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The Skylab-Area 51 Incident

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the back-in-time dept.

IZ Reloaded writes "The Space Review has an interesting story written by Dwayne Day about the 1974 incident when astronauts onboard Skylab took photos of a facility that did not exist in the US called Area 51. From The Space Review: What the memo indicates is that there was a difference between the way the civilian agencies of the US government and the military agencies looked at their roles. NASA had ties to the military, but it was clearly a civilian agency. And although the reasons why NASA officials felt that the photo should be released are unknown, the most likely explanation is that NASA officials did not feel that the civilian agency should conceal any of its activities. Many of NASA's relations with other organizations and foreign governments were based on the assumption that NASA did not engage in spying and did not conceal its activities."

3 of 334 comments (clear)

  1. A fun little theory by grasshoppa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anybody else think that the only reason the government still denies the existance of area 51 is to keep people looking at it? Makes you wonder why, doesn't it? /conspiracy theory

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  2. Re:Government Secrecy by bear_phillips · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is not in keeping secrets from the general public. The problem is certain parts of the government keeping secrets from ELECTED officials. With the current administration a large number examples have popped up where elected officials where kept in the dark. When certain parts of the government hide information from elected officials, then the government looses any accountabilty. Without accountability then we don't have a democracy. The current administrations secret wiretaps, prisons etc.. is a huge example. I am not so much upset that the general public didn't know, but my elected official sure as hell should have known about it.

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  3. Re:A Closer Look by JasonBee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well fie on them - Google doesn't own any satellites last I checked.

    If you want to buy sub 1-metre resolution satellite pics just go the SPOT consortium in
    France. Any interested parties will BUY their data at FAR greater resolution than what
    Google supplies.

    Meh