Black Knight, ancient satellite ?

[Eric Mc]

Westy Pre-Lit said:

Thanks Eric, so it stands to reason that this thing must be cataloged some where then as it looks a fair lump.

I am sure that, if it is there, it has been logged and is watched carefully.

It is impossible to "hide" something in earth orbit.

[dnb]

"Sophisticated" is stretching the definition a bit when it comes to US radars

[chunkol]

Eric Mc said:

Westy Pre-Lit said:

Thanks Eric, so it stands to reason that this thing must be cataloged some where then as it looks a fair lump.

I am sure that, if it is there, it has been logged and is watched carefully.

It is impossible to "hide" something in earth orbit.

Rubbish, I've been hiding stuff up there for ages,

Regards, Superman IV.

[Eric Mc]

dnb said:

"Sophisticated" is stretching the definition a bit when it comes to US radars

It does the job.

[hidetheelephants]

Eric Mc said:

There really was a Black Knight. And, what's more, it was British -

Indeed, that's exactly what I thought of when I saw the thread title, good old Prospero and the last dying gasp of the British space programme!

Eric Mc said:

There are over 11,000 pieces of "space junk" orbiting the earth - ranging from dead satellites, discarded upper rocket stages, payload shouds, space suit gloves, a tool box, a Hasselblad camera, nuts, bolts, washers, bits of wire, flakes of paint etc etc.

It depends what criteria you use, but a letter responding to a article in Professional Engineering about hairbrained anti-MMGW geo-engineering commented that with over a million objects whizzing around the earth causing the problems they do, putting 16-odd billion CD sized mirrors into low earth orbit was madness of the first water.

[jmorgan]

Westy Pre-Lit said:

From what ? Show me the money.

I showed you a probable in one of the links.

[jmorgan]

Westy Pre-Lit said:

jmorgan said:

Detected by infallible radar?

You and your dodgy radars....pack it in

Not dodgy. The fly in the ointment is the human that built it and operates it. It does what it was built to do and sometimes you get false returns, ghosts if you want. They happen of a few things and this is well known, at least to some. There is a section that think it is incontrovertible, they do not understand the limitations.

[Westy Pre-Lit]

IforB said:

It's a hoax. A load of old rollocks.

Supposedly any old ham radio operator can detect it? Yeah right.

Many of the links I'm finding from other sites are broken which is rather frustrating tbh. But I believe it has something to do with radio return echo's.

Also it was also reported in the press in 1954, although I'm having problems finding the press release atm due to broken links again grrrrrr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_LaPaz

Here's an extract from the Wiki.


n August 1954, a story broke in the press that Tombaugh and LaPaz, working on behalf of the Army, had found two "natural" satellites only 400 and 600 miles out that had recently come into orbit. LaPaz at first vehemently denied that he was involved in any way, and later denied that anything had been found, as did Tombaugh (see Clyde Tombaugh for details). However, the fact that Tombaugh was indeed engaged in such a search was already public knowledge from previous press releases, as was LaPaz's knowledge of the search from discussions with Tombaugh, even if he wasn't directly involved. (see newspaper photo at right, where LaPaz was shown discussing the search with Tombaugh)


Was able to find this though that gives a time line.

http://goespoes.gsfc.nasa.gov/poes/timeline_1.html

[jmorgan]

Well that shoots down part of the claim. I was not sure when the first polar orbit went up but it would certainly have been on the books as doable.

[Westy Pre-Lit]

In 1954 ? These things where reported as early as 1927 IIRC.

[jmorgan]

It early, coffee not sunk in yet.

Edit. Your first post mentions 1960. Thought I was not dreaming.

[Westy Pre-Lit]

Tell me about it, I've got to go and do a callout now.

[Eric Mc]

jmorgan said:

It early, coffee not sunk in yet.

Edit. Your first post mentions 1960. Thought I was not dreaming.

The first polar orbit spy satellites (the Corona programme) were launched from around 1960.

Up until the advent of the Titan III and the Saturn family, the US had limited lifting power from their rockets so all the satellites they launched up until around 1964 were fairly small. Saturns were never used for military purposes which just leaves the Titan III as the only military rocket capable of lifting larger satellites. The first Titan III flew in 1966 from what I remember.

[jmorgan]

I know the orbit required is not straight forward as the the others, even the ISS is not a straight forward target but its the way the article is written. It is presented as a whole involved story with only one outcome that the writer would have you accept. No matter the date of the first polar launch I am sure that both sides were aware that such was possible.

How about instead of
"In February 1960 the US detected an unknown object in polar orbit, a feat that neither they or the USSR had been able to accomplish. As if that wasn't enough, it apparently was several sizes larger than anything either country would have been able to get off the ground.

And then, the oddness began. HAM operators began to receive strange coded messages. One person in particular said he managed to decode one of the transmissions, and it corresponded to a star chart. A star chart which would have been plotted from earth 13,000 years ago, and focused on the Epsilon Bostes star system."


You get

"In February 1960 the US detected an unknown object in Polar orbit. This was detected using the humdinger radar at so and so frequency and x watts power. It appeared to a certain size but we are unable to verify it. It may have been a glitch."

Then
"HAM operators claimed things but we are unable to verify anything they claimed as they have provided no evidence"

[Westy Pre-Lit]

jmorgan said:

"In February 1960 the US detected an unknown object in Polar orbit. This was detected using the humdinger radar at so and so frequency and x watts power. It appeared to a certain size but we are unable to verify it. It may have been a glitch."

Would a 'glitch' repeat every so many hours at the same rate of frequency ?

I have seen it and will try to find the link later that states the frequency rate.

[Eric Mc]

Is this thing still in orbit now?

What are its orbital details -

altitude?

inclination?

It is extremely unlikely that an object that was at a similar height to a space shuttle in the 1990s/2000s could still be in orbit over 40 years after it was first spotted from the ground.

[jmorgan]

Westy Pre-Lit said:

jmorgan said:

"In February 1960 the US detected an unknown object in Polar orbit. This was detected using the humdinger radar at so and so frequency and x watts power. It appeared to a certain size but we are unable to verify it. It may have been a glitch."

Would a 'glitch' repeat every so many hours at the same rate of frequency ?

I have seen it and will try to find the link later that states the frequency rate.

Depends what causes it from what I can gather. If the commentary was written with more information then you would not have had a problem finding it, might I suggest that the land of woo likes to write thus? Make it sound like there is something being deliberately hidden or there is no other cause except something strange.... The devil is in the detail, and the detail here is missing. I would say deliberately vague.

[Westy Pre-Lit]

Eric Mc said:

Is this thing still in orbit now?

What are its orbital details -

altitude?

inclination?

No idea tbh if it's still there, only really took an interest in it the other day.

The links of the NASA pictures I posted earlier gives the most information on on that sort of stuff that I have seen. Your a better man than me working out what that lot means, if it is of any use.

[Westy Pre-Lit]

Here is some more SPACE DEBRIS, whatever SPACE DEBRIS is meant to be.

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/scripts/SSEOP/sseop.pl?out...

[Eric Mc]

Westy Pre-Lit said:

No idea tbh if it's still there, only really took an interest in it the other day.

The links of the NASA pictures I posted earlier gives the most information on on that sort of stuff that I have seen. Your a better man than me working out what that lot means, if it is of any use.

What year does the photo shown at the top of this thread date from? It is allegedly supposed to have been from a space shuttle - which means that it cannot date from pre 12 April 1981. That means we are talking about an object that had been in space from 1960 to 1981 as the shortest period possible. I am sure that picture is at least ten years later than 1981 so we are looking at a low earth orbiting object with a life of over 30 years. Not really possible.