The destruction of the Palomar plates makes Even more important the fact that the Lick observatory archivist claims to still have the glass plates from this observatory available from the concurrent time frame. Simon Holland Made a video a few months ago to try to call attention to it, problem is such an Endeavor is as time and as fund consuming as it sounds.
Thankfully several observatories made sky surveys that can potentially cover the "Menzel Gap" created from the destruction of 1/3 of Harvard's collection and then halting of new plates being made for roughly 15 years. Palomar plates are actually ones that survived during the years of the Menzel Gap and we're used by Dr. Beatriz Villaroel in her study of transients. The Palomar plates were digitized in the POSS-I and POSS-II projects while other observatories have similar initiatives underway: https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/media/archival.html
Given Donald Menzel’s well-known public engagement with the UFO topic during the early days, this article is an important contribution to UFO history. An excellent read, and I can’t wait for the sequel!
The appendix to the article is interesting. You report that Mick West hasn’t replied to your request to cite errors in your introductory article, even though he made the accusation that it is “error-filled”. I too wonder what are the errors he alleges. I also wonder how the skeptical/debunker community might react to this newer article. I think it is worthwhile to speculate, so here goes:
Suppose I am a member of a group, whose goal is to ensure that “pseudo-scientific” claims, “conspiracy theories”, and “paranormal” beliefs are dismissed and not taken seriously. Let’s call this (totally fictional!) group ‘the Center for the Suppression of Inquiry’. If I think your article is getting enough engagement, I might first identify one or two sections that bump up against the pseudo-science/conspiracy/paranormal-sphere. (Note that this is an important ‘if’, because if I think it’s not being read much, it might be best from my perspective not to engage at all, and let the algorithm naturally suppress it.) One obvious candidate is the section titled ‘Menzel’s Majestic matriculation’. Next, I’ll note that in that section, you reference some of the Majestic documents, and that you also take seriously the idea that a flying saucer might have crashed near Roswell in the early summer of 1947.
Then I’ll play my trump cards. I’ll assert with confidence that the Majestic documents have been shown to be “bogus”. Perhaps I’ll cite the fact that the FBI scrawled that word on one of them, and I’ll cite a classic debunking article, e.g., “The New Bogus Majestic-12 Documents”, by Philip J. Klass. I’ll also confidently assert that the the USAF explained the Roswell crash as a Project Mogul balloon in their The Roswell Report: Case Closed, after extensive investigation.
Finally, I’ll refrain from any truly deeper inquiry into either of these debunks, and I’ll meet such inquiry with incredulity, and maybe even a little pity: “Look, it would be super interesting if we had better evidence, there’s nothing I want more. But there’s just nothing there. Can’t beat a dead horse. I’m sorry. [Shrugs shoulders, raises eyebrows].” My hope with all of this would be that anyone who initially found the article compelling will think twice and dismiss the article as just more unjustified conspiracy theorizing, to be filed-away in a folder titled ‘Not Worth My Time’. End of speculation.
A couple questions: (1) How should you react to this sort of engagement? (2) In your opinion, which parts of your article are most likely to be debunked in this way, or are most vulnerable to this kind of debunking?
And great ~hypothetical~ hard to imagine, but I'll play along. For (1) I'd say, "Bring receipts and show your work." The FBI have shown they can manage a sharpie but not much else with their "bogus" conclusion. In a more recent iteration, we have AARO doing the same with their provably error-filled work. (ref https://thedebrief.org/the-pentagons-new-uap-report-is-seriously-flawed/ ) Both are conclusion heavy, and show-your-work light.
For (2) Most likely the portions you've described, because that falls squarely into their history. They are oddly religious in that way, ergo Klass spoketh, so I repeateth. Despite being surrounded with prosaic documents that reinforce the MJ-12 timeline as well as an ever growing (Farah, Grusch, Elizondo, Davis, etc.) they would likely say the documents are debunked. Again, highly doubtful that they would show their work before delivering their conclusion--just as Mick West did in the first article. Which loops back into (1): "Bring receipts and show your work."
Harvard/Smithsonian CFA has now turned into a super woke, anti-white male organization. All the portraits of the past Directors have been taken down and put in a closet. Primary focus is pumpkin-carving and ice cream socials. Very sad.
I've got my hands full with the 1950s HCO-SAO CFA! Just a guess that in present times their most interesting astrophysics are living in a classified, privatized world. Without the tickets you get pumpkin-carving, ice cream socials, and resentment.
Prosaically, by analyzing the corona effects of the sun, Menzel was able to predict radio interference hitting the Earth and times of clearest communication for coordinating signaling during the war. He saved many pilots lives in the Pacific with similar interference knowledge.
Less prosaically, maybe passive radar receivers also tuned to those solar signals could detect reflections "from objects that accelerate quickly or that make science-defying turns." From: https://ascendantai.com/skywatch That's outside of my brain box though. A question for the mighty Mitch Randall.
From that same page, "Using technology that was first demonstrated in the 1940s, the SkyWatch radar receivers don’t send a radio signal outward. Instead, they passively receive signals from normal radio stations. Those radio station signals fill the sky across the country every day. A SkyWatch receiver compares a signal that arrives directly from a radio station with a signal from the same radio station that has bounced from an object in the sky."
Lastly, the corona is interesting because it combines magnetism and plasma onto particles in a way that allow them to escape the gravity of the sun. Air Materiel Command had an interest in that one too... for reasons.
Hmmmm. FUnny that. That second paragraph reminds of SENTIENT and its ability to recieve radar reflections ito its satyelites by using terrestrial EM sources....so this was the ORIGINAL version. And SENTIENT is also reported (and designed) to be able to detect UAPs. Funny that.
'It had long been one of NSA's neatest tricks. Because radar signals travel in a straight line and the earth is curved, it was impossible for American radar stations outside Russia to detect air activity deep within the country. However, Soviet radar installations throughout the country communicated with each other over high-frequency circuits. **Because high-frequency signals bounce between the earth and the ionosphere, the right equipment can pick them up thousands of miles away.** Thus, by eavesdropping on Soviet radar networks as they transmitted signals between their bases over these channels, NSA could, in effect, watch Russian radar screens far inside the country."
He chased AAVSO as far away into obscurity as he could too. The Boston University scuttlebutt had nothing to do with the Harvard astronomy budget. Seemed to be targeting people watching for strange “stars” like they were a risk.
Apologies for a few wonky placements of footnotes—a compromise in not being able to footnote image captions.
Hi Ryan. Great article. You should contact me. I am related and know some more interesting information about his family network.
Masterpiece. Brilliant deep-dive!
Much appreciated! I really hope the history of all this comes out in an understandable form, and am trying to contribute that in some small way.
The destruction of the Palomar plates makes Even more important the fact that the Lick observatory archivist claims to still have the glass plates from this observatory available from the concurrent time frame. Simon Holland Made a video a few months ago to try to call attention to it, problem is such an Endeavor is as time and as fund consuming as it sounds.
Thankfully several observatories made sky surveys that can potentially cover the "Menzel Gap" created from the destruction of 1/3 of Harvard's collection and then halting of new plates being made for roughly 15 years. Palomar plates are actually ones that survived during the years of the Menzel Gap and we're used by Dr. Beatriz Villaroel in her study of transients. The Palomar plates were digitized in the POSS-I and POSS-II projects while other observatories have similar initiatives underway: https://sites.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/media/archival.html
Given Donald Menzel’s well-known public engagement with the UFO topic during the early days, this article is an important contribution to UFO history. An excellent read, and I can’t wait for the sequel!
The appendix to the article is interesting. You report that Mick West hasn’t replied to your request to cite errors in your introductory article, even though he made the accusation that it is “error-filled”. I too wonder what are the errors he alleges. I also wonder how the skeptical/debunker community might react to this newer article. I think it is worthwhile to speculate, so here goes:
Suppose I am a member of a group, whose goal is to ensure that “pseudo-scientific” claims, “conspiracy theories”, and “paranormal” beliefs are dismissed and not taken seriously. Let’s call this (totally fictional!) group ‘the Center for the Suppression of Inquiry’. If I think your article is getting enough engagement, I might first identify one or two sections that bump up against the pseudo-science/conspiracy/paranormal-sphere. (Note that this is an important ‘if’, because if I think it’s not being read much, it might be best from my perspective not to engage at all, and let the algorithm naturally suppress it.) One obvious candidate is the section titled ‘Menzel’s Majestic matriculation’. Next, I’ll note that in that section, you reference some of the Majestic documents, and that you also take seriously the idea that a flying saucer might have crashed near Roswell in the early summer of 1947.
Then I’ll play my trump cards. I’ll assert with confidence that the Majestic documents have been shown to be “bogus”. Perhaps I’ll cite the fact that the FBI scrawled that word on one of them, and I’ll cite a classic debunking article, e.g., “The New Bogus Majestic-12 Documents”, by Philip J. Klass. I’ll also confidently assert that the the USAF explained the Roswell crash as a Project Mogul balloon in their The Roswell Report: Case Closed, after extensive investigation.
Finally, I’ll refrain from any truly deeper inquiry into either of these debunks, and I’ll meet such inquiry with incredulity, and maybe even a little pity: “Look, it would be super interesting if we had better evidence, there’s nothing I want more. But there’s just nothing there. Can’t beat a dead horse. I’m sorry. [Shrugs shoulders, raises eyebrows].” My hope with all of this would be that anyone who initially found the article compelling will think twice and dismiss the article as just more unjustified conspiracy theorizing, to be filed-away in a folder titled ‘Not Worth My Time’. End of speculation.
A couple questions: (1) How should you react to this sort of engagement? (2) In your opinion, which parts of your article are most likely to be debunked in this way, or are most vulnerable to this kind of debunking?
Much appreciated, Casey. Thank you!
And great ~hypothetical~ hard to imagine, but I'll play along. For (1) I'd say, "Bring receipts and show your work." The FBI have shown they can manage a sharpie but not much else with their "bogus" conclusion. In a more recent iteration, we have AARO doing the same with their provably error-filled work. (ref https://thedebrief.org/the-pentagons-new-uap-report-is-seriously-flawed/ ) Both are conclusion heavy, and show-your-work light.
For (2) Most likely the portions you've described, because that falls squarely into their history. They are oddly religious in that way, ergo Klass spoketh, so I repeateth. Despite being surrounded with prosaic documents that reinforce the MJ-12 timeline as well as an ever growing (Farah, Grusch, Elizondo, Davis, etc.) they would likely say the documents are debunked. Again, highly doubtful that they would show their work before delivering their conclusion--just as Mick West did in the first article. Which loops back into (1): "Bring receipts and show your work."
I expand on this in a soon to air podcast with Andy McGrillen from That UFO Podcast, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIx-g2EQ73c
Harvard/Smithsonian CFA has now turned into a super woke, anti-white male organization. All the portraits of the past Directors have been taken down and put in a closet. Primary focus is pumpkin-carving and ice cream socials. Very sad.
I've got my hands full with the 1950s HCO-SAO CFA! Just a guess that in present times their most interesting astrophysics are living in a classified, privatized world. Without the tickets you get pumpkin-carving, ice cream socials, and resentment.
“...to find out all that German scientists had been doing in coronagraphic studies during the war.”
......the fuck. Why were Coronographic studies considered as important as V2 and other stuff...this is one of the threads we should be following.
Prosaically, by analyzing the corona effects of the sun, Menzel was able to predict radio interference hitting the Earth and times of clearest communication for coordinating signaling during the war. He saved many pilots lives in the Pacific with similar interference knowledge.
Less prosaically, maybe passive radar receivers also tuned to those solar signals could detect reflections "from objects that accelerate quickly or that make science-defying turns." From: https://ascendantai.com/skywatch That's outside of my brain box though. A question for the mighty Mitch Randall.
From that same page, "Using technology that was first demonstrated in the 1940s, the SkyWatch radar receivers don’t send a radio signal outward. Instead, they passively receive signals from normal radio stations. Those radio station signals fill the sky across the country every day. A SkyWatch receiver compares a signal that arrives directly from a radio station with a signal from the same radio station that has bounced from an object in the sky."
Lastly, the corona is interesting because it combines magnetism and plasma onto particles in a way that allow them to escape the gravity of the sun. Air Materiel Command had an interest in that one too... for reasons.
Hmmmm. FUnny that. That second paragraph reminds of SENTIENT and its ability to recieve radar reflections ito its satyelites by using terrestrial EM sources....so this was the ORIGINAL version. And SENTIENT is also reported (and designed) to be able to detect UAPs. Funny that.
From "Body of Secrets" by James Bramford
'It had long been one of NSA's neatest tricks. Because radar signals travel in a straight line and the earth is curved, it was impossible for American radar stations outside Russia to detect air activity deep within the country. However, Soviet radar installations throughout the country communicated with each other over high-frequency circuits. **Because high-frequency signals bounce between the earth and the ionosphere, the right equipment can pick them up thousands of miles away.** Thus, by eavesdropping on Soviet radar networks as they transmitted signals between their bases over these channels, NSA could, in effect, watch Russian radar screens far inside the country."
He chased AAVSO as far away into obscurity as he could too. The Boston University scuttlebutt had nothing to do with the Harvard astronomy budget. Seemed to be targeting people watching for strange “stars” like they were a risk.