Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby dada » Fri Sep 14, 2018 12:58 pm

Not to dampen the enthusiasm, but I can't help thinking of simple scenarios.

Visitors are free to wander around most areas of the Observatory on their own. Visitor pulls a prank, leaves a cryptic note or something. Someone at the observatory dials the feds instead of local cops. Big overreaction ensues.

More ridiculous scenario, this is an just an exercise. To what end, though. Pick a random location, shut it down for practice. Or yes, to point blame at someone or other. Taking a pro-active stance in narrative wars would be clever, I'd say it's about time.

Could be space aliens just fucking around, of course. No reason to assume that other observatories would see what this one did. Space aliens could pick and choose who they reveal themselves to, they aren't bound to the laws of physics. Giant star-cross flagship shows itself for a second or two, scares the wits out of some scientists. Space aliens chuckle.

Hackers a pretty likely scenario, I think. Which hackers, though. So many to choose from. Why this observatory? Why not. Think like a hacker. You try hacking everything, to see if you can.

The story has certainly attracted a lot of attention and speculation.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.
User avatar
dada
 
Posts: 2600
Joined: Mon Dec 24, 2007 12:08 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Elvis » Sat Sep 15, 2018 5:48 am

If it's aliens, do Border Patrol and ICE get involved? \<]
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
User avatar
Elvis
 
Posts: 7411
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:24 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Iamwhomiam » Sat Sep 15, 2018 8:23 am

Elvis wrote:If it's aliens, do Border Patrol and ICE get involved? \<]


Cripes! I sure hope they don't tell Trump we've got visitors from outer space - he'll be demanding we build a great big ball to keep us safe, one we could see through, of course.
User avatar
Iamwhomiam
 
Posts: 6572
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:47 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Blue » Sat Sep 15, 2018 6:45 pm

A Walk Through The Abandon (sic) Sunspot National Solar Observatory

Posted 9.14.18

User avatar
Blue
 
Posts: 725
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:39 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Blue » Sat Sep 15, 2018 7:16 pm

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... tory.html#

A New Mexico solar observatory has been evacuated for a week. Not even the guards know why.
Observatory
An employee and resident of the National Solar Observatory set up a tent, far right, near the entrance, in Sunspot, N.M., on Sept. 14, 2018. (Dylan Taylor-Lehman / AP)
Robert Moore and Matt Zapotosky
Washington Post

At a small solar observatory tucked away in the woods of a national forest here, scientists and other personnel were commanded last week to leave at once. A week later, the facility remains vacant, and no one is willing to say why.

The mysterious and lengthy evacuation, in a state known for secretive military testing and a suspected UFO crash, has spawned a wealth of speculation.

Did the researchers spot something extraterrestrial? Was the solar telescope hacked by a foreign power and deployed to spy on, say, the state's missile testing range? Or is there an innocuous explanation, suppressed only because of corporate and government resistance to transparency?

On Friday, the entrance to the National Solar Observatory was blocked by yellow crime scene tape and two security guards, who said even they had been kept in the dark. The guards, from Red Rock Security & Patrol in Las Cruces, New Mexico, didn't give their names, but said it was the first day the company was guarding the entrance and only the "director and an assistant" were allowed in. There was no obvious sign of law enforcement activity.

"We don't know anything. We're just as curious as anyone else," one guard said.

A spokeswoman for the nonprofit group that runs the facility said the organization was addressing a "security issue," but would offer no additional information, other than, "I can tell you it definitely wasn't aliens." She said Friday the facility "will remain closed until further notice." Neither the FBI - which was spotted on the premises around the time of the evacuation - nor those who worked at the facility would tell local law enforcement what had happened, said Otero County Sheriff Benny House.

"They wouldn't give us any details," House said. "I've got ideas, but I don't want to put them out there. That's how bad press or rumors get started, and it'll cause paranoia, or I might satisfy everybody's mind and I might be totally off base."

Unlike some of New Mexico's other research facilities, the solar observatory in Sunspot is not usually shrouded in such secrecy.

The facility - in the Lincoln National Forest in the southern part of the state - is open to the public, and the scientists who work there offer guided tours of the site, said James McAteer, a professor at New Mexico State University and director of the Sunspot Solar Observatory consortium. When they're not doing that, they use a special telescope and other instruments to study the sun. There are homes on the site where staff members live.

The Sunspot observatory sits at more than 9,000 feet and is part of a larger astronomy research facility on the site. The adjacent Apache Point Observatory, a collection of telescopes about a half-mile away, was operating as normal on Friday, with about a dozen cars parked outside.

House, the sheriff, said that just before 10 a.m. on Sept. 6, staff at the Sunspot facility called to report they were "evacuating the building," and asked if deputies could assist. He said a sergeant and a deputy were dispatched and told upon arrival that the FBI had been there earlier.

But neither staff, nor the bureau, would explain why the facility had to be vacated, House said. He said a volunteer fire chief claimed the FBI had told him there had been a "credible threat" but would provide no details.

The sheriff's office, House said, saw no evidence of a threat, and left after a few hours.

"We tried to find out the threat and what their concerns were," House said. "They wouldn't identify anything. They were pretty hush mouthed about it."

McAteer said his consortium assigns four researchers to the facility, although the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), another consortium, manages the buildings and other infrastructure with another four or five people.

That consortium, McAteer said, had ordered the site vacated, providing no other reason than a "security" issue. He said the researchers did not spot anything in the sun to necessitate them leaving, nor were they aware of any scientific reason - such as an anomaly in the data they were collecting - for doing so.

"My people, we didn't do the evacuation, and we do the science," McAteer said.

The property manager also came in to the post office on the facility and asked the woman working there to leave, but gave no indication why that was necessary, said Rod Spurgeon, a Postal Service spokesman. Spurgeon said post office operations have continued at the nearby Cloudcroft facility.

Kinsey Featherston, a spokeswoman for Rep. Stevan Pearce, R-N.M., said the congressman's office had reached out to the FBI and were told "it is an ongoing investigation."

"We will continue monitoring the situation, but at this time, we have no information," she said.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, referring questions about the matter to the consortium that manages the buildings. Shari Lifson, an AURA spokeswoman, said in a statement that her group was "addressing a security issue" and had "decided to temporarily vacate the facility as a precautionary measure." She said they were "working with the proper authorities on this issue," although she declined to specify who those authorities were.

Lifson also declined to specify the security issue, other than to dispute the idea aliens were involved.

The solar observatory is about a 2 1/2-hour drive from Roswell, New Mexico, the site of a now infamous crash in 1947 that the Air Force later claimed was an experiment designed to detect Soviet nuclear activity by monitoring sound waves. The incident sparked so much interest that there is now a UFO museum in the city.

House said his deputies spotted a Black Hawk helicopter in the area around the time the building was evacuated - although he noted that is not uncommon.

Sunspot and Apache Point offer scenic views of the Tularosa Basin, which includes two sensitive military sites, including Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range. A public affairs officer at White Sands said there was no testing or other activity at the range that would have prompted the evacuation in Sunspot.

As of Friday, the observatory was still shuttered, although McAteer said the researchers were ready to return "as soon as possible." The observatory even seemed to embrace the interest in the mysterious evacuation, writing on its website, "With the excitement this closure has generated, we hope you will come and visit us when we do reopen, and see for yourself the services we provide for science and public outreach in heliophysics."
User avatar
Blue
 
Posts: 725
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:39 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Blue » Sun Sep 16, 2018 9:22 am

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/ ... evacuation

Remote solar observatory remains closed after mysterious evacuation
By Adam Mann Sep. 14, 2018 , 4:45 PM

Nobody is quite sure what’s going on at the Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico, which was quickly and mysteriously evacuated on 6 September amid reports of a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe, and has remained closed. The manager of the mountaintop site, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), today released a statement saying the observatory “will remain closed until further notice due to an ongoing security concern.”

In the wake of the shutdown, Otero County Sheriff Benny House told the Alamogordo Daily News: “The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say.” Facility employees are similarly in the dark. “We have absolutely no idea what is going on,” says Alisdair Davey, a data center scientist at the National Solar Observatory (NSO). “As in truly nothing, which in itself is just weird.” Messages left with the FBI field office in Albuquerque were not returned.


The U.S. Postal Service (USPS), which has a small office on the same site as Sunspot that mostly handles mail deliveries for the observatory, has also been shut down, though spokespeople for the office say the post office being closed is incidental. “Whatever’s occurring there has nothing to do with us,” says Rod Spurgeon, the USPS spokesperson for the New Mexico area. Spurgeon downplayed the idea that the incident could involve any sort of mailed biohazard or bioterror. “I haven’t heard of anything like that going on,” he says. Liz Davis, a public information officer at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which handles law enforcement for the USPS, confirms there is “no criminal activity, which is what Postal Inspection Service would be dealing with.”


But, Aftergood says, a solar observatory might not be the best place to conduct such activity. “I imagine most or all of its sensors are directed up.” He wonders if someone at the Sunspot observatory somehow inadvertently spotted a classified satellite or transmission, triggering the shutdown.

That might also explain why the facility has remained closed for so long, Aftergood says; it could take time to interview all relevant personnel, get them to sign nondisclosure agreements, and do background investigations to make sure they are not foreign agents.

While the actual nature of the security issue remains unresolved, the tight-lipped nature of the authorities is only driving more interest. “The mystery is more intriguing than what the ultimate explanation is likely to be,” Aftergood says.


More at link.
User avatar
Blue
 
Posts: 725
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:39 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby liminalOyster » Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:13 am

Elvis, a title change would make sense on this one, maybe?

Child pornography reason behind Sunspot Observatory closure, according to court documents


Posted: Sep 19, 2018 03:53 PM MST
Updated: Sep 19, 2018 08:35 PM MST

New Mexico observatory closed for security reasons to reopen A federal search warrant reveals that Sunspot Solar Observatory was shut down
as FBI agents conducted computer forensic searches for child pornography.
The source of child pornography was traced to an IP address used at the observatory and a source within the building observed a computer with "not
good" images on it, the warrant states.
An investigation by the FBI revealed that a janitor is the main suspect in the search, however he has not been charged with a crime even though his name in
on the warrant. The warrant states the suspect would use the observatory Wifi and a personal laptop to download the child pornography.
A limited number of people have access to the observatory from dusk until dawn, which helped narrow their search.
The observatory in the mountains of southern New Mexico had been closed since Sept. 6 because of an undisclosed security concern, but reopened on Monday.
Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Sounder » Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:38 am

That reads like a cover story. So they shut the whole place down to catch a janitor downloading child porn, and reportedly, with several other observatories being closed at the same time?

It's still strange.

Although, if it can set a precedent in case law, maybe it can be used to shut all government down.
Sounder
 
Posts: 4054
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:49 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:15 am

Yeah ... keep the title.

The notion the FBI gives that much of a fuck about CP is comical, as is the notion the secrecy would have lasted that long after the raid.

This is a cover story, and probably just a first draft, too -- expect more embellishments in the near future.
User avatar
Wombaticus Rex
 
Posts: 10896
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 6:33 pm
Location: Vermontistan
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby DrEvil » Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:50 am

Norwegian media reported that they were searching for a dangerous individual in the area, and they kept tight-lipped to avoid spooking the person. Not sure which version sounds less plausible.
"I only read American. I want my fantasy pure." - Dave
User avatar
DrEvil
 
Posts: 3971
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:37 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Karmamatterz » Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:44 pm

Child porn is the usual cover because who the heck is going to stand up and question the allegation? Nambla?

Funny thing about the media and how they report things....helicopters and federal agents running around aren't going to spook someone? LOL

Stranger things have happened and will continue to. More speculation on my part....IF it was a security breach it's possible that individual(s) were either employed, or outsideers had socially engineered their way into accessing things they shouldn't have been. It's not uncommon that foreign agents will use blackmail or other means to get employees to share top secret data and or access to computer networks. Depending on the opsec physical access to networks is sometimes necessary in order to breach it.

Then again, a portal to another dimension might have opened up and Stranger Things might be growing or oozing into the New Mexican soil underneath the facility.
User avatar
Karmamatterz
 
Posts: 828
Joined: Sun Aug 19, 2012 10:58 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby chump » Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:03 pm

^^^




Christopher Everard - FB, September 17th:

ANOTHER "BLACK SUN" APPEARS - Solar Observatory in NEW MEXICO is shut down by FBI - Last year THE ENIGMA CHANNEL showed footage of an Earth-sized object tethering itself to the SUN... It stayed tethered for exactly 24 hours and then broke away - after sucking vast amounts of energy from our Sun.... Now, something very strange is happening in a US state known for strange government activity, including the testing of nuclear weapons...
User avatar
chump
 
Posts: 2261
Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby Elvis » Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:08 pm

"Something Strange" still works for me. A curious situation for sure.
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
User avatar
Elvis
 
Posts: 7411
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:24 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby liminalOyster » Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:35 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:15 am wrote:Yeah ... keep the title.

The notion the FBI gives that much of a fuck about CP is comical, as is the notion the secrecy would have lasted that long after the raid.

This is a cover story, and probably just a first draft, too -- expect more embellishments in the near future.


Clarification - title edit only suggested because I suspect that this is likely to be a bigger topic here and sometimes more general titles are harder to locate. Definitely also assuming this is a screen/cover story.

I am very curious what suggestive narrative scraps will be thrown out in days to come.
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Something Strange Happening in Sunspot New Mexico

Postby MayDay » Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:24 pm

I’m intrigued.
User avatar
MayDay
 
Posts: 350
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2012 7:30 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 36 guests