Sts-48

[Derek Willis]

As far as I am aware there should not have been that many searchlights trained in one area regardless if there was an actual object there or not. It diminishes battle effectiveness to only concentrate on one target at a time. If there were other craft they would have slipped by practically unchallenged. It isn't a 'regulation' per se but keeping searchlights free to illuminate multiple targets (again, whether there is more than one target known of or not) is a sound strategy for AA defense. The fact that there were so many lights trained on one area indicates 'green' soldiers with itchy trigger fingers rather than a UFO in my opinion. As to what object, if any, that precipitated the firing I'm not sure but there is sufficient evidence to suggest a weather balloon* could have been the culprit.

*Yes, people like to ridicule anyone who says anything about weather balloons when speaking of UFO's but they are nonetheless potential candidates for confusion or misidentification from time to time.

As I said, I don't for a nanosecond believe the Battle for LA had anything to do with UFOs. I was interested to learn that as early as 1937 the US were testing radar guided searchlights at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. If the system used in LA in early 1942 was of this kind, then this would suggest the radar had picked up an object of some sort and all the lights had been automatically trained onto that.

http://www.skylighte...howalightworks/

Sorry, I just noticed a previous posting mentioning radar guided searchlights. The info on that posting would tend to suggest that the searchlights must have been focusing on an actual object.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Derek Willis

[Derek Willis]

Name one aircraft that has been shot down in American airspace over the last 100+ years of aviation history? A 61 year old man landed a gyrocopter on the capitol lawn a month or so ago and walked up to the secret service agents to say hello so no, we don't fire on unknowns in US airspace so you just made something up and reported it as fact without even the least bit of research. Plus, you still haven't answered how a laser powerful enough to be seen from orbit, firing on an object in orbit, could be hidden from the public. We're talking about the energy release of multiple nuclear weapons focused into a beam of directional and coherent light aimed at an object in orbit and no one knows about it? Get serious.

Lasers have been fired at the Moon and reflected back to Earth from mirrors left by the Apollo missions. Of course, those lasers were far too weak to be used as any sort of weapon to knock spaceships out of orbit.

[Derek Willis]

Which is where, apparently, you get your knowledge of basic physics.. Do you also deny that a billiard ball can be made to bounce off another ball, or a cushion, or indeed pretty much any object and go backwards, or indeed at any angle? I think we can see why you are not listed in the next snooker championships...

Oh, and next time you are facing into a strong wind, whch way will it blow you if strong enough? And how big do you reckon these ice flakes (which are well known to be emitted by these spacecraft in huge numbers) are, and how bright when illuminated by sunlight?

About a minute into the video an ice particle can be seen travelling from right to left. It hits another ice particle with a glancing blow. I would say that both particles move off in the correct directions predicted by Newton's Laws of Billiards! Definitely ice particles.

[S2F]

As I said, I don't for a nanosecond believe the Battle for LA had anything to do with UFOs. I was interested to learn that as early as 1937 the US were testing radar guided searchlights at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey. If the system used in LA in early 1942 was of this kind, then this would suggest the radar had picked up an object of some sort and all the lights had been automatically trained onto that.

http://www.skylighte...howalightworks/

Sorry, I just noticed a previous posting mentioning radar guided searchlights. The info on that posting would tend to suggest that the searchlights must have been focusing on an actual object.

Thanks for that link, it was an informative read.

My only issue is with the number of lights trained on the 'object' in question. It is a rather grievous tactical error in my opinion and could be indicative of an overzealous response due in part to war nerves. Or it could just be a poor defensive strategy that relies far too heavily on radar. At the time AA radar was sill in its infancy so no suitable defense against it had been developed however it was far from a perfect system and problems were common.

[Derek Willis]

Thanks for that link, it was an informative read.

My only issue is with the number of lights trained on the 'object' in question. It is a rather grievous tactical error in my opinion and could be indicative of an overzealous response due in part to war nerves. Or it could just be a poor defensive strategy that relies far too heavily on radar. At the time AA radar was sill in its infancy so no suitable defense against it had been developed however it was far from a perfect system and problems were common.

I totally agree that whatever was going on was a product of the nervousness that must have existed at the time. Just a few months after Pearl Harbor, the possibility of an attack by Japan must have been very much on people's minds. I can well imagine that the slightest hint of an object - real or imaginary - would result in all the lights being focused together and the AA batteries opening up. No doubt during the early days of the Blitz in the UK similar events occurred, but after the search light operators and gunners had experienced a few raids, a better strategy was employed.

[qxcontinuum]

You do realise that STS stands for Space Transportation System?

It's a shuttle mission.

ok, that still doesn't change anything in my previous statement.

Edited May 29, 2015 by qxcontinuum

[Shouldthisexist]

Which is where, apparently, you get your knowledge of basic physics.. Do you also deny that a billiard ball can be made to bounce off another ball, or a cushion, or indeed pretty much any object and go backwards, or indeed at any angle? I think we can see why you are not listed in the next snooker championships...

Oh, and next time you are facing into a strong wind, whch way will it blow you if strong enough? And how big do you reckon these ice flakes (which are well known to be emitted by these spacecraft in huge numbers) are, and how bright when illuminated by sunlight?

So are you saying that it was moving against our rotation, then gravity and other acting forces pulled it into our rotation? Or it bounced off the upper atmosphere. I'm not arguing against you, just interested in this idea.

[Shouldthisexist]

Why wouldn't they ring first??

They think just because they built a few decent pyramids they can come and go as they please .

[Shouldthisexist]

You don't identify your country of origin and are discussing the US space shuttle so I am limiting myself to American airspace. If you want to list your country of origin I will gladly cite the shootdowns of civilian aircraft that have occurred within your countries' borders. There are several sites on the internet listing civilian aircraft shootdowns so really not that difficult to do, although it is evidently beyond your ability.

I find your post particularly disgusting given the recent terror campaign that has been unleashed on civilian air traffic but this seems par for the course with many, not all, UFOlogists.

Define acted intelligently and I deleted much of what I said before because I don't want to get banned. Ukraine **EDIT**, think before you post.

Great description of what was going on in 1942 LA. There are several threads on UM that look at the different radar sets, their shortcomings and when they had "contact" and what they "saw". Anyone familiar with military operations understands the dynamics of the situation given the date and location of the event. It never happened again, which is telling. We called it colt fever and it is a primary reason the military tries to get young aircrews the chance to shoot an air to air missile in an exercise, at least once, in a controlled environment before the real shooting starts. I would assume it is the same across the entire military, at least in the US.

Ok let me try to break this down and answer your questions in order. First off since the beginning I have been referring to mankind ie the entire world. Most countries have a strict procedure to deal with aircrafts and to help keep civilian planes and airspace safe. Now to answer your fear mongering esq statement, I am not saying random planes are being shot down willy nilly. Flightradar.com posts numbers of flights in the air on that day. There are thousands of flights a day and rarely is one ever shot down it's literally a one in a million thing that happens in extreme situations. The point I was trying to convey is that yes we would like there to be aliens(some people), but that just because we discovered them doesn't mean we wouldn't follow the same procedures and shoot them down if deemed necessary.

Now let's get back to the topic, I defiened intelligent reaction because it seemed to react to the flash. I never once stated it was a alien, I was just intriuged at the coincidence. I am open to theory's on what it is, natural phenomenon or not it was just a peice that intrigued me.

[Merc14]

Lasers have been fired at the Moon and reflected back to Earth from mirrors left by the Apollo missions. Of course, those lasers were far too weak to be used as any sort of weapon to knock spaceships out of orbit.

There is also a laser communication system on a satellite, the LLCD, orbiting the Moon. http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/october/nasa-laser-communication-system-sets-record-with-data-transmissions-to-and-from/

[Shouldthisexist]

There is also a laser communication system on a satellite, the LLCD, orbiting the Moon. http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/october/nasa-laser-communication-system-sets-record-with-data-transmissions-to-and-from/

Wow, thanks for that I had no idea that we could encode lasers with data. Are ir remotes the same idea as that?

[Gaden]

...

Now let's get back to the topic, I defiened intelligent reaction because it seemed to react to the flash. I never once stated it was a alien, I was just intriuged at the coincidence. I am open to theory's on what it is, natural phenomenon or not it was just a peice that intrigued me.

It is not a coincidence, the particle is reacting to the flash, as it should. The funny thing is, from the first moment I saw this clip years ago I saw nothing strange going on. All of the objects are reacting exactly as I would expect them to. In fact, before I even read an official explanation, it looked to me like ice particles. It seems to me that you'd have to be pretty close-minded to see alien ships in this footage.

[Shouldthisexist]

It is not a coincidence, the particle is reacting to the flash, as it should. The funny thing is, from the first moment I saw this clip years ago I saw nothing strange going on. All of the objects are reacting exactly as I would expect them to. In fact, before I even read an official explanation, it looked to me like ice particles. It seems to me that you'd have to be pretty close-minded to see alien ships in this footage.

Again never stated it was aliens and looking at the video again makes a bit more sense. The actual light from the thruster would be faster than the force so it did react to the thruster it's just the light hits it first then the force hits said crystal. Is this the general idea?

[badeskov]

I didn't really want to respond to this, but I couldn't help it.

By all means of respect Qx, but your inability to acquire and retain knowledge is surpassed only by your stubborn urge to constantly parade same inability. It is very obvious that you stepped into this thread without having read the first couple of pages, had done no research on the topic and obviously knowing nothing about the topic and what you even post yourself. It is mind boggling that you repeatedly will embarrass yourself with these willfully ignorant posts of yours.

so you are suggesting the space station was in matter of fact rotating which created the impression that the object did?

In that case the earth line seen at the horizon hasn't changed as it should have ...

So, first of all, as also mentioned by others, this is a shuttle mission. Shuttle missions were named STS-XYZ, where XYZ was the mission number. That is pretty basic knowledge. In fact, nobody in the thread mentioned anything about any space station until you entered the thread and started blabbering about it. Of course a knowledgeable person would also have noted the STS-48 was in September 1991 and the first module to the space station wasn't launched before 1998. But I guess that would be asking for too much insight on your behalf.

Secondly, you introduced the spinning, because you didn't know what you were talking about and mentioned a 360 degree turn, which was pointed out is effectively a spin.

Finally, it is ice or similar debris very close to the shuttle and it just so happens to be the line of fire of a Reaction Control System (RCS) thruster when it is activated. Those fire quite often and are completely under computer control.

A reaction control system (RCS) is a spacecraft system that uses thrusters to provide attitude control, and sometimes translation. Use of diverted engine thrust to provide stable attitude control of a short-or-vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, below conventional winged flight speeds, such as the Harrier "jump jet", may also be referred to as a reaction control system.

An RCS is capable of providing small amounts of thrust in any desired direction or combination of directions. An RCS is also capable of providing torque to allow control of rotation (roll, pitch, and yaw).

RCS systems often use combinations of large and smaller (vernier) thrusters, to allow different levels of response. Spacecraft reaction control systems are used:

Good grief.

Cheers,

Badeskov

Edited May 29, 2015 by badeskov

[Merc14]

Wow, thanks for that I had no idea that we could encode lasers with data. Are ir remotes the same idea as that?

The idea is the same but the delivery system is very much different. As an aside, chipmakers are working hard to CPUs and other chips that use light to transfer data from one area of the chip to another on the nanoscale http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/optoelectronics/lowpower-laser-could-speed-cpus

[badeskov]

The idea is the same but the delivery system is very much different. As an aside, chipmakers are working hard to CPUs and other chips that use light to transfer data from one area of the chip to another on the nanoscale http://spectrum.ieee...ould-speed-cpus

Lots and lot of good stuff happening in laser and communications research

Cheers,

Badeskov

[Shouldthisexist]

The idea is the same but the delivery system is very much different. As an aside, chipmakers are working hard to CPUs and other chips that use light to transfer data from one area of the chip to another on the nanoscale http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/optoelectronics/lowpower-laser-could-speed-cpus

Great read thanks for the link, I did some light reading on my own after the first one. The amount of data lasers can move seems immense. The only problem was that the routers and processors would bottle neck the speed. But if i understand this right that article states they would be able to speed those up as well?

[Merc14]

Great read thanks for the link, I did some light reading on my own after the first one. The amount of data lasers can move seems immense. The only problem was that the routers and processors would bottle neck the speed. But if i understand this right that article states they would be able to speed those up as well?

I'm sure they are working on it as speed and bandwidth are the name of the game in computing and this range of the electromagnetic spectrum offers huge capacities of both.

[Derek Willis]

I'm sure they are working on it as speed and bandwidth are the name of the game in computing and this range of the electromagnetic spectrum offers huge capacities of both.

I guess modulated laser light has been used with fiber optics for some time, but the plans to use lasers in other forms of data transfer seems extremely promising. What with that and quantum computing, the systems we are currently using to send our postings to UM will soon seem like something from the Dark Ages!

[JimOberg]

.....Again never stated it was aliens and looking at the video again makes a bit more sense. The actual light from the thruster would be faster than the force so it did react to the thruster it's just the light hits it first then the force hits said crystal. Is this the general idea?

Flash from a thruster would only be visible if it lit up something along the way, such as fog or dust -- and this is a vacuum. The 'flash' is actually the thruster plume itself. Since it's in a vacuum it spreads out fan-like MUCH more than in an atmosphere -- half of the force is outside a 30 degree off angle, for example. That flash coincides in time exactly with an autopilot-commanded pulse from a stabilizing jet, the one called "L5D". As the link given earlier showed, the pulse tapped the shuttle body orientation back inside its allowable range, at an angular rate far too small to be noticed eyeballing the video. Carlotto didn't know that.

qxcontinuum -- "ice particles which can change their trajectory to 360 degrees and accelerate.. .. ice particle my ass !"

You've already gotten considerable and well-deserved flack over this comment and you still seem clueless as to why it created such roaring laughter. A trajectory change of 360 degrees is the same as a trajectory change of ZERO degrees. Your misuse of the terminology starkly illustrated your technical incompetence, to general merriment here, but you still seem puzzled by it.

What you MEANT to say was a course change of, say, 130 degrees, which is the amount the traced line of the particle shows on the screen. In that sense, your ignorance is of a higher order, but still devastating. That figure assumes the particle's turn is in a plane orthogonal to the camera line of sight -- viewing it 'dead on'. But in the much more likely case of motion in a plane tilted to the line of sight, a much smaller actual turn -- 10, 20, 30 degrees -- when viewed at a very shallow angle will LOOK much larger. You can do this at home with a crayon and a sheet of paper. Please try it, just don't hurt yourself.

Spock made a comment about Khan's experience deficiency in 3D thinking during the battle of the Mutara Nebula, and the same comment applies to you.

AZDZ: “Watch the clip, the object doesn't come in from the side of the frame, it just appears mid frame on an upward trajectory then exits at the frame top. The theory of it coming up from Earth, crazy as that sounds, does fit the visual evidence no matter how you or anyone flails their arms against it.”

This is an accurate description of what is seen on the screen. Your interpretation is based on not knowing the geometry of the 3D setting and the location of the rising sun BEHIND the shuttle from which the camera is viewing away from the shuttle's orbital motion. You can act this out in a dark room with a spotflight behind you, you are facing away from the light, and now blow dust outwards -- the particles will be in your own shadow until a certain distance and they will then APPEAR 'from nowhere'. You may be looking at a bookshelf across the room -- do you then conclude the particles 'popped out' of the bookshelf?

This notion is weird, it's literally UNEARTHLY, because it's outer friggin' space. There's no shame in being fooled misusing earthside recognition protocols for an environment they never were designed or optimized for. Imprudent and careless perhaps, but hardly unprecedented -- and easily fixed.

[Shouldthisexist]

Flash from a thruster would only be visible if it lit up something along the way, such as fog or dust -- and this is a vacuum. The 'flash' is actually the thruster plume itself. Since it's in a vacuum it spreads out fan-like MUCH more than in an atmosphere -- half of the force is outside a 30 degree off angle, for example. That flash coincides in time exactly with an autopilot-commanded pulse from a stabilizing jet, the one called "L5D". As the link given earlier showed, the pulse tapped the shuttle body orientation back inside its allowable range, at an angular rate far too small to be noticed eyeballing the video. Carlotto didn't know that.

Ok I had to do some research on this. If you could elaborate a little I would greatly appreciate it. Are you saying that it's not light but the actual energy(ions/electrons) from the thruster it's self that is being seen as the flash?

[badeskov]

I guess modulated laser light has been used with fiber optics for some time, but the plans to use lasers in other forms of data transfer seems extremely promising. What with that and quantum computing, the systems we are currently using to send our postings to UM will soon seem like something from the Dark Ages!

Modulated laser light has been used since the early 1970's when low-loss fiber cables became manufacturable at a relatively low cost. Fibers have a orders of magnitude lower loss and higher transmission capacity compared to electrical cables and as such has always been the preferred option for communication for high capacity links. Until the late 1980's optical communications was relying on electrical repeaters for amplification and coherent modulation schemes (Frequency shift keying, phase shift keying and so forth), however these are complicated and require expensive equipment. This was, however, outweighed by the increase in link distance between repeaters by using coherent schemes compared to simpler schemes like OOK (On-Off Keying). All that changed by the late 1980's with the introduction of the Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA). Now you could suddenly have your cake and eat it too. The EDFA could amplify 96-128 channels simultaneously and at a very low cost. By the introduction of this coherent communications went away almost overnight and much simpler and cheaper schemes could be used.

Now we are back to using coherent schemes as the capacity requirements necessitate such, there is simply not enough capacity available otherwise. And this basically describes the crunch we are currently in with respect to optical communications. 100Gbps (100 Gigabit Per Second) transmitters and receivers are now starting to become available based on different coherent communication schemes, be it QPSK, DQPSK, QAM-16 or the like. All are based on 4x25Gbps data modulation and that is due to the fact that the back end electronics is the main limiting factor.

Lasers and the associated modulators imprinting the data onto the laser light has plenty of bandwidth and fairly low power consumption. A 100Gbps laser and modulator will as bare die cost less than $1, although the packaging of this will increase it to maybe $10 in volume. Typical power consumption of such a laser under modulation is less than 1W. The 4x25Gbps driver for such easily consumes 3-5W depending on the operating conditions, and that is just a driver. Then there is the whole switching fabric sitting behind the lasers aggregating all the data and making sure it is going to the right place, these cost thousands of dollars and will easily consume a few hundred Watts per fabric - and you need quite a few of those.

And that illustrates the constant trade-offs that has to be made in this field. Physics dictates it just takes more space to catch a photon than an electron, thus electronics will be a lot more space efficient. Sadly, it is also a lot less power efficient. And that has so far been one of the reasons that optical links were never really a commercially viable option for intra-chip or inter-chip communications. The size of the laser and the drive electronics would become prohibitively large and render the option nonviable, but with the breakthrough the Merc linked to that could change. We have had the technology to incorporate optical transmission lines both inside chips and also on PCBs for quite while, we just haven't had the technology to connect a commercially viable solution to those transmission lines.

Cheers,

Badeskov

Edited for clarity and missing words/typos.

Edited May 29, 2015 by badeskov

[JimOberg]

Ok I had to do some research on this. If you could elaborate a little I would greatly appreciate it. Are you saying that it's not light but the actual energy(ions/electrons) from the thruster it's self that is being seen as the flash?

It's light from the thruster plume material. It's just a lot wider than we earthsiders think of a 'plume' being, because it's in a vacuum. Its moving at about 10,000 ft/sec so it's either all on screen or all off it, there's no way to notice a plume front moving across the narrow field of view.

It's even more diffuse than normal because it's actually 'bounce-back' of the downwards pointed jet with an outer edge of it impinging shuttle aft structure, and individual molecules then bouncing in random directions off THOSE surfaces [down-firing aft jets lost about 30% of their effective force because of this structural impingement issue]. This is what confused Carlotto, Kasher, and others who are real experts in their fields but are unfamiliar with the odd vagaries of shuttle thruster operations. I only know about it because that particuar system [OMS/RCS] was my Mission Control specialty for early shuttle flights, and then later I had to learn how the plumes interacted with objects when we used the jets to approach and dock/grapple with free-flying targets such as the passively-stabilized LDEF [where I was the responsible 'Rendezvous Guidance/Procedures Officer' in Mission Control].

There is no reason on earth, literally, for any human being to have to know about this kind of effect. But in space -- it's crucial to safe operations, AND to figuring out what these undeniably weird looking videos are actually showing.

[S2F]

It's light from the thruster plume material. It's just a lot wider than we earthsiders think of a 'plume' being, because it's in a vacuum. Its moving at about 10,000 ft/sec so it's either all on screen or all off it, there's no way to notice a plume front moving across the narrow field of view.

It's even more diffuse than normal because it's actually 'bounce-back' of the downwards pointed jet with an outer edge of it impinging shuttle aft structure, and individual molecules then bouncing in random directions off THOSE surfaces [down-firing aft jets lost about 30% of their effective force because of this structural impingement issue]. This is what confused Carlotto, Kasher, and others who are real experts in their fields but are unfamiliar with the odd vagaries of shuttle thruster operations. I only know about it because that particuar system [OMS/RCS] was my Mission Control specialty for early shuttle flights, and then later I had to learn how the plumes interacted with objects when we used the jets to approach and dock/grapple with free-flying targets such as the passively-stabilized LDEF [where I was the responsible 'Rendezvous Guidance/Procedures Officer' in Mission Control].

There is no reason on earth, literally, for any human being to have to know about this kind of effect. But in space -- it's crucial to safe operations, AND to figuring out what these undeniably weird looking videos are actually showing.

Thanks Jim, I know you've been told this before but I appreciate the time and expertise you bring to the table here at UM. I learn something new from nearly every one of your posts.

[AZDZ]

And yet you can easily verify the location of the ISS (and shuttle back then), even by sight when it passes over your location... There is no delay. Which is why personal observations need to be taken with a grain (or dose) of salt..

Try to remember we are discussing events of the 90s.

You're not suggesting someone could be watching NTV, see the shuttle was over your city, go out to look at it and determine if a ten second delay had been added to the stream based on it's visible position in the sky? Is this your proof there was no delay?

You know, unless you count the Likes your fellow skeptics dutifully give no matter what you say, your need to try and correct my every statement is probably undermining any better points you may make with some of the other readers. They get lost in all the fluff.

Hundreds...? Yet, even though these were freely available transmissions, only a very select few examples have made it to Youtube...? Can you post the very best example of these 'distant' objects floating into view, or again do we need to just take your word?

AHEM This thread is about one of the very best examples. Here's a new Skeptic Diversionary Tactic you just inspired: Request the opponent find a best example of something even though the current discussion is about a best example.

Just once I'd like to discuss a topic without these tired spin doctor tactics being brought into the discussion.

As for the rest they were not really very all that note worthy, just blobs floating by. And that is key to this aspect of the discussion. The camera stayed on so long as they were not in a Z.O.E. (zone of exclusion) but within moments of something entering the frame which might need explanation the scene goes dark then switches to a different view; the animated orbital position graphic, or a shot of the MC room with controllers at their desks. After a few seconds we'd be back on board the shuttle and what ever floater had been there was now gone. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It's the timing of the switching's that drew suspicions. THEY made it appear they were trying to hide something with the unfortunate timings. They could have just let the scenes play through then responded to any questions about what was seen with a logical explanation but they choose to attract negative attention by cutting the feed right at times viewers were leaning in for a better look.

That my TV never suffered a remote control induced concussion is a miracle.

Do I need to repeat the last two paragraphs or do you understand this is [one of] the core issues of this topic? [the other core issue is a physically logical explanation for the upward moving object in the topic video. I hope you eventually get to that in this post...]

Remember, we're talking about events occurring before the alleged delay. This video was one of the reasons, if not the primary reason it was alleged a delay was added. After all the hub-bub this video caused, ice/debris sightings dropped to nil. Did ice particles just suddenly stop falling off the shuttle? No. but their appearances in live streams stopped and people wondered why. Something had obviously changed and an added delay answered that question.

Frankly I think you are exaggerating and also making claims about distance that you cannot support.

Would you believe tens of dozens? That's a little joke. I often forget you skeptics are always in Mr. Wizard mode and my figures better be calculated to the last decimal. The point was it, ('it' being the video cutaways described above, remember?) happened a lot then suddenly didn't. Why?

And apart from the supposed (and unsupportable) claim that they are distant,

Okay so they were closer than they sometimes appeared. Happy? Remember my point above... Why all the secrecy, why cut away every time an ice particle or distant bit of space debris became visible? All they had to do was not cut away, let it play though and respond with the logical explanations if/when they are brought up.

in what way does that make them any less likely to be debris particles that are occasionally affected by outgassing or thrusters?

Of the video this thread is about, this^ works for me concerning the first two events as a probable explanation. Again, of the video this thread is about, this^ works for me concerning the first two events as a probable explanation.

It's that pesky third event which throws the wrench into the machine for me.

Better cameras, improvements to receiving stations, more interesting directions to point the cameras..

I don't watch much NTV anymore. It was dropped from my TV service provider line up so online is my only option but yeah, I am sure many improvements have been made. I have a lot going on on my computer right now but I am waxing nostalgic so I am logging on, perhaps we're live aboard ISS... Darn, recorded programming. Hey, Peter Cullen is doing bumpers on NVT! Ah, I see the link to the ISS feed...

This figures, it say the HDEVE is either switching cameras, or we are experiencing a temporary loss of signal with the ISS. lol It's a ZOE, I'll refresh it later.

You need to think about where you hang out.. And if an accusation is made, you need to think about how you could verify or disprove it. One of the ways (in the case of the ISS - there are no shuttles around now..) would be to verify the location of the ISS (easy - indeed it made a pass near my house last night at 6pm and I watched it go over exactly as/when/where predicted - I'll film the next one..) And then you would need to observe the views of earth to see where the live feed places the station. Sure, that will take a bit more effort and you might have to wait for a good view, but that will nail it, given the very fast rate with which it changes position.

What if your watch is wrong? ('nother little joke) Interesting but it sounds very prone to errors. I do not see how you, without specialized measuring tools, could absolutely identify the precise position of the station in the sky relative to yours. Oh, an ipad/pod with live sky app might help...

But, again, remember, we're not talking about today, we're talking about an event of the 90s. If you ever get around to that thread of the future you've been promising for years, lol, a thorough explanation of the tech involved with your above paragraph would be cool.

continued due to too many quotes tags...