The Way It Should Be

I’ve been reading USO reports as a distraction from the horrors of life… and somewhere in the midst of it I got off track… and became aware of this documentary on the ongoing Hessdalen Project, which I think is really very nicely done so I’m posting it here for you all to enjoy.

Hessdalen’s held a fascination for me right from the start, not only because of the phenomena itself, but also because it’s the only, as far as I know, anomalous event being studied full-time by actual scientists, from two countries, with the full backing of a college and the Norwegian military. They even have a Summer Camp where college kids go and help out for a week. Talk about providing a little inspiration to pursue science! What could be better?

This is how anomalies should be dealt with. I tire of all the cultish “prophets” and all the other charlatans running amok these days… and their wide-eyed credulous true believers as well… they just ruin it all and place tremendous delays on the arrival of real knowledge.

Off topic note: You may have noted in the fourth video Bjørn Gitle Hauge’s tale of the blue spiral trail that was generated by an instance of the Hessdalen phenomenon. Just sayin.’

Bjørn Gitle Hauge, M.Sc.E.E. is an Assistant Professor with Project EMBLA at Østfold College, Department of Engineering and Natural Sciences.

Project Hessdalen English site

Project Hessdalen main homepage

Project Hessdalen is a project at Østfold University College

Read an abstract of the 2001 EMBLA report, EMBLA 2001 : The Optical Mission. And here’s video from EMBLA 2001…

Project Hessdalen’s streaming webcam.

Mike Prysner – A True Patriot

“Our real enemy is not the ones living in a distant land whose names or policies we don’t understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it’s profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us” – Mike Prysner

This bodes well for our future…

Skylaire.com Presents Revelance Of UFOs

In this 20 minute interview, my friend and Fortean colleague Skylaire Alfvegren, founder of the League Of Western Fortean Intermediatists (L.O.W.F.I.), discusses the state of worldwide UFOlogy, the state of the media regarding the subject, human behavior relating to the phenomenon and gives us a bit of her background, including a rather spectacular personal UFO sighting.

Also at dailymotion here.

The intro from Skylaire’s website:

Skylaire Alfvegren has worked on cars for the Mexican mafia and roped cattle on the border of Area 51. Having witnessed her first UFO alongside Air Force personnel as a child, she began her writing career at seventeen with “File o’ the Damned,” a column of Fortean investigation for Fizz Magazine.

Not yet of legal drinking age, she was hired as a consultant for Strange Universe, the Fox Network’s nationally-syndicated “paranormal news program,” wrote regularly for the L.A. Weekly and built a laboratory to grow amanita muscaria.

Translated into nine languages and plastered helter skelter online, her gonzo reportage has appeared in countless magazines, books and journals.

Descended from the Dark Elves of old Scandanavia, she is currently applying her vast knowledge of California — the esoteric, the dark, and the weird — to the small screen; and recently founded the League Of Western Fortean Intermediatists (L.O.W.F.I.). For more information go to www.ForteansWest.com or just plain ol’ www.Skylaire.com

Ms. Alfvegren is currently available for writing, television and other media assignments

LOWFI founder on Radio Misterioso 12/13 8pm PST

LOWFI founder Skylaire Alfvegren will be appearing Sunday, December 13th from 8-10pm PST on killradio.org, on the show Radio Misterioso with Space Brother.

UFOs, conspiracies, psychedelia, parapsychology, black budgets, disinformation and suppressed information. Interviews with mind mavericks, and music from people who will never get a record deal and just don’t care.

Archive and podcast at radio4all.net.

Bizarre Barkhamsted Beings Booted

This report caught my eye over at the Anomalist for the simple reason that I drive past the road this incident took place on on the way to my Dad’s house.

On reading the report, reproduced below from the Register Citizen News, I found it to be a rather intriguing case.

Of particular interest to me are the horses switching stalls… I really do hope the group that investigated this caught that on video! Sounds like a must see.  The cat bowl’s pretty mundane, well, as these things go, anyway, but the horses… now that’s cool.

Not sure how I’ll see it as I don’t have telly, but I’m sure it’ll surface at some point.

Also intriguing is the fact that the “visitors” seem to have now left the building… something I wouldn’t have expected. How’d they convince the entities to leave? Good news for the Santos’ of course, and most certainly a welcome relief for those poor, harassed horses.

Investigated ghosts disappear

Published: Saturday, December 5, 2009, by David Hutter

BARKHAMSTED — The horses do not mysteriously switch stalls at the Santos farm anymore.

Nor does the cat’s bowl move from one step to another step to another.

Donna Santos believed spirits were at work inside her house and inside her barn on West Hill Road. According to her, the horses moving from one stall to another and the cat’s bowl moving are the work of spirits.

“There are no more ghosts. They’re all gone,” Donna Santos said. “My horses are very happy now that the paranormal society has finished its work. They’re not scared anymore. Since they came to investigate, everything has been fine.”

Besides the horses switching stables on their own and the cat bowl moving on its own, the family’s dog growled at apparently invisible beings, Donna said in an interview this week.

Her husband Bob, son Danny, daughter Cari, and Donna became uncomfortable living in their house. Unable to find a rational explanation for these occurrences, the family began considering the notion that they lived among spirits.

“I did not move the horses. My husband did not move the horses,” Donna said. “Our children did not move the horses.”

“The horses could not unlock themselves and move on their own,” she said. “Something had to move them.”

Eventually, she heard about a group called the Northwest Connecticut Paranormal Society. Comprised of people who believe they have experienced a paranormal activity, the society scrutinizes instances in which people report suspected supernatural activities.

Donna Santos initially suspected someone broke into her barn, unlocked the horses from their stalls and then moved them around. Eventually, she called the state police and had state troopers stay outside her barn on at least one night; even then, in the morning she found the horses were in different stalls, Donna said.

John Zontok, the founder of this paranormal society, describes himself as a skeptic and a critical thinker. With its goal being to educate people, the society includes a college professor, a professional photographer, a paralegal, a business executive, a Marine, a Reiki master, college students and a dog, according to the organization.

“Something in the barn was threatening her animals,” Zontok said. “We captured several unexplainable voices.”

The team uses an array of devices in an effort to determine the source of suspected paranormal activities. Seeking an answer to people who have many questions, the paranormal society does not charge any money for its services.

“Our main goal is to find something to show that paranormal activity exists,” Zontok said. “I am a sceptic regarding the paranormal.”

As the paranormal society people investigated activities in the barn, they were filmed by Picture Shack Productions. The production company interviewed the Santos family at their farm in January and June. Picture Shack Productions documented the paranormal society’s investigation at the Santos house.

Picture Shack sold its work to Animal Planet. The television network will broadcast the piece on Sunday, Dec. 13, at 10 p.m. as part of a series called The Haunted.

Ever since the paranormal society people investigated, the unexplained phenomenon have stopped, according to Donna Santos.

Toward this end, she praised the paranormal society people for giving their time and skills.

David Hutter can be reached by e-mail at dhutter@registercitizen.com.

Classic Failures Of Secrecy

This fabulous failure in highly classified government signage comes to us via the wonderful failblog.org.

I wonder if it’s really real, but somehow, I think it just may very well be.

Isn’t it just wonderful?

!

On This JFK Day…

In memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on this JFK Day, here are two songs, both commemorating that fateful day, the day the world changed…

The Human League – Seconds

Destroy All Monsters – November 22nd 1963

hat tip: Tim Cridland.

On C2C tonight, Sunday November 22, 2009, conspiracy expert Kenn Thomas,  journalist Jim Marrs and TV producer John Barbour will join George Knapp to discuss their theories about the tragic day 46 years ago when the world lost JFK.

1987. Ilkley Moor. Visited?

What do you make of this picture? It is alleged to be an alien being, an EBE. Is it? I don’t know. I can say that it certainly looks like an alien being, in that it doesn’t look like anything familiar to me outside of anecdotes… and has a couple of differences even from them.

It is an enhanced crop originating from, we’re told, a scan of the original picture. The photo below, which is the full frame, is a poor copy of that image that someone has felt the need to stick the ubiquitous circle on, ever assuming that we all would never find the anomaly. I can’t find the scan of the full frame original anywhere online, but UFO Casebook has a cropped version of it, fortunately, reproduced just below our circled pic… click that one to see it full size.

An odd aspect for me is that the alleged creature seems to sport the exact same texture as the shrubbery… just something to keep in mind. Probably just the grain of the emulsion.

Below is my enhanced crop from the poor copy above. As you can see it’s not too sporty… but perhaps useful for the pattern the little fellow makes. To my eye, it seems somewhat different shapewise, but at this horrid resolution not much can be deduced from this version.

This encounter occured on December 1st, 1987 in the early morning. It happened on the decidedly spooky, according to myriad reports, Ilkley Moor, located in Yorkshire, England. The lucky person involved was a police officer at the time, a man named Philip Spencer.

He wasn’t on duty and was walking along taking photos, hoping to catch some lighting anomalies that the Moor is known for (among other things).

It was then that he spotted this being on the hillside, sharply noting that it was gesturing at him as if to say “go away” – Spencer aimed his camera and captured the now-famous shot. The thing which was now fleeing the scene, Spencer took off after it. Arriving at a spot not too far away behind an outcrop on the other side of the hill, the little dude was gone… but there before him was a rather sporty-looking saucer… which of course promptly flew away. He didn’t get a shot of it, sadly.

The investigator on the case was one Peter Hough, a respected local UFO researcher. He sent the photo for analysis to an unnamed expert in wildlife photography. A reconstruction of the original site was built, determining the alien’s height: about 4 and a half feet. Kodak Laboratories in Hemel, Hempstead then had a go. They stated that the object is a part of the photo, it’s not superimposed. Finally Dr. Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist with the United States Navy and DARPA and prominent UFOlogist personally known to this author had a look, but the film’s lack of resolution stymied efforts to render a conclusive verdict.

After further investigation, it was revealed that Philip Spencer had been abducted by this entity and had spent a good two hours in the object with several of the little guys. You can read the transcript of the regression at the UFO Casebook site. It turns out that the photo was taken after they’d borrowed him.

I’ve always been a bit bemused with the whole abduction business… and this one’s no different to me. The purpose of them seems very vague… at best… they just make no sense to me. Be that as it may, I remain open minded, as, hey, you never know.

I’m more interested in the photograph… and this one’s always fascinated me in it’s grainy, indistinct yet eerily suggestive quality.

Make of it what you will…

Sources:

www.ufocasebook.com/ilkleymoor.html

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread57218/pg1

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread517476/pg1

www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread261862/pg1

Critters. Flying Critters. Sighted!

A little while ago, there in my mailbox was the usual roundup of headlines at Phantoms and Monsters… this one though, had a flying creature report from the very gung ho guys at the Centre for Fortean Zoology!

I love flying Cryptids! One of my life goals, in fact, if you don’t know is to capture, (on film at least), both a Thunderbird and a Pterodactyl. [Please Note: The imagery in this post is suggestive or illustrative only as no images were captured during the reported sightings.] Checked it out… here’s what it said…

Flying Cryptid Reported in County Durham, UK

This was reported at CFZ:

We saw a Thing the other night. Not sure at all WHAT it was, but both myself and Gareth saw it. We were driving back from Darlington to home at about 10pm on Wednesday 7th October, and just west of Harperley roundabout on the A698 to Wolsingham, when “it” flew in front of the car.

Whatever it was, was not a bird, and was not a moth or bat. It was approx. 3 feet long, about 1ft wide at the head, tapering down to a short tail. It was white and almost see-through – like a cloud, perhaps – pear-drop shaped, and moved very fast.

It rose from a hedge (or from the ground close to the hedge), which borders the road. Then it sped across the road at about 30ft high. Not sure how fast it was going, but a few mins later we saw a tawny owl flying across the road, and the Thing was much faster than the owl.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I am not suggesting that the Thing and the owl were connected in any way. It was incidental and only serves as an indication of air-speed.

The site we saw it at was close to the POW camp, which has recently been put up for sale on ebay. There are no street lights nearby, and it is a remote area of the high north Pennines. Very few dwellings, not much human activity, other than the fairly quiet A689. There was very little wind, and it was quite dark as it was cloudy/overcast. No rain.

Ideas?

And in response to that post, a short while later a person sent this report in to Phantoms and Monsters…

I read the article you had listed entitled “Flying Cryptid in County Durham UK”. I live in the USA, and saw something very similar to what was described in the article. My sighting occurred in a rural area of Henderson, West Virginia, approximately 20 years ago (1989). I had been visiting a friend with my daughter and was on my way home in the afternoon. The day was partly sunny with clouds in the sky, but not rainy or misty. We were traveling down an incline in the car and we saw something strange go across the road (from the left side to the right side of the road). I’m not good with distances but it was probably no more than fifty feet from us. The thing described in the article was much smaller than what my daughter and I saw. I watched it disappear and asked my daughter if she had seen anything, and she confirmed that she had seen it also.

What we observed was approximately horse or cow sized and it had a white, translucent appearance, without identifiable head, tail, or appendages. It was just a big oval shaped airy “blob” that you could see through! This thing was like watching a tiny cloud or a mass of fog move on its own. It was flying or gliding quickly across the road and just disappeared on the other side of the road. It moved straight and did not weave or bobble. We only saw it for maybe 5 seconds. I had never seen anything like it before and haven’t seen another one since. I never reported it but I always remembered my sighting and was immediately struck by the similarity of what was reported in the UK.

Thanks for your website…it is extremely interesting.

Pat Queen, Ohio

It’s exciting!

And the reason it is so, to me, is because, as a Fortean and big fan of both on and off-world cryptozoology, it is my humble opinion that these two sightings are appearances of a “new” form of life that I’ve recently rekindled my interest in and have become very hot on… the Critter, or, the Plasma Lifeform.

Not really new, though,  to those immersed in such things – interest started a long time ago within the scientific community following renowned plasma physicist Dr. David Bohm’s discovery through repeated laboratory observations that plasmas, more often than not, act just like living things; and there’s always researcher Trevor James Constable’s infrared photography to peruse, wherein he managed to regularly capture these “critters” back in the late 50s, and coined the term we still use for them. But surely, this concept is not something the majority of people have ever thought about.

The idea is that there are perhaps as many species of plasma creatures as there are “regular” creatures, with the same diversity as all our known life… replete with the same diversity of intelligence endowment, too.

As Mr. Constable noted, due to their rather exotic makeup, most of the critters would normally be invisible to us; his photos, after all, were in the infrared spectrum. They’d possibly become visible during certain interactions with the environment… while passing through localized electrical fields in search of food, namely the electrons that gives plasma life, (Bohm’s original observation), maybe, or perhaps through other phenomena; perhaps light can catch some qualities of their amorphous bodies in certain situations.

Many UFOs, perhaps up to 80% of good sightings, a great deal  of the things usually deemed to be “ghosts,” aerial BVM apparitions, shadow people and indeed lots of other oddly intangible sightings may in fact be plasma critters… who are, for whatever reason, occasionally visible to us at certain places, at certain times.

Clearly the two featured sightings here were real enough, but also were clearly not animals in the sense of flesh and blood beings… nevertheless, I do feel that these two sightings represent living creatures, or rather, critters… and as living things, these fabulously different critters should not be cast by cryptozoologists into the abyss of the paranormal. What’s needed is a broadening of the playing field, to think in terms of all that’s out there; to include all living things, not just those that are like us.

That may be asking too much, I’m not sure. Critters not made of flesh and blood may be too radical a departure for biologists, who have enough on their plate already. Maybe a special branch is needed… not sure who they might be, though. I suggest a multi-disciplinary approach… after all, this is radically different from our norms. But it should be done… they are alive… they are all around us… even in space… we should know all there is to know about them.

The Critters Of Enceladus

What the heck is that? I just knew you’d ask. This JPL image is a crop I chopped from the “full-res” image number N00121336 taken by the Cassini mission to Saturn, the top right catches a bit of the moon Enceladus. The thing at center left is, as you might imagine, unidentified.

Most of you have probably seen the spectacular ring photos that were recently released showing the varying mountains of material at the ring edges. Truly fascinating. I am impressed! Thoughts came flooding in via remembrance of Dr. Norman Bergrun’s work, published long ago in his book The Ringmakers of Saturn, wherein evocative and rather spooky evidence of massive objects of very likely artificial construction was presented.

Did my usual stop at Skipper’s Mars Anomaly Research site to see if there was a new post — and there was — a nice post on the Cassini investigations at the Saturnian moon Enceladus, featuring a whole bunch of high strangeness objects of which the object here in my post is but one. This one I picked for its visual brightness and cool shape, however the others are equally strange in their own right (one looks like a big lobster claw, another a giant resistor!).

Skipper thinks all these things including our guest here are life forms. It is, believe it or not, a distinct possibility. Just as up to 80% or so of our UFOs may be critters. Plasma critters.

This has been discussed in scientific circles for many, many decades… at least six of ‘em… that plasma can and does behave much like a life form does… so much so there is very little doubt that plasma life forms not only exist but are as evolved and as diverse as our sort of life… as in microbes to people. Including intelligence. They are able to live in outer space.

By the way, the scientific discussions mentioned above — we’re talking David Bohm, Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein here… yes, it’s not the fringe, it’s the real deal.

Anyway, since I’ve no truck with any of those dudes, dudes who influenced my childhood, I have no problem in accepting and imagining the world of these creatures… and no problem with Skipper’s analysis… especially if you look at the sequences, the things do move and change shape, so hey… not much of a stretch. They sure are big, though! Jeez!

I am impressed. Very much so. There are tons of these guys around out there at Saturn… and different kinds, too! Very, very exciting. To me at least.

Now… I do have two problems with the Cassini mission, one pointed out by Skipper that I share, as will you, I bet.

Firstly, Cassini has several occasions flown way close to Enceladus, once in 2008 approaching within 16 miles of the surface! Sixteen miles! What could be wrong with that, you ask? Nothing!

The problem is that no photos have been publicly released that are any closer than 88,020 kilometers. Not one. And even those are only 512 pixels small. It twists my gut. In my opinion, that is simply criminal. In a literal sense. Our tax dollars paid for all this… and we want to see! Man, that ticks me off. Really, really, really so.

Secondly, I have a problem with the image below. Haven’t checked the others. This is the original “hi-res” (Ha!) shot with our selected guest critter in it, reduced from the 512 pixel width to the 497 that this blog theme displays.

My problem is the stars. Assuming of course that they are stars. Because if they are… then how in heck are they showing through the moon? Eh? I mean really, don’t you think that that is mighty odd? The moon seems to vanish into the ether just past halfway up; and below that doesn’t look too solid, either… I really want to know just what is up with that… that’s just weird. That’s just wrong.

I’m actually more concerned with this aspect than with the critters!

Even if these stars aren’t stars at all but are really just more critters, that’s cool, but what of the vanishing moon? This is driving me right up the wall! The cameras sure took some sporty pics of those rings, so, again… what is going on here?

And, now, something I just now stumbled across… here’s my resulting image just below.

I opened up the above shot from JPL/NASA and gave it 4 more f-stops of exposure (which is all I can give it in one shot)… and just lookee what we can see now!

A little bit more of Enceladus… which served as some small relief for the aforementioned mind-warping conundrum (is it really that dark out there? Wow!) but certainly not relief in full by any stretch of the imagination.

Lots more “stars” which I’m now thinking are just more critters… The “stars” all exhibit awful jpeg weirdies by the way which one can see just by enlarging the original, which causes our Skipper to go on about tampering and such in his report… anyway…

But look! There are at least four more of our lovely curved-V critters! Woot! They just aren’t up to glowing like our invited guest does. Wow!

Since they all have the same shape… are these camera artifacts? From the conditions out there? Reflections of the first one? Could be certainly, but it doesn’t seem likely… there are different families of critters in the day’s sequence… all the dudes in the Skipper’s report are from the same day… so… wow.

Finally, I would just like to note that it’s been more and more apparent to me over the years, more so lately simply due to more thought being devoted to it… that the farther out we go… the more the strangeness factor applies… and applies exponentially! Just weird!

!!!

Weather Report with Jaco Pastorius

Just a nice, sweet and relaxing musical interlude for you all… with one of my all-time favorite bands…

The video above is circa 1978 and has Weather Report performing Black Market and Scarlet Woman.

Weather Report was a truly remarkable jazz fusion band featuring the amazing Jaco Pastorius on the bass guitar. Jaco makes his bass produce clearly unprecedented notes; it’s simply delightful!

The video below is also from 1978 with Weather Report performing their biggest hit, Birdland, from the Stadthalle Offenbach Concert. I’m thinking the other vid’s from the same concert but I’m not sure.

And A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall…

Oh, I do think ‘ole Charlie Fort would’ve loved this… talk about odd falls! Ha! I’m lovin’ it.

This is just the sort of thing we explorers need to lock in yet another cascade of fantabulous scenarios and tantalizing thoughts… you make sure they never stop flowing forth from your mind… and remember, if you go to this place – convertibles are not recommended! Seriously, though, read the article below, ripped as it was from the Telegraph ‘ere… and just let it fly… your ganglia will thank you.

What intrigues me is this… if this astronomer’s digital flight of fancy, (for that’s really all it is, you know…), is really true, then, how exactly do the rock clouds stay aloft? Well, never mind, because I can picture it… so it’s cool. Er, hot rather. Yeah.

Brollies out!

H e l l  p l a n e t  w h e r e  r o c k  f a l l s  a s  r a i n  f o u n d

An artist’s impression of COROT-7b, where pebbles fall as rain Photo: European Southern Observatory

COROT-7b, an alien planet where a rain of pebbles falls from clouds of rock vapour into lakes of molten lava, has been found by astronomers.By Tom Chivers
Published: 1:10PM BST 01 Oct 2009

Computer models of COROT-7b, a planet orbiting an orange dwarf star in the constellation Monoceros, 490 light years away, suggest that the world has a surface temperature hot enough to boil rock.

The research, by scientists at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, conjures up a vision of hell.

COROT-7b, a rocky planet around twice the size of the Earth but of similar density, is only 1.6 million miles from its star: 23 times closer than the innermost planet in our solar system, Mercury, is to the Sun.

This proximity means that the planet is gravitationally locked, like the Moon to the Earth, so that one side of the planet always faces the star.

So while its far side is in perpetual freezing darkness – around 50 degrees above absolute zero – its near side is a balmy 2,800°C.

While scientists are not sure of the exact chemical makeup of the planet, the sheer temperatures mean that whatever it is, the rocky ground will boil, forming a mineral atmosphere.

And when cold fronts move in, small pebbles will condense and form rain and hail, just like water on Earth.

Professor Bruce Fegley, one of the team behind the research, said: “The only atmosphere this object has is produced from vapor arising from hot molten silicates in a lava lake or lava ocean.”

“As you go higher the atmosphere gets cooler and eventually you get saturated with different types of ‘rock’ the way you get saturated with water in the atmosphere of Earth.”

“But instead of a water cloud forming and then raining water droplets, you get a ‘rock cloud’ forming and it starts raining out little pebbles of different types of rock.”

Prof Fegley and his associate Laura Schaefer carried out the research using the modelling programme MAGMA. They had previously used the software to model the volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io.

COROT-7b was discovered by the European Space Agency space telescope COROT in February, but the Washington University researchers were the first to model its atmosphere.

Luna. 1969. Moltke. Roads. Triangular Roads.

Spotted by easynow at ATS, this new videoclip by LunaCognita is pretty wonderful.

Okay… first, though… stare awhile at and contemplate the above image. It’s an image of the ”crater” called Moltke, from the Navy space program, i.e. the real one, (Shhh!!!) from the Clementine craft, specifically. Not one of the high-res ones, but hey, it serves the purpose for here I think. Yes, it is blue. Yes, that’s the right color. Glowing, even. Pretty flat. With at least three buildings.

And… roads!

Roads?! Whaddaya mean, roads? Says who? Some nutjob tinfoil blogger dork?

Nope.

Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot Mike Collins. Note that the roads are described as being triangular. Triangular? Triangular? Yeah. That’s what he said… Triangular roads.

I’m still attempting to visualize just what, exactly, that characterization means… all the scenes I’m coming up with are pretty rad, but I just know that ‘paling in comparison’ to what these dudes clapped eyes on is the ultimate understatement.

It would, of course, be most helpful – to everyone – if the Powers That Be would simply let Mike Collins tell us what he saw, but as will become tragically clear to you from watching the video, that just ‘ain’t gonna happen’ in our lifetime… unless we… well… I’ll leave that to your imagination.

I’m hoping part 2 comes along soonest. :)

Okay… After you watch the video and are suitably filled with that sense of Whoa!, scroll back up and gaze into the depths of the picture of Moltke “crater” again.

Edit-add: You can download the audio clips for the mission. This particular one is here and the comments in question are about 2/3 of the way in.

In this examination into NASA’s “black box” transcripts, we will look at just a few of the many interesting and revealing comments made by the astronauts throughout the Apollo program that were captured by the CSM’s DSE system, as well as touch on some of the scripting protocols employed during the various TV broadcasts made from the CSM during the journey to and from the Moon and while in lunar orbit. Contrary to what many think, those TV broadcasts were in fact elegantly scripted affairs, designed to rigidly control the amount of data that we, the general public, would have available to analyze. Because of this, the DSE and DSEA internal crew conversation transcripts can provide us, in the astronauts own words, an unscripted and less-guarded insight into some of the incredible things they really witnessed during their journey to and from the Moon.

During the Apollo lunar landing program, NASA made use of two primary flight telemetry/voice recording systems aboard their spacecraft. One of these systems was inside the Command/Service Module, and the other was mounted within the Lunar Module. These two systems were known as the DSE (aboard the CSM) and the DSEA (aboard the LM). The “Data Storage Equipment” systems essentially served as Black Box cockpit voice recorders, designed to tape some of the internal conversations between the astronauts while they were out of radio contact with Mission Control in Houston. After contact was re-established during the flight, Mission Control could then dump (downlink) the recorded data from the CSM to Earth, where it would be analyzed.

Unfortunately, NASA today claims that the original DSE Black Box tapes from the Apollo missions are missing and are presumed lost. However, these DSE recordings were transcribed shortly after the contents of the tapes were originally dumped from the CSM to the Earth, and several years after the Apollo program ended, these transcripts finally were declassified and then released to the NASA archives.

In coming segments, we will examine many more impressive statements made by the NASA astronauts that were captured by the various cockpit voice recording systems utilized during not only the Apollo program, but during the earlier Gemini Earth-orbital flights as well. There is much more to come!

Cheers,
LunaCognita

All the transcript pages shown in this presentation are official source documents, the online versions of which can be accessed @
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/missi…

Enjoy. Oh, hey, this is the 100th post. Cool.