Monday 17 September 2018

Solar Observatory Shutdown

The National Solar Observatory is in New Mexico USA, in a town appropriately named Sunspot. Since 1952 it has played a major role in advancing our knowledge of the sun. It observes the sun throughout daylight hours, studying radiation, light and other properties of our local star. On September the 6th something strange happened. The Federal Bureau of Investigation forced the institute to close. They literally swooped down on the establishment in a helicopter and took the place over. All the staff were evacuated, even those in the nearby post office. Nothing at all was said for over a week and then the observatory's management, the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, released a statement saying that they had decided to close the facility as a precautionary measure to deal with a "security issue" and that the observatory reopened today. They reported "criminal activity" and a "suspect" being at large on the site. Source: https://www.kvia.com/news/new-mexico/breaking-sunspot-solar-observatory-to-reopen-after-fbi-investigation/795918049. However, the need for the FBI to become involved would indicate very serious criminal activity indeed, probably involving far more than a suspect-singular. Normally the local police would have handled such matters.

There is a massive amount of material online speculating on the real cause of this incident, everything from Nibiru to Chinese spies. There have been some worrying claims that the US government is trying to cover up an impending catastrophe caused by a massive solar flare or a similar cosmic apocalypse to prevent public panic. There are rumours that the National Solar Observatory spotted the rogue planet Nibiru; however, as I explain in the background links, Nibiru does not exist. In fact as I've said many times, cover-ups cannot happen in astronomy. It is the one truly democratic science. There are hundreds of solar observatories in the world and most of them are still operating normally. It would be necessary to shut all of them down, as well as silence the millions of amateur hobbyists, to suppress this kind of upcoming doom. That would be impossible, see background links below. Nevertheless, Secure Team Ten reports that live webcams went down in other observatories at the same time, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sk65sXlO4A. It is certainly possible that the National Solar Observatory saw something it shouldn't have, but if so it was something closer to home. This could be a UFO-related phenomenon or possibly an issue connected with the nearby White Stands and Holloman Air Force Base military reservations. I have a feeling there is a lot more to find out about this, and indeed I have done a HPANWO TV livestream about the subject, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/09/sunspot-observatory-shutdown-livestream.html.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

They probably didn't want the recent solar activity getting out to the general public, there have been large UFOs seen around the sun in the last few days. OOOOPPPPPSSSSS!!!

Anonymous said...

Most likely scenareo I've seen is:

"The issue may be related to Mercury (the metal, not the planet). On a tip from a science journalist friend who covers telescopes and who has been there, I verified the observatory uses a vat of liquid mercury as a float bearing for the giant solar telescope. According to an internal NSO/NMSU document, that bearing is “high-risk” during maintenance. If there was a major mercury spill, it might explain why the Feds are there, with FBI providing security. The amount of Mercury is said to be in the “tens of gallons” range, which is next to impossible to come by in the commercial market these days, and if it were weaponized, it would make a very nasty dirty bomb. Perhaps there’s some security issue with the mercury on-site." PP.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/12/weird-fbi-closes-national-solar-observatory-over-mysterious-security-issue/

Anonymous said...

PP Update: Dunt explain why the closed the local US postal service office at the same time tho...

"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 is 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."

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/09/20/closure-of-national-solar-observatory-explained/

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Thanks for the information, Anon. The scale of the crime, and the fact that the observatory were Federal Govt property, might explain the huge law enforcement response. As for the post office, it could just be a need for scene protection or something. Hopefully we'll find out more soon.