Daniel Tarr et.al
The Black Knight UFO Satellite
- A Review -
2013.
What is the "Black Knight" satellite? It is a mysterious satellite, of unknown origin, discovered in 1960 which shadowed Sputnik. It is believed to have been of extraterrestrial origin, and signaled back old radio waves from the 1920s and 1930s before it disappeared. In short wave patterns analyzed by astronomer Duncan Lunan, it revealed its origin as Epsilon Boötes (a star system as it was 13,000 years ago)...
In "Disneyland of the Gods", by John Keel, he reports in depth on this satellite:
"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.
On September 3, 1960, seven months after the satellite was first detected by radar, a tracking camera at Grumman Aircraft Corporation's Long Island factory took a photograph of it. People on the ground had been occasionally seeing it for about two weeks at that point. Viewers would make it out as a red glowing object moving in an east-to-west orbit. Most satellites of the time, according to what little material I've been able to find on the black knight satellite, moved from west-to-east. It's speed was also about three times normal. A committee was formed to examine it, but nothing more was ever made public.
Three years later, Gordon Cooper was launched into space for a 22 orbit mission. On his final orbit, he reported seeing a glowing green shape ahead of his capsule, and heading in his direction. It's said that the Muchea tracking station, in Australia, which Cooper reported this too was also able to pick it up on radar traveling in an east-to-west orbit. This event was reported by NBC, but reporters were forbidden to ask Cooper about the event on his landing. The official explanation is that an electrical malfunction in the capsule had caused high levels of carbon dioxide, which induced hallucinations. [1]"
It is hard to find reports on this satellite from any official source, but given the recently discovered photos from Russian satellite footage and the stories regarding unknown objects that the early US astronauts saw, I'm inclined to believe this satellite existed. However, the question is its origin - was it a secret US military project, an artifact from earlier in history, or extraterrestrial? The evidence is insufficient to determine the answer.
[ Source » Forbidden history ] |
Photo taken from Space Shuttle mission STS-088 of the object commonly alleged as the "Black Knight"
[See the original NASA photo STS088-724-66_3] |
The Black Knight Satellite
Some may be familiar with the “Black Knight” satellite, but for those who aren't, and for those who want a more factual examination of it (vs. the alien signals and everything else that gets lumped with it), here is a good summary of the case.
The "Black Knight" is not just some urban legend. You can go to NASA's own site: called "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth" and see the images taken of this "Space Debrish" on Space Shuttle Mission STS-88 in 1998. They classify it as space junk, and have an official explanation.
Basically, this is an UNKNOWN satellite that is obviously artificial. First, some images of the Black Knight satellite so you can see just what we are talking about here:
This whole story begins in 1954, three years before Russia would launch the Earth's first satellite, Sputnik 1.
On Friday, May 14, 1954, numerous papers carry an interesting statement by retired Marine Corps Major Donald E. Keyhoe, who states the Earth is being circled by one or two artificial satellites. U.S. Government scientists at White Sands, NM, he added, were making an effort to locate and chart them, and determine origin.
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Donald E. Keyhoe |
See example of two such papers carrying the story, the St. Louis Dispatch and the San Francisco Examiner, showing the national coverage of the story).
The story broke out further on August 23, 1954, when Aviation Week magazine stated two satellites had been found at 400 and 600 miles out. They were termed natural satellites, even though this was later deemed a virtual impossibility (and later no such natural satellites were ever claimed).
"Pentagon scare over the observance of two previously unobserved satellites orbiting the earth has dissipated with the identification of the objects as natural, not artificial satellites. Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, expert on extraterrestrial bodies from the University of New Mexico, headed the identification project. One satellite is orbiting about 400 miles out, while the other track is 600 miles from the earth. Pentagon thought momentarily the Russians had beaten the U.S. to space explorations." [the short Aviation Week article]
Clyde Tombaugh (discoverer of Pluto) was tasked by the Defense Department to search for the mystery object. |
Throughout the next few years, numerous astronomers publish suspicions of a large mystery satellite circling the globe. By February of 1960, the Defense Department even acknowledges it.
"A Mystery Polar Satellite, Believed Russian, Spotted; POLAR SATELLITE DETECTED BY D. S.
By JOHN W. FINNEYSpecial to The New York Times;
February 11, 1960,
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 -- An unidentified, silent satellite has been discovered circling the earth in a near-polar orbit by United States tracking stations, the Defense Department said today. The identity and origin of the mystery satellite -- which has been dubbed "the dark satellite" are not known despite nearly two weeks of tracking."
The first Defense Department report said the satellite was about 19 feet long, and weighed possibly 32,000 pounds! The next report withdrew that claim, and replaced it to “as big as an oil truck”. Yet another report stated they had tracked the object by radar for months (then later amended to weeks). The final, “official” report on February 24, 1960 then states it as part of Discoverer V:
"The mysterious object recently discovered in polar orbit around the earth probably is the capsule of the Discoverer V space vehicle launched by the United States last August 13. On the basis of analysis to date, it is believed this vehicle most probably is the ejected recovery capsule of Discoverer V launched into polar orbit in August. The refined analysis of radar returns, the Defense Department said, now indicates the mystery object is about 3 feet in diameter and 2 feet long, the size of the Discoverer V capsule. The capsule separated from its launcher August 14 according to radio telemetry information (received from the carrier rocket)."
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Dr. Lincoln LaPaz and Clyde Tombaugh |
However, Discoverer V (launched as part of the Corona project), launched August 13, 1959, and fell to Earth September 28, 1959. The payload was 450 pounds (far, far less than that stated for the mystery satellite in the Defense Department's own reports). It is a simple task to examine pics of the Black Knight satellite and compare it with pics of the Thor-Agena A rocket that launched and a Corona satellite. Can you see any similarities? (not even accounting for the size and weight of the Black Knight, and keeping in mind that the rocket portion fell to Earth).
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Black Knight UFO |
Thor Agena A-rocket |
Corona Satellite |
Even if the pic from the Shuttle turns out not to be the Black Knight, we're still left with the capsule not being large enough to fit the Defense Department reports.
Time magazine then runs with the official explanation in their March 7, 1960 edition:
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See Hi-Res (STS088-724-70) |
"Monday, Mar. 07, 1960 -
Time Magazine
Three weeks ago, headlines announced that the U.S. had detected a mysterious "dark" satellite wheeling overhead on a regular orbit. There was nervous speculation that it might be a surveillance satellite launched by the Russians, and it brought the uneasy sensation that the U.S. did not know what was going on over its own head. But last week the Department of Defense proudly announced that the satellite had been identified. It was a space derelict, the remains of an Air Force Discoverer satellite that had gone astray. The dark satellite was the first object to demonstrate the effectiveness of the U.S.'s new watch on space. And the three-week time lag in identification was proof that the system still lacks full coordination and that some bugs still have to be ironed out.
First Sighting. The most important component of the space watch went into operation about six months ago with the construction of "Dark Fence," a kind of radar trip wire stretching across the width of the U.S. Designed by the Naval Research Laboratory to keep track of satellites whose radios are silent, it is a notable improvement on other radars, which have difficulty finding a small satellite unless they know where to look. Big, 50-kw. transmitters were established at Gila River, near Phoenix, Ariz, and Jordan Lake, Ala., spraying radio waves upward in the shape of open fans. Some 250 miles on either side, receiving stations pick up signals that bounce off any object passing through the fans. By a kind of triangulation, the operators can make rough estimates of the object's speed, distance and course."
"On Jan. 31 Dark Fence detected two passes of what seemed to be an unknown space object. After detecting several passes during the following days, Captain W. E. Berg, commanding officer of Dark Fence, decided that something was circling overhead on a roughly polar orbit. He raced to the Pentagon and in person reported the menacing stranger to Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke. Within minutes the news was communicated to President Eisenhower and marked top secret.
In the confusion, there was a delay before anyone took the step necessary to positively identify the strange satellite: informing the Air Force's newly established surveillance center in Bedford, Mass. It is the surveillance center's job to take all observations on satellites from all friendly observing centers, both optical and electronic, feed them into computers to produce figures that will identify each satellite, describe its orbit and predict its behavior. Says one top official, explaining the cold facts of the space age: "The only way of knowing that a new satellite has appeared is by keeping track of the old ones."
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It took two weeks for Dark Fence's scientists to check back through their taped observations, and to discover that the mysterious satellite had first showed up on Aug. 15. The Air Force surveillance center also checked its records to provide a list of everything else that was circling in the sky, and its computers worked out a detailed description of the new object's behavior. The evidence from both Air Force and Navy pointed to Discoverer V, fired from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif, on Aug. 13."
Perhaps the most telling detail though, is that the satellite does not behave as normal satellites. Even early on, astronomers would note that they'd see it for a time, then it would be gone...only to return later, and even in a different orbit.
Now, there are a lot of other, stranger reports attached to this case. I haven't gone into them simply because they really don't have any substantiation and I wanted to focus on the satellite itself (and there are some other lengthy threads here on ATS on that matter). For instance, there are claims the satellite broadcast a signal, and that someone decoded it, etc. I have researched this claim substantially, and to put it bluntly, it is off the charts of the BS meter. For some strange reason, many of the accounts tie in astronaut Gordon Cooper's sighting of a green object during a mission. I could not find anything linking that sighting with the Black Knight, so for these reasons, I have not included these “flights of fantasy” here (strictly my own opinion). Frankly, I think the case for the Black Knight can stand on it's own without these unfounded additions to the tale. There seems to be ample evidence that a large satellite (larger than anything we could have put up at the time) was spotted all over the globe, that the Defense Department was interested, and that they covered it up. So if we didn't put it up there, who did, and why?
[ Source » Above Top Secret ]
The Black Knight, a 13.000 Year Old Alien Satellite?
Space Junk or Extraterrestrial “Satellite”, the “Black Knight” as it’s called today– has been around for quite some time now. This discovery is perhaps one of the most (in)famous space objects that orbit our Planet. This “Artificial Satellite” has caused mayor media interest since the late 50′s, and it has become one of the most talked about objects in space. First thought to be an Russian spy satellite, the Black Knight has gripped the interest of millions worldwide.
According to monitoring agencies around the world, The Black knight has been transmitting radio signals for over 50 years now.
The USA and Soviet Union have shown particular interest in this “unidentified space object”. Since its discovery this satellite has interested countries such as Sweden and enthusiasts worldwide. One of them is a Ham Radio operator who apparently had decoded a series of signals received from the UFO Satellite and interpreted it as a star-chart centered on the Epsilon Bootes Star System and that the Black Knight originated from this System 13.000 years ago. (The Epsilon Boötis is a double star in the northern constellation of Boötes. It has the traditional names Izar and Pulcherrima. The star system can be viewed with the unaided eye at night, but resolving the pair with a small telescope is challenging; an aperture of 76 mm (3.0 in) or greater is required. — Wikipedia)
But according to many, this discovery was made much earlier than we thought. Rumors are that it was Nikola Tesla the first man to “intercept” a signal from this otherworldly satellite in 1899 after building a high-voltage radio device in Colorado Springs. After Tesla’s discovery in the next 30 to 50 years the signal was being intercepted more frequently until it was apparently “decoded”. Since the 1930′s Astronomers worldwide have been reporting strange radio signals which allegedly come from the “Black Knight”.
In 1957, Dr. Luis Corralos of the Communications Ministry in Venezuela photographed it while taking pictures of Sputnik II as it passed over Caracas. The strange thing was that unlike the Sputnik one and two, The Black Knight Satellite orbited Earth from East to West. Sputnik one and two orbited West to East using Earth’s natural rotation to maintain orbit. The story of the Black Knight made its media debut in the 1940′s when the St. Louis Dispatch and The San Francisco Examiner wrote about the “Satellite” on May 14th 1954. The Time Magazine wrote about it on the seventh of March, 1960. Here is what they said about it.
"Three weeks ago, headlines announced that the U.S. had detected a mysterious “dark” satellite wheeling overhead on a regular orbit. There was nervous speculation that it might be a surveillance satellite launched by the Russians, and it brought the uneasy sensation that the U.S. did not know what was going on over its own head. But last week the Department of Defense proudly announced that the satellite had been identified. It was a space derelict, the remains of an Air Force Discoverer satellite that had gone astray." [Read the complete story by visiting the Time Magazine website.]
The Articles of 1954:
St. Louis Dispatch and The San Francisco Examiner articles about the unidentified satellite.
On August 23, 1954 the technology magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology released a story that angered the Pentagon who were trying to keep the information secret. The short article stated:
"Pentagon scare over the observance of two previously unobserved satellites orbiting the earth has dissipated with the identification of the objects as natural, not artificial satellites. Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, expert on extraterrestrial bodies from the University of New Mexico, headed the identification project. One satellite is orbiting about 400 miles out, while the other track is 600 miles from the earth. Pentagon thought momentarily the Russians had beaten the U.S. to space explorations."
Interest in the Black Knight was higher each year, in 1957, an unknown “object” was seen “shadowing” the Sputnik 1 Spacecraft. According to reports, the “unidentified object” was in Polar orbit, at that time The United Stated nor the Russians possessed the technology to maintain a spacecraft in Polar Orbit. According to our research the first Polar orbiting satellite was launched in 1960. Polar orbits are often used for earth-mapping, earth observation, capturing the earth as time passes from one point and reconnaissance satellites. This would put the Black Knight in the category of a observational Satellite, the only question here is, who placed The Black Knight in a polar orbit and for what purpose?
The Object continued to amaze Astronomers World Wide. In the 1960′s the Black Knight was located once again in Polar Orbit. Astronomers and Scientists calculated the objects weight to be over 10 tons which would be at that time the Heaviest Artificial Satellite to orbit our Planet. The Black Knights orbiting was unlike any other object orbiting Earth, as it was moving as twice as fast when compared to the man made Spacecrafts.
There are also several reports that the Grumman Aircraft Corporation gave much importance to this mysterious “Satellite”, On September 3, 1960, seven months after the satellite was first detected by radar, a tracking camera at Grumman Aircraft Corporation’s Long Island factory took a photograph of the Black Knight. At that point people all over the world started identifying the object in the sky, which could be seen as a red light moving at higher speed compared to other satellites in a East to West orbit. The Grumman Aircraft Corporation formed a committee to study the data received from the observations made but nothing was made public.
In 1963, Gordon Cooper was launched into space. On his final orbit, he reported seeing a glowing green object in front of his capsule in the distance moving towards his Spacecraft. The Muchea tracking station, in Australia, which Cooper reported the object to, picked up this Unidentified object on Radar travelling East to West. NBC reported this but after Cooper returned to Earth, the Reporter were not allowed to ask Cooper about the unidentified object. The official explanation given to Coopers sighting were “high levels of carbon dioxide, which caused hallucinations“.
The Black Knight has been a topic of interest all around the world. Until today most of the “official” information on the mysterious object is kept safe and away from society. No one has answered some of the most simple and logical questions to ask, who placed that “satellite” in Polar orbit? To what purpose?
Is the Black Knight an Extraterrestrial satellite sent to Earth to study the Human race? Did the Satellite attempt to communicate with the human race? Have we ignored attempted communications? One thing is for sure, The Black Knight remains as one of the most mysterious objects to orbit our planet. Is there a connection between this (in)famous space object and ancient mankind’s achievements?
Here are the images of the Black Knight and links to the raw images from NASA:
[ Source » Ancient Code ]
The Truth About the Black Knight Satellite Mystery
There are around 3000 human-made satellites in working order around the Earth, however if the debris of old and damaged satellites are taken into account the number increases dramatically. Ever since the Soviet Union launched the very first artificial satellite into orbit in 1957, various countries around the world have sought to compete and satellites today are used for communication, navigation and exploration. Satellites are often visible passing overhead as the sunlight reflects back towards the Earth. One of them is impossible to miss, the largest satellite currently in orbit, the International Space Station, at a huge 100m across. However, these satellites are relatively unexciting in comparison to the mystery surrounding one very old dark satellite…
Legend has it that in orbit around the Earth is a mysterious, dark object which dates back perhaps 13 000 years. Its origin and purpose are inscrutable, dubbed the “Black Knight” this elusive satellite has allegedly been beaming signals towards the Earth and inspected by NASA astronauts yet only a few on Earth officially know of its existence. The origin of the ominous name is part of the enigma; it is impossible to discover who first called it this or indeed why. Humans have only in the last 60 years had the technology to launch a man-made object into space so what is the logical explanation of tales of an alien intruder on our doorstep?
The first apparent part of this story begins with signals heard by Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) a brilliant Serbian inventor (and possibly a genuine mad scientist) who spent most of his career in the USA. He was an electrical engineer and produced works which explored the idea of radio and wireless transmissions. In 1899, he reportedly intercepted a signal unlike any of the natural sources from Earth such as electrical storms that he had already investigated in his experiments. Instead he announced that regular signals must from an intelligent outside source, potentially inhabitants of Mars. Today there are those who say he was listening to a transmission from an orbiting satellite of unknown origin later called by some the Black Knight.
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Nikola Tesla |
It is more likely that what was Tesla detected was not the Black Knight but instead signals which are emitted from natural objects. Today we know of natural extraterrestrial sources such as pulsars. These are fast-spinning neutron stars which emit a rhythmic signal. They were first discovered in 1967 by Northern Irish astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell-Burnell (1943-). Until certain of their origin, they were jokingly nicknamed the Little Green Men signals. Tesla was likely completely unaware of what he really detected (if indeed he picked up anything at all).
In the 1920s anomalous signals were again detected by amateur radio operators. These were originally of Earthly origin, but their timing was bizarre! A signal would be received then a second repeated signal received a few seconds later. These Long Delayed Echoes (LDEs) were difficult to explain in terms or radio waves bouncing off atmospheric layers.
In 1973, Scotsman Duncan Lunan (1945-) went back to these signals to see if could make sense of them. Miraculously by plotting the delay times against the order in which the echoes were received he could create what appeared to be star charts and diagrams. By deciphering them Lunan decided that the signals were actually messages transmitted by a probe originally from the star Epsilon Böotes (Izar) which had been lurking near the Moon for the past 13 000 years.
Lunan is not a professional astronomer but instead a science fiction author with a flair for outré ideas but nevertheless the name Black Knight is never mentioned by him; nor has he personally linked his Epsilon Böotes hypothesis with the Black Knight, others seem to be responsible for this.
Mr Duncan Lunan has stated his position on the Black Knight story thus: |
"Hi, Thanks for correcting the Black Knight nonsense, which as you say has nothing to do with me. As regards Izar, when I published my attempted translation of the 1920s signals, Izar’s distance was generally quoted as 103 light-years. Dynamical parallax calculations suggested that the star had been F5 when on the Main Sequence, which would have allowed time for evolution of intelligent life, and made the supposed 2nd planet originally habitable and the 6th planet habitable now. When the true distance turned out to be 203 l.y., it made the star A0 when on the Main Sequence: no time for evolution, and neither planet would ever have been habitable if they existed, so I withdrew the whole translation in 1976. The star has cropped up in other contexts since then, but that is another story. Cheers, Duncan."
Another story dating back to the early 1950s claimed to refer to an apparition of the Black Knight reports the detection of a signal of by an object in orbit. This was a time of deep suspicions held by the two superpowers on either side of the Pacific. Neither the Americans nor the Soviets had the ability to place an object into any kind of an orbit at that time. Yet the discovery of an Earth-orbiting satellite was reported in a couple of newspapers from the time, However, the articles actually a couple of synopses of a book by the UFOlogical author Donald Keyhoe (1897-1988). I’m sure these promotional newspaper articles had been great for sales of the book!
A few years later, the Black Knight seemed have made another appearance when American newspapers reported in 1960 that there was an unusual object in polar orbit, by then both superpowers had satellites in equatorial orbit but polar orbit meant that the satellite could see every part of the Earth, yet neither country admitted owning it.
This may seem strange but remember that this was a time of deep-rooted suspicion and espionage not just with each other but now seemingly with extra-terrestrials too.
Declassified information now released from that time suggested that object was a Corona spy satellite under disguise at the time of the US Discoverer research satellite programme. The world was bracing itself for nuclear destruction, coming close to a nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis just two years later, had this information been released at the time perhaps the Cold War would have indeed heated up.
For any story or conspiracy to have credibility it always helps to get someone high profile on board. In the case of the Black Knight, Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper (1927-2004) is a prime example. Cooper announced seeing many UFOs throughout his career. So when it was claimed that he saw green lights belonging to the Black Knight on his Mercury flight with alleged ground control radar also picking up something inexplicable, it is often believed to be true. However Cooper produced transcripts saying that on the Mercury flight he never saw anything. When you have admitted seeing UFOs once perhaps other details of when and where often become less significant. |
Gordon Cooper |
[ Read more about » Astronaut UFO sightings ]
The most recent and most cited “evidence” for a mystery satellite from beyond dates from 1998. The crew of Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour photographed an unusual object in low Earth orbit.
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STS-88 Debris handheld excerpt |
These images are often labelled as the most definite proof of this satellite. However, on more careful analysis this strange structure seems more like a piece of space debris. In actual fact this black object is probably a thermal blanket that had become dislodged during an EVA.
NASA Mission STS-88 was the first American mission to begin construction of the International Space Station. The Russians had already placed the Zarya module in orbit so this mission was to connect Zarya to the American Unity module. The crew achieved all objectives of their mission including installing hand-rails and testing a safety device to prevent astronauts drifting into space should they become detached.
However, there were a few hitches along the way. Initial alignment of the modules did not quite work so as the Shuttle’s robotic arm loosened its grip to try again, several items floated away including the thermal blanket covering, which is what the mysterious image captured in the photo appears to be.
None of this information supports claims of the Black Knight, the dark satellite, however, there really was a Black Knight rocket. It was a British rocket used to test the design of a re-entry vehicle for the Blue Streak missile between 1958 and 1965. This one is not quite as mysterious. |
So although claims of an ancient 13 000 year old satellite originally from the constellation of Böotes, has reportedly been spotted and photographed by NASA astronauts as it travels in polar orbit; in reality this is not the case. Black Knight is a jumble of completely unrelated stories; reports of unusual science observations, authors promoting fringe ideas, classified spy satellites and people over-interpreting photos. These ingredients have chopped up, stirred together and stewed on the internet to one rambling and inconsistent dollop of myth. The Universe is big place, and astronomers are trying to find signs of other life, some have even searched for alien probes near Earth; however the Black Knight satellite is not the answer and it never has been.
[ Source » Astronotes ]
» Ufology - NASA's Unknowns
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