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Indian Army Mistook Planets For Spy Drones
hackingbear writes "BBC reports that India's army spent six months watching 'Chinese spy drones' violating its air space, only to find out they were actually Jupiter and Venus. Between last August and February, Indian troops had already documented 329 sightings of unidentified objects over a lake in the border region next to China. India accused the objects being Chinese spy drones. The incident even escalated to a military build-up and a stand-off at border between the two countries. Residents of the solar system are glad that India does not possess the capability to shoot down such high altitude objects."
in their Potrzebie. They'll need an Axolotl to fix that one...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
India has nuclear weapons. Sleep tight.
They can just request the drone to do the needful and reboot itself into safe mode.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
This is what happens when your society tries to leapfrog technological advancements without understanding the stuff that preceded them.
Thats no planet, thats a battle station!
Was their analysis open and shut? Did they decide to probe further?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Since most won't RTFA - the confrontation didn't happen or escalate over the sightings. That was because the Chinese army setup camp in Indian territory. During that time soldiers reported these sightings, and the army (responsibly) went to the Indian Institute of Astrophysics for confirmation. This won't stop the India bashing of course, but hopefully someone will read this post or TFA.
It's a moon!
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Military intelligence? Hahahaha. Yeah right...
Yeah, dumb, but they have very nice hats. The higher up you go the more ostentatious your had can be, with more stars. gold braiding, eagles and laurels. Dang. All I have is this cotton cap from MSU with a Spartan on it and its getting a bit old and needs replacing.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's gonna be tough to bury Jupiter in the Nevada hills.
Table-ized A.I.
Astrologers as dumb as rocks. But you should report their crazy beliefs accurately. Not like you have to make shit up for them to look very stupid.
'The Age of Aquarius' is about the precession of the earth's orbit.
Well, all the planets experienced peace, but ours. Not a bad track record percentage wise when you think about it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Technically the goverment got it correct. Army officers reported unidentified objects they believed to be drones. A branch of the goverment checked and discovered they were planets. So +1 for goverments versus stupid individuals.
...from a nation that practically invented astronomy.
Proverbs 21:19
I am an Indian - so let me try to fill in the possible missing pieces in the story and the cultural perspective.
First of all the China-India border, especially in Ladakh is very tense with China occupying a border region called Aksai Chin for many decades. The Indian Army soldiers, who are most likely from the plains and who have never seen the sky in all its high altitude glory (we are talking about 15,000 - 20,000 ft altitude here) were likely tasked with looking out at the night sky and see anything 'interesting' - the officer who issued the order must have meant Chinese drones, but by the time the order got to the lookout guy from the officer via the JCO through the sergeant, it must have read look out for something 'bright'. The soldiers were seeing the brightest planets in their lives and obviously had plenty to write in their reports.
Then the sighting reports started pouring in and the officer in charge probably got suspicious and looked out and concluded that the objects were likely celestial. But just to make sure that he is right, he must have ringed up the battalion HQ to get some astronomy duded flown in to get a confirmation. That is probably why the request went straight to Indian Institute of Astrophysics. The astro-dudes flew in, confirmed that they are looking at planets and on their way back talked to a journalist about the incident and how stuuuuuuupid the army guys were.
That, I guess what would have happened.
I have to say, I was impressed people didn't get slaughtered over the border dispute they had with China recently. Both countries avoided people getting slaughtered over literally a few hundred yards of frozen ground. Something humans thought was normal until quite recently.
So, that's real progress.
But yeah, they have nukes too.
Not sure if troll or Mad Magazine.
If you think I'm going to give away inside information to unethical people such as /. readers, when I'm on to a good thing, you've got another think coming. This could get me some really big zorkmids.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Shoot them down!
That could be dangerous - you'd really get into trouble with the astrologer's union. I doubt "Venus ascends in aquarius and then disappears in a large nuclear fireball shortly before teatime" is something they have a prediction for in their charts. In fact you might force them to just make something up! ;-)
Astrology came first. Then the hippies wrote songs about it. Which is the only thing many people know about the subject. I blame the hippies. /Cartman
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
When the U.S. installed one of the first Radar stations to catch Russian missiles as they came over the hemisphere. The Moon set off one of the first alerts, was a tad too sensitive.
Best cite I can come up with; but a common snicker when I was growing up.
http://nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/accidents/20-mishaps-maybe-caused-nuclear-war.htm
"The rising moon was misinterpreted as a missile attack during the early days of long-range radar."
I know most of us probably haven't taken a good, long look at the night sky. Most because of light pollution, or from just not bothering to look up.
I've seen planets before. With the naked eye, you know what they look like? Little dots of light, about the size of a star, or a high-altitude aircraft. Saturn is the farthest planet that can be seen with the naked eye, and also the hardest.
Without a telescope, you don't see the rings. Or much else - it's a dot in the sky, like the billions and billions of other dots in the sky. The only easy way to tell the difference between planets and aircraft, from the ground with the naked eye, is by movement - planets move far, far slower. Unless, of course, the aircraft is circling, or even just of a type that can hover (either a aerostat, or a helicopter design).
So yeah, I can totally believe that a squad of soldiers, most of whom were likely born in cities and never grew up with a good view of the night sky, and none of whom are trained astronomers, would find Saturn suspicious enough to report as an "unidentified object".
And, contrary to the headlines, they didn't "mistake it for a drone". A team of military observers observed something, made some requests to see if it was something benign, or a potential threat. The scientists sent back some requests for better information, just to be sure (after all, placing a drone around where a planet would be sounds like a decent idea for camouflage), then reported back "yep, that's Saturn".
Same goes for Venus. Easy to see in the night sky, sometimes even in the day, but not easy to identify unless you were specifically looking for planets. It's commonly seen, but misidentified - our own President Carter did so, for instance.
Planets also *move*. They're not in fixed positions from night to night - they move through the sky. So it's not like spotting constellations, where you just need a point of reference. Knowing where those planets will be takes some pretty complex calculations - figuring out how to do that drove many advances in math.
So yeah. Stop acting like they're morons for not instantly recognizing a planet. I'd wager money that you all wouldn't even spot them in the sky, much less know exactly what they are.
At the very least they checked with their astronomers, not astrologists, before they took any further action
With the collaboration of the NSA, now they can identify Uranus
The problem is, until now they have yet to locate their own anus