USAF "Mystery airplanes were B-2s"

USNI: The mystery jets that were spotted over Amarillo, Texas, and Wichita, Kan. earlier this year are in fact Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bombers on a training sortie, military sources told USNI News on Monday.

“The Amarillo jets were B-2 training sorties,” an U.S. Air Force official with direct knowledge of the incident told USNI News on Monday.

The jets were enroute to the Utah Test and Training Range to practice dropping bombs after a brief delay at the Melrose Air Force Range in New Mexico.

Flying out of Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., the B-2s would likely have navigated via Amarillo to get to Melrose Range.

The Kansas picture is likely any number of training sorties flown around Kansas and Missouri,” the official added.

Whiteman, the home station of the B-2 fleet, is just outside of Kansas City near the border between Kansas and Missouri.

Earlier reporting that suggested that the images showed a thus far unknown type of triangular aircraft were mistaken due to the poor resolution of the photos.

The triangular planform on apparent display in those shots is the result of an optical illusion that obscured the trailing edge of the B-2s design.

“Given the resolution of this photo, we can’t even tell if it is a military aircraft, much less an Air Force one,” Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Cassidy told USNI News on April 21.

The U.S. Air Force fields 20 of the stealth bombers.

AUTHORS NOTE: This statement is a half truth. The aircraft over Amarillo on April 9th were B-2 bombers.

The aircraft Dean Muskett and myself photographed on March 10, were not.

It reminds me of this non-denial denial: Technically they are correct - it's called the F-117A Nighthawk not F-117 Night Hawk. 

click to enlarge

-Steve Douglass 

RELATED LINKS: 
Mystery in New Mexico - was it the crash of something black?

Flying triangles and B-2s over Amarillo. What's the USAF up to?

Mystery aircraft photographed over Amarillo

Texas Mystery aircraft also photographed over Kansas 

Kansas Mystery aircraft photos analyzed. 

Mini robotic shuttle X-37B passes 500 days in orbit mark

The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane launched on its third and latest mission on Dec. 11, 2012. As of today (April 24), the vehicle has been aloft for 500 days — far longer than its officially stated maximum orbital lifetime of 270 days.

US Air Force's Mysterious X-37B Space Plane Passes 500 Days in Orbit

An unmanned military space plane has achieved a major longevity milestone, zipping around Earth for 500 days on a clandestine mission for the United States government.

The U.S. Air Force's X-37B space plane launched on its third and latest mission on Dec. 11, 2012. As of today (April 24), the vehicle has been aloft for 500 days — far longer than its officially stated maximum orbital lifetime of 270 days.
This NASA Marshall Space Flight Center image shows on-orbit functions for the reusable X-37B space plane, now under the wing of the U.S. Air Force.

"Clearly, and understandably, the Air Force initially set the expected parameters [of the X-37B] conservatively, not really knowing what it could do until it was tested — which is what they are doing now," said Joan Johnson-Freese, professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

"Personally, I think it's commendable that they are pushing it to the extent that they appear to be," Johnson-Freese told Space.com via email. "That's the only way to really know what it can do."


The X-37B/OTV spacecraft undergoes final testing at Boeing for a 2010 test flight.
A tiny robotic space shuttle

The reusable X-37B looks like NASA's now-retired space shuttle, only much smaller. The robotic space plane is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long by 9.5 feet (2.9 m) tall with a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.6 m). Its payload bay is the size of a pickup truck bed. (The space shuttle's payload bay, by comparison, could fit two entire X-37Bs inside.)

Like the space shuttle, the X-37B launches vertically with the aid of a rocket, then returns to Earth horizontally for a runway landing. While the shuttle needed a pilot, however, the X-37B comes home autonomously, without any guidance from human hands.
The U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane is a miniature space shuttle capable of long, classified missions in orbit.


The Air Force has two X-37B space planes, both of which were built by Boeing's Phantom Works division. These two planes have flown a total of three missions, which are known as OTV-1, OTV-2 and OTV-3. ("OTV" is short for Orbital Test Vehicle.)

OTV-1 blasted off in April 2010 and circled Earth for 225 days. The second X-37B vehicle launched in March 2011, initiating the OTV-2 mission. This spaceflight lasted 469 days, finally touching down at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in June 2012.

The current OTV-3 mission employs the first X-37B, the plane that flew OTV-1.

There's no telling when OTV-3 will end, experts say; the X-37B is solar-powered and thus can keep circling Earth for long periods. Further, observations by amateur satellite trackers indicate that the vehicle has made just one or two maneuvers during OTV-3, suggesting that the craft has plenty of thruster fuel left, said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation and a former orbital analyst with the Air Force.

The current mission "seems long, but that's based off of the original [270-day] estimate. We don't have anything else to go on," Weeden told Space.com. "And it's not long for other satellites. It's common for satellites, especially typical national security satellites that are well-designed, to be in orbit for years to decades."

The Air Force's X-37B robotic space plane sits on the runway after landing at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on June 16, 2012. The vehicle spent more than 15 months circling Earth on a mystery mission.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Tensions rise in Ukraine as US soldiers arrive in Poland

BBC: Some 150 soldiers, who landed in north-west Poland, are due to be followed in coming days by a further 450 troops.

Separately, the UK, Netherlands and Denmark scrambled fighter jets after two Russian military aircraft were spotted approaching their airspace.

Earlier, Russia's foreign minister said Moscow would respond to any attack on its interests in Ukraine.

Speaking on Russian state TV channel RT on Wednesday, Sergei Lavrov drew a parallel with the 2008 Georgian war, saying: "If our interests, our legitimate interests, the interests of Russians have been attacked directly.... I do not see any other way but to respond in full accordance with international law".

He also accused the US of "running the show" in Ukraine, and that it was "quite telling" that Kiev had re-launched its "anti-terrorist" operation in the east on Tuesday during a visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden.

US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki dismissed his comments as "ludicrous". "Our approach here is de-escalation. We don't think there's a military solution on the ground," she said.

'Standard response'

The 150 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade arrived in the Polish town of Swidwin from their base in Vicenza, Italy.

Stephen Mull, the US ambassador to Poland, said the US had a "solemn obligation in the framework of Nato to reassure Poland of our security guarantee".

The troops are expected to be carrying out military exercises in Poland as well as in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for the coming months.

There has been growing concern in those countries at the build-up of thousands of troops in Russia along its borders with Ukraine in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed Russian military aircraft had been identified approaching the north of Scotland, but they turned away shortly after fighter jets were scrambled to investigate.

Military officials in the Netherlands and Denmark confirmed they too had scrambled jets to escort the jets away from their airspace.

"We just followed them and just turned back when we reached Germany," Anders Fridberg, spokesman for the Danish Defense Command, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

And in the seas around the UK, a Royal Navy warship is shadowing a Russian destroyer in what the MoD described as a "well established and standard response" as it sails past British territory.

READ THE REST OF THE HERE

Arecibo Observatory Detects Mysterious, Energetic Radio Burst

by Nadia Drake

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC 


A brief, blazing burst of radio waves detected by the Arecibo Observatorycould herald a turning of the tide for a peculiar class of cosmic signals. Until recently, the signals had only ever been detected by a telescope in Australia, a pattern that fueled doubts about their origin.

Fewer than a dozen of these bursts, lasting for only a few thousandths of a second, have ever been reported. Called “fast radio bursts,” the signals are cosmic enigmas that appear to come from the very, very distant universe. But since the first burst discovery in 2007, scientists have not only wondered what kind of cosmic object could produce such a tremendously bright, short-lived radio pulse – but have disagreed about whether the bursts are even celestial.

“There are more theories than there are bursts,” says West Virginia University astronomer Duncan Lorimer, an author on the paper describing the burst, posted to the arXiv on April 10.

On November 2, 2012, a blast of radio waves collided with the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, where the world’s largest single-dish radio telescope lives. Rain or shine, day or night, the 305-meter dish collects radio waves from the cosmos, which are then processed into data for scientists to study.

The data gathered at 6:35 am UT revealed a massive, 3-millisecond spike. Unlike the radio blasts emitted by some pulsars, the burst did not recur. It briefly blazed and then disappeared. Called FRB 121102, the burst was very similar to six earlier events that constitute the entire reported population of ultrafast radio bursts – a population that until November 2012 had only been seen by one telescope, in Australia.

But transience is only part of what makes these signals so weird. Their chief peculiarity lies in just how dang far away they seem to be.

Normally, radio waves travel at the speed of light. This means that all the different wavelengths and frequencies of radio waves emitted by the same object – say, a pulsar – should arrive on Earth in one big batch.

But if something is sufficiently far away, that changes. Longer, lower frequency waves traveling through the cosmos have a trickier time getting to Earth. Clouds of ionized interstellar particles – electrons, primarily – form roadblocks that slow and redirect these longer waves, causing them to follow a more sinuous path. As a result, the longer waves arrive just a bit later than their shorter kin – sometimes, the difference is only a fraction of a second.

That delay in arrival times is called “dispersion,” and it lets astronomers estimate how far away the waves are coming from. The longer the delay, the more intergalactic junk that got in the way. And since scientists think they know how much junk there is, they can use the dispersion measurement to approximate a distance, or at least identify whether an object lives inside or outside the Milky Way.

If astronomers are interpreting the bursts’ dispersion measures correctly, then the bursts came from billions and billions of light-years away – in other words, they’re nowhere near our cosmic neighborhood. And nobody knows what they are.

“The sources of the bursts are undoubtedly exotic by normal standards,” Cornell University astronomer Jim Cordes wrote in Science.

The ultrafast pulses take their name from Lorimer, who spotted and described the first burst in 2007. That mysterious signal, estimated to have traveled roughly 3 billion light-years before colliding with Earth, stunned astronomers. Many of them questioned whether it was an artifact produced by the telescope that detected it, the Parkes Observatory’s 64-meter telescope in Australia.

Site of the first burst found, in 2007. Lorimer et al., NRAO/AUI/NSF)

In the years after the discovery, skepticism grew. A new class of terrestrial radio bursts detected by the Parkes telescope in 2010 cast more doubt on the original Lorimer burst. Those Earth-based signals, called perytons, opened the door to the possibility that even if real, the original burst was actually coming from much closer to home.

Another Parkes-detected burst, reported in 2012, didn’t do much to alleviate doubts.

But that summer, a third Lorimer burst was described at the International Astronomical Union’s general assembly in Beijing, China; as it turned out, this burst would be one member of a quartet that astronomers would announce the next year in Science. By the end of July, 2013, the total reported stood at six.

“The discovery of fast radio bursts at the Parkes Observatory, if confirmed at other observatories, would be a monumental discovery, comparable to that of cosmological gamma-ray bursts and even pulsars,” Shrinivas Kulkarni, an astronomer at Caltech, told Scientific American at the time.

Strength in numbers was helping the bursts achieve legitimacy, but there was no escaping that they’d all been detected by the same telescope. And until another observatory saw something similar, skeptics could easily question whether the signals were a product of the telescope and its location, rather than the cosmos.

“In fairness, it’s not a bad question to ask at all,” Lorimer says. “Whenever you make a new discovery, it’s very important to have it confirmed by different groups, using different equipment.”

Now, the Arecibo detection of FRB 121102 strongly suggests the signals are not a Parkes artifact, and furthermore, that they’re not terrestrial in origin.

“I’m certainly very excited to see such a convincing result from another team using a different observatory,” says astronomer Michael Keith of the University of Manchester, who was not involved in the current study.

So the questions astronomers are asking are: How far have the bursts traveled? And what, exactly, are they?

“My hunch has always been that they’re extragalactic,” Lorimer says. “But that’s really nothing more than a hypothesis at this point.”

Overall, the dispersion measures do seem to suggest an extragalactic origin. There are many more electrons between Earth and the bursts than can be explained by the Milky Way’s interstellar electrons; but it’s still possible that intervening nebulas could be clouding the measurement, Kulkarni says. He suggests the signals could be coming from spinning neutron stars known as radio rotating transients, or RRATs, that live in our galaxy and also emit a single pulse.

Because the signals are so brief and bright, they must be coming from a rather dense source, says astronomer Scott Ransom of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. “That means a compact object – i.e., a neutron star or a black hole – is likely somehow to blame,” he says.

Just what that compact object is has yet to be explained. One theory suggests that giant flares erupting from highly magnetic neutron stars, known as magnetars, cause the bursts. Others suggest the bursts result from colliding neutron stars or black holes, evaporating primordial black holes, large magnetic stars, or are the death spasms produced when massive, slowly spinning neutron stars collapse into black holes. That last object, proposed in 2013, is known as a blitzar.

More observations should help teams pinpoint the bursts’ origin. Already, more detections from Parkes are coming down the pipeline, and Ransom says he’s looking through the Green Bank Telescope’s data for similar signals. But what astronomers are really hoping for is a way to find the bursts in real-time – then, they might be able to identify an optical source, like a host galaxy. In addition to supporting an extragalactic origin, that would also allow scientists to use the bursts to probe the characteristics of the intervening intergalactic medium and its ions.

“We really need to get their precise positions,” Ransom says. “That will let us see where they originate – hopefully in or near other galaxies where we can get their distances.”

North Korea may be close to nuke test.

INSIDE KOREA: North Korea has stepped up activity at its nuclear site, Seoul’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday, in a fresh sign that the communist country may push ahead with a fourth atomic test in breach of international resolutions.

Concerns have been growing since Pyongyang threatened a “new form of nuclear test” late last month in protest against the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation of its test-firing of ballistic missiles.

Though no signs were spotted of an impending underground explosion, the ministry said it set up an “integrated crisis management” task force Monday to prepare for any possibilities.

“We’re detecting lots of activity in North Korea’s nuclear site in the (northeast) town of Punggye,” ministry spokesperson Kim Min-seok told a news briefing.

“North Korea could suddenly carry out a nuclear test in the short term.”

But he suggested that the signs may mark another attempt by the Kim Jong-un regime to “deceive” the outside world, rather than actual preparations.

Other officials and analysts also raised the possibility that the increased activities are meant to be a flexing of military muscles in the run-up to U.S. President Barack Obama’s Asia tour this week. He is due to arrive in Seoul on Friday.

The South Korean military is believed to have perceived an increase in vehicle and personnel movement, as well as a screen to cover a tunnel.

This followed an analysis of satellite imagery last month by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University that concluded that recent excavation activities at the Punggye site may indicate that the North is building a tunnel complex to conduct multiple tests or explosions on a “much more regular basis.”

Kim also mentioned that North Korean officials have spoken of a “next step that is unimaginable to enemies,” a “big event before April 30,” and “one big shot,” citing intelligence.

“North Korea is currently at the stage where it is capable of conducting a nuclear test unexpectedly if it decides so,” he added.

As tension escalates, Seoul has been ratcheting up diplomatic efforts with Washington, Beijing and other partners to dissuade its wayward neighbor from another atomic blast. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se has warned Pyongyang of “unimaginable consequences.”

The chief nuclear negotiators of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan gathered in Washington early this month, sending a strong warning to North Korea against a fourth nuclear test and vowed to step up cooperation to preclude further provocations.

Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul’s new special representative for Korean peninsular peace and security affairs and top envoy to the six-party talks, also met with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean affairs, in Beijing. Wu then traveled to the U.S. for consultations with Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies last week.

By Shin Hyon-hee | The Korea Herald

US to conduct small ground force exercise in Europe

File photo

WASHINGTON — The United States plans to carry out small ground-force exercises in Poland and Estonia in an attempt to reassure NATO’s Eastern European members worried aboutRussia’s military operations in and near Ukraine, Western officials said Friday.

The moves are part of a broader effort by NATO to strengthen the alliance’s air, sea and land presence in Eastern Europe in response to Russia’s new assertiveness in the region.

It is not yet clear what additional troop deployments the United States and other NATO nations might undertake in Eastern Europe after the exercises and to what extent the moves would ease anxieties there.

The land-force exercises the Obama administration is planning are extremely modest.

The exercise in Poland, which is expected to be announced next week, would involve a United States Army company and would last about two weeks, officials said. A company consists of about 150 soldiers.

The exercise in Estonia would be similar, said a Western official who declined to be identified because he was talking about internal planning.

Although the exercises would be short, the United States is considering other ways to maintain a regular ground-force presence in Eastern Europe by rotating troops and conducting training there.

“There’s an entire range of possibilities and measures that are being considered,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday in a joint news conference with Poland’s defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak. “Rotational basis of training and exercises are always part of that.”

The company-size Army exercise that is planned is far from the sort of NATO deployment that Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, suggested this month when he told reporters that he wanted the alliance to deploy two combat brigades with as many as 5,000 troops each in Poland.

This week, NATO’s top military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, gave members of the alliance a range of options for strengthening its military posture in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, along with his own recommendations.

The measures include immediate, midterm and long-term steps. One option, General Breedlove said in an interview this month, is to move the 4,500-member American combat brigade from Fort Hood, Tex., to Europe. But Obama administration officials have not publicly supported such a step.

The first hint that the Obama administration plans to announce that American troops would be sent to Poland was provided on Friday by The Washington Post, which noted that Mr. Siemoniak had said that the move had been agreed to on a political level but provided no details.

The United States has already sent 12 F-16 fighter jets and 200 support personnel to Poland.

NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said this week that the alliance would fly more air patrols over the Baltic region and that allied ships would deploy to the Baltic Sea.

Mr. Rasmussen left open the possibility for additional deployments, including on land.

“More will follow, if needed, in the weeks and months to come,” he said.

Of flying triangles and internet trolls...

I rarely publish things of a personal nature on this blog, but there is a concern I must address, even at the risk of inciting the troll.  

It's not often in this life you discover that someone truly hates you, absolutely despises you with a passion that burns for over twenty years.

It's a given as we go through our lives we make enemies or come across people we rub the wrong way, but it's rare when someone makes it their life's work to be more than a pebble in ones shoe and actually makes it their quest to tell the world at every opportunity that you are a fake, a phony, a con-man and a fraud.

I understand dislike, disagreement and even disgust for someone, but obsession and cyber-stalking I do not. This comes from a man I have never met.

 
For the sake of this article, I'll spare you his name, but if you are a radio monitoring enthusiast you'll know him as "Hooligan."

It all started many years ago when I was a contributing writer for Monitoring Times magazine.

I had a monthly column called "The Fed File" and also contributed semi-montly articles, mostly on military and aviation monitoring.

My column and writings were very popular and prompted a call from Tom Harrington at Universal Radio who asked me if I'd be interested in authoring a book on monitoring called "The "Comprehensive Guide to Military Monitoring."


As a writer specializing in military aviation communications I had amassed a great deal of information on the (albeit esoteric) subject and agreed with Tom it would be a cool idea to put all this info into one book for us military monitoring enthusiasts.

In addition to the information I had collected, Tom sent me other books on the subject they had in their catalog and asked that I collate all the information within to make the book truly comprehensive. 

It was our goal to cover every part of the military radio frequency spectrum from VLF to UHF. I also sent out requests to every Air Force & Naval base in the CONUS for their base guides and I also bought DOD/DMA aviation flip-chart and maps to dig through for any ATC or discrete frequency information.

While Talking with Tom, he mentioned that he liked the format of one book in their library (Monitoring The Military by Daryl Symington) a 120 pager - published by Radio Info Systems in 1990. He said, "The book should have a base-by-base profile with a list of frequencies to go with it. I want it to be like MTM, but better. 

I suggested we add a bit of history and information about the base, units, maps and published and unpublished frequencies. He agreed.

Armed with my info and my instructions, I set about writing The Comprehensive Guide To Military Monitoring. 

It was written and completely designed on (then state of the art) Macintosh clone called a Performa 650. We didn't just write the book, we paginated it so it would be print ready.

It was a daunting task, especially in light of the fact that while in the middle of the writing, the military airwaves (especially those on HF) were restructured. Eighty percent of what I had spent a year, writing had to suddenly be thrown out.

In late 1993 the book (almost 300 pages) was finally finished. I sent it to Tom for review, knowing it still needed some serious editing. However, he gave it a quick once over and said "It's fine." and immediately went to press with it.

When it was included in the Universal catalog it sold very well, despite (to me) some glaring flaws.

However, its publication did cause some problems. 

The magazine I wrote for (Monitoring Times) was not happy. Although I had approached them many times to write a book for them, they had turned me down since they didn't have the budget for it.

They had recently taking a bath trying to create their own super-duper communications receiver (which they had sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into development of) without every producing a single radio for sale.

Needless to say, they were not pleased when my book came out and our relationship soured. It was evident they were unhappy from their published lukewarm review.

About that time "Hooligan" began writing letters to Monitoring Times crying foul. 

 As far as I can remember, he didn't write Universal Radio or me but only MT. 

Apparently his big gripe was that I had plagiarized Symington's book. I don't know if he was a friend of Daryl Symington or what - but Hooligan took it on himself to bring what he thought was a great injustice to the attention of Monitoring Times. They passed his letters on to me and they were largely ignored since they were both sometimes profane and rambling.   

I'll note here that neither Monitoring Times, Universal Radio or myself ever heard anything from Daryl Symington claiming I had ripped off his book - but MT heard plenty from Hooligan.

Since then. Hooligan had apparently made it his life's mission to trash every word I wrote. 

We knocked heads more times than I can count on many radio forums but soon I got bored of reading his rants and chalked them up to the ravings of what we called back then a "Internet Nazi" someone who felt slighted for some reason and had to exact revenge. 

I will admit his rants did have an effect on me, and it kept me from being very active on any of the Internet radio-monitoring forums, something I really enjoyed, but ended up opting out because of Hooligan's continued barrage of insults and accusations.

One of his major rants was about a article that was published in Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine concerning the now infamous "donut-on-a rope" contrail sighting I had in 1992.

I'll quote the article written originally by William Scott, the west coast editor for Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine.

"A link between the sightings of the donut-on-a-rope contrail and the reports of distinctive sounds was established in a sighting on 23 March 1992 near Amarillo, Texas. Steven Douglas took a series of pictures of the contrail, describing the engine noise as a strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses."

In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was enhanced by Douglas's reports of intercepts of radio transmissions:

"Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign "Dragnet 51" from Tinker AFB, Okla., and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and "Darkstar Mike." Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo."


Hooligan immediately jumped on many forums crying foul again over the veracity of the radio transmissions, stating the DARKSTAR call sign was common to a NORAD AWACS and any fool should have known that.


And you know what - he's absolutely right, but what he chose to ignore was the key sentence, "It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo."


Hooligan beat that tired drum for a decade as proof that I knew nothing about military monitoring.

Initially it bothered me - but after making my point on various forums that he was wrong, I let it slide. Later on I realized it was a waste of energy and I was allowing him to get under my skin a little too much.

I also realized in the long run, he wasn't having much luck convincing anyone I was the charlatan and the fake he claimed I was and in fact his rants were having the opposite effect making himself look like a stalker and a loon.

Don't get me wrong. Hooligan is not an idiot. He is a ham radio operator who lives in southern Utah and has more than considerable knowledge on the subject.

However, as far as I know, he's never published a book or written an article but prefers to just lurk on the radio hobbyist forums.


That said, although I'd like to think I'm special and the only target of Hooligan (and believing in the old journalism adage; "If you aren't pissing someone off - you are probably doing it wrong." I have recently learned I am not.

I've found many rants on many subjects where Hooligan thought he had the need to set the record straight and tear some poor hobbyist a new one by jumping on them for one reason or another.


After all, as he states on his Radio Reference profile he is the "King Of All Monitoring" with his avatar being a police badge.

It's obvious Hooligan thinks of himself as a radio-monitoring hobbyist cop of sorts and is protecting the innocent from the likes of posers like me.


As a result, I drifted away from the forums and began my own blog (Deep Blue Horizon) and wrote articles for other magazines such as Popular Science and Aircraft Illustrated, wrote two novels, did a couple dozen TV shows and concentrated on writing about my other favorite obsession, covert military technology.


I was (and will always be) a rabid radio-monitoring hobbyist and in fact, it's an important part of my income. 

I work for a local TV station as a stringer, listening to police, fire and emergency calls and reporting what I hear to the station. I also have a twitter feed, FB group and breaking news blog called The Pro News 7 Situation Room, which has become a great success.


Then recently (and quite accidentally) as I and some friends were having lunch at our favorite airport we photographed three aircraft flying in formation that had never been seen before. Flying in broad daylight were three perfect flying triangles. I also had managed to snag (possibly) related radio traffic coming from the mystery flight.


The photos (taken by two photographers and witnessed by 4 persons) were sent to Guy Norris and Bill Sweetman (not William Scott as Hooligan ascertains) at Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine as were links to the scanner audio I had captured.

The photos were passed around at Aviation Week and among select people who analyzed them. It was determined we had photographed something new, something real and something unacknowledged by the Pentagon. 

Every effort was taken to determine if the objects flying could have been something else, maybe B-2s photographed at weird angle or a drone but the aircraft couldn't be identified and in fact the public affairs office at Whiteman AFB said there were no B-2s flying on that day.


If indeed the radio traffic I recorded was coming from the threesome, it raised the very real possibility that what we had photographed was manned. 

However, even though the communications were captured on a discrete military frequency and at the same time as the sighting it's something that's impossible to actually prove for obvious reasons. 

I discussed the implications of the revelation that the USAF was flying a hitherto unknown manned stealth aircraft with select friends, aviationistas and writers. 

They advised me that once the word got out, I'd better have all my ducks in a row because there would be those who would do their best  including the Pentagon) to shoot down the story and discredit you. This advice came from an expert who was well aware of what was in  Disinformationists Playbook because he had helped write it.

"I hope you are prepared for the shit-storm to come." one "interceptor said.

I was.

Once the story was published, they were right and all hell broke loose.

It went viral really quick. 

LINK

The national and international press and even local media began echoing Bill Sweetman's story and the clamor began.

I began reading the comments and speculation on the various aviation forums. The opinions ranged wildly, some downright bizarre. Onw theorized they were UFO's or Chinese stealth spy planes, others (as I expected) theorized they were just B-2s photographed at an unusual angle, until the read that a spokesman for Whiteman AFB said there were no B-2s flying at the time.

As I had planned, I delayed posting the photos and the recordings on this blog until the speculation had reached a fever pitch. 

I also didn't post because I was expecting Hooligan to pop up and try ad shoot the whole story down.

I wasn't disappointed. 

This comment soon appeared on the Aviation Week story;

"Sweetman & Steve Douglass have a longtime symbiotic (or parasitic) relationship. Douglass magically see & hears things which he attributes to being part of "black" programs, and Sweetman eagerly publishes, speculates & pontificates on it. It usually still adds-up to nothing new factually.

Amazing how Douglass comes up with grainy photos, but claims of associated radio traffic-often with very specific dialog -- isn't backed up by any recordings. Back in the day he was affectionately known as 'Dark Star Douglas' due to the claim (published in AW&T) that he intercepted some sort of 'black' aircraft using the Darkstar callsign (which in reality was & is a standard E-e AWACS back end crew callsign prefix."


I was pleased to see someone post unsolicited; "HIS REAL NAME" is a serial troll who exists to slander Douglas - who has not worked on anything much with Sweetman in the last 20 years. So this post means as much as the witterings of any troll."

And then on a Houston Chronicle story I found this anonymous comment with Hooligan's fingerprints all over it.

> DarkstarPapa: Where is the 'audio', Steve?? Produce it.

Folks, Steve Douglas is a known fraud when I comes to speculating on secret aircraft. He is infamous within the radio community for falsifying comms intercepts and doctoring photos of so-called black aircraft to promote his website and books. You need to treat this with the upmost skepticism based on his past track record. Aviation week should know better than to publish his fantasy stories<


Again I laughed and again I was pissed, a strange combination of feelings. I knew this was coming - but I didn't realize Hooligan was so obsessed with me to the point he felt compelled to comment on as many stories as he could find to trash my name on. His "Steve Douglass is a fraud" posts began sprouting up like weeds across the internet landscape. 

I then posted my account along with the audio recordings.

You can read it here: 

MYSTERY AIRCRAFT SPOTTED FLYING OVER TEXAS

RELATED STORY:  B-2s AND FLYING TRIANGLES - WHAT'S THE USAF UP TO? 

I (again) was pleased to see someone go to my defense.

@DarkstarPapa - You realize that it's likely you've committed libel. Steve Douglass is a well-known and respected journalist in Amarillo. His colleagues here respect his ethics and his talents. He has helped break local stories because of his acumen with radios. Aviation Week has work with him a long time as well. You better be able to back up your assertion of Douglass being a "known fraud."

If you had any guts, you'd come out from behind your screen name. I'll sign this so I am not anonymous.

George Schwarz, publisher and editor

The Amarillo Independent

I couldn't help but reply:

AmarilloPublisher - I know exactly who DarkstarPapa is. He's a radio monitoring hobbyist known as "Hooligan" but his real name is --- never mind outing him he just wants the attention. "Hooligan" has a problem. He's made it his mission to "out Steve Douglass as a fraud" since the early 90s when I wrote for Monitoring Times Magazine. It wouldn't matter if I posted the sky was blue - because in Tim's mind - I has to be green because I must be lying.

Somehow he's made this leap in logic that because I'm a published author I must be making this stuff up for the money. But as you know - I'm not exactly living on easy street. It's hardly worth the effort to respond to his accusations because he's hides behind the anonymity of the internet, however I just ask that you read the story behind the story on my blog.

FYI: There were a total of four witnesses to these aircraft and dozens of photographs taken by two photographers. It's not impossible to fake but pretty improbable. There's also much more to the story than you are privy to. They were scrutinized by experts and not only at Aviation Week. Sources were called and information was vetted. The raw images are also available to interested accredited journalists to do their own analysis. As for my blog - I won't post the address because it's easy to find. Just Google my name - which unlike DarkstarPapa I'm not afraid to use.

Last night I began thinking about Hooligan and because I'm analytical I tried to understand just why would someone develop an obsession like this? 

I wasn't worried about my reputation. I was intrigued and wanted to understand what was really behind Hooligans' still simmering hate for me.

I was also motivated by family and friends who expressed a growing concern for me because it seems like "Hooligan" was becoming close to being a serial stalker.

So, I asked myself these questions:

Did I have something to fear and what exactly compels people like Hooligan in their obsessions?

At the risk of inflaming the situtaion, I decided to do some research, on both Hooligan's motives and the stalker mentality.

An article published in the New York Times gave me insight.

Dr. Kristine K Kienlen a psychologist who evaluates criminals and patients who are mentally ill and dangerous wrote, "stalkers are wreaking havoc in the lives of millions of Americans. 

Every year, a recent national study by the Justice Department disclosed, an estimated one million women and 400,000 men are plagued by unrelenting pursuers who harass, terrorize and in some cases kill the victims or anyone else deemed to be in the way of a stalker's desired goal. 

That wasn't comforting.

The extent of the stalking problem and its potential for growth through cyberstalking has astonished even the most astute researchers in the field and prompted a call for stronger laws and stricter enforcement of existing statutes to better protect the victims of stalkers, even when there is no direct threat to their physical safety.

"Stalkers simply do not fade away," said Rhonda Saunders, Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles and head of the Stalking and Threat Assessment Team.

Dr. Doris M. Hall, a specialist in criminal justice at California State University at Bakersfield, wrote; "Sometimes stalkers seem to pick their victims because of some imagined slight,

Had I somehow slighted Hooligan? I decided to delve deeper.

I looked at past arguments archived on the Internet and began to see a common thread.

I now believe Hooligan feels personally wronged by me over the publication of my book and the fact that he thinks it was a plagiarization of Monitoring The Military by Daryl Symington.

I don't know what the connection is between Daryl Symington and Hooligan - or if there is one but apparently Hooligan took its publishing very personal when (in his eyes) my book showed similarities to Monitoring The Military.

Letters he sent to Monitoring Times and texts and Internet conversations all point to this. Hooligan feels wronged and has been carrying a grudge for over twenty years!

So what do I do? Apologize?

Not hardly - according to studies it would have no effect and could maybe aggravate the situation (as this post could very well do) but I've decided to write about it anyway just in case something happens.

And besides, I've done nothing wrong.

The Comprehensive Guide To Military Monitoring reads like a phone book. I don't know of any phonebook companies getting their panties in a wad since they all follow the same format.

However, I really don't believe Hooligan will leave southern Utah looking for me and try and settle an old score.

Kienlen goes on to say she had encountered three kinds of attachment disorders among stalkers.

1: The "preoccupied" stalker has a poor self-image but a positive view of others and constantly seeks their approval and validation in order to feel good about himself. When rejected by others, the person stalks to restore his sense of self.

2: The "fearful" stalker has a poor self-image as well but also sees others as unreliable and unsupportive. The stalker tends to get caught in a vicious cycle of wanting someone to boost his own self-image, then rejecting the person for not being trustworthy, which prompts the person to stalk because he again needs someone to boost his sagging ego.

3: The "dismissing" stalker thinks of other people as jerks and usually remains distant from them to maintain an inflated self-image.

My guess is Hooligan is the third type.

Hooligans' pattern has always been the same, he posts and then retreats back inside the anonymity of the internet.

"My theory is that in these vulnerable individuals, suffer from damage to their sense of self-worth," Dr. Kienlen said. "To alleviate their feelings they compensated by focusing on stalking."

Although I do not believe I have anything to fear, my family does. My guard is up and I have people looking out for me.

However, it is what it is and it is having an effect even as going so far as to prompt me to write about it on my blog, which some thought I shouldn't do.

But I feel it's important to have it out there, on the un-eraseble internet just in case Hooligan decides to take it up a notch.

But still, it won't stop me from doing what I love to do - which is listen and write and post.

"Hooligan" if you are reading this (and I'm sure you will) I'm sorry if you feel slighted or wronged, but it's time to put that burden down.

In the long view of things, it's time you realize that I  (and many others) really don't care what you think about me but when it causes concern among my friends and family, I have to take notice.

I also need to serve you notice,that  I do know who you are, where you live and so does my lawyer.

Your tirades and rants have become so predictable that I even know how you will respond to this post, in so much  that within my circle of friends we have a side bet on which words you are going to use. I'll make an extra $5 if you use the words "Stevie" misspell my name or accuse me of self importance or whining.

Wikipedia defines an Internet Troll as "a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,^[1] by posting inflammatory,^[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response^[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.^[4]

This sense of the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet sites with the aim of causing grief to families."^[5][6]

In closing, if that was Hooligan's aim - to cause concern among my friends and family - this post is proof he has accomplished his goal. He has my attention now and he's made his point.

Now that he has, I suggest he get on with his life or move on to harassing someone else - but I seriously doubt he will.

-Steve Douglass 

Kansas Mystery Aircraft analyzed

click to enlarge

I spent a few hours analyzing the raw Kansas mystery plane image and this is the result:

It's almost a pure triangle with the back edge slightly angled in to the apex - almost kite shaped.

The images are real and haven't been manipulated because the pixel structure is intact.

Try as I might I can't discern the standard saw-tooth trailing edge of a B-2.

My opinion - and from looking at the other raw images is;
These are photos of triangular shaped aircraft flying almost directly overhead with just a slightly offset angle. It isn't a kite (as some have suggested) and it is leaving a very real contrail.

However, there is one thing that bugs me - and it's the EXIF data. Each image was shot within minutes of each other, but there is one anomaly that only the photographer can address.

click to enlarge 

In the TV interview the photographer says he shot the photos in February but the EXIF data shows they were shot on April, 15th. It could be simply explained away as he set the wrong date in his camera when he initially set it up.

However, if they were indeed shot on April 15th, I'd like to know why the photographer claimed otherwise.

Stay tuned!

-Steve Douglass

UPDATE: Found this on GIZMODO




>I'm the photographer. The photo was taken April 16, 2014, at sunset, over Wichita Ks. The reporter that originally did the story on a news channel here put the February date out there and I have no idea why. I gave the station the date in the email with the photo. There is no way to determine the altitude or size. Another website "enhanced" the object to the color green to try and show its shape. It's NOT green. The photo was taken through a hand-held 400mm Canon lens that was maxed-out and through a thin layer of clouds. It was also severely cropped to enlarge it which caused some pretty severe "noise" in the photo. While the S turn was impressive, I don't believe it was so fast that anyone on board would have experienced excessive G's. Just wanted to set the record straight.<

Texas mystery aircraft also photographed over Kansas

(C) Jeff Templin
click to enlarge 

CLICK TO VIEW HIGH REZ

KSN: — Jeff Templin is a amateur photographer. He says he’s seen it all until now. While taking pictures of wildlife back in February, something caught his eye. He said it looked like an unusual contrail.

“Right over the city, clear as a bell,” said Templin. “Anyone that was looking up would have seen it. You don’t usually see military or even civilian aircraft’s jets that leave contrails making those kind of severe departures off of the given route.”

Templin says the aircraft made several; severe 180 degree turns in the sky in the shape of an “S”, even more unusual.

“Absolutely silent, no sound,” he said.

So he snapped a few photos and took it home.

“When I put it on my computer and processed them, I was surprised to see this triangular shape that is not like anything you typically see,” he said.

Templin says he’s a big fan of air planes, so there was no doubt what he saw wasn’t….we’ll you know.

“It was one of ours or at least man made for sure, so unidentified yes, but alien, no,” he said.

We reached out to several aviation experts, including McConnell. The base told us they were unable to identify the aircraft. They did say it could be a B-2 Bomber, but couldn’t confirm it. And if it was, it wasn’t one of theirs.

There are several theories out there on the internet of what the object could be, but for now the aircraft in the sky remains a mystery.

PS: Puttering around in PS and reversing the values and you can see the back edge. I think the ghost of Jack Northrop is smiling. - Steve Douglass

UPDATE:  Stay tuned,I'm working on getting access to the raw images.

Enhanced frame - click to enlarge. 

click to enlarge.

click to enlarge

RELATED LINKS:

MYSTERY AIRCRAFT PHOTOGRAPHED OVER TEXAS LINK.

FLYING TRIANGLES AND B-2s OVER AMARILLO- WHAT'S THE USAF UP TO?

IS THIS THE SHAPE OF THE MYSTERY AIRCRAFT SPOTTED OVER TEXAS?

Leaked video shows al Qaeda meeting

Washington (CNN) -- A new video shows what looks like the largest and most dangerous gathering of al Qaeda in years. And the CIA and the Pentagon either didn't know about it or couldn't get a drone there in time to strike.

U.S. officials won't comment on that, but every frame of the video is now being analyzed by the United States.

In the middle of the clip, the man known as al Qaeda's crown prince, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, appears brazenly out in the open, greeting followers in Yemen. Al-Wuhayshi, the No. 2 leader of al Qaeda globally and the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has said he wants to attack the United States. But in the video, he looks unconcerned that he could be hit by an American drone.

The video started appearing on jihadist websites recently, drawing the attention of U.S. officials and global terrorism experts. U.S. officials say they believe it's authentic.

The video shows al-Wuhayshi addressing more than 100 fighters somewhere within Yemen, Cruickshank said, a restive nation on the southwestern portion of the Arabian Peninsula. The al Qaeda leader, he said, is "taking a big risk in doing this."

But he doesn't mince words about his mission.

In a speech to the group, al-Wuhayshi makes it clear that he's going after the United States, saying "We must eliminate the cross. ... The bearer of the cross is America!"

U.S. officials believe the highly produced video is recent. With some fighters faces blurred, there is worry it signals a new round of plotting.

"The U.S. intelligence community should be surprised that such a large group of al Qaeda assembled together, including the leadership, and somehow they didn't notice," said Peter Bergen, CNN national security analyst.

There is good reason to worry.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, is considered the most dangerous al Qaeda affiliate. The CIA and the Pentagon have repeatedly killed AQAP leaders with drone strikes. But the group is now emboldened.

"The main problem about this group is that it has a bomb maker who can put bombs on to planes that can't be detected," Bergen said.

That bomb maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, is believed to be responsible for several attack attempts against the United States, including the failed 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomber attack in Detroit.

Al-Asiri doesn't appear in the video. He remains in hiding, and intelligence experts say he and other AQAP leaders have gone back to using couriers to communicate to avoid detection. That makes it even harder to figure out what al-Wuhayshi may order next.

But the terror group leader's goal is clear, Cruickshank said.

"His message to the United States," Cruickshank said, "was very much the same as (former al Qaeda leader Osama) bin Laden's: 'We're coming after you.' "

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" that leaks tied to Yemen have affected U.S. intelligence collection, but he said he couldn't say whether U.S. intelligence knew about the meeting.

Boston Marathon Bombing remembered - communications from that day.

On this the anniversary of the Boston Marathon Bombing I thought I'd post this recording of the police/fire communications at the time of the bombing.

It's hard to listen to, but It's important to remember the absolute chaos inflicted on Boston, since time has the tendency to dull our minds to the terror two people inflicted on one of our great American cities.

But this recording isn't just about the bombing, it is a testament to the police, fire and emergency crews  who despite the incredible chaos  ran toward the explosions and not away from them. .

Huge respect goes out to our first responders, firemen and women and police who risk their lives daily so others might live.

LINK: http://www.webbfeatproductions.com/bostonfd.mp3

It's baaaaacck - Skyquakes rocking California.

By Paul Whitefield

April 10, 2014, 5:04 a.m.

Was that an earthquake, or an ordinary sonic boom, that rattled Southern California on Wednesday afternoon — or was it the return of Aurora, the nation’s long-rumored, never-confirmed, some-say-mythological super-secret, super-fast spy plane?

Whew. Steady now, X-Files folks.

First, here’s what The Times reported: About 1 p.m. Wednesday, folks from Malibu to Orange County felt what many assumed was an earthquake. For example, Scott Conner, who lives in Malibu, said the shaking was so intense that it almost toppled one of his computer monitors. “I thought it was the biggest quake I’ve ever been in…. This thing was big, big,” he said. “The whole house just lifted.”

Nope, said famed Caltech seismologist Kate Hutton. No earthquakes were reported in the area during that time. “It’s not an earthquake. It’s probably an offshore sonic boom,” Hutton said.

Correct, said the Navy, which confirmed that an aircraft flew faster than the speed of sound as part of an exercise with the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan about 50 miles off the coast.

Not so fast, said Malibu’s Conner, sticking to his quake story: “I’ve been around air force bases. I know what sonic booms are. There was no boom either,” Conner said.

Which is where I come in, me and my theory: Call it “the Aurora Anomaly” (I don’t know why, it just sounds cool).

READ THE REST HERE:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-aurora-spy-plane-sonic-boom-southern-california-20140409,0,1377864.story#ixzz2ynImnMw2