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The Skylab-Area 51 Incident
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."
Good story, but it would have been interesting to see the actual picture taken by the astronauts in 1974, rather than the Geological Survey pic taken in 1968.
By the way, if you're interested in a higher-resolution look at Area 51, just point your Google Earth to 37 d 14' N, 115 d 49' W.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Area 51 on google maps
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I watched a History Channel documentary on Area 51 recently titled 'History's Mysteries: Area 51: Beyond Top Secret,' it was very interesting.
Link: http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id
Interesting Area 51 facts:
Area 51 has the longest runways in the world.
Area 51 was the test site for the U2, SR-71, B2, and F-117 aircraft.
Area 51 is heavily guarded, and can only be seen from a mountaintop 24 miles away with a high-powered telescope.
You can scavenge aircraft wreckage from around its perimeter with a metal detector and sometimes are able to see the craft name and manufacturer on some of the pieces.
Area 51 employees bury most of the wreckage of crashed aircraft on its site in order for them not to end up in public scrap yards.
Area 51 has captured Russian Mig and other Russian aircraft which they flew and tested.
Area 51 was first officially acknowledged to exist in 1995 due to lawsuit from some of its employees against the US government.
Area 51 has the largest collection of fully-functional extra-terrestrial spacecraft in our Solar System (okay, I just made that last one up.)
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
In our current environment of detainees, secret wiretaps, torture, and the like, I find this article quite timely. The closing paragraph seems rather foreboding:
Nothing more is known of this Skylab photography incident than the fact that the photograph was not released. NASA and the State Department clearly lost the argument. But the opponents of releasing it preserved national security, as they defined it.
It seems that similar discussions are happening around current issues, with leaks aplenty. I wonder who will win the argument now?
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
They also argue that when the government fails to confirm the obvious, it both undermines governmental authority and legitimacy, and contributes to wild speculation, such as aliens and soundstages in underground hangars at Area 51.
Part of inteligence is counter inteligence. If you make enough "noise", the truth will be hidden amongst so much wild speculation no one will be able to figure out what actually goes on there. It probably also serves as a nice decoy for other facilities.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Like the Rex84 project where they keep working concentration camps operational that can hold 30 million people total. Infact if you google it there's a website with a list.
Or the MKUltra project where they tried to find truth syrums and abducted/kidnapped and forced marines, soldiers, and homeless people to do experiments.
Or the attack on the USS liberty by the Israeli's to trick America into war against their enemies.
Or the Chemtrails, where they do weather modification experiments using airplanes.
Or HAARP which produced a fucking aurora borealous over New York not too long ago.
Then there's the massive underground highway that apparently exists all over the USA that they use at their convenience.
What did you guys think? The US government, taking damn near 1/3rd of everyone's paycheck PLUS fiat taxing everyone on the planet through printing off dollars PLUS taxing corps up the wazoo isn't going to be doing a lot of secret stuff? How expensive do you really think road paving, policing, and military expenditure really is?
Do you really believe all that dough halliburton has been getting, now probably nearing 100 billion, is going into the pockets of the wealthy so they can buy tootsie rolls and nice cars? Rummy just admitted that the pentagon can't account for 2 TRILLION! Do you think that just vanished into thin air?
It isn't logical to believe so I'm afriad.
The govt is just not very good at keeping secrets, "Area 51" has to be one of the least well kept secrets in the world, how can conspiracy theorist beleve in huge cover ups such as a JFK conspiracy, fake moon landings or "aliens" when these people arent competent enough to hide a damn building!?
One thing though, if they were unable to "hide" this base, probably newer secret bases have been made underground. They could still be easily located with a satellite thermal scanning (or similar tech). But hey at least they wouldnt appear clear as daylight in satellites.
Go ahead MOD my day!
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Did anyone see the press release from a few months ago where SETI announced that if they ever do recieve contact from extraterrestrials they will inform the US government before the media and allow the government to decide whether to release the information to the general population? What a bunch of bullshit. I expected better of SETI. They just lost privilges to use my computer for computing while I'm not using it...
To alcohol and cigarettes and Mary-Jane to keep me insane doing someone else's cocaine
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