustworthy conclusions in such well-bounded topics, you can apply these mental methods to other issues that surround -- and confound -- us all.

My view is, we're born with intellectual instincts fine-tuned for hunter-gatherer small-clan short-livetime patterns, and we have to deliberately learn, practice, and as much as we can master the reasoning skills better adapted to modern industrial high-population societies. The fearful fruits of widespread failure to do so are seen all around us -- as well as here on this thread, perhaps, as well.

Otherwise, it's all just a waste of time.

JimO, thanks for a good post. I agree with you in all aspects. I am personally not going to get down neither to technical issues (because it's outside my competence), nor to personalities ( I hate it). I'd better read up on the subject a little bit more and pick up some English speaking skills and then I'll get back to you, OK ? But now let others try to argue your points away, if possible.

Cheers

quote: Originally posted by JimO
When somebody posted an old quote of mine saying that nobody would be able to prevent me or any other space worker from going public with news of a clear ET encounter, you poohpoohed it with reference to vast secret forces that prevent such disclosure.

Well since you have the reputation you do you would very likely prevent yourself even if that sort of thing would not have led to your life becoming quite 'difficult'. Anyone remember what happened to Bob Lazar/John Lear and others even with all their relative main stream fame? I will not even begin going down the list of the dozens ( easily proved) assasinations and many more extremely suspicious deaths in the UFO research community. There are very many ways to discourage people speaking out and the fact that you are not just speaks volumes.

That's the way I interpreted your response. If you meant something else, and have actual evidence to support it, please clarify.

I am not here to try prove to you ( you know exactly what is going on anyways) that Ufo's of various forms exist as i would be wasting my time.

You don't have any confidence in the intentions and capabilities of OMNI magazine to presenting accurate information on the UFO controversy? Well, it's easy enough to prove -- just cite my an example or two of provable witness persecution that you seem so sure the magazine's team (of which I was part, but not the leader) missed?

I do not need a magazine ( especially not in this field) to point out to me what reality is or is not so i do not care what they found or did not. Considering the cover ups still ongoing in this world this is chickenfeed and thus not only possible but logical.

Banning DDT may be stupid, but last I looked it had been done openly through congressional action. No secret cabal was involved, AFAIK -- but enlighten us if that view is wrong.

It's killing people all over but i guess if their not American or European that hardly counts. Why assume a secret cabal when the US senate is criminal to the core anyways?

Keeping cold fusion from the market is an interesting claim -- how is it kept from the Brazilian market, or the North Korean market, or the Russian market, then? What power extends to each and every corner of each and every nation of the planet, in your worldview?

Since every government in the world would lose when their citizens gains access to such extremely cheap power. This is not even taking into account what might very well happen to those countries that do attempt to step out of line.

You seem to have had plenty of time to research space lasers when the avalanche of internet extracts could be made to seem to support an extraordinary stimulus for the video. It's too bad you now say you are 'too busy' to read evidence for a contrary view.

I said that i lacked the time or interest at the time to make the type of full investigation to actually show you up as you deserve to be. I am not arrogant enough to assume that i can expose you for what i believe you are any time soon. I obviously looked at the links briefly but there is nothing in there that surprises me as 'explanations' where explanations are not really possible to start with.

Is it a general rule for you, that you want to avoid reading reports on such stories, any stories, by people who have delved into them in details? Again, an interesting approach toward understanding a mysterious phenomenon.

Well i would say the same for you but i know that are very well aware of what is really going on making my arguments to 'prove it to you' quite pointless.

Why would you be interested in STS-80, if -- and fair warning here -- I'm 'practiced' with that one too. Do you want to tell me there is no prosaic explanation, or -- when I present some detailed studies -- will you run away from that one too and find yet another temporary favorite?

It just means that i am not fooled by the clearly vapid attempts to explain what can not be explained. When people involve ice crystals and weather balloons you know their already scraping the barrel and not interested or paid to discover the truth.

The STS-48 and STS-80 'UFO videos' do have many similarities, the most telling of which -- and I'm betting you never knew this -- is that they both occurred in the brief interval after orbital sunrise when the shuttle and nearby objects were bathed in sunlight while the Earth beneath the camera view was still in darkness. That, in my view, is not a coincidence, it is a clue towards the prosaic nature of the images.

I do not believe in coincidence as explanation so the issues are very much related. The assumption that this somehow proves ice crystals over UFO's ( not that i think they are unidentified) is even stranger.

I missed that post -- when did I say that about you?

The post before this one? I just pointed out that it is no insult to expose some one's agenda in such relatively neutral terms.

What do you claim that source material proves? Or suggests?

That both the USA and Russia have long deployed ( since 1977 for Russia anyways) anti gravity craft with functioning particle beam weapons... Clear enough?

I've been involved with 'conspiracy stories' far beyond the UFO subject -- ranging from the silly Soviet-sponsored notion that the CIA sent the Korean Airlines flight 007 into Soviet airspace deliberately, to provoke an atrocity and feel out radar facilities [turns out it was a stupid accident followed by trigger-happy Soviet brutality],

The Soviet aircraft did everything they could to turn the plane around and released all but the CIA aircrew afterwards. They could have easily shot the planes to tiny bits but chose to bring it down with cannon fire killing the absolute minimum of people they could in this situation. Why did this aircraft fly strait into the most restricted piece of airspace in the USSR with the political maneuvering going on at the time?

to other aviation disaster fables to various interpretations of NASA space disasters, to the space-related claims of UFO nut Corso, and so forth.

I am sure you have and that is why i am not really interested in making this as technical as i very easily could. I am sure decades of well paid ( for) research into this have made you quite the expert at discouraging others from finding the truth for themselves. Since i have already done my own investigation and came to very different conclusions i am not at all fooled by the type of debunking you indulge in.

If it surprises you, I think Oswald killed JFK,

You mean one bullet can really make a few 90 degree turns inside a human being? His wife lied about the multiple wounds? To believe what you do can clearly not be the result of a search for the truth so it just makes it ever more clear that your here to hide it.

a Palestinian terrorist did kill RFK,

And he was not connected with anyone and just doing the lone gunman thing? They must pay you VERY well to expose yourself to the type of ridicule saying things like this must expose you to.

a lone racist nut did kill MLK,

Political activist just meet their ends at the hands of lone gunman ALL the time. It had nothing to do with the planned marches .....

and and a fuel tank vapor explosion brought down Flight 800,

How much reality can one deny in one sitting i am starting to wonder....

and -- while we're into conspiracies -- that Andropov DID order the murder of the Pope.

As long as the conspiracy involves communist of some sort it must obviously be true, yes. Cold war warrior logic in action here.

And concealed gun laws suppress criminal activity. And more -- but way off topic her

Actually quite on topic. What you have said so far has done nothing but reinforce my view that you will say whatever you must in defense of a evil you probably do not even begin to understand.

Stellar


[edit on 9-9-2006 by StellarX]

JimO,

Today on NASA Select T.V. we were getting live shots from the Shuttle from the Shuttle Robotic Arm as the crew survived for damage to the heat shield.

What we got was a really good look straight down into the nozzles of the Vernier and RCS Jets on the underside of Atlantis' Nose.


Here is a quick screen shot I grabbed on the second pass , and second look at the Nozzles.



What I noticed on the first pass and the best look IMO was the complete absence of any visible Ice. From all visual appearances the nozzles were completely clean. Granted the jets had been disabled for the inspection , however these had been in use throughout the mission until that point.

Doesn't that hurt your "Ice" theory when the Shuttle itself and specifically inside the RCS and Vernier Jet Nozzles are by all visual appearances "Ice Free"?







[edit on 10-9-2006 by lost_shaman]

Originally posted by Access Denied

No. Ice would form (from leaking propellant valves) in the combustion chamber which you can't see from the outside... not the nozzle... any ice (frozen unburned propellants) formed past the combustion chamber would be expelled and tend to "hang around" the shuttle.

Here is quote from your link made by Jim Oberg.

Propellant also tends to seep out the feed lines into the nozzle, where it accumulates, freezes through evaporative cooling, and flakes off during the next firing.

Looks like ice to me.