The Black Knight Satellite

reply to post by JimOberg


That same site has some other months available.

www.mumeson.org...

Bingo!

I just got a video file of the onboard STS-88 TV during the thermal cover escape sequence.

You can see copilot Rick Sturckow at the left window, Nancy Currie at the right window,
Sergey Krikalyov with the Hasselblad getting those detailed images we saw on page 1.

And there's a long sequence of the slowly-tumbling thermal cover, clearly the very same
object previously misidentified as the 'Black Knight' satellite. It's viewed through a dirty
window but the shape is unmistakably the same.

The file is about 4 meg, but I don't know how to upload it somewhere where we all
could play it and view it. If anybody wants to volunteer, U2U me and I'll real-email it
to them.

The video removes ALL doubt about the true identity of those bizarre-looking views,
so everybody really ought to have a chance to see it, if they can handle the truth.

Originally posted by JimOberg

Originally posted by Wolfenz

ok Phage let me retype this word for word what the artcal has said ....

Navy tracker who keep a continuous watch on all space objects said they knew where all Discovery rocket casings whereabouts and that this object was not one of them .....

Nobody ever, then or now, keeps a 'continuous track' on passive space objects, it's an absolute physical impossibility.

Once or twice a day you may get a pass through a radar fan and get an estimate, of varying accuracy depending on range and aspect angle. About as often, you may get a 'hit' as an object passed through the 'Fence' -- but without any usable speed or direction measurements.

The calculations required to correlate those 'hits' with a catalog of orbiting objects of different size and origin, was daunting in the early years. Most objects weren't transmitting, and nobody could read their license plates or even tell much about their shapes and sizes except by guessing based on brightness and radar signature.

Confusion over which object was what, was frequent and not unusual.

kk I TAKE YOU HAVENT READ THE NEWS PAPER ARTICAL IVE POSTED

I just retyped word for word as i read it coming from news google

Mystery Satellite Tumbles through space !! Feb 11 1960
news.google.com...

Seeing you dont want to look




Navy tracker who keep a continuous watch on all space objects said they knew where all Discovery rocket casings whereabouts and that this object was not one of them .....

Nobody ever, then or now, keeps a 'continuous track' on passive space objects, it's an absolute physical impossibility.

the see the Spasur locationns let alone navy ship in the waters doing the same thing of tracking ...

reply to post by Wolfenz

Navy tracker who keep a continuous watch on all space objects said they knew where all Discovery rocket casings whereabouts and that this object was not one of them .....

Yes. They may have known where the expended rocket casings (the second stages) were but the object was not a rocket casing. And it wasn't being tracked because it was mistakenly thought to have deorbited.
Satellite

Refined radar analysis improved the size estimate of the object and more precisely calculated its orbit which showed that it was the recovery capsule from Discoverer 5.

film capsule boosted into higher orbit, decayed 2/11/61

space.jpl.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by JimOberg
Bingo!

I just got a video file of the onboard STS-88 TV during the thermal cover escape sequence.

You can see copilot Rick Sturckow at the left window, Nancy Currie at the right window,
Sergey Krikalyov with the Hasselblad getting those detailed images we saw on page 1.

And there's a long sequence of the slowly-tumbling thermal cover, clearly the very same
object previously misidentified as the 'Black Knight' satellite. It's viewed through a dirty
window but the shape is unmistakably the same.

The file is about 4 meg, but I don't know how to upload it somewhere where we all
could play it and view it. If anybody wants to volunteer, U2U me and I'll real-email it
to them.

The video removes ALL doubt about the true identity of those bizarre-looking views,
so everybody really ought to have a chance to see it, if they can handle the truth.

I Guess seeing is believing I wait till its posted !! this video !

you got star's for this post with out even snapshot capture of this video !! amazing

wow maybe i should post what i have videos aka film reels of some of the Apollo moon missions
on and off board 16mm i got till the site was put down from from JAPAN!!!!!
that would make people head spin



Here is a Little Tease from Apollo 8 i think



wow something coming out of that little crater ohh whats that in the center of the big crater !
program i used !! GOM player to capture the frame from the video i have get this pic use picasa to identify where it came from it will say gom player as it came from a video


I guess the astronauts wanted to see the the small crater of some type gas or vapor coming out of it

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Wolfenz

 

Navy tracker who keep a continuous watch on all space objects said they knew where all Discovery rocket casings whereabouts and that this object was not one of them .....

Yes. They may have known where the expended rocket casings (the second stages) were but the object was not a rocket casing. And it wasn't being tracked because it was mistakenly thought to have deorbited.
Satellite

Refined radar analysis improved the size estimate of the object and more precisely calculated its orbit which showed that it was the recovery capsule from Discoverer 5.

film capsule boosted into higher orbit, decayed 2/11/61

space.jpl.nasa.gov...

edit on 6/4/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

Discoverer 5 1959-[Epsilon]1 8/13/59 WSMC Thor Agena A LEO 781 KH-1; 1st generation low resolution photo surveillance; film capsule boosted into higher orbit, decayed 2/11/61

****************************************************************************************************************************************

Discoverer 8 1959-[Lambda]1 11/20/59 WSMC Thor Agena A LEO 795 KH-1; 1st generation low resolution photo surveillance; film capsule recovery failed

*****************************************************************************************************************************************

Discoverer 9 none 2/4/60 WSMC Thor Agena A FTO 765 KH-1; 1st generation low resolution photo surveillance; premature 1st stage cutoff

ok how big is this film capsule ! ?? Dimensions any Idea Phage --- Jim O!!

well it not close to 19 feet that for sure or slightly less Right ?


on another Note ....

MYSTERY SATELLITE

SNAFU

Most fantastic of all is the February 24, 1960 Air Force order to its personnel to "treat sightings of unidentified flying objects as serious business directly related to the nation's defense." The order was issued by the Air Force inspector general. This, in the face of thirteen years of consistent denial by that same Air Force that there actually is such a thing as an unidentified flying object, specifically termed U.F.O., or "flying saucer."

www.mumeson.org...

when the object was detected recognized it existence in Feb 11th 1960 ? almost 2 weeks later ?
Interesting ?? On Feb 24th 1960 an order was placed ? by the inspector general ?

to "treat sightings of unidentified flying objects as serious business directly related to the nation's defense."

reply to post by Wolfenz

Less.
But you are relying on the initial size estimates based on radar data for that 19 foot figure. After more radar observations it was determined that the object was about 3 feet in diameter and 2 feet long.

The actual statement in the New York times article was "nearly as big as the upper stage of a Discoverer rocket".

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Wolfenz

 

Less.
But you are relying on the initial size estimates based on radar data for that 19 foot figure. After more radar observations it was determined that the object was about 3 feet in diameter and 2 feet long.

The actual statement in the New York times article was "nearly as big as the upper stage of a Discoverer rocket".

edit on 6/4/2013 by Phage because: (no reason given)

after more radar observations .. about 2 weeks... as else just poped up... during that time

dont forget about the british radio teloscope that was searching too jordon bank .....

as for big as the upper stage of the rocket ! the space recovery vehicle capsule was in the Nose right ?

casing................. upper stage .............. Space Recovery vehicle ........... ahhhhh ! !!

Here's the video that Jim Oberg located.
Runaway trunion pin cover. Thanks Jim!
www.abovetopsecret.com...




Hmmm:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

wrong thread

Originally posted by Phage
Here's the video that Jim Oberg located.
Runaway trunion pin cover. Thanks Jim!

Great to see it!

The view is the aft flight deck of the shuttle, the window view is towards the tail. At the left window, with vehicle attitude hand controllers, is co-pilot Rick Sturckow. Nancy Currie is at the right window, with the robot arm hand controllers. Sergey Krikalyov floats between with the Hasselblad taking the images posted by the OP. Commander Bob Cabana is sitting in the front left seat, out of FOV. And Jim Newman and Jerry Ross are outside on the second of three EVAs. Extending 'up' from the payload bay and blocking most of the view aft, is the 'Node 1', the first US piece of the ISS. Above it is docked the Russian-built FGB module. One of the EVA tasks was installing thermal covers over the four trunnion pins on the Node -- the stubby poles extending from its sides that had locked it in position inside the payload bay during launch to docking. Once the node was deployed the trunnion pins were useless, but as bare metal, they were 'heat leaks' into space and strapping a blanket over each one would save a lot of power now not needed for heating. But one of the blankets slipped its leash as the astronauts moved from one work station to another. In this video you can hear the inside crew speculating on whether the spacewalkers would have a chance to grab it if it floated back.

The slowly tumbling thermal blanket, a few feet across, is what the OP's photos show.

Nothing more exotic.

The blanket drifted away from the shuttle, and its orbit decayed quickly -- it burned up within a few months, I can go confirm that if anyone thinks it's important.

Re: "Black Knight". Somebody's imagination ran way ahead of his knowledge, or maybe it was always an internet joke [on us] from the start.

reply to post by JimOberg

In this video you can hear the inside crew speculating on whether the spacewalkers would have a chance to grab it if it floated back.

I caught that. The Russian says that since the blanket is "forward" it will move "up". Presumably since it has a slightly higher orbital velocity than the shuttle.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by rubberchicken
Up to this point, as an experienced broadcast radio engineer including using communications satellites, I think the story seems to hold together. LDEs have been very occasionally reported (mostly between 3 and 30 MHz) since the 1920s. Although we have more sophisticated equipment to detect and measure them, the bands are much more crowed now and such echoes are more difficult to detect, particularly by casual observers.

How much penetration of the ionosphere do you get at 3MHz? It's not a really good band to do satellite communications with - the ionosphere's pretty reflective down there. Until you start getting up into the 10MHz area, you won't get much through the ionosphere, and even then it's pretty reflective/opaque most of the time, especially during the day.

I wouldn't think a satellite would be a likely source for LDEs in the 3-10MHz range, maybe 3-20MHz if you're getting daytime LDEs.

That's a very good point. Radio signals usually need to be well above 3 MHz to escape the ionosphere, depending upon solar cycle, time of day, latitude etc. so it's very unlikely 'trapped' signals would be received outside the ionosphere and retransmitted back. One reason why LDEs won't be from the Black Knight. Therefore LDEs (at least those on frequencies trapped within the earth/ionosphere) must have a natural explanation, probably being caught in the magnetosphere or similar.

Anyway, now we have all wasted 18 pages of the internet discussing the subject, I found THIS from Skeptoid,com where Brian Dunning seems to have picked out all the 'facts' separated the different strands from muddled stories and has provided a very rational explanation why the whole Black Knight stuff is bunkum!

I know that when someone comes along and pulls the rug from under someone's beliefs it doesn't go down well, especially when the believer has invested much time and effort in confirming those beliefs with their own research. But you know, sometimes, when confronted with the counter evidence, you have to just chuck in the towel and admit you were mistaken...

Is this an end to the Black Knight discussion? Hell no! Let's see why Dunning has got it all wrong...

I got some more star gazing in last nite with the good weather conditions. Nothing that unusual, one shooting star around 2:00 AM, the third I've seen now going south to north in a week. But I've seen some apparent satellites. One at about 12:20 AM going west to east. If it was a jet it was way way up there. Not moving that fast. Then at 2:40 AM one moving southwest to northeast across the SE Pa sky, even higher. Flight tracker 24 said no jets were in the area then.
Anybody know a good website to give you info on known satellites and when they crossover an area?

reply to post by rubberchicken

Anyway, now we have all wasted 18 pages of the internet discussing the subject, I found THIS from Skeptoid,com where Brian Dunning seems to have picked out all the 'facts' separated the different strands from muddled stories and has provided a very rational explanation why the whole Black Knight stuff is bunkum!

Well of course it seems that way.

I erroneously tied the NASA pic in with the satellite reports. They are two separate things, observations of an unknown satellite, and a pic of (now) conclusively identified space debris. Dunning's article pulls in EVERYTHING under the sun ever tied to the Black Knight, from Tesla getting signals, to Cooper's green UFO. Of COURSE it sounds like bunk, when pulling in all of those unrelated items.

For me, the real mystery part of this is the reports of the satellite itself. Is it really just early misidentifications of a piece of the Discoverer V mission? Maybe, but then kind of a coincidence with reports prior to Sputnik. Still, a coincidence could be exactly that. The real eye opener in all of this, is that while we do have many eyes on objects in space, at any given time, we really don't seem to know EVERYTHING about what is orbiting up there. There is simply so much stuff. I think the evidence is leaning more towards early errors and misidentifications, but it is an intriguing story nonetheless.

reply to post by Dutchowl


www.heavens-above.com

Everything you'll ever need to ID satellites.

It included ISS, Iridium flares, ham radio satellites (and what frequency to listen), and more besides.

I've just got the actual STS-88 downlink video of the EVA-2 where the crew was installing thermal covers on Node trunnion pins, and one drifts away, and the crew comments on it ['about 30 feet out the commander's window'], and we'll try to make it available shortly. The video looks exactly like the still images posted by the OP.

I'd sure like to hear from anybody who has changed their minds about the possible identity of this 'bogie'.

reply to post by JimOberg


Well, of course they say that. It's all CGI and voice talents. Anyone can fake an explanation given this much time. Go tell your handlers we didn't buy your disinfo.

/did I do it right?

Originally posted by JimOberg
I've just got the actual STS-88 downlink video of the EVA-2 where the crew was installing thermal covers on Node trunnion pins, and one drifts away, and the crew comments on it ['about 30 feet out the commander's window'], and we'll try to make it available shortly. The video looks exactly like the still images posted by the OP.

I'd sure like to hear from anybody who has changed their minds about the possible identity of this 'bogie'.

Yes, I changed my mind. I previously thought it was a satellite shroud from a different launch.

Here's a still of the dropped thermal cover while it was still close to the Node. The irregular shape should look familiar, the reflected light seems different from a different angle.