UPDATE 9/12/18 4PM PST The issue may be related to Mercury (the metal, not the planet). On a tip from a science journalist friend who covers telescopes and who has been there, I verified the observatory uses a vat of liquid mercury as a float bearing for the giant solar telescope. According to an internal NSO/NMSU document, that bearing is “high-risk” during maintenance. If there was a major mercury spill, it might explain why the Feds are there, with FBI providing security. The amount of Mercury is said to be in the “tens of gallons” range, which is next to impossible to come by in the commercial market these days, and if it were weaponized, it would make a very nasty dirty bomb. Perhaps there’s some security issue with the mercury on-site.
Also, the observatory is in transition, with it’s management shifting to New Mexico State University:
As part of the restructuring connected to the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKI), the National Solar Observatory (NSO) will leave the Sunspot site in October 2017. However NSF, NSO, and the larger solar physics community in USA see extended scientific, educational, instrumentation and public outreach advantages in maintaining, simplifying, and upgrading, certain aspects of the telescope and the site of Sunspot. As such, the New Mexico State University (NMSU) are leading a national effort to form and lead a Sunspot Solar Observatory Consortium (SSOC) to maintain the operations of the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST) and Sunspot site for a minimum 5 year span beyond Oct 2017.
Maybe there’s been an issue during the transition.. – Anthony
Solar telescope facility, and nearby U.S. Post Office shut down – Blackhawk helicopters seen on site
This is weird. The National Solar Observatory has a singular mission, or so we’re told:
The mission of the National Solar Observatory is to advance knowledge of the Sun, both as an astronomical object and as the dominant external influence on Earth, by providing forefront observational opportunities to the research community. The mission includes the operation of cutting edge facilities, the continued development of advanced instrumentation both in-house and through partnerships, conducting solar research, and educational and public outreach.
It’s been closed by the FBI for “security reasons” and there’s no mention of the closure on the NSO website. Not even in their news feed. Even local authorities are baffled. What could possibly be going on there that would require such a secretive response by the FBI? Some sort of suspicious package at the post office? Spies? Something they spotted with the telescope that it too explosive for the public to know about?
From a variety of wire and TV news sources. h/t to Dennis Wingo
The mysterious and sudden closure of the National Solar Observatory in New Mexico is sending alien hunters into a frenzy as the facility remains shut without explanation. The research institute in Sunspot was evacuated last Thursday along with a nearby United States Postal Service office for unexplained ‘security reasons.’
A spokesperson for the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) which manages the observatory said the evacuation was a precautionary measure due to a security issue. “It was our decision to evacuate the facility,”spokeswoman Shari Lifson added.
A statement made by the Otero County Sheriff, Benny House, to Alamogordo Daily News in the aftermath of the announcement has contributed to intense speculation around the incident, however. House said that they were asked to standby but given no further information.
“The FBI is refusing to tell us what’s going on. We’ve got people up there (at Sunspot) that requested us to standby while they evacuate it. Nobody would really elaborate on any of the circumstances as to why. The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say.”
The sheriff also claimed there was a Blackhawk helicopter at the site and work crews on towers and around antennas
Source: RT
From KVIA-TV :
SUNSPOT, New Mexico – The National Solar Observatory in Sunspot New Mexico has been closed since last Thursday.
The post office near Sunspot also remains closed. Its employees have been temporarily transferred to the post office in Cloudcroft, a USPS official told ABC-7.
ABC-7 has confirmed the post office in Sunspot will not be re-opened until further notice, and cannot be re-opened until approved by local law enforcement officials.
ABC-7 Monday spoke with Shari Lifson, who is with Aura, the company that co-manages the Observatory with NMSU. Lifson told ABC 7 there is no time-table for the Observatory to be re-opened.
ABC-7 also reached out the FBI, but did not hear back from the federal agency in time for deadline. The FBI did speak with local law enforcement about the length of the observatory closure.
“They spoke with my sergeant initially and they said that they would be down for a few days so that could be anywhere from a few days to months, from my past experience,” said Sheriff Benny House.
The FBI did not tell Sheriff House the reason for the closure.
Sheriff Benny House did tell ABC 7 that his local law enforcement did not have anything to do with either the observatory closure, or the Sunspot post office Closure.
A spokesperson for the United States Postal Service told ABC 7 that they were given specific instructions. “We were told on September 6th that we would be evacuated along with the surrounding area, we were not told why,” Rod Sturgeon said, “We were told just to be out of the area.”
More here
UPDATE: A few minutes after publication, the photo was corrected to show the Dunn Solar Telescope at the Sacramento Peak NSO facility.
I’m not saying that it’s aliens.
but it’s aliens.
Or the FCC discovered transmissions from the observatory in Chinese…..
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this week sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai raising concerns regarding an H&H Group application pending before the Commission seeking a permit to use XEWW, a Mexican broadcasting station, to broadcast a full range of Mandarin Chinese language programming into the United States. Due to unresolved concerns that XEWW will be used to broadcast Chinese Communist Party (CPC) propaganda, Sen. Cruz has requested that the Commission deny the H&H Group’s pending application.
“The Chinese Communist Party is waging an information warfare campaign to undermine American democracy,” Sen. Cruz wrote. “The decision before the Commission risks allowing the CPC to broadcast government-approved propaganda into Southern California, one of the most densely populated regions in America of Mandarin speakers, to boost that warfare campaign. The Commission should reject the application, given the unresolved and undisclosed details surrounding the application.”
Correction to Senator Cruz’ statement:
“The USA Democratic Communist Party is waging an information warfare campaign to undermine American democracy,”
Your biggest problem is not the Chinese – it is a lot closer to home.
I am an energy expert, and I will compare my track record with anyone.
Do you really believe the “green” movement to destroy the integrity of the USA energy system is simply because the Democrats and the greens are THAT stupid? This is part of a greater strategy to undermine western democracies, and it is working
Look at what is happening in Canada, Australia, South America, Europe and all over the world, except for the USA, China and India:
– Cheap abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple.
– Destroy the energy system and you destroy the economy.
– Destroy the economy and you can take over the government.
– Over 100 countries around the world are on this destructive path.
– Zimbabwe and Venezuela are just the worst examples, there are many more.
Anyone who preaches global warming alarmism, climate change hysteria, green energy nonsense, etc. is knowingly or unknowingly part of this conspiracy. The leaders of this conspiracy know what they are doing – the minions are probably just the usual imbeciles, who follow any dog that barks.
The Democrats and the greens do not belong in office – they belong in jail.
It could be something as simple as murder or mayhem on government property.
It ain’t like anyone has seen any HazMat suits, have they ??
My covert and unnamed source tells me we were on the verge of proving the sun is responsible for climate change and the proof was sent via snail mail to avoid the Russians from getting it early through hacking.
Maybe they spotted the missing heat!
A rogue sunspot was discovered by the FBI, who duly shut down the place in their desperate effort to catch it.
Where is Steve McQueen when we need him.
Yeah, but they used CO2 to stop the Blob. That wouldn’t be allowed nowadays. CO2 is a dangerous and poisonous gas. (Well, it really wasn’t the CO2 exactly, but the cold that CO2 extinguishers spray out with the CO2.) (And do I really need a /sarc tag?)
Jim
A Russian / Chinese / Unknown satellite hiding in the sun?
The closest you can get with Google Earth street view is 10 km latest image from 2009.
So maybe a deep state ritual party going on.
https://youtu.be/p2IpqqGkpoY
Obama made them go solar?
Anyone know where Nick Stokes is right about now?
Careful, he’s like Old Moldywart, say his name and he pops up
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice… see nothing bad has happ
This post is of great scientific & engineering value to all readers @ur momisugly WUWT, therefore too intellectual& complex for the likes of Mr Stokes, et al!
I can see this is a very intellectual thread. But I’ll wait for more reliable reporting before joining the speculation.
There is no speculation on this thread, just good old fashioned snarking.
I see your Sense-of-Humour bypass was a success!
The USPS website for Sunspot shows nothing unusual. The website has a satellite view of the post office.
There’s not much in Sunspot beside the post office and the observatory. It looks like some residences as well. Some online stories say that residences were evacuated. Is it possible that the whole of Sunspot was evacuated?
Ever since the Oklahoma bombing, I have treated any possible attack on federal facilities seriously.
A site which directly overlooks The White Sands- Fort Bliss ( part not in El Paso) contiguous military testing area ?
Its most likely to be a foreign intell listening post has been covertly added, maybe by staff- who could ‘post any data out’
This would seem very plausible. If some errant outgoing intel had been detected or suspected a physical search of the relevant property would be needed. Foreign spy hardware could be tiny and well hidden so a detailed seach of Sunspot, Post office, telecom towers, etc would be needed and you would expect a full evac’ and FBI presence for such an operation.
Proximity to miltary area would be why the foreign entity chose this location for their spying. The search for spy hardware would likely take many days and no timescale would be given for re-opening. Furthermore NO DETAILS would be given out.
I think all this fits quite well.
Iv e just got to say it, “The truth is out there somewhere”.
MJE
“The truth is out there somewhere”.
Well. That is the assumption on which rational metaphysics is based.
It behoves one to remember it is, just, an assumption…
Seems as though the assumption is objectively verified? Given, that is, that you would agree it is true that rational metaphysics assumes objective truth.
Thanks for coming as always, Leo. 🙂
I made a wise crack above but, I agree, there must have been a credible threat.
(Or maybe that post office has copies of Hillary’s missing emails? 8- )
Probably not Hillary related. No sudden unexplained suicides. or death by multiple gunshots to the head.
no bankers? so no self inflicted multiple nailgun wounds either;-)
Since Sunspot is a little higher in altitude than the surrounding area, all of this might have something to do with chemtrails.
Chemtrails huh ? Do you refer to contrails, left in the wake of aircraft ?
I’m so tired of this conspiracy confusion. Never a week without someone asking what chemicals do airliners spread at altitude.
Silly as it gets. It’s water, more precisely, condensing water from the engines exhaust and airframe penetration which in the right condition becomes visible. Water. Clouds.
It’s safe to assume that all comments on this story are tongue-in-cheek. Including mine claiming that activity around antennas means that HAARP as moved here from Alaska.
Besides, Russell said it only might involve chemtrails.
All my comments are serious.
This week.
How come I never hear of someone whipping out a prism or spectra graph and finding out what the alleged chemicals are? You know, doing actual evidence collection? If you can see them, they are reflecting light, and the chemical signature would be evident.
using science to disprove a theory? Madness! I say. Madness!
No, they contain special masking materials…all the way down
Long ago those who flew unpressurized airframes report that, on occasion, a slight opening of the lateral sliding window would create a localized powerful to take care of whatever is in the cup, aspiration airflow.
Modern freight dogs know that a plastic spoon inserted in the joint of a door has similar results.
However I doubt that the so ejected fluids qualify as masking agents.
[snip . . ugh! >… mod]
Sounds like fake news. If a facility does classified work, moving equipment around would first require people without clearances to be moved out. Mercury is used in atomic weapons? Uh, since when.
In the level sensor of course.
Yeah, cleaning up a neutron spill is no fun. Gotta keep them bombs on the level.
Yes. Mercury (metal) never used to be a problem when it was widely used for a large number of applications. The toxicity and hazard is really quite low. Soluble mercury compounds are a more serious matter but that is not the case here.
Having visited Almaden (S. Spain) and seen the guy floating in a bathtub of Hg I can confirm the hazards are generally very over played. The “mining” village is still there, the residents are pretty healthy, you can stay in a hotel there and it all sits on top of that lovely red soil.
Elemental mercury is not much of a threat. It is not acutely poisonous and it has a very low vapor pressure at room temperature (~10^-8 bar).
Salts of mercury are very toxic, as are organomercurials such as dimethylmercury [(CH3)2]Hg.
Even if the NSO had a mercury leak, it would not be dangerous enough to cause an area-wide evacuation. Certainly not involvement of the FBI or any secrecy.
Not space aliens either, because every telescope in the world would be a security leak.
Willie Soon let me know that he and Sallie Baliunas are about to publish a paper on the solar atmosphere. Maybe Wille and Sallie collected their data at the National Solar Observatory, and the AGW Deep State is exacting their revenge. 🙂
It may have relatively low toxicity, but it does build up in your system if you suffer chronic, long-term exposure to the vapor. 20 years of 1,000 hours per year exposure to saturated mercury vapor is not going to do nice things to your brain.
My hatter says you don’t know Zebras control dog down.
My 75 year-old dentist got rather testy before he realized I was just kidding about a lifetime of mercury exposure.
When I was in the 7th grade our science teacher used to construct a very large barometer using about 2 quarts of mercury and a 6 foot glass column. He would load it using his bare hands and said that after a while he could taste the mercury.
Back in the early 1950s, whenever we grade-school kids got ahold of some mercury from a broken mercury thermometer, we would always rub it onto pennies with our bare fingers to make the pennies “look like dimes.” I still have a quart of mercury in my garage, which was used in the extraction of gold.
When I was a kid we have a cubic inch of mercury to play with – doing all sorts of things. It was originally in a delay switch for a paper towel vending machine. A float rose while the mercury dribbled out of a small hole creating a time delay.
It was a lot of fun and many kids in those days have enough mercury at home to coat pennies and dimes and generally chase it around a table top.
We never added salt.
For me it was air conditioner thermostats, dozens of them from a hotel dumpster when they renovated the rooms ~1973. They were very clever, a long spiral metallic coil that expanded and contracted visibly with changes in temperature, and a glass bulb with mercury tilt switch perched on the end. The dial was marked so that when the set temp was reached the mercury bulb would be at the top and rolled gently against the contacts to close them. The blob’s reluctance to roll back gave it a bit of hysteresis. I broke a few to get a few oz to play with but felt a twinge of regret because I save useful things, and when I showed him a bit in my palm Dad told me why the Mad Hatter in Alice In Wonderland was mad. Saved the rest and kept them in a padded box, I’d gaze at the jiggly mercury bulb switches like jewels. They were finally lost n the Storage Unit Auction Disaster of 2005.
a brand new conspiracy theory.
that was missing.
Tens of gallons of Hg is now a major security threat as a WMD source? My how times have changed. EPA and OSHA must be in absolute hysterics. If only they knew how illegal gold mining was done in South America…
gallon weights about as much as me. it is a lot
UK remoaners, including scientific and medical bodies, are acting like radioisotopes used for internal imaging are a WMD risk. You know, like drugs that doctors inject into potentially healthy people. You can’t have that in the hands of terrorists. They could do medicine without a licence or something.
This proves again how decrepit and eurotrash are the medical bodies.
Perhaps it is related to the “National Emergency communications test the media is announcing that will occur in a few days.
Metallic mercury isn’t all that bioactive. It is more salts of mercury and other water/fat soluble forms that cause problems. Just like your gold ring won’t kill you but a few milligrams of gold salts will.
Anyway, it would make a poor dirty bomb. Probably could kill people with a shrapnel effect.
Who said a dirty bomb needs to kill or harm any biological being?
A radioactive dirty bomb combined by an attack could be a huge lawfare bomb in Europe where you can’t send rescuers (even those willing) if they have even a tiny risk of cancer from radiation exposure, per European treaty (EURATOM), which is above our law and even our national Constitution!
Imagine the scenario where you would have to fight something above the Constitution to save lives. Imagine the civil unrest that could be caused.
Imagine a situation where the most reasonable attitude is to treat anyone who mentions a law as a terrorist.
BTW, even UK alleged “leavers” defend EURATOM. Was Leave.UK is sham?
Self-serving ‘trace amount zero tolerance’ fear hype that has been the natural result of creating the Department of Homeland Security which provides a haven for security guard wannabees and the most deceitful, self-serving merchants of fear and other useless eaters… I refer to ‘dirty bombs’ as ‘insurance bombs’… aside from the actual blast of course — each would trigger a locust swarm of over-reacting revenue gobbling hazmat response, and the threat of them makes for a great extortion racket for insurance companies, if you would wish to pay dearly to have coverage from a dirty bomb attack, a specific exception to their general indemnity from terrorist attack.
So a carefully managed false-flag dirty bomb event would make a fine (zero casualty) jump-start for an insurance scam. Sort of like the inside job Anthrax attacks after 9/11, which was intended to generate contracts for scanning equipment. And just happened to jump-start DHS also.
“Anthrax attacks after 9/11”
which brings us back to mull-her.
Hum…
The US Postal Service doesn’t always deliver to the door in far-flung places so maybe the 10 gallons of mercury was POSTED to NSO and the NSO folk had to drive down and collect it. That would explain everything!
Artisanal gold miners use lots of mercury. They amalgamate gold with the mercury and when it’s half-solid, they boil off the mercury over open fires. Large areas are contaminated with metallic mercury without any obvious health effects. Seen it done in Nicaragua and Colombia, and no doubt it’s common elsewhere in South and Central America.
I’ve seen it done in Canada too, but I can’t say where because, well, it’s illegal now.
So toxicity of liquid mercury is obviously quite low. Mercury vapour though, that’s another issue, and the organomercury compounds are worse. Search for “Minimata Disease” and see what you get. It comes from eating fish that have accumulated Hg in their flesh. Two native reserves in northwestern Ontario were badly affected in the 1970s due to mercury being used in a paper mill upstream from their fishing areas.
Why does RT carry this story and not the American media? Just asking, as an outsider. Because it doesn’t involve Trump?
Both RT and Al Jazeera carry more than a few credible stories which are NEVER reported by the American MSM. What does that tell you?
Could it be that nothing unusual happened there, but the FBI need some distractions about now?
…so badly that distraction must have being needed, so much so that FBI had
to use a BlackHawk from its air fleet!!!
cheers
Could it be that the operators of the observatory spotted some idiot in a red Tesla convertible riding around in space with the top down and then spotted the same thing at the post office and called the FBI? Upon searching the packages being mailed at the P.O. they discovered a package containing plastic straws in a plastic grocery being smuggled to California. APB out for the red Tesla. Major crackdown in progress!