WEBVTT - Short: The Vela Incident 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:17.000 Thinking Sideways. It's mystery short stories of things we simply 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:22.200 don't know the answers to. Hey, guys, welcome to another 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:27.600 episode of Thinking Sideways. This one's a shorty bonus episode. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.000 It's been a while. Yeah, sorry about that. We'll try 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.200 to be better about that. We won't though, we're lazy. 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:36.760 Yeah we are. Um, if you're joining us for the 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.760 first time, I'm Devin, joined by Steve and Joe, and 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.960 we're going to talk about the Vela incidents. This is 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.880 one of the scarier ones, well not really in space 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.480 where nobody can hear you scream. Don't remind me, don't 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:59.560 remind me. So okay, you guys remember the Cold War 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.399 that they it lasted like twenty years, a little longer 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.000 than that. It was about twenty years to site. Actually, 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.920 this is interesting. Historians are like very hotly debate how 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.360 long it lasted. Yeah, well, I mean that definitely there 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.319 was there was a really cold, cold part of it, 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:18.959 and then there it was like ninety five up to 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.480 like the seventies, and then there was detents and then 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.920 and then things kind of went downhill again with Afghanistan 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.880 and stuff. But then finally sort of economies are kind 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.600 of like through in the towel in nine when the 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:37.000 Soviet Union fell. Hopefully I got that date right. So 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.080 one of the things that happened, and in this thing, 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.640 the Cold War, in the middle of it, really was 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:46.720 that in nineteen sixty three there was a signing of 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:51.080 what is officially called the Treaty Banning Nuclear weapon tests 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:55.080 in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater, which is 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.840 more often referred to as the Partial Test Band Treaty, which, 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:03.200 as you can understand, you would call it something shorter. Obviously. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.320 It all that stuff, the thing about testing weapons in 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.000 the atmosphere and outer space, testament outer space. Will you 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.840 fry a lot of satellites with the MP so it 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.040 really is a practical good thing to do. Basically, it 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.160 said that no nation could test detonate nuclear weapons except 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:23.639 for underground. Got it pretty straight up? Yeah, pretty much. 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.400 In order to help enforce this, because the world's police is, 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:32.000 of course the United States America to America, the USA 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.840 built a number of satellites as part of Project Vela. 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.119 They called it the Vela Hotel. Part of the project 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.080 that was the satellites building, and there were four satellites 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.280 I think in all um you mean you mean four models, 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:50.440 four models, so yeah, sorry, not just four of them. Yeah, 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:52.560 that makes sense, right, Actually, they put a bunch of 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:54.880 these things up, they did. They put a whole mess 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.959 of them up, VELA five, A and B and then 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.919 velass A and B. So basically they built these things. 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.720 The pictures are pretty cool. They built these things together, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.840 and they would launch them together, these models, um, and 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.720 then they would detach in space and kind of float 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.240 away from the sea. They were kind of a tetrahedron 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.040 kind of yeah, and it's really interesting. Yeah, and then 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.799 they deployed for solar panels and yeah, it was all 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.680 fular panels pretty much. They built the originally to have 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.280 like an eighteen month's shelf life, and you know, they 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.720 lasted a lot longer, way longer than that. Yeah, because 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.880 that's back when they built things to actually last. They 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.160 still do for space. But well, yeah, I was just saying, 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.440 my DVD player is not that he's not getting launched 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.880 into space, so it might actually the way it's acting speaking, 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:43.560 I got stick that things will last. We've got a 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.520 space probe that's approaching Pluto, now, keeping your eye on 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:49.160 that a little bit. Yeah, I got a problems. Next 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.560 in July, it's going to be swinging by Pluto. Now 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:53.480 that thing's been out there for years and it's still 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.720 tooting along. So keep your eyes open for our next 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.000 episode on Pluto Probe. It's Plu to a planet, is it? 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:07.040 We'll find out anyways, The VLA Hotel satellites monitored for 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.840 X rays, neutrons, and gamma rays, and over the twenty 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:16.480 six year lifespan of the VLA Hotel project, they correctly 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.719 identified dozens of nuclear detonations, which is a lot, especially 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.039 since there was like a treaty against it. Nobody was 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.960 supposed to be doing it. Well, let's be honest. Treaties 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.840 are there to keep the people who want to follow 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.159 the rules in line. It's kind of like the locks 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.240 on your car. You really shouldn't have to lock your 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.400 car door, but you do because some people break the 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.480 rules and get into your car to take things that 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.640 aren't there. People break the rules, that's why they're there for. 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.320 Treaties are treatise are you know? They're only followed the 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.640 extent that people think it's in their interests to follow them. All. 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.800 The test ban treatise has actually been mostly successful. Yeah, 0:04:54.920 --> 0:05:00.799 let's talk about September of nineteen nine. Okay, okay, great, 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.160 one of the Vale Hotel satellites detected what's called a 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:09.720 double flash in uh three thousand mile radius around the 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.960 print Prince Edward Islands off the coast of Antarctica. Hey, 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:19.640 guess what island by the way island in that? Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.520 So obviously with the Aliens coming back from their ship. Well, 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.119 and I think you need to clarify because a three 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.120 thousand mile radius, that to some people is going to 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.400 sound like this satellite sucks. But that's because we're used 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:37.120 to very accurate GPS satellites and things like that. Today 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.680 it wasn't. I mean, we got to remember this was 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.560 in seventy nine, built in this the late seven or 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:48.000 early seventies, It wasn't a super accurate thing. They're also 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.120 monitoring huge swaths. It wasn't you know. It was kind 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.760 of one of those this is my patch and something 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.240 happened in my patch. Come check it out. So what 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.680 would happen in this situation is Air Force jets would 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:01.920 be deplus woid. They had sensors on them to pick 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.599 up the kind of particle materials and things like that 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.040 that they would fall out, Yeah exactly. That's that's how 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.800 inaccurate they were, and that was to verify the area 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.640 that it might have been. Yeah, and another reason they 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.760 are so inaccurate is is that there their their orbit 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.839 was really high. They were like or but there were 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.320 seventy three miles up, which is a third of the 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:25.960 way of the Moon. So the Earth at that point 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.320 it's kind of pretty small, kind of small. Yeah, their 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:34.080 focused cone of viewing is a huge, huge area. Yeah. 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.000 The interesting thing about this particular satellite too, is this 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.400 satellite was actually kind of officially retired. Yeah, and we'll 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.000 get to that actually, Yeah, Yeah, it's a relevant point, 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.720 it is. It absolutely is. So the just for people 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.880 who don't know, a double flash is caused because there's 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.520 the initial fireball that happens after a nuclear detonation and 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.919 then there's the shock wave after it, and it's those 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.520 two light anomalies caused the double flash. So there's the 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.960 first like really fast one and then a slower burn one. Yeah, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.720 if you've ever watched the or any of the films 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.600 of nuclear nukes going off, you'll see the one. To 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.400 its fair if you've ever seen an image of it, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.720 it's it's clear way, it's super distinct. But in case 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:19.440 you haven't there, I'm sure there are people in this 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.160 world who haven't. They are lacking. According to the d 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.000 i A, nothing was found when the jets deployed to go, 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.240 say hey, let's sense all this fallout and figure out 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.760 who might be responsible for this sort of thing. The 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.720 official line is that it actually wasn't a nuclear detonation, 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:37.960 that it was something else entirely, and there are some 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.000 good explanations, yeah, there, there absolutely are, But I do 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:42.800 want to quickly point out we're going to go into 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:44.480 theories in a second, but before we do that, I 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.360 want to say that even though the official line is nope, nope, 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:51.120 nothing nothing to see here. If nothing happened here, there 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.400 was an official list compiled of who could have been 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.960 responsible for the detonation, and I mean it was. It 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.200 was submitted into the official report about this. It was like, 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.040 this definitely wasn't a detonation, but if it was, this 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.400 is who might have done it. To be fair, the 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.840 reason the list was assembled is because when they initially 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.920 detected the flash, they presumed that it was a nuclear 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:13.960 device that had gone off. So the first course of 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.200 action is who could have done it. It wasn't until 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.840 later after the committees were assembled and all the other 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.600 theories were put out there. So that's just so people 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:27.360 know why this list was assembled. Trumping on my fun alright, 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.920 stop stop, stop theories. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.160 Let's assume it's an actual nuclear detonation, right, and it wasn't. 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.640 And it wasn't the chupa. He didn't do it. Yeah, 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:42.520 who could have done it? That's a good question. So 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:47.960 here's the list. Israel South Africa and Israeli South African 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:52.760 Effort or Alliance, which according to a reporter who I 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.240 couldn't never find the name of. I'm sure it exists somewhere, 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.360 But according to this reporter, the Israeli South African Joint 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.760 Force did employ two ships with a whole lot of 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.960 quote Israeli military men and nuclear experts unquote on it 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:11.000 to kind of the Prince Albert Island area pretty close 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:15.000 to around the time that this flash double flash was detected. Well, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:16.480 I know, back in those days, there was a lot 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.240 of military cooperation between Israel and South Africa, that's true. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:25.320 The this theory would further go that the US would 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.280 also try to help cover up and Israeli test like 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:33.000 this to kind of help cover the international profile of 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:37.959 kind of a controversial alliance between the US and Israel. 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:41.520 Why is it? Why is it? Okay, So I got 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.760 I understand the Israeli South African alliance because they're both 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:47.720 they're kind of the bad kids on the block. They've 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:49.800 got all kinds of sanctions against them, so of course 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.000 they team up. But how do the Americans play into that? Well, 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:58.240 there Israel is our ally, yeah, and that's where they've 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.480 been their allies forever. Yeah, it was, But but but Jimmy 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:07.120 Carter at the time was pushing non proliferation efforts. Okay, Okay, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:09.440 that's where I got the you know that we're going 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.320 to work together because everybody else hates us idea. Yeah, 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:14.600 but yeah, the but yeah, I think that that's one 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:16.600 of the theories out there, and I'm not getting ahead 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.760 of it, is that that would have forced us to 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.800 take a position on Israel developing nuclear weapons, even though 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.079 we knew they had been doing so for quite some time. 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.679 But technically we're not, We're going to approve that kind 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.920 of activity. So that would have you know, it's better 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.800 to just pretend like this didn't even exist, because that 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.440 would have put potentially put us at odds with our 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.080 ally got it okay and too, I guess to piggyback 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:42.640 on that a little bit. In two thousand and ten, 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:48.600 it was reported that apparently on February twenty seven, President 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.640 Jimmy Carter wrote in his diary, because apparently that's the 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.120 thing we have access to, quote, we have a growing 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.200 belief among our scientists that the Israelis did, in fact 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.320 conduct a nuclear test explosion in the ocean near the 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.280 southern end of Africa. This is alleged. I couldn't I 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.440 only read this in one place. I couldn't verify it, 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:10.320 but it's interesting if it's true. Um So that's some 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:15.079 backing up proof about the Well I will put out. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.040 The one thing about South Africa is that when the 0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:22.240 South African government switched over after you know, anti apartheid 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.760 and all that, all their stuff came out and it 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.360 wasn't until three months after this that they were at 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.920 nuclear capability according to their official documentation. I understand it's 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.079 your official documentation. Yeah, but also if it was an alliance, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.920 wouldn't if it was well, yeah, but but one of 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.280 your one, your second bullet point was South Africa. So 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.200 I'm just I'm putting that out there for that because 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.120 it just caught up with me generally believed that, Yeah, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:50.920 they didn't quite that weren't quite at that point, but 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.320 of course they would want to, they would want to 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:57.000 participate in this, they'd want to see missionary of learning opportunities. 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:00.000 So there's gotta be more. I'm sure there's more suspects here. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.600 Of course there are. Of course, one is obvious. I'm 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:04.280 not even going to go into the reasons why it 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.080 could have been is the Soviet Union. I feel like 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:12.720 that's pretty clear. India apparently did have their own nuclear 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:17.800 testing program at that point. They cod named it Smiling Buddha. 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:25.559 It seems very at odds. Yeah, I personally doubt this 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:26.920 so long because I think if the Indians were going 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.800 to touch off a test, they would do it in Pakistan. Yeah, 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.840 I agree, but they do. They do apparently have a 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:37.440 pretty documented history of conducting unauthorized trials of nuclear explosions, 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.240 and so it's possible it could have been them. I 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:42.320 don't know why they would have done it so far away, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.360 but sure, I guess why not Pakistan, because of course 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.240 we would say Pakistan did it, but I'm just going 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.720 to reverse my India theory there. Yeah, yeah, I think 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:57.120 that's fair France because the Prince Edward Islands, many of 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.720 them are owned by France, so it could have been 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.880 done on French soil, which France did their own nuclear tests, 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.160 but they always did it off their own soil on 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.240 some of these, you know, out in the ocean. Yeah, 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:12.440 so that that does make sense, I guess kind of. Yeah. Yeah, 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:15.920 and then they usually did theirs in this in the Pacific, right, 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.160 they did South Pacific. Yeah, but I mean it stands 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:20.520 the reason if they're going to go one place, why 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.160 not go to another because that's super far away. Why 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:24.880 go so far away if you can do it in 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.960 your other place. I don't have any answer to that. 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:33.080 Killed a ton of sea life over the South. Seals 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.000 they're awful. Baby seals are the worst. I wonder. I 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:39.720 wonder after they conducted some of those ocean tests, like 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.000 out in the Pacific and stuff, how many you know, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.680 how many miles of dead animals were floating up to 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.880 the surface. Yeah, that's depressing. I don't want to think 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.160 about it. Yeah, let's just say lots. Yeah, the shock 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.880 wave that was how many miles it would go. Yeah. Um. 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.400 And then the last one that I have on the list, 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.160 which isn't on the official list, is it could have 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.440 been US. The US would have been the good old USA. 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:02.440 That seems like something that we kind of would have 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.080 done and they covered it up. Well yeah, but I mean, 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.040 in that case, why report the satellite findings at all? 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.080 I think that it was a joint coalition of it wasn't. 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.880 It wasn't the military that was in control, in control, sorry, 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.400 that was monitoring what was coming down from the satellites. 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:20.560 It was a group of scientists who were reporting to 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.600 the military. But if the scientists said, oh, hey, by 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.560 the way, military, here's public record that says that we 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.880 saw this thing happen. Better deploy, they would be like, well, 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:32.200 all right, I guess we'll go out there. And then 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.200 you tell your guys in the jet, hey, I don't 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.680 care what you pick up. Nothing happened. You know. I'm 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.000 not saying it's a good theory. I'm just saying it's 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.440 as reasonable as many of the other country theories out there. 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.280 For me, Okay, well, can I just do one thing 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.960 about the possibility of the USA? Sure? Is you said, well, 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.400 we sent the jets out to test for fallout. One 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.120 of the weird things about the path that they took 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.560 is they weren't at the right l of Asian or 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:05.600 altitude excuse me, to be within the air currents that 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:10.240 should have been carrying any of that fallout. They should 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:14.000 have been much lower and instead, evidently, according to the 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.640 stuff I've read, they were actually higher than they should 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.840 have been. So you know, they're going with the wind 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.920 instead of against it, so therefore they wouldn't be picking 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.120 up any of that fallout, that seems. But yeah, they 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.160 sounded like a lot of planes out there though that 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.480 they didn't all fly in the same direction. I understand that. 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:31.960 But but you know, if you put them all at 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.560 the same altitude and there's a prevailing wind in one direction, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:36.920 or you know, a downward I don't know. I didn't 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.760 go too far into it. I just remember seeing stuff 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.280 about we were totally at the wrong altitude. Fair could 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:47.720 be So next theory is that it was space debrie 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.480 or meteorite like a micro media, right, Yeah, obviously if 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.160 a meteor rte bigger than your time I hit that thing, 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.520 it would just blow to piece. It would blow Yeah, 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.120 it would blow the satellites pieces, but if something smaller 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.400 than that would break up. Probably, and this is actually 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:07.280 the official evaluation of the Office of Science Technology, it 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.920 was that a small piece of space debris or a 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.560 small meteor I hit the satellite, which caused particles to 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.800 fly past the sensors, which caused Fawlty readings that looked 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.080 like the double flash. Okay, I can, I can see that. Okay. 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.520 For me, this answer is a little too convenient, you know, 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.000 I like the answers that are a little more conspiratorial 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.800 or out there. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.800 flying around space, right, I mean a bunch of stuff 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.040 lying around space. And that thing had been in space 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.240 for what nine years? More than that, I think, I 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.560 think it had been in for ten. Maybe I thought 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.600 it was lost. It's nine seventy, but I could be 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:49.440 wrong more than more than five. Right, somewhere around ten 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:52.840 years after that that amount of time, it's very likely scenerally, 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:55.000 you're gonna get hit by something, some tiny little piece 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.440 of debris. It seems like, yeah, and I guess that 0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.960 was the thing. I couldn't find any other reports and again, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.120 and I could have missed it I will always allow 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.000 for that, But I didn't find any other reports of 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.160 a reading like this coming from space debris hitting one 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.520 of these lots and lots of satellites that were up there. Yeah, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:12.520 we had lots of these things up there. You would 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.119 think that more than one would get pinned by a 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.680 piece of joke. Yeah, we'll talk about this actually when 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.399 you talk about the storm. But the flash was allegedly 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:24.160 verified by a couple of different sources, the double flash. 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.439 But you know, the US Air Force jets that were 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.920 sent to pick up chemical traces to you know, pick 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.920 up the fallout. They they didn't find any anomalies. But 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:40.000 again it was the US jets that were sent in 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:44.280 foil habrid um. The thing that piggybacks on this, I 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.000 guess is, as we were talking about, this satellite was 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.680 pretty dang far past its shelf life. It was Vela 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.800 Hotel six nine one one, and it was apparently at 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.359 least two years over its design lifetime. Yeah. What's interesting 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:01.919 about about this particular model of the satellite is the 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:06.080 original design lifetime of it was eighteen months, and then 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.399 they extended it out. They extended it to seven years, 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.960 So it's it should have ended in nineteen seventy seven. 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.920 And that's an interesting thing about it is apparently there 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.399 was the impression out there that the that it was 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:21.560 actually retired no longer working. Yeah, it seems that that's well, 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:26.000 it wasn't entirely working though, that wasn't working totally working. Yeah, 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.880 it was documented to have a faulty e MP sensor 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:33.399 electric micanogic pulse sensor, and uh, it did develop a 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:39.520 fault in its recording memory, which quote cleared itself. It 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.280 took two years to clear itself. Yeah, but it cleared 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:47.320 itself in March of nineteen seventy two. Pretty clever little machine. 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:50.080 Pretty smart. Here's the great thing about having a computer 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:52.800 floating in space is you can just tinker with it 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.120 and tinker with it and eventually maybe get it to work. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.840 If that happens to your computer in the house, you 0:18:57.880 --> 0:18:59.760 get bad and thrown away and go get a new one. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.440 I could never imagine going, well, I haven't been able 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.560 to save anything for two years, but hey, I keep 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.600 using it. Yeah, so that I mean, it's possible that 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:12.520 the reason that it thought that this was a double flash, 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.840 even if it was just space debris hitting it, was 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.320 because it was faulty, and that the rest of them 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:21.000 hadn't been as faulty for whatever reason, so they wouldn't 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:24.399 have read m you know, some space debris as this 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.359 double flash. Again, I don't, I don't know. It seems weird. 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.959 And again there's the stories that it's that other things 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.000 picked this flash up, which leads us to another theory, 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.040 which is that there was some huge freak storm and 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.240 that it was they call it a super lightning bolt, 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.520 which seems apparently says things happen. I guess something, I 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.679 I guess it does happen. Yeah, it seems like it 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.280 would have had to have been giant. Do you remember 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.919 the Skycowakes episode and we talked about the Bell Island 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:59.920 incident briefly, Yeah, and that was supposedly a super lightning 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.720 bolds situation. It's been equated to have to be essentially 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.400 the same thing would have happened, which is odd because 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:08.920 they're kind of they're in the same decade. To have 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.879 two of those happened, odd since those are kind of 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:19.480 one in a gazillion strikes, the lightning super lightning strikes today, 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.840 it just happened like where just instead of getting a 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.240 bunch of lightning bolts like zig and zagging out of 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.000 the sky. Everything ever, the clouds all just charge all 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:31.080 at once. It's like a lightning ball, right, I to 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:33.080 be honest with you, it's been long enough that I've 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:35.919 done the reading on how it happened that because we 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.760 go through so much research that I don't remember exactly 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.600 what it is. But it is a perfect chain of events, 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.400 because lightning is when you've got that a perfect alignment 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.800 from the cloud to Earth for that electricity to pass 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.879 pass through. In this case instead of a single line, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.280 it's basically it's a cable. Is the only way that 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.600 I can think to describe it. And that's off memory, 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:03.040 and I that's not exactly right. Yeah, so that's a theory. 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:05.960 I guess it would explain why there was no but 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.800 it seems like the jets are generally deployed quick enough. 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:11.760 There would have been some mention of well it was 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.960 kind of stormy down there or something three thousand mile 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.320 radius though I don't know. Aren't that fast? That's true? Yeah, 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.200 And then of course our final theory is aliens. Yeah, 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:29.439 what were they doing? They were getting their lifeboat, yeah, yeah, 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.400 and then they knew did to cover up their footprint. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.919 they didn't, or they're dropping it off. I can't remember 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:37.600 exactly how to be honest, I don't remember exactly. I 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:42.399 think the lifeboat was discovered and like the mid sixties. Yeah, okay, 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:44.280 so they're picking it. They were wiping out the evidence 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.399 trying to or they were angry. They came back and 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:56.080 they were like, where's our boat here? Yeah? Anyways, any 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.200 other theories you guys have, No, I'm kind of thinking 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.200 it was, um the Israeli South African joint efforts myself, 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:07.280 but and then obviously we we chose not to acknowledge that. 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.520 I really just think the satellite was hosed because I 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.679 don't know that it ever did any reports after that. 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:16.720 I couldn't find anything that said that it ever sent 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.280 any reports after that, which makes me think, since I 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:22.000 know it's I think it was, it's e m P 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:24.640 sensor was down, it was already falling apart. I think 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.240