The Strange Case of STS-48
by David Mayo
It was 1:43am Saturday morning, June 6, 1992. My wife had
retired for the evening and I was flipping through the cable
channels as men are compelled to do. Just by chance (or
providence), I landed on KHTV (Ch 39 locally) where the
program "HardCopy" was airing. The host was stating
"...amazing videotape taken by a space shuttle astronaut,
astounding evidence of UFOs!" Well, For over a year and a
half I have been compiling UFO-related television segments
from various programs. I jumped up and shoved my latest
tape in the VCR and hit record. What followed was
intriguing to say the least. Don Ecker, staffer to UFO
Magazine, had obtained footage filmed from a recent shuttle
mission and had brought it to "HardCopy." The footage
showed a dark Earth positioned in the lower two-thirds of
the screen. Banded around its middle, the lights of a major
city sparkled. The Earth's curvature ran from right mid-
frame to upper left corner. Above this, dark space was
punctuated by a few stars. A small bright object suddenly
appeared midway down the visible edge and traveled right to
left at a fast rate following the curvature. There was a
brief flash of light that bloomed from the upper left corner
and the object made a sudden sharp right hand turn, picked
up velocity and sped off into the darkness of space! A
split second after this unusual turn, another object
streaked upwards from lower in the frame and whizzed past
the approximate point where the first object would have been
had it not made the right hand turn.Don Ecker expounded that
this was an alien spacecraft making an evasive maneuver just
before something is shot at it.
Mr. Ecker's opinion not withstanding, NASA's official
explanation was that it was ice crystals formed from waste
water. "HardCopy's" stance was that this piece of film was
either the UFO smoking gun or space debris. I found the
entire footage to be something unique and possibly
important. Still, this was "HardCopy" after all, not "60
Minutes" and with most news events the truth follows some
time later.The next day I called a few people I knew to
inquire whether they had seen it.Vince Johnson and Bill
Eatwell had not.
However, later, Bill called me back with a mysterious
message. He said that after speaking of this program to
some of his friends, an unnamed caller instructed him to
contact me and ask that I refrain from speaking about the
footage any further and, in particular, not publish anything
about this in HUFON REPORT. If I agreed and showed good
faith, I would receive more information about the event. At
first,this rubbed me wrong. I could understand that if the
footage was a "smoking gun" and if an investigation was
underway, the need for secrecy may be justified. What I
couldn't accept was hearing all this third hand. If I am
asked to spike a story, I want to know who is doing the
asking. Instead, I was mollified by the promise of straight
answers to any 10 questions I wished to ask about the
HardCopy footage. My curiosity, at this point, had grown
exponentially. Being the beggar and unable to choose, I
agreed.
On June 8, I faxed the 10 questions I had compiled to Bill.
He, in turn, faxed them to a neutral fax location (number)
he was given. The questions were as follows:
1) What is the entire scenario of what I witnessed
(i.e., what was transpiring)?
2) Which shuttle mission did this occur on?
3) If the object is an alien spacecraft, what was its
size, speed and distance from the camera?
4) Was this object taking evasive action to avoid
some sort of weaponry?
5) On the footage I saw, there was a brief flash that
brightened the entire frame just before
the object made the right angle turn. What caused this
flash?
6) Could this be or have some relationship with SDI
testing?
7) What is the position or opinion of the astronauts
who filmed the object?
8) How did "HardCopy" or Don Ecker obtain this
footage?
9) Does the extent of this investigation include
congressional interest? In other words, give me some idea
of what level of personnel is working on this.
10) When can the public or I expect this investigation
to conclude?
With the exception of number 3 (an obviously loaded
question), it seemed like a good list.
On June 10th, I was at work when I received a call from
Bill. He says that the person involved with the
investigation would be faxing me the answers within the next
hour. The answers arrived on schedule. The answer sheet
began with a few paragraphs stating the need for secrecy,
the rules I must follow and the request that I not get
paranoid. It stated that the "HardCopy" footage was of
"Event #2", taken during STS-48. Further, it was NASA's
opinion that the flash was from an attitude thruster firing.
Lastly, The sheet stated that three major government offices
were involved and that an official congressional inquiry had
occurred.That was it. Bill Eatwell's involvement ceased at
this point at the insistence of the unnamed source. I was
also enjoined to not reveal any of this to anyone, including
Bill.So here I was, involved in an honest-to-God high level
investigation. Yet, all I could do was sit and wait. Just
days from this, we would be publishing the June HUFON
REPORT. Though anxious to tell someone, anyone of this, I
held my peace and reported nothing in the newsletter. A
little over two weeks later, another event changed the
course of my involvement.
What with the presidential race developing into a three way
free-for-all, I had been checking out "Larry King Live" on
CNN each night. On June 26 at 8:32pm (30 minutes into his
show), I suddenly remembered Larry King and switched to it.
Astonishingly enough, he was introducing Don Ecker in LA.
and James Oberg (ostensibly representing NASA) in Houston.
The topic? You guessed it. I jumped up (I'm getting good
at this) and shoved a tape in. What followed was a head to
head confrontation between Don, doing his best impression of
a UFO investigator, incensed at the government cover-up that
Oberg was there to perpetrate and James, doing his best to
appear as an interested "space nut" while touting the NASA
line. Between the personal attacks on each other (that
Larry King appeared powerless to control), some facts were
revealed that jibed with the information I had received.
This, at least, verified that I was dealing with a serious
investigator.
One of the calls taken that night by Larry King was from
Vincent DiPietro from Sykesville, MD. He apparently had
digitally enhanced some of the Event #2 footage revealing a
possible domed object. Mr. Ecker knew of this and, by
inference, admitted he knew Mr. DiPietro. Still, Mr.
DiPietro's opinion followed the NASA party line; that the
object was an ice crystal that moved suddenly due to a
shuttle attitude thruster firing. His opinion is noteworthy
due to his name showing up in a very prominent manner later.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. More on Vincent DiPietro
later.
Although I was told not to, I called Bill once more and
informed him that while I was keeping my mouth shut, the
story was showing up on nationally broadcast programs.
Enough was enough. I had shown good faith. The secrecy was
becoming an irritant, if for no other reason than my friend
and UFO confidant (not to mention co-editor of HUFON REPORT,
Vince Johnson, deserved to know about this story. Now I
wanted to talk to someone. After this call, I wondered if I
would hear from anyone again. I didn't have to wait long.
On Saturday, June 27th, Bill called me with a very brief
message. The source of my information would be calling me
in 15 minutes. Well, finally. Moments later, the phone
rang. To my surprise, it was Ron Madeley, a past president
of HUFON. He explained that he was giving me exclusive
information, unavailable to any other publication. He
stated that his belief in my seriousness to the study of
UFOs and his opinion that HUFON REPORT had become the best
UFO newsletter around helped him pick me. I'm not above
praise so I thanked him, then insisted that I be shown
something to convince me. Exactly, what was going on? Why
"Event 2"? Were there other events? He agreed to visit me
and bring the visual evidence of more than I was
aware of. This story was about to become something much
bigger, involving Congressional evasion, implausible
deniability, and a flock of scientists, astronauts and
physicists.
A few days later, Ron arrived at my house, bearing a
briefcase. We sat on the sofa as he discussed some of the
background of this particular shuttle flight. STS-48 was a
September '91 launch of the space shuttle Discovery. It
carried several scientific experiments including radiation
monitoring, zero gravity crystal growth, polymer growth and
rodent physiology. Cargo payloads included the UARS (Upper
Atmospheric Research Satellite) and the APM-03 (Atmospheric
Particle Monitor-3). There were five crew members: John
Creighton, Commander; Kenneth Reightler, Jr. Pilot; Charles
D. Gemar, Mission Specialist 1; James F. Buchli, Mission
Specialist 2; and Mark N. Brown, Mission Specialist 3.
Although this was not a DoD mission, all crew members were
active duty military personnel. Ron mentioned a few other
tidbits about congressional involvement but did not
elaborate any further. The time had come to show and tell.
He handed me a video tape. He explained he was going to
show me Event #2 as it should be seen, not the multi-
generational degraded footage shown on "HardCopy".
He was not exaggerating. This footage was not only
extremely sharp and clear, but it was evident that the
"HardCopy" footage had been an apertured-down version
restricting the field of view. This time It was evident
that the object did not suddenly appear, rather it had
appeared when its course brought it from behind the Earth's
rim, revealing itself against the dark Earth below. There
were other anomalous objects in the frame. Some were moving
in a similar direction but slower, while others appeared to
be slowly converging on the first object. Ron explained
that the real curiosity was the NASA explanation. During
the course of all shuttle flights there is a long schedule
of events. Everything from course corrections, rotating the
shuttle due to the sun's heat and waste water ejection are
performed according to schedule. NASA had stated that the
brief flare was the firing of an attitude adjustment jet,
required just prior to the waste water ejection procedure.
Further, they explained that the object seen to make a right
hand turn was merely a small ice crystal reacting to the
thruster fire. The problem with this is that, based on
actual NASA audio logs of the mission, an attitude
adjustment and subsequent waste water ejection procedure
occurred just after Event 2! The NASA explanation was
patently wrong.
In the days that followed, Ron began to relate the details
of the on-going investigation that these anomalous events
had created. The number of players was enormous and as I
was inundated by the names, dates, and activities, I finally
admitted to Ron that he must allow me to bring another
person in on this. I requested that Vince Johnson be
included. He agreed. After the initial couple of meetings
I had with Mr. Madeley, The three of us finally gathered at
my home to view all the footage and to receive some further
information for the inevitable writing of this article. We
first viewed Event 2, bringing Vince up to date.
As amazing as this footage was, we were not prepared for the
next bit of tape he showed us. As I loaded another tape he
gave me into the machine, Ron explained that there were a
total of six events recorded during the STS-48 mission. He
hit the play button and showed us an amazing Event #3. This
piece of footage is hard to describe due to the overwhelming
activity present during the several seconds. The view was
of the Earth in daylight. Clouds obscured much of the
unidentified land mass below. As we watched, a small object
streaked across the bottom of the frame right to left.
Then, another, from left to right. A larger, bright object
entered from upper left frame and traveled to the lower
right. It appeared elongated, then slowed and became
rounder, then exited the picture. Still another object,
even brighter, entered from the lower left corner and
traveled diagonally toward the upper right hand corner.
Approximately midway, a smaller object streaked from the
right and appeared to either intersect or pass above or
below the brighter object. The bright object continued out
of frame. Immediately following this, all hell seemed to
break loose as multiple objects of varying brightness
streaked through the field of ections; left to right, right
to left, upper to lower; incredible activity everywhere! If
all the anomalies had been traveling in the same direction a
case could have been made that we were witnessing
meteorites, but this was no meteor shower.
The last anomalous event within this Event #3 was perhaps
the strangest, and of the shortest duration. In the upper
left hand corner of the frame a very unusual object appeared
for a brief moment before the view was switched to another
shuttle camera. This object looked all the world like a
domed object moving left to right! When viewed several
times in a row, this impression was strengthened. This
object could not be explained easily. Following this, we
were shown Events #6, #4 and #1. These events, although
significant, were minor compared to #2 and #3.
On November 11, 1991, Vincent DiPietro, an employee of GSFC
(Goddard Space Flight Center), issued a report to the Fund
for UFO Research detailing his own investigation into the
first four events of STS-48. It is interesting to note that
Mr. DiPietro's report, written long before the Larry King
show, shows a distinct pro-UFO stance contrasting greatly
with his opinion offered to Larry King. During his
inquiries he spoke to several scientists, astronauts and
other ranking individuals. He asked each to describe the
four events. Those claiming that the objects were ice were:
Dr. Paul Lowman, Lunar Geologist Scientist at GSFC, Dr.
Terry Dawson, Space Science and Technology Committee, Dr.
Ken Rightler, STS-48 Astronaut, and Dr. Mark Brown, STS-48
Astronaut. Dr. Ron Parise, Astronaut at GSFC, claimed that
the objects were meteors (even though he refused to view the
tape). Don Haxton, Astronomer for the Space Telescope,
claimed that the objects were not meteors. At the time of
Mr. DiPietro's report, the NASA Public Affairs
Administrators at GSFC had not responded to his inquiries,
nor had Dr. Bogges, Chief Scientist for the Space Telescope
project at GSFC. Among the various explanations given to
explain the anomalous events were: the rockets on the side
of STS-48 could have produced a blast of gas which could
have deflected the objects, causing the unusual right-hand
turn, and that STS-48 was just coming into the daylight and
the objects (that seemed to appear out of thin air) could
have been there all along, but might have been illuminated
by sunlight when Event #2 started. Based on his
investigation, Vincent DiPietro could come to no firm
conclusions concerning the strange events of STS-48.
All of this evidence suggests some very odd activity during
this shuttle mission. Mr. Madeley's own investigation has
lasted more than five months. Several experts, in a variety
of fields, have agreed to make their opinions available to
him in exchange for being allowed to remain anonymous. The
following article provides a more detailed look at Events 1,
2, 3, 4 and 6.
Mr. Madeley graciously provided much of the details for
Event 2. The details of the other events are either written
from memory (we weren't allowed our own copy of the footage)
or are taken from Mr. DiPietro's own investigation. We will
be bringing you further information on this emerging story
as it becomes available.
During his investigation, Ron was showing the Event 3
footage over and over to an engineer working at the NASA
Johnson Space Center. Ron asked what he thought it all was.
The engineer replied, "I keep watching different things
everytime you play it. Like I told you before; I
thought I was watching a Star Wars movie or something from
Hollywood!" And, in the words of one scientist working at
the Sandia National Laboratories, "You have something quite
important there."
Copyright 1992 by Houston UFO Network / David Mayo
End of File
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