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MSGID: 348.fidonet_ufo@1:3634/60 2d91742a
PID: Synchronet 3.19b-Win32 master/a2a9dc027 Jan  2 2022 MSC 1928
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SUBJECT: WGA CIRCLES THREAD EXPANDS TO COMPUSERVE            FILE: UFO1208

PART 2


#: 182317 S10/Paranormal Issues
    22-Oct-91  05:28:22
Sb: CIRCLE.TXT
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: All

The CompuServe thread which followed the Sept. 22 upload of
CIRCLE.TXT to ISSUES/PARANORMAL Lib. 10, can be found in
SPACE or ASTRONOMY Libs. 17 under the title CIRCIS.TXT.
Most of the thread took off over there, and anybody who
wants to pick it up will find it current as of Oct. 19.  It
is text-with-line-breaks, right margin adjusted for ease of
use of file viewing utilities, and loading by
wordprocessors.

Bob


#: [PRIVATE] S7/Extraterrestrials?
    23-Oct-91  --------
Sb: CIRCLES.txt
Fm: -------------------------
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445

I think Hubble's orbit is only about 380 miles or so, way
below geosynchronous
orbit.

------------------




#: ------ S0/Outbox File
    23-Oct-91  19:58:00
Sb: CIRCLES.txt
Fm: SPACEFOR REP -----
To: [PRIVATE]----------------

Thanks for responding, ----.  I can't tell from the header
if your reference to the Hubble orbit includes reference
from CIRCIS.TXT, the CIS thread that followed CIRCLE.TXT.
(Lib. 17, ASTRO or SPACE.)

It was offered here that the orbit was 600 Km., 97 minute
period.  Your figured may be more correct.  The group of
interested writers who got involved in the thread uploaded
in CIRCLE.TXT were given a tour at JPL, wheere we understood
that the original hope was for the 25,000 mile GEO orbit,
and to link the Hubble in space, before deployment, with a
second Shuttle payload containing a nuclear powerpack and
auxiliary thruster system.  This would have made possible
retrievability from GEO orbit by means of controllable
decaying orbit.  670 Km was designated as the highest
possible parking orbit at which it could be recovered,
serviced and fueled in space, then redeployed on the same
mission.  We were even showed a mockup of the "spectacles"
with which the mirror abberations were to be corrected.

If the 380 mi (440 Km?) is the present case, it could have
done to enable more energetic efforts to do debuggings from
here while we wait til '93, the scheduled repair mission.
When the thread (as in CIRCIS.TXT) moved to S3/Shuttle
Observation? (where the 670 Km altitude was offered us), and
further discussion held on that premise) there were also
offered some good reasons that the Hubble would not have
been meant to to operate at such low orbits.

/SPLIT

SP7

#: --------- S7/Extraterrestrials?
    ---------  --------
Sb: -------CIRCLES.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445

[Continued]

If the Hubble were meant to operate at even 600 mi., it
would be close enough to the highest penetration of the
ionosphere to make radio-telescopy unreliable at best.  The
97 minute period would also require a much larger propulsion
and power reserve given the short exposure to a number of
essential guide stars.  Likewise, target position fixing
becomes more precise at longer periods of orbit.  One of the
early conjectural problems voiced in the original Hubble
proposals included the difficulty of obtaining enough
portion of the (then) 68,000 lb. Shuttle payload weight with
enough maneuvering system to give a long shelf life.  When
the mission rules after Challenger were reduced to 48,000
lbs. this became a major problem.

You're correct in pointing out that a factual mistatement
exists about the Hubble actually being in GEO orbit.  This
was followed up in CIRCIS.TXT, here on CIS, and we were
happy for it.  We want to get the numbers right.

If you didn't see the messages involved, that scenarion that
suggested, and went from "no way" to "now that you mention
it, why not", and was noted out how easy it would be to
nudge a GEO satellite downward to initiate a slow,
controlled orbital decay.

Payload-linking and orbital redeployment were on the list of
Shuttle exercises before the Challenger disaster.  I'll see
if I can find out exactly where Hubble is, at the moment.
Thanks for drawing my attention to your sense of it.

Bob



#: 92897 S3/Satellite Observing
    25-Oct-91  07:37:41
Sb: #92707-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Bert/Janet Stevens 73357,1572
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445

Robert,

   I am familiar with many of the things you mention.
However, I think my comments still stand.

   In the lunar retrreflector project, the beamwidth at
lunar distance was not a couple yards as you seem to think
but a couple miles. (See Sky & Telescope, Feb. 1972, p. 88).
This particular beam included the focusing effects of a 60-
inch reflecting telescope.  I find it hard to beleive they
hoisted a 1000-inch-plus telescope to geosynch orbit.

   In addition, from geosynch orbit you could not aim the
beam with any accuracy.  To be able to hit a target within a
200-foot circel, your aiming acuraccy would have to be
better than 0.2-second of arc (about 0.000046 degree).  This
is impossible to achieve with ground-based telescopes, let
alone one that is wobbling around in geosync orbit.  This is
why "spy" sattelites are in low Earth orbit rather than
geosynch orbits.  They can get a much better look at the
surface.

   Please note I am not (yet) arguing with the thesis, just
the geosynch delivery system.  A satellite left in low Earth
orbit by the Shuttle make a lot more sense.

                                        - Bert



#: 92911 S3/Satellite Observing
    25-Oct-91  21:53:35
Sb: #92897-#CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Bert/Janet Stevens 73357,1572

Bert, I'm pleased that we've reached a point where what is
(yet) being discussed is not the main thesis, but the
specifics of the delivery platform itself.  Re the lunar
reflectors - yes, there were finely modeled parabolic
reflectors at both ends of the experiments - which were
conducted in the '70's. The beamwidth at lunar distance *and
back*, a total of 476,000 miles, 19 times the 25,000 mile
distance a collimated beam would have to travel from a GEO
satellite, was a couple of miles.

So for the sake of discussion, let's adjust the distance a
bit, and add almost twenty years of R & D. some of which was
at the Hughes laser-dedicated research facility at Malibu,
about a half hour from my home near Santa Monica. My father
was a senior scientist at Hughes Aerospace in El Segundo,
first on the Surveyor Project, then Voyager.  He never
breached security with me, but I had a sense of some of the
new stuff coming down the pipe.  (He passed away in 1981.
He would have loved the crop formations),

If your hypothetical ground-based telescope had the benefit
of the newer, relatively high temperature superconducting
elecromagnetic collimation devices now routinely in use -
particularly in high energy maser emission - the problems of
focus, not to mention the relative mechanical stability of a
space-borne platform - become academic, because if I knew
how far such research had come, especially given the ambient
conditions of temperature in space, it would be at the
highest levels of classification and needto-know, as were so
many of the Shuttle flights, starting around the same time
the crop circles began to appear.  Here we can only
brainstorm.

About stability, and spy satellite;

[More]


There is 1 Reply.

#: 92912 S3/Satellite Observing
    25-Oct-91  21:53:50
Sb: #92911-#CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445 (X)

[Continued]

A gyro-stabilized GEO satellite, will indeed precess, or
wobble.  As a pilot I know the need to constantly correct a
gyro compass against a magnetic one to compensate this.  It
takes a lot less hardware and fuel expenditure to briefly
stabilize a GEO-satellite on a ground point than it would to
line up a spy satellite with a point on the earth, then
rotate the emission/detection device to "pan" below over a
point over which the satellite is traveling at high speed.
Further, the risk of malfunction in a non-stationary system
would be unacceptable.  The GEO's are more stable than you
might think.  Ships and aircraft get position fixing to the
second of arc from them.

If you also consider the operations of radio astronomy or
simply holding on a spot on a Uranian moon, using guide
stars over the distances involved in such missions,
satellites can and may already be able to use a laser'ed hot
spot on the earth as a psuedo guide star for relatively
short term super-accurate stabilization. There is another
interesting factor - the presence in the Wiltshire area
(Horstmanceaux castle), with a strange recent history, near
or at which is the Royal Greenwich Observatory facility for
doing (at least) two things. One is the refinement of
orbital device tracking - another is precise measurement of
the rotation of the earth.

Since CEO orbit is defined as one where orbital velocity
exactly matches the speed of the rotation of the earth
beneath it, this seems convenient. The only indication of
drift by the source, in the circles themselves, is that many
are very slightly elliptical.

There is another argument against non-GEO emitters...

[More]


There is 1 Reply.

#: 92913 S3/Satellite Observing
    25-Oct-91  21:54:03
Sb: #92912-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445 (X)

[Continued]

A non-stationary spy satellite have a couple of problems in
common.  The telescope has to deal first with the thickest
part of the atmosphere, then the rest, and by the time a
resolved image is procured a lot of diffraction and
refraction has occured.  Especially at oblique angles, since
off the vertical, the amount of atmosphere to penetrate
increases.  Flying directly over an airport on a smoggy day,
it looks very clear.  But when approaching at an angle for
landing, one enters the smog layer and is looking into it
edgewise, and visibility can drop from 50 miles to 1/4 mile
in an instant. That's why a lot of L.A. pilots have
instrument ratings.

A non stationary spy sattelite faces not only the same
difficulties (and, by the way, many of the pictures you see
are extracted from much larger ones.  It isn't always in the
center of the pass), but even overhead the total path
through atmosphere is probably at least 20 or more % of its
altitude.  From 25000 miles, given the extremely sharply
collimated and amplified emissions it figures are now
possible - relative atmospheric effects are far less.

Finally, given the quantity and frequency of the crop
events, I can't imagine a spy satellite's overflight not
being correlated to the on-site realities.  A GEO, on the
other hand, can be damned hard to find if you don't know
where to look, or at least when and where it was deployed.
You won't learn either from the preflight manual of a secret
Shuttle mission.

And please note, I appreciate the "devil's advocacy."  The
truth might be somewhere between us.

Bob


#: 92922 S3/Satellite Observing
    26-Oct-91  07:20:08
Sb: #92913-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Frank Hentschel 75126,72
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445

  Actually, the Global Positioning System (NavStar)
satellites are not in geosync orbits. The orbits are
approximately 20,000 km with a 718 minute period. Position
is derived from time delay measurements from 3 or more
satellites. The receivers periodically download an ephmeris
from the satellites to update orbital elements.

  Also, as an author and user of satellite tracking
software, I can say that, from a computational viewpoint,
finding a geosync satellite is an order of magnitude easier
than a low earth orbiting one.

     cheers -fjh


#: 92945 S3/Satellite Observing
    26-Oct-91  21:35:19
Sb: #92922-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Frank Hentschel 75126,72

Thanks for the information about the NavStar orbits, Frank.
I knew they used three for position fixing, but hadn't
realized they operated at that much velocity. The
downloading of an ephemeris to update orbital elements is
remarkable, no matter how jaded one gets. (All those hours
with a Weems plotter, fine print in red light, and a sextant
bubble that refused to fit the little bullseye pocket, loran
that could only doodle...)

When you refer to the relative ease of finding a low earth
orbiting satellite compared to a GEO, do you mean that with
radar alone, without seeds such as deployment data?

Would this also be true if the the time, place and altitude
at which the object deployed were unknown, (in the case of
the GEO) and it emitted no radio frequency energy in any
mode other than a very narrow beam to/from another
satellite?  Can a GEO be (easily) found with radar alone?

I appreciate the specifics Frank, and the following isn't
meant to be evasive. Presuming, as my side of the thread
does, that the events under discussion are part of an
international co-venture, probably including the British,
and the classification level would be pretty high; is it
within the capability of equipment available to amateurs to
locate a non-emmitting GEO satellite from within a 100 mile
circle of its Clarke station?  Especially if it were
designed to have very low optical (and other) reflectivity?

Your on-the-job expertise is very appreciated.  My apologies
if any of the questions push the limits of prudence,
security-wise.  But, some amateurs might want to take "a
look," if it's possible.

Bob


#: 92995 S3/Satellite Observing
    27-Oct-91  20:37:44
Sb: #92913-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Bert/Janet Stevens 73357,1572
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445

Bob,

  I feel like I'm slogging through mud on this one.  I do
not work for the gov't, and have no idea what they are doing
in the "secret labs".  Since most of your arguments come
back to "recent advances in secret research" only available
to those with a "need to know", how can I argue against
anything?

  Perhaps they have put a secret automated base on the Moon.
Have you checked the circles to see if their correlation
matches the Moon being in the sky?  How about Mars, Venus,
or Mercury?  See my problem, you can always hypothesize a
pointing/trageting accuracy available in the secret labs
with some exotic beam-collimation technique to move back as
far as you want.

   My comments about the laser beam are trying to say that
the spread is *NOT* due to the poor '60's technology, but
due to the natural laws of physics regarding light.  Unless
some active role is taken en-route, the beam WILL spread no
matter how it is generated.

   I cannot think of anyway to overcome the "secret lab"
problem.  It reminds me of the UFO arguments I had in the
sixty's.  When asked for proof that UFO (read extraterestial
visitors) exist, they would always say that there was a
secret government conspiricy to hide the data.  The good
data was hidden (at Wright-Patterson AFB as I remember), or
was ridiculed and made to look phoney. Hence, you could
never argue with them since, according to them, the proof is
right there: just get the government to release it and we
will all be beleivers.

    Unfortunately, I think I may have to put this one into
the "yes-maybe-but it doesn't matter until it's proved".  My
favorite line was "UFO's may or may not exist, but I am not
going to worry about it until a large metal saucer lands in
Grant Park (downtown Chicago, IL) and Michael Renne walks
out followed by an 8-foot metal robot" (a la "The Day the
Earth Stood Still") .

                                     -Bert

There is 1 Reply.

#: 93009 S3/Satellite Observing
    27-Oct-91  22:23:32
Sb: #92995-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Dick DeLoach, Sysop 76703,303
To: Bert/Janet Stevens 73357,1572

I agree with David Letterman, who listed among the Top Ten
Things We As Americans Can Be Proud Of, the fact that more
AMERICANS have actually been abducted by extraterestrials
than citizens of any other country in the whole world... -)
(<-- DDL's tongue-in-cheek symbol )

   --- Dick


#: 93011 S3/Satellite Observing
    27-Oct-91  22:39:33
Sb: #92995-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Bert/Janet Stevens 73357,1572

Bert, I sympathize with the sense of mud-slogging you find
yourself in.  It feels like that from this side of the
argument, too.  I don't know what's happening in secret labs
this year.  Or last year.  I *saw* what was happening twenty
years ago, and given the exponential rate of technological
progress, I don't have a problem with presuming considerable
advancement on a large scale, given the advancements in
medical applications on a small scale which were even more
inconceivable then.

One if the new technologies which is not a secret is the
progress in high temperature superconductive technologies,
and their ability to enable electromagnetic fields, and the
use of such fields in generating and collimating and
amplifying laser and maser emissions.  In the uploaded file,
CIRCLE.TXT, there are ample references to laser collimation
references which are more substantive than the vague
references space limitations allow here.

And yes, a laser or a maser beam will spread, but from a
couple of millimeters to a hundred yards over a 25,000 mile
distance, given the fact of zero G, low ambient temperature,
and the efficiency of superconductive elements in space, I
don't think this scenario steps outside the bounds of
natural law.

The robot and Michael Rennie were Gork and Klaatu.  I can
never remember which is which...

I understand your skepticism, Bert, and respect it.  Thanks
for the suggestion about the secret lunar base.  I'll check
it out.  The only UFO's I've referred to are person-made
ones.
                                                  Bob



#: 92947 S3/Satellite Observing
    26-Oct-91  21:36:27
Sb: #92911-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Erik Albrektson 70312,3576
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445 (X)

>>...as were so many of the Shuttle flights, starting around
the same time the crop circles began to appear.<<

Bob, just so the timeline of this phenomena is clear; the
first well photographed and investigated crop circle was
found at a place called Headbourne Worthy (Wiltshire area)
in the summer of 1978.  Interestingly enough, it was not
just a simple circle but a large inner circle with 4 smaller
circles grouped around it in the now familiar "footpad"
pattern. See "Circular Evidence" by Delgado and Andrews.
From all accounts it was essentially identical to many of
the patterns still being produced in 1990 and 1991.

As you are probably aware, the first shuttle flight was on
4/12/81, nearly 3 years later.  The first shuttle flight
with a DOD payload was 6/27/82, about 4 years later.


#: 92957 S3/Satellite Observing
    27-Oct-91  06:04:35
Sb: #92945-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Frank Hentschel 75126,72
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445 (X)

 Aside from the computational aspect, searching for a GEO
object versus a low orbiting one in an unknown orbit would
also be easier.  The time factor is eliminated and you are
looking in a narrow band of sky for a stationary object as
opposed to searching the whole sky and not knowing if the
object is in line of sight at the time. The deployment
parameters really don't matter as the altitude/period are
determined by the object being geosync. The only unknown is
the orbital longitude.  The optical/radar visibility would
depend on the size/shape and surface characteristics, of
course. GEO satellites are seen frequently by amateur
astronomers and other observers under favorable lighting
conditions.  Also, a number of the 'secret' shuttle payloads
have been observed during deployment and subsequently
tracked by amateur observers, although their orbital
elements are not officially published. Those that I'm aware
of (I'm not completely up to date), believed to be KH type
recon satellites and, indeed, SDI related payloads, have
been in low earth orbits.   None of the above precludes your
theory of course. My only objection would be that with
thousands of square miles of closed test ranges available (I
spent a good portion of my USAF career tramping around some
of them, on unrelated (and unmentionable) projects), I
don't see the the necessity for publically plowing up
farmer's fields.

     cheers -fjh


#: 46594 S3/Probes/Satellites
    27-Oct-91  22:08:43
Sb: #CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Erik Albrektson 70312,3576

Erik, if I'm to cling to the idea of Shuttle deployment as
an exclusive, or even primary delivery system, I have to
take your observations on the time line very seriously. The
only qualifier in the pursuit of further distillation
concerns what we can and can't presume about the reliability
of information; that being the amount of disinformation
common even the inside a project infrastructure.

That said, I find myself with new questions.  One being "how
knowable" is the date of the first DoD payload, and how
"knowable" is the nature of some which may have preceded it?
I've read Delgado and others - and have seen detailed
photography of early formations compared to later ones.  The
increasing sophistication and complexity - as well as
quantity - becomes an unmistakeable progression.  The
Barbury formation of July, 1991, renders a general hoax less
credible than ever.

The question most important to my basic hypothesis might be,
how much payload could be placed in high orbit from a
conventional rocket booster in the late '70's?  Published
figures for the Shuttle are 65,000 pounds, reduced to 48,000
under post Challenger mission rules. I'd only add that
having worked an early division of RAND, Santa Monica, in an
editorial capacity that included orchestration of press
releases re true or fancied classification levels of
specific missions, there did/do exist disinforming cloaking
strategies in the publication of information.

You have, however, required that I investigate conventional
booster capabilities.  I may have to be more flexible about
exclusive Shuttle deployment.


[More]

There is 1 Reply.

#: 46595 S3/Probes/Satellites
    27-Oct-91  22:08:53
Sb: #46594-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445 (X)

[Continued]

This is just anecdotal to torture satellite observers, Erik.
I live near the Pacific coast, about forty miles from
Vandenberg, AFB.  We are frequently treated to a light-show
when the mission includes ionosphere studies and photo-
active substances are discharged.  And of course the landing
path of many Shuttles into Edwards places their multible
sonic booms right over our heads. That's how we know when to
go turn on CNN.

We also frequently see regular launches headed down the
Pacific Missile Range. If the Satellite Observers are
organized, I suspect you guys must maintain a "Woops..."
watch in the public mountain country not far away. A lot of
those launches are a surprise even to the Vandenberg
personnel scrambled to make them.  Some of the launches
which turn out to be the most innocently described to the
launch personnel, have a way of departing their "need-to-
know" along with the booster.

Bob


#: 46596 S3/Probes/Satellites
    27-Oct-91  22:09:08
Sb: #CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Frank Hentschel 75126,72

Frank, the "why there?" question is one which came up early
in the thread of CIRCLE.TXT, and at length in the
accompanying CIRCIS.TXT (Lib. 17) which contains much of the
CompuServe thread which ensued upon the upload of the prior
Sept. 22 upload to ISSUES/PARANORMAL Lib. 10 (and currently
in Lib 17, here).

The question as to detectability of a GEO that didn't want
to be found... how important to finding it *is* knowledge of
its longitude?  And, if the time of deployment and angle of
insertion were cloaked, does that make the task more
difficult?

Having had a bit of "Think Tank" experience as a dept.
editor for what then was a division of RAND (Later the
System Develp. Corp, Santa Monica), the use of Wiltshire was
made to order, and one of the cleverest covers I can
imagine. The area in that 100 mile circle, roughly centered
on Avebury, with Stonehenge not far away, already has in
place over 5,000 years of local history loaded with images
and a metaphysical tradition.  Many of the figures we see,
starting with the plainer circles, start to look startingly
as though their stencils had been made from Kabbalistic,
Sufic, Celtic, even 17th Cent. Rosicrucian iconography.  Add
to this the widespread interest in the area's system of Ley
lines, stone and earth circles, and the presence on site of
an RGO facility directly involved with satellite position
fixing and earth-rotation (Horstmanceaux, press releases
notwithstanding), the rules of evidence become unmaneagable.
It's an old story - the best possible cover for a new one.


[More]


There is 1 Reply.

#: 46597 S3/Probes/Satellites
    27-Oct-91  22:09:21
Sb: #46596-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445 (X)

[Continued]

Re test ranges, I have the impression that you've shlepped
to and through your share of them, Frank.  You know the
logistical problems of access, and the visibility of ground
movement that would be anomalous to those spySats which
routinely monitor such ground activity.  I still don't know
if you've actually seen good pictures of the more complex
ones, but there is one called "the fly" which looks very
much like an ancient Anasazi (Ariz.) petroglyph I have in a
collection of rubbings and drawings produced by the
Smithsonian in the 1870's. A sense of humor or a mistake?

Almost every one of the more complex formations (and the
simpler ones) bears almost identicality to the historical
sites and metaphysical iconography.

I'm in private correspondence with several of the on site
researchers, and it's a topic of some merriment about all
the electronic gear being dragged about by some of the
"tourists," who often make sure to buy a T-shirt. This is a
quote from a note I got today on another forum, from the
UK...

"In the UK, Channel 4 has just broadcast a program in the
Equinox series on crop circles.  Unfortunately, they didn't
mention the 'Star War' theories. [Either has anybody
else...].  The one conventional scientist on there was
hopelessly outnumbered by paranormal weirdos and
'parascientists.'  His plasma vortices were totally
unconvincing when you look at the 'pictograms'. So its nice
that he has recanted and now says that only the circular
ones are 'genuine' coz his theory only fits those."

He goes on to describe a convincing hoax demonstration, but
not up to the numbers and complexities observe.  The rules
of evidence are unmaneagable.

Bob


#: 93013 S3/Satellite Observing
    27-Oct-91  23:46:29
Sb: CIRCLE.txt (woops...)
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Eric Albrekston 70312,3576

Eric, my response to your #92947 wound up over on
SPACE/Probes/Satellites, also S3 there.  It's #46594.
Tapcis did it, of course.  Human error is inconcievable...
I'll post a redirection there, too.  They must be very
confused.  Sorry.

Bob


#: 93014 S3/Satellite Observing
    27-Oct-91  23:46:35
Sb: CIRCLE.txt (woops II..)
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Frank Hentschel 75126,72

As in a prior to Erik Albrekston, Frank, my reply to your #
92957 here got misdirected to SPACE/Probes/Satellites and is
# 46596 there.  My apologies.

Bob


#: 46599 S3/Probes/Satellites
    27-Oct-91  23:47:19
Sb: CIRCLE.txt (wrong forum)
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: All

I apologize for the misdirection of #'s 46594 and 46956 to
this forum. They were in response to #'s 92947 and 92957 on
ASTROFORUM/Satellite Observing - also S3.  (Tapcis error of
course... )

For the thoroughly confused, but possibly intrigued, the
accidently diverted thread is one which ensued from the
Sept. 22 upload of CIRCLE.TXT to ISSUES/PARANORMAL Lib. 10.
This and the bulk of the lengthy CompuServe thread which
has ensued (CIRCIS.TXT) can both be found in Lib. 17 (new
uploads).

CIRCLE.TXT is the upload of a non-metaphysical thread from
the "Science & Health" forum of the (members only) BBS of
the Writers' Guild of America, West, (WGA), Los Angeles.  It
deals mostly with a theory that (some of) the "crop events"
of Wiltshire, UK, and other places, are artifacts of SDI
related tests conducted from Shuttle deployed GEO
satellites.

Again, my regrets over any confusion, though more than a few
think it's all mine.

Bob

#: 93019 S3/Satellite Observing
    28-Oct-91  08:20:37
Sb: #93014-CIRCLE.txt (woops II..)
Fm: Frank Hentschel 75126,72
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445

  No problem, I found it .

  If you know a GEO's orbital longitude, a relatively simple
trig calculation tells you exactly where to look (See the
file SATELL.TXT in LIB 3 for the formula). All the other
orbital elements necessary to find LEO objects 'drop out'.
If the longitude is unknown, knowing the deployment
parameters might give you a clue as to position, but only if
you had other data in hand, such as the delta-v involved,
etc. As I said, it comes down to searching for a stationary
object that you know is in line of sight in a narrow strip
of sky versus searching the whole sky for an object with an
unknown transit time in the case of a LEO sat. If
concealment was the main priority, a sat in a high
inclination LEO with large maneuvering fuel reserves,
allowing frequent orbit changes to inhibit recovering it's
orbital parameters from sporadic observation, would be my
(admittedly amateur) choice.   As to test range use,
'unusual' ground activity is 'usual' there and I believe it
attracts less attention there than elsewhere. Truckloads of
equipment setting up in the middle of nowhere and then
vanishing abruptly are routine, as are unexplained (unless
you're involved) lights, noises and other phenomena. Also,
it has been, and I assume still, been common practice to
combine the activities of various projects to further
confuse the issue for potential observers, allowing one
project to serve as 'cover' if you will, for another.

     cheers -fjh


#: 93047 S3/Satellite Observing
    28-Oct-91  19:10:33
Sb: #93011-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Bob Norton / NM 72167,3420
To: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445

Bob,
  Gort (not Gork) was the robot. Klaatu was Michael Rennie.
BTW, "Klaatu Verato Nektu" is VERY corrupt Esperanto for
"Klaatu Truly Dead".

Bob


#: 93015 S3/Satellite Observing
    28-Oct-91  00:44:51
Sb: #92995-CIRCLE.txt
Fm: Michael McDowell 76207,1247
To: Bert/Janet Stevens 73357,1572

You might check out, for instance, the work that was
declassified a few months ago, on the laser focussing
(ground to air in this case)  problem, work that the DoD has
been conducting in secret since 1981 (just at the time the
cruder crop circles began to appear in earnest).  (2
articles, and a news editorial in Nature, about a month
ago.)  This was released only when civilian researchers
essentially duplicated the work on their own.

A Secret Lab is a clumsy term for it suggests underground
complexes,  and radar-dodging, and camouflage painted silos.
The lab may be right in the middle of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and you can walk,  drive, or row past it; but
some of the work that goes on inside may very well be highly
secret.  And even the lowest of the many levels of secrecy
imposed on government sponsored work may be sufficient to
keep all but the most indefatigably curious ignorant
of the work.

Secret labs exist, if not in this country, then certainly in
others.  We bombed them recently, for instance.  But do you
really believe that there is no work of substance being
carried on under conditions of secrecy in this country?  And
if money is appropriated for work in a certain field of
research, is it unreasonable to think that research is being
carried on in those fields?



#: 93060 S3/Satellite Observing
    29-Oct-91  00:15:28
Sb: #93019-CIRCLE.txt (woops II..)
Fm: Robert Sabaroff 71251,2445
To: Frank Hentschel 75126,72

You found it.  Sigh...

I'm very grateful for the information, Frank.  Yo