ParaNet BBS/sts48art

ParaNet BBS/sts48art

File Name:	sts48art.txt
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Key Words:	ParaNet, UFO, Ufology

The following copyrighted article first appeared in the 
September 1992 HUFON REPORT, the newsletter of the Houston 
UFO Network, all rights reserved. Non-profit publications 
may reprint this article as long as its source and author 
are attributed. See accompanying article "Sts48.Txt" 
and graphic "Event2a.GIF." For more information call
(713) 850-1352.

----------------------------------------------------------

The Strange Case of STS-48
by David Mayo

It was 1:43am Saturday morning, June 6, 1992.  My wife had 
retired for the evening and I was flipping through the cable 
channels as men are compelled to do.  Just by chance (or 
providence), I landed on KHTV (Ch 39 locally) where the 
program "HardCopy" was airing.  The host was stating 
"...amazing videotape taken by a space shuttle astronaut, 
astounding evidence of UFOs!"  Well, For over a year and a 
half I have been compiling UFO-related television segments 
from various programs.  I jumped up and shoved my latest 
tape in the VCR and hit record.  What followed was 
intriguing to say the least.  Don Ecker, staffer to UFO 
Magazine, had obtained footage filmed from a recent shuttle 
mission and had brought it to "HardCopy."  The footage 
showed a dark Earth positioned in the lower two-thirds of 
the screen.  Banded around its middle, the lights of a major 
city sparkled.   The Earth's curvature ran from right mid-
frame to upper left corner.  Above this, dark space was 
punctuated by a few stars.  A small bright object suddenly 
appeared midway down the visible edge and traveled right to 
left at a fast rate following the curvature.  There was a 
brief flash of light that bloomed from the upper left corner 
and the object made a sudden sharp right hand turn, picked 
up velocity and sped off into the darkness of space!  A 
split second after this unusual turn, another object 
streaked upwards from lower in the frame and whizzed past 
the approximate point where the first object would have been 
had it not made the right hand turn.Don Ecker expounded that 
this was an alien spacecraft making an evasive maneuver just 
before something is shot at it.  

Mr. Ecker's opinion not withstanding, NASA's official 
explanation was that it was ice crystals formed from waste 
water.  "HardCopy's" stance was that this piece of film was 
either the UFO smoking gun or space debris.  I found the 
entire footage to be something unique and possibly 
important.  Still, this was "HardCopy" after all, not "60 
Minutes" and with most news events the truth follows some 
time later.The next day I called a few people I knew to 
inquire whether they had seen it.Vince Johnson and Bill 
Eatwell had not. 

However, later, Bill called me back with a mysterious 
message.  He said that after speaking of this program to 
some of his friends, an unnamed caller instructed him to 
contact me and ask that I refrain from speaking about the 
footage any further and, in particular, not publish anything 
about this in HUFON REPORT. If I agreed and showed good 
faith, I would receive more information about the event.  At 
first,this rubbed me wrong.  I could understand that if the 
footage was a "smoking gun" and if an investigation was 
underway, the need for secrecy may be justified.  What I 
couldn't accept was hearing all this third hand.  If I am 
asked to spike a story, I want to know who is doing the 
asking.  Instead, I was mollified by the promise of straight 
answers to any 10 questions I wished to ask about the 
HardCopy footage.  My curiosity, at this point, had grown 
exponentially.  Being the beggar and unable to choose, I 
agreed.

On June 8, I faxed the 10 questions I had compiled to Bill.  
He, in turn, faxed them to a neutral fax location (number) 
he was given.  The questions were as follows:

1)      What is the entire scenario of what I witnessed 
	(i.e., what was transpiring)?

2)      Which shuttle mission did this occur on?

3)      If the object is an alien spacecraft, what was its 
	size, speed and distance from the camera?

4)      Was this object taking evasive action to avoid 
	some sort of weaponry?

5)      On the footage I saw, there was a brief flash that 
	brightened the entire frame just before 
	the object made the right angle turn.  What caused this 
	flash?

6)      Could this be or have some relationship with SDI 
	testing?

7)      What is the position or opinion of the astronauts 
	who filmed the object?

8)      How did "HardCopy" or Don Ecker obtain this 
	footage?

9)      Does the extent of this investigation include 
	congressional interest?  In other words, give me some idea 
	of what level of personnel is working on this.

10)     When can the public or I expect this investigation 
	to conclude?

With the exception of number 3 (an obviously loaded 
question), it seemed like a good list.

On June 10th, I was at work when I received a call from 
Bill.  He says that the person involved with the 
investigation would be faxing me the answers within the next 
hour.  The answers arrived on schedule.  The answer sheet 
began with a few paragraphs stating the need for secrecy, 
the rules I must follow and the request that I not get 
paranoid.  It stated that the "HardCopy" footage was of 
"Event #2", taken during STS-48.  Further, it was NASA's 
opinion that the flash was from an attitude thruster firing.  
Lastly, The sheet stated that three major government offices 
were involved and that an official congressional inquiry had 
occurred.That was it.  Bill Eatwell's involvement ceased at 
this point at the insistence of the unnamed source.  I was 
also enjoined to not reveal any of this to anyone, including 
Bill.So here I was, involved in an honest-to-God high level 
investigation.  Yet, all I could do was sit and wait.  Just 
days from this, we would be publishing the June HUFON 
REPORT.  Though anxious to tell someone, anyone of this, I 
held my peace and reported nothing in the newsletter.  A 
little over two weeks later, another event changed the 
course of my involvement.

What with the presidential race developing into a three way 
free-for-all, I had been checking out "Larry King Live" on 
CNN each night.  On June 26 at 8:32pm (30 minutes into his 
show), I suddenly remembered Larry King and switched to it.  
Astonishingly enough, he was introducing Don Ecker in LA. 
and James Oberg (ostensibly representing NASA) in Houston.  
The topic?  You guessed it.  I jumped up (I'm getting good 
at this) and shoved a tape in.  What followed was a head to 
head confrontation between Don, doing his best impression of 
a UFO investigator, incensed at the government cover-up that 
Oberg was there to perpetrate and James, doing his best to 
appear as an interested "space nut" while touting the NASA 
line.  Between the personal attacks on each other (that 
Larry King appeared powerless to control), some facts were 
revealed that jibed with the information I had received.  
This, at least, verified that I was dealing with a serious 
investigator.  

One of the calls taken that night by Larry King was from 
Vincent DiPietro from Sykesville, MD.  He apparently had 
digitally enhanced some of the Event #2 footage revealing a 
possible domed object.  Mr. Ecker knew of this and, by 
inference, admitted he knew Mr. DiPietro. Still, Mr. 
DiPietro's opinion followed the NASA party line; that the 
object was an ice crystal that moved suddenly due to a 
shuttle attitude thruster firing.  His opinion is noteworthy 
due to his name showing up in a very prominent manner later.  
But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  More on Vincent DiPietro 
later.

Although I was told not to, I called Bill once more and 
informed him that while I was keeping my mouth shut, the 
story was showing up on nationally broadcast programs.  
Enough was enough.  I had shown good faith.  The secrecy was 
becoming an irritant, if for no other reason than my friend 
and UFO confidant (not to mention co-editor of HUFON REPORT, 
Vince Johnson, deserved to know about this story.  Now I 
wanted to talk to someone.  After this call, I wondered if I 
would hear from anyone again.  I didn't have to wait long.

On Saturday, June 27th, Bill called me with a very brief 
message.  The source of my information would be calling me 
in 15 minutes.  Well, finally.  Moments later, the phone 
rang.  To my surprise, it was Ron Madeley, a past president 
of HUFON.  He explained that he was giving me exclusive 
information, unavailable to any other publication.  He 
stated that his belief in my seriousness to the study of 
UFOs and his opinion that  HUFON REPORT had become the best 
UFO newsletter around helped him pick me.  I'm not above 
praise so I thanked him, then insisted that I be shown 
something to convince me.  Exactly, what was going on?  Why 
"Event 2"?  Were there other events?  He agreed to visit me 
and bring the visual evidence of more than I was 
aware of.  This story was about to become something much 
bigger, involving Congressional evasion, implausible 
deniability, and a flock of scientists, astronauts and 
physicists.

A few days later, Ron arrived at my house, bearing a 
briefcase.  We sat on the sofa as he discussed some of the 
background of this particular shuttle flight.  STS-48 was a 
September '91 launch of the space shuttle Discovery.  It 
carried several scientific experiments including radiation 
monitoring, zero gravity crystal growth, polymer growth and 
rodent physiology.  Cargo payloads included the UARS (Upper 
Atmospheric Research Satellite) and the APM-03 (Atmospheric 
Particle Monitor-3).  There were five crew members: John 
Creighton, Commander; Kenneth Reightler, Jr. Pilot; Charles 
D. Gemar, Mission Specialist 1; James F. Buchli, Mission 
Specialist 2; and Mark N. Brown, Mission Specialist 3.  
Although this was not a DoD mission, all crew members were 
active duty military personnel.  Ron mentioned a few other 
tidbits about congressional involvement but did not 
elaborate any further.  The time had come to show and tell.  
He handed me a video tape.  He explained he was going to 
show me Event #2 as it should be seen, not the multi-
generational degraded footage shown on "HardCopy".  

He was not exaggerating.  This footage was not only 
extremely sharp and clear, but it was evident that the 
"HardCopy" footage had been an apertured-down version 
restricting the field of view.  This time It was evident 
that the object did not suddenly appear, rather it had 
appeared when its course brought it from behind the Earth's 
rim, revealing itself against the dark Earth below.  There 
were other anomalous objects in the frame.  Some were moving 
in a similar direction but slower, while others appeared to 
be slowly converging on the first object.  Ron explained 
that the real curiosity was the NASA explanation.  During 
the course of all shuttle flights there is a long schedule 
of events.  Everything from course corrections, rotating the 
shuttle due to the sun's heat and waste water ejection are 
performed according to schedule.  NASA had stated that the 
brief flare was the firing of an attitude adjustment jet, 
required just prior to the waste water ejection procedure.  
Further, they explained that the object seen to make a right 
hand turn was merely a small ice crystal reacting to the 
thruster fire.  The problem with this is that, based on 
actual NASA audio logs of the mission, an attitude 
adjustment and subsequent waste water ejection procedure 
occurred just after Event 2!  The NASA explanation was 
patently wrong.

In the days that followed, Ron began to relate the details 
of the on-going investigation that these anomalous events 
had created.  The number of players was enormous and as I 
was inundated by the names, dates, and activities, I finally 
admitted to Ron that he must allow me to bring another 
person in on this.  I requested that Vince Johnson be 
included.  He agreed.  After the initial couple of meetings 
I had with Mr. Madeley, The three of us finally gathered at 
my home to view all the footage and to receive some further 
information for the inevitable writing of this article.  We 
first viewed Event 2, bringing Vince up to date.

As amazing as this footage was, we were not prepared for the 
next bit of tape he showed us.  As I loaded another tape he 
gave me into the machine, Ron explained that there were a 
total of six events recorded during the STS-48 mission.  He 
hit the play button and showed us an amazing Event #3.  This 
piece of footage is hard to describe due to the overwhelming 
activity present during the several seconds.  The view was 
of the Earth in daylight.  Clouds obscured much of the 
unidentified land mass below.  As we watched, a small object 
streaked across the bottom of the frame right to left.  
Then, another, from left to right.  A larger, bright object 
entered from upper left frame and traveled to the lower 
right.  It appeared elongated, then slowed and became 
rounder, then exited the picture.  Still another object, 
even brighter, entered from the lower left corner and 
traveled diagonally toward the upper right hand corner.  
Approximately midway, a smaller object streaked from the 
right and appeared to either intersect or pass above or 
below the brighter object.  The bright object continued out 
of frame.  Immediately following this, all hell seemed to 
break loose as multiple objects of varying brightness 
streaked through the field of ections; left to right, right 
to left, upper to lower; incredible activity everywhere!  If 
all the anomalies had been traveling in the same direction a 
case could have been made that we were witnessing 
meteorites, but this was no meteor shower.

The last anomalous event within this Event #3 was perhaps 
the strangest, and of the shortest duration.  In the upper 
left hand corner of the frame a very unusual object appeared 
for a brief moment before the view was switched to another 
shuttle camera.  This object looked all the world like a 
domed object moving left to right!  When viewed several 
times in a row, this impression was strengthened.  This 
object could not be explained easily.  Following this, we 
were shown Events #6, #4 and #1.  These events, although 
significant, were minor compared to #2 and #3.

On November 11, 1991, Vincent DiPietro, an employee of GSFC 
(Goddard Space Flight Center), issued a report to the Fund 
for UFO Research detailing his own investigation into the 
first four events of STS-48.  It is interesting to note that 
Mr. DiPietro's report, written long before the Larry King 
show, shows a distinct pro-UFO stance contrasting greatly 
with his opinion offered to Larry King.  During his 
inquiries he spoke to several scientists, astronauts and 
other ranking individuals.  He asked each to describe the 
four events.  Those claiming that the objects were ice were:  
Dr. Paul Lowman, Lunar Geologist Scientist at GSFC, Dr. 
Terry Dawson, Space Science and Technology Committee, Dr. 
Ken Rightler, STS-48 Astronaut, and Dr. Mark Brown, STS-48 
Astronaut.  Dr. Ron Parise, Astronaut at GSFC, claimed that 
the objects were meteors (even though he refused to view the 
tape).  Don Haxton, Astronomer for the Space Telescope, 
claimed that the objects were not meteors.  At the time of 
Mr. DiPietro's report, the NASA Public Affairs 
Administrators at GSFC had not responded to his inquiries, 
nor had Dr. Bogges, Chief Scientist for the Space Telescope 
project at GSFC.  Among the various explanations given to 
explain the anomalous events were:  the rockets on the side 
of STS-48 could have produced a blast of gas which could 
have deflected the objects, causing the unusual right-hand 
turn, and that STS-48 was just coming into the daylight and 
the objects (that seemed to appear out of thin air) could 
have been there all along, but might have been illuminated 
by sunlight when Event #2 started.  Based on his 
investigation, Vincent DiPietro could come to no firm 
conclusions concerning the strange events of STS-48.

All of this evidence suggests some very odd activity during 
this shuttle mission.  Mr. Madeley's own investigation has 
lasted more than five months.  Several experts, in a variety 
of fields, have agreed to make their opinions available to 
him in exchange for being allowed to remain anonymous.  The 
following article provides a more detailed look at Events 1, 
2, 3, 4 and 6.  

Mr. Madeley graciously provided much of the details for 
Event 2.  The details of the other events are either written 
from memory (we weren't allowed our own copy of the footage) 
or are taken from Mr. DiPietro's own investigation.  We will 
be bringing you further information on this emerging story 
as it becomes available.  
During his investigation, Ron was showing the Event 3 
footage over and over to an engineer working at the NASA 
Johnson Space Center.  Ron asked what he thought it all was.  
The engineer replied, "I keep watching different things 
everytime you play it.  Like I told you before; I 
thought I was watching a Star Wars movie or something from 
Hollywood!"  And, in the words of one scientist working at 
the Sandia National Laboratories, "You have something quite 
important there."

Copyright 1992 by Houston UFO Network / David Mayo

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UFO Network / David Mayo

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