MB Civic

Michael Fagan (born 1951) was an intruder who broke into Buckingham Palace and entered the Queen’s bedchamber in the early hours of 9 July 1982. The unemployed father of four children managed to evade electronic alarms as well as both palace and police guardsIt was the 31-year-old’ssecond successful attempt to break into Buckingham Palace. On his first attempt, he scaled a drainpipe, briefly startling a housemaid who called security, who subsequently decided not to act. Fagan entered through an unlocked window on the roof and spent the next half hour eating cheddar cheese and crackers and wandering around. He tripped several alarms, but they were faulty. He viewed the royal portraits and rested on the throne for a while. He then entered the postroom, where the pregnant Diana, Princess of Wales had hidden presents for her first son, William. He drank half a bottle of white wine before becoming tired and leaving.
On the second attempt, an alarm sensor detected him. A worker in the Palace thought the alarm to be false, and silenced the alarm. En route to see the Queen, he broke a glass ashtray, lacerating his hand.The Queen woke when he disturbed a curtain, after which he sat on the edge of her bed talking to her for about ten minutes. The Queen phoned twice for police but none came. He then asked for some cigarettes, which were brought by a maid. When the maid did not return to base for some time, footman Paul Whybrew appeared. The incident happened as the armed police officer outside the royal bedroom came off duty before his replacement arrived. He had been out walking the Queen’s dogs.Since it was then a civil wrong rather than a criminal offence, Michael Fagan was not charged for trespassing in the Queen’s bedroom. He was charged with theft (of the half bottle of wine), but the charges were dropped when he was committed for psychiatric evaluation. He spent the next six months in a mental hospital before being released on 21 January 1983. It was not until 2007, when Buckingham Palace became a “designated site” for the purposes of section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, that what he did became illegalFagan’s mother later said, “He thinks so much of the Queen. I can imagine him just wanting to simply talk and say hello and discuss his problems Similar incidents of undetected entry to the palace have happened before and since, including several spectacular intrusions by “the boy Jones” in the first years of the reign of Queen Victoria and a Fathers 4 Justice protester scaling the walls and unveiling a banner, while dressed as Batman, in September 2004
Let me say this: I started out with nothing and I still have most of it. 2. My wild oats have turned into prunes and bran flakes. 3. I finally got my head together. Unfortunately, now my body is falling apart. 4. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded. 5. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded. 6. If all is not lost, where is it? 7. It’s easier to get older than to get wiser. 8. It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere. 9. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees. 10. It’s not hard to meet expenses–they’re everywhere. 11. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. 12. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter. I go somewhere to get something and then wonder what I’m hereafter.
The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash or Palomares incident occurred on January 17, 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the USAF Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refuelling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was completely destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboardOf the four Mk28 type hydrogen bombs the B-52G carried, three were found on land near the small fishing village of Palomares in the municipality of Cuevas del Almanzora, Almería, Spain. The non-nuclear explosives in two of the weapons detonated upon impact with the ground, resulting in the contamination of a 2-square-kilometer (490-acre) (0.78 square mile) area by radioactive plutonium. The fourth, which fell into the Mediterranean Sea, was recovered intact after a 2½-month-long search. The B-52G began its mission from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, carrying four Type B28RI hydrogen bombs on a Cold War airborne alert mission named Operation Chrome Dome. The flight plan took the aircraft east across the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea towards the European borders of the Soviet Union before returning home. The lengthy flight required two mid-air refuellings over Spain. At about 10:30 a.m. on January 17, 1966, while flying at 31,000 feet (9,450 m), the bomber commenced its second aerial refuelling with a KC-135 out of Morón Air Base in southern Spain. The B-52 pilot, Major Larry G. Messinger, later recalled. “We came in behind the tanker, and we were a little bit fast, and we started to overrun him a little bit. There is a procedure they have in refueling where if the boom operator feels that you’re getting too close and it’s a dangerous situation, he will call, ‘Break away, break away, break away.’ There was no call for a break away, so we didn’t see anything dangerous about the situation. But all of a sudden, all hell seemed to break loose.” The planes collided, with the nozzle of the refueling boom striking the top of the B-52 fuselage, breaking a longeron and snapping off the left wing, which resulted in an explosion that was witnessed by a second B-52 about a mile away. All four men on the KC-135 and three of the seven men on the bomber were killed Those killed in the tanker were boom operator Master Sergeant Lloyd Potolicchio, pilot Major Emil J. Chapla, copilot Captain Paul R. Lane and navigator Captain Leo E. Simmons.
On board the bomber, navigator First Lieutenant Steven G. Montanus, electronic warfare officer First Lieutenant George J. Glessner and gunner Technical Sergeant Ronald P. Snyder were killed. Montanus was seated on the lower deck of the main cockpit and was able to eject from the plane, but his parachute never opened. Glessner and Snyder were on the upper deck, near the point where the refuelling boom struck the fuselage, and were not able to eject. Four of the seven crew members of the bomber managed to parachute to safety: Major Messinger, aircraft commander Captain Charles F. Wendorf, copilot First Lieutenant Michael J. Rooney and radar-navigator Captain Ivens Buchanan. Buchanan received burns from the explosion and was unable to separate himself from his ejection seat, but he was nevertheless able to open his parachute, and he survived the impact with the ground. The other three surviving crew members landed safely several miles out to sea. The Palomares residents carried Buchanan to a local clinic, while Wendorf and Rooney were picked up at sea by the fishing boat Dorita. The last to be rescued was Messinger, who spent 45 minutes in the water before he was brought aboard the fishing boat Agustin y Rosa by Francisco Simó Orts. All three men who landed in the sea were taken to a hospital in Águilas. The aircraft and hydrogen bombs fell to earth near the fishing village of Palomares. This settlement is part of Cuevas del Almanzora municipality, in the Almeria province of Andalucía, Spain. Three of the weapons were located on land within 24 hours of the accident—the conventional explosives in two had exploded on impact, spreading contaminated material, while a third was found relatively intact in a riverbed. The fourth weapon could not be found despite an intensive search of the area—the only part that was recovered was the parachute tail plate, leading searchers to postulate that the weapon’s parachute had deployed, and that the wind had carried it out to sea. During early stages of recovery after the accident the 66th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, flying RF-101C Voodoos out of RAF Upper Heyford near Oxford, England, provided aerial photographs to assist in the recovery operation and to document the crash site.On January 22, the Air Force contacted the U.S. Navy for assistance. The Navy convened a Technical Advisory Group (TAG), Chaired by RADM L. V. Swanson with Dr. John P. Craven and CAPT Willard F. Searle, Jr. to identify resources and skilled personnel that needed to be moved to Spain The search for the fourth bomb was carried out by means of a novel mathematical method, Bayesian search theory, led by Dr. John Craven. This method assigns probabilities to individual map grid squares, then updates these as the search progresses. Initial probability input is required for the grid squares, and these probabilities made use of the fact that a local fisherman, Francisco Simó Orts popularly known since then as “Paco el de la bomba” (“Bomb Paco” or “Bomb Frankie”), witnessed the bomb entering the water at a certain location. Orts was contacted by the U.S. Air Force to assist in the search operation.
The United States Navy assembled the following ships in response to Air Force request for assistance. The recovery operation was led by Supervisor of Salvage, Capt Searle. Hoist, Petrel and Tringa brought 150 qualified divers who searched to 120 feet with compressed air, to 210 feet with mixed gas, and to 350 feet (110 m) with hard-hat rigs; but the bomb lay in an uncharted area of the Rio Almanzora canyon on a 70-degree slope at a depth of 2,550 feet (780 m). After a search that continued for 80 days following the crash, the bomb was located by the DSV Alvin on March 17, but was dropped and temporarily lost when the Navy attempted to bring it to the surface Alvin located the bomb again on 2 April, this time at a depth of 2,900 feet (880 m). On 7 April, an unmanned torpedo recovery vehicle, CURV, became entangled in the weapon’s parachute while attempting to attach a line to it. A decision was made to raise CURV and the weapon together to a depth of 100 feet (30 m), where divers attached cables to them. The bomb was brought to the surface by USS Petrel (ASR-14). The USS Cascade (AD-16) was diverted from its Naples destination and stayed on scene until recovery and took the bomb back to America. Once the bomb was located, Simó Orts appeared at the First District Federal Court in New York City with his lawyer, Herbert Brownell, formerly Attorney General of the United States under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, claiming salvage rights on the recovered hydrogen bomb. According to Craven: “It is customary maritime law that the person who identifies the location of a ship to be salved has the right to a salvage award if that identification leads to a successful recovery. The amount is nominal, usually 1 or 2 percent, sometimes a bit more, of the intrinsic value to the owner of the thing salved. But the thing salved off Palomares was a hydrogen bomb, the same bomb valued by no less an authority than the Secretary of Defense at $2 billion—each percent of which is, of course, $20 million.” The Air Force settled out of court for an undisclosed sum At 10:40 a.m. UTC, the accident was reported at the Command Post of the Sixteenth Air Force, and it was confirmed at 11:22. The commander of the U.S. Air Force at Torrejon Air Base, Spain, Major General Delmar E. Wilson, immediately traveled to the scene of the accident with a Disaster Control Team. Further Air Force personnel were dispatched later the same day, including nuclear experts from U.S. government laboratories. The first weapon to be discovered was found nearly intact. However, the conventional explosives from the other two bombs that fell on land detonated without setting off a nuclear explosion (akin to a dirty bomb explosion). This ignited the pyrophoric plutonium, producing a cloud that was dispersed by a 30-knot wind. A total of 260 ha (2 square kilometres (0.8 sq mi)) was contaminated with radioactive material. This included residential areas, farmland (especially tomato farms) and woods. A campaign to obtain compensation for the local labourers that was spearheaded by the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, led to a 13 month prison sentence for the Red Duchess, as she was subsequently known.To defuse alarm of contamination, on March 8[ the Spanish minister for information and tourism Manuel Fraga Iribarne and the US ambassador Angier Biddle Duke swam on nearby beaches in front of press. First the ambassador and some companions swam at Mojácar (a resort 15 km (9 mi) away) and then Duke and Fraga swam at the Quitapellejos beach in Palomares.[ Despite the cost and number of personnel involved in the cleanup, forty years later there remained traces of the contamination. Snails have been observed with unusual levels of radioactivity. Additional tracts of land have also been appropriated for testing and further cleanup. However, no indication of health issues has been discovered among the local population in Palomares
President Lyndon B. Johnson was first apprised of the situation in his morning briefing the same day as the accident. He was told that the 16th Nuclear Disaster Team had been sent to investigate, per the standard procedures for this type of accident. News stories related to the crash began to appear the following day, and it achieved front page status in both the New York Times and Washington Post on January 20. Reporters sent to the accident scene covered angry demonstrations by the local residents. On February 4, an underground Communist organization successfully initiated a protest by 600 people in front of the U.S. Embassy in Spain Four days after the accident, the Spanish government stated that “the Palomares incident was evidence of the dangers created by NATO’s use of the Gibraltar airstrip”, announcing that NATO aircraft would no longer be permitted to fly over Spanish territory either to or from Gibraltar. On January 25, as a diplomatic concession, the U.S. announced that it would no longer fly over Spain with nuclear weapons, and on January 29 the Spanish government formally banned U.S. flights over its territory that carried such weapons. This caused other nations hosting U.S. forces to review their policies, with the Philippine Foreign Secretary Narciso Ramos calling for a new treaty to restrict the operation of U.S. military aircraft in Filipino airspace. Palomares and another accident involving nuclear bombers two years later near Thule Air Base, in Greenland, made Operation Chrome Dome politically untenable, leading the U.S. Department of Defense to announce that it would be “re-examining the military need” for continuing the program Forty years later in the town of Palomares, most people prefer to forget the incident, and it is now noted only by a street named “January 17, 1966”. Soil with radiation contamination levels above 1.2 MBq/m2 was placed in 250-litre (66 USgal) drums and shipped to the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina, USA for burial. A total of 2.2 hectares (5.4 acres) was decontaminated by this technique, producing 6,000 barrels. 17 hectares (42 acres) of land with lower levels of contamination was mixed to a depth of 30 centimetres (12 in) by harrowing and plowing. On rocky slopes with contamination above 120 kBq/m2, the soil was removed with hand tools and shipped to the U.S. in barrels In 2004, a study revealed that there was still some significant contamination present in certain areas, and the Spanish government subsequently expropriated some plots of land which would otherwise have been slated for agriculture use or housing construction. In early October 2006, the Spanish and United States governments agreed to decontaminate the remaining areas and share the workload and costs, which are hitherto unknown as it first needs to be determined to what extent leaching of the plutonium has occurred in the 40 years since the incident.
On October 11, 2006, Reuters reported that higher than normal levels of radiation were detected in snails and other wildlife in the region, indicating there may still be dangerous amounts of radioactive material underground. The discovery occurred during an investigation being carried out by Spain’s energy research agency CIEMAT and the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. and Spain agreed to share the cost of the initial investigation. In April 2008, CIEMAT announced they had found two trenches, totalling 2,000 cubic metres (71,000 cu ft), where the U.S. Army stored contaminated earth during the 1966 operations. The American government agreed in 2004 to pay for the decontamination of the grounds, and the cost of the removal and transportation of the contaminated earth has been estimated at $2 million. The trenches were found near the cemetery, where one of the nuclear devices was retrieved in 1966, and they were probably dug at the last moment by American troops before leaving Palomares. CIEMAT expects to find remains of plutonium and americium once an exhaustive analysis of the earth is carried out. In a conversation in December 2009, the Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos told the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that he feared Spanish public opinion might turn against the US once the results of the study on nuclear contamination were to be revealed. In August 2010, a Spanish government source revealed that the U.S. has stopped the annual payments it has made to Spain, as the bilateral agreement in force since the accident “expired” the previous year The empty casings of two of the bombs involved in this incident are now on display in the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While serving on the salvage ship USS Hoist (ARS-40) during recovery operations, Navy diver Carl Brashear had his leg crushed in a deck accident and lost the lower part of his left leg. His story was the inspiration for the 2000 Cuba Gooding, Jr., film Men of Honor. In March 2009, Time magazine identified the Palomares accident as one of the world’s “worst nuclear disasters
Benjy goes to see his doctor. After examining him, the doctor takes some samples from Benjy and asks him to come back the following week for the results.
Benjy returns, the doctor says, “I have some good news and some bad news for you,. What do you want to hear first?”
“Give me have the good news first.”
“OK,” they’re going to name the disease after you.”
The Marree Man, or Stuart’s Giant, is a modern geoglyph discovered by air on 26 June 1998. It appears to depict an indigenous Australian man, most likely of the Pitjantjatjara tribe, hunting birds or wallabies with a throwing stick. It lies on a plateau at Finnis Springs 60 km west of the township of Marree in central South Australia. It is just outside the 127,000 square kilometres (49,000 sq mi) Woomera Prohibited Area. The figure is 4.2 km (2.6 mi) tall with a circumference of 15 by 28 kilometres (9.3 × 17 mi). Although it is the second largest geoglyph (and largest non-commercial geoglyph) in the world, its origin remains a mystery, with not a single witness to any part of the expansive operation. The name “Stuart’s Giant” was given in an anonymous press release, after John McDouall Stuart.
The site was closed by the South Australian government, but, as of 2010 joy flights are still allowed over the site, which falls under federal government jurisdictionThe Marree Man geoglyph depicts a man holding either a throwing stick once used to disperse small flocks of birds, or a boomerang . The lines of the figure were 20–30 cm deep at the time of discovery and up to 35 metres wide.Selecting a suitable site would have required aerial photography or satellite imagery. Using a computer, the figure could have been superimposed over the photograph and adjusted to fit the geography with the corresponding latitude and longitude coordinates mapped out. Some surveying skills would have been needed to plot the outline, and then with the aid of a hand-held global positioning system stakes could have been placed every hundred metres or so. The image is gradually eroding through natural processes, but because the climate is extremely dry and barren in the region, the image is still visible as of 2012. While there is a layer of white chalk material slightly below the red soil, the figure was not defined to this depth. This raises the question why the creators did not dig a little deeper to make the image both more visible and more permanent.Trec Smith, a charter pilot flying between Marree and Coober Pedy in the remote north of South Australia spotted the figure from the air on 26 June 1998. The discovery of the geoglyph fascinated Australians due to its size and the mystery surrounding how it came to be there. At the time of the discovery there was only one track entering and one track exiting the site and no footprints or tire marks were discernible.Shane Anderson from the William Creek Hotel, located 200 km north-west of the town of Marree claimed the hotel received an anonymous fax describing the location of the artwork, but they ignored it, dismissing the fax as a joke.Anonymous press releasesSeveral anonymous press releases which appeared following the discovery led to the suggestion that the Marree Man was created by people from the United States. The releases quoted measurements in miles, yards and inches, instead of the metric system usually used in Australia. This would be unusual for an Australian press release, but since the metric system was only introduced in Australia in the 1970s, older Australians still often quote imperial measurements. The releases also said “your State of SA”, “Queensland Barrier Reef” and mentioned Aborigines “from the local reservations”. “Reservations” is a term more commonly associated with the North American Indians. The press releases also mentioned the Great Serpent in Ohio, which is not well known outside the US. But it has been conjectured that these features of the press releases may have been red herrings, inserted to provide the illusion of American authorship.When the site was discovered, several items were found in a small pit: what appeared to be a satellite photo of the figure, a jar containing a small flag of the US, and a note which referred to the Branch Davidians, a religious group infamous for being attacked in the Waco raid in 1993. These were the only man-made items found at the site when it was discovered.Artist Christopher Headley says that he sent two letters, one to Colonel Tom Meade, the head of the former US-Australian Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar, to ask about the possibility of making a permanent commemoration of the American presence in Australia. This could have inspired the idea of creating a geoglyph among locals. PlaqueIn January 1999, officials were told about a plaque buried 5 metres south of the nose of the figure, by way of a fax which was received via a hotel in Oxford, England. The fax also said that the plaque was intended to have been dug up by a “prominent US media figure” shortly before the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Similar clues were said to be buried near the Cerne Abbas giant near Dorset and the Long Man of Wilmington, Sussex, in England. The plaque has a 3 centimetres (1.2 in) long by 2 centimetres (0.79 in) wide American flag and an imprint of the Olympic rings. It reads:In honour of the land they once knew. His attainments in these pursuits are extraordinary; a constant source of wonderment and admiration. The quote on the plaque buried at the figure comes from a book, “The Red Centre”, by H.H. Finlayson, in a section describing the hunting of wallabies with throwing sticks and with photographs of hunters without loin cloths and with other details like the “Marree Man”.In the book it can be deduced that the subject is a hunter from the Pitjantjatjara tribe.Suggested creatorsBardius Goldberg, a Northern Territory artist who died in 2002 and lived at Alice Springs, has been suggested as the creator of the work. Goldberg, who was known to be interested in creating a work visible from space, refused to either confirm or deny that he had created the image when questioned. A close friend said Goldberg was given $10,000 at the time of the Marree Man’s discoveryReactionsMuch of the public and media reaction to the discovery of the figure was positive. The Advertiser, the State’s only daily newspaper, called for the figure to be made permanent by excavating the outline down to the white chalk layer. The Native Title holders over the area are the Arabunna people but the site was closed shortly after discovery when some members of the Dieri tribe, whose Native Title claim lies east of Marree, complained of harm and exploitation of the Dreamtime. It was called environmental vandalism by the Environment minister, Dorothy Kotz, and graffiti by the South Australian chief of Aboriginal affairs. Authenticity of the figureWhile the figure was shown nude, if the picture were copied from a 19th-century photograph it has been said that it may have had a loin cloth. There was also initially some question as to whether the figure is holding a throwing stick or a boomerang, but these issues seem to have been resolved following discovery of the plaque and the origin of the plaque quote and likely source photographs of similar nude hunters. The hand which is not throwing has the correct posture in the normal Aboriginal technique for throwing. The initiation scars placed on the chest have also been said to have been placed perfectly. The figure appears to be an amalgam of the body of a man photographed in the distinctive throwing stance and the head of another man wearing a headband and chignon.
The Tybee Island B-47 crash was an incident on February 5, 1958, in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 hydrogen bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, USA. During a practice exercise the B-47 bomber carrying it collided in midair with an F-86 fighter plane. To protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in the event of a crash, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island. The B-47 bomber was on a simulated combat mission from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. It was carrying a single 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) bomb. At about 2:00 AM, the B-47 collided with an F-86. The F-86 crashed after the pilot ejected from the plane, but the B-47, despite being damaged, remained airborne, albeit barely. The crew requested permission to jettison the bomb in order to reduce weight and prevent the bomb from exploding during an emergency landing. Permission was granted and the bomb was jettisoned at 7,200 feet (2,200 m) while the bomber was traveling about 200 knots (370 km/h). The crew did not see an explosion when the bomb struck the sea. They managed to land the B-47 safely at Hunter Army Air Field. The pilot, Colonel Howard Richardson, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after this incident for his role in piloting the B-47. BombThe 12-foot (4 m) long Mark 15 bomb weighs 7,600 pounds (3,400 kg) and bears the serial number 47782. It contains 400 pounds (180 kg) of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium. The Air Force maintains that the bomb’s nuclear capsule, used to initiate the nuclear reaction, was removed prior to its flight aboard the B-47. As noted in the Atomic Energy Commission “Form AL-569 Temporary Custodian Receipt (for maneuvers)” signed by the aircraft commander, the bomb contained a simulated 150 pound cap which was made of lead. However, according to 1966 Congressional testimony by then Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard, the Tybee Island bomb was a “complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule,” and one of two weapons lost up to that time that contained a plutonium trigger. Nevertheless, a study of the Strategic Air Command documents indicates that in February 1958, Alert Force test flights (with the older Mark 15 payloads) were not authorized to fly with nuclear capsules on board. Such approval was pending deployment of safer “sealed-pit nuclear capsule” weapons that did not begin deployment until June 1958. Recovery effortsStarting on February 6, 1958, the Air Force 2700th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squadron and 100 Navy personnel equipped with hand held sonar and galvanic drag and cable sweeps mounted a search. On April 16, 1958 the military announced that the search efforts had been unsuccessful. Based upon a hydrologic survey, the bomb was thought by the Department of Energy to lie buried under 5 to 15 feet (2 to 5 m) of silt at the bottom of Wassaw Sound. In 2004, retired Air Force Colonel Derek Duke claimed to have narrowed the possible resting spot of the bomb to a small area approximately the size of a football field. He and his partner located the area by trawling the area in their boat with a Geiger counter in tow. Secondary radioactive particles 4 times the naturally occurring levels were detected and mapped, and the site of radiation origination triangulated. Ongoing concerns The risk of corrosion of the alloy casing of the bomb is less if it is completely covered in sand. But if part of the alloy casing of the bomb is exposed to seawater due to the shifting strata in which it is buried, rapid corrosion could occur, as demonstrated in simulation experiments. Eventually, the highly enriched uranium could be leached out of the device and enter the aquifer that surrounds the continental shelf in this area. Storms, hurricanes, and strong currents frequently change the sands of the continental shelf near Tybee Island. To date, no undue levels of unnatural radioactive contamination (over and above the already high levels thought to be due to monazite, a locally occurring sand which is naturally high in radiation) have been detected in the regional Upper Floridian aquifer by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources
The Wow! signal was a strong narrowband radio signal detected by Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977, while working on a SETI project at the Big Ear radio telescope of The Ohio State University then located at Ohio Wesleyan University’s Perkins Observatory, Delaware, Ohio The signal bore expected hallmarks of potential non-terrestrial and non-solar system origin. It lasted for the full 72-second duration that Big Ear observed it, but has not been detected again. The signal has been the subject of significant media attention.
Amazed at how closely the signal matched the expected signature of an interstellar signal in the antenna used, Ehman circled the signal on the computer printout and wrote the comment “Wow!” on its side. This comment became the name of the signal
Interpretation of the paper chart. The circled alphanumeric code 6EQUJ5 describes the intensity variation of the signal. A space denotes an intensity between 0 and 1, the numbers 1 to 9 denote the correspondingly numbered intensities (from 1.000 to 10.000), and intensities of 10.0 and above are denoted by a letter (‘A’ corresponds to intensities between 10.0 and 11.0, ‘B’ to 11.0 to 12.0, etc.). The value ‘U’ (an intensity between 30.0 and 31.0) was the highest detected by the telescope, on a linear scale it was over 30 times louder than normal deep space. The intensity in this case is the unitless signal-to-noise ratio, where noise was averaged for that band over the previous few minutes. Two different values for its frequency have been given: 1420.356 MHz (J. D. Kraus) and 1420.4556 MHz (J. R. Ehman). The frequency 1420 is significant for SETI searchers because, it is reasoned, hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and hydrogen resonates at about 1420 MHz, thus extraterrestrials might use that frequency on which to transmit a strong signal.[1] The frequency of the Wow! signal matches very closely with the hydrogen line, which is at 1420.40575177 MHz. It is worth noting that the two different values given for the frequency of the Wow! signal (1420.356 MHz and 1420.4556 MHz) are the same distance apart to the hydrogen line – the first being about 0.0498 MHz less than the hydrogen line, and the second being about 0.0498 MHz more than the hydrogen line. The bandwidth of the signal is less than 10 kHz (each column on the printout corresponds to a 10 kHz-wide channel; the signal is only present in one column). The original print out of the Wow! signal, complete with Jerry Ehman’s famous exclamation, is preserved by the Ohio Historical Society. Location of the signal Determining a precise location in the sky was complicated by the fact that the Big Ear telescope used two feed horns to search for signals, each pointing to a slightly different direction in the sky following Earth’s rotation; the Wow! signal was detected in one of the horns but not in the other, although the data was processed in such a way that it is impossible to determine in which of the two horns the signal entered. There are, therefore, two possible right ascension values:
19h22m24.64s ± 5s (positive horn) 19h25m17.01s ± 5s (negative horn) The declination was unambiguously determined to be ?27°03? ± 20?. The preceding values are all expressed in terms of the B1950.0 equinox. Converted into the J2000.0 equinox, the coordinates become RA= 19h25m31s ± 10s or 19h28m22s ± 10s and declination= ?26°57? ± 20? This region of the sky lies in the constellation Sagittarius, roughly 2.5 degrees south of the fifth-magnitude star group Chi Sagittarii. Tau Sagittarii is the closest easily visible star. The Big Ear telescope was fixed and used the rotation of the Earth to scan the sky. At the speed of the Earth’s rotation, and given the width of the Big Ear’s observation “window”, the Big Ear could observe any given point for just 72 seconds. A continuous extraterrestrial signal, therefore, would be expected to register for exactly 72 seconds, and the recorded intensity of that signal would show a gradual peaking for the first 36 seconds—until the signal reached the center of Big Ear’s observation “window”— and then a gradual decrease. Therefore, both the length of the Wow! signal, 72 seconds, and the shape of the intensity graph may correspond to a possible extraterrestrial origin. Searches for recurrence of the signal The signal was expected to appear three minutes apart in each of the horns, but this did not happen. Ehman unsuccessfully looked for recurrences of the signal using Big Ear in the months after the detection. In 1987 and 1989, Robert Gray searched for the event using the META array at Oak Ridge Observatory, but did not re-detect it. In a July 1995 test of signal detection software to be used in its upcoming Project Argus search, SETI League executive director H. Paul Shuch made several drift-scan observations of the ‘Wow’ signal’s coordinates with a 12 meter radio telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank WV, also achieving a null result. In 1995 and 1996, Gray also searched for the signal using the Very Large Array, which is significantly more sensitive than Big Ear. Gray and Dr. Simon Ellingsen later searched for recurrences of the event in 1999 using the 26m radio telescope at the University of Tasmania’s Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory. Six 14-hour observations were made at positions in the vicinity, but did not detect anything similar to the Wow! signal. Speculations on the signal’s origin Interstellar scintillation of a weaker continuous signal—similar, in effect, to atmospheric twinkling—could be a possible explanation, although this still would not exclude the possibility of the signal being artificial in its nature. However, even by using the significantly more sensitive Very Large Array, such a signal could not be detected, and the probability that a signal below the Very Large Array level could be detected by the Big Ear radio telescope due to interstellar scintillation is low Other speculations include a rotating lighthouse-like source, a signal sweeping in frequency, or a one-time burst. Ehman has stated his doubts that the signal is of intelligent extraterrestrial origin: “We should have seen it again when we looked for it 50 times. Something suggests it was an Earth-sourced signal that simply got reflected off a piece of space debris.” He later recanted his skepticism somewhat, after further research showed an Earth-borne signal to be very unlikely, due to the requirements of a space-borne reflector being bound to certain unrealistic requirements to sufficiently explain the nature of the signal. Also, the 1420 MHz signal is problematic in itself in that it is “protected spectrum”: it is bandwidth in which terrestrial transmitters are forbidden to transmit due to it being reserved for astronomical purposes. In his most recent writings, Ehman resists “drawing vast conclusions from half-vast data” — acknowledging the possibility that the source may have been military in nature or otherwise may have been a production of Earth-bound humans
Blue Peacock, renamed from Blue Bunny and originally dubbed Brown Bunny, was the codename of a British tactical nuclear weapon project in the 1950s—dubbed the chicken-powered nuclear bomb by the press.The goal of the project was to store a number of ten-kiloton nuclear mines in Germany, to be placed on the North German Plain and, in the event of Soviet invasion from the east, detonated by wire or an eight-day timer. To:…not only destroy facilities and installations over a large area, but…deny occupation of the area to an enemy for an appreciable time due to contamination…The project was developed at the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishent (RARDE) at Fort Halstead in Kent in 1954.The design was based on the free falling Blue Danube, but the Blue Peacock weighed 7.2 tons. The steel casing was so large that it had to be tested outdoors in a flooded gravel pit near Sevenoaks in Kent.
Project historyIn July 1957 the British Army ordered ten Blue Peacocks for use in Germany, under the cover story that they were atomic power units for troops in the field. In the end, though, the Ministry of Defence cancelled the project in February 1958. It was judged that the risks posed by the nuclear fallout and the political aspects of preparing Chicken powerOne technical problem was that buried objects—especially during winter—can get very cold, and it was possible the mine would not have worked after some days underground, due to the electronics being too cold to operate properly. Various methods to get around this were studied, such as wrapping the bombs in insulating blankets. One particularly remarkable proposal suggested that live chickens should be included in the mechanism. The chickens would be sealed inside the casing, with a supply of food and water; they would remain alive for a week or so. The body heat given off by the chickens would, it seems, have been sufficient to keep all the relevant components at a working temperature. This proposal was sufficiently outlandish that it was taken as an April Fool’s Day joke when the Blue Peacock file was declassified on April 1, 2004. Tom O’Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, replied to the media that, “It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes”.
Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov born c. 1939) is a retired lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. On September 26, 1983 he was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early warning system when the system reported a small launch from the United States. Petrov judged that the report was a false alarmThis decision may have prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its Western allies. Investigation later confirmed that the satellite warning system had malfunctioned
There are questions over the part Petrov’s decision played in preventing nuclear war, because, according to the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation, nuclear retaliation is based on multiple sources that confirm an actual attack. The incident, however, exposed a flaw in the Soviet early warning system. Petrov asserts that he was neither rewarded nor punished for his actions.Had Petrov reported incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched an assault against the United States, precipitating a corresponding nuclear response from the United States. Petrov declared the system’s indications a false alarm. Later, it was apparent that he was right: no missiles were approaching and the computer detection system was malfunctioning. It was subsequently determined that the false alarms had been created by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites’ Molniya orbits, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite. Petrov later indicated the influences in this decision included: that he was informed a U.S. strike would be all-out, so five missiles seemed an illogical start, that the launch detection system was new and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy, and that ground radars failed to pick up corroborative evidence, even after minutes of delay. Petrov underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his actions. Initially, he was praised for his decision. Gen. Yury Votintsev, then commander of the Soviet Air Defense’s Missile Defense Units, who was the first to hear Petrov’s report of the incident (and the first to reveal it to the public in the 1990s), states that Petrov’s “correct actions” were “duly noted”. Petrov himself states he was initially praised by Votintsev and was promised a reward, but recalls that he was also reprimanded for improper filing of paperwork with the pretext he had not described the incident in the military diary. He received no reward. According to Petrov, this was because the incident and other bugs that were found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the influential scientists who were responsible for the system, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished. He was reassigned to a less sensitive post took early retirement (although he emphasizes that he was not “forced out” of the army, as the case is presented by some Western sources), and suffered a nervous breakdown. The incident involving Petrov became known publicly in the 1990s following the publication of Gen. Votintsev’s memoirs. Widespread media reports since then have increased public awareness of Petrov’s actions.There is occasionally some confusion as to precisely what Petrov’s military role was in this incident. Petrov, as an individual, was not in a position where he could have single-handedly launched any of the Soviet missile arsenal. Instead Petrov’s sole duty was to monitor satellite surveillance equipment and report missile attack warnings up the chain of command where, ultimately, the top Soviet leadership would have decided whether to launch a “retaliatory” attack against the West. Whether to launch an attack was not Petrov’s decision to make. His role, however, was crucial in the process of making that decision. According to Bruce Blair, a Cold War nuclear strategies expert and nuclear disarmament advocate, formerly with the Center for Defense Information, “The top leadership, given only a couple of minutes to decide, told that an attack had been launched, would make a decision to retaliate Petrov is now a pensioner, spending his retirement in the town of Fryazino, Russia On May 21, 2004, the San Francisco-based Association of World Citizens gave Petrov its World Citizen Award along with a trophy and $1000 “in recognition of the part he played in averting a catastrophe.” In January 2006, Petrov traveled to the United States where he was honored in a meeting at the United Nations in New York City. There the Association of World Citizens presented Petrov with a second special World Citizen Award. The following day, Petrov met with American journalist Walter Cronkite at his CBS office in New York City. That interview, in addition to other highlights of Petrov’s trip to the United States, are expected to be included in the documentary film The Man Who Saved the World. On the same day that Petrov was honored at the United Nations in New York City, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations issued a press release contending that a single individual would be incapable of starting or preventing a nuclear war, stating in part: “Under no circumstances a decision to use nuclear weapons could be made or even considered in the Soviet Union (Russia) or in the United States on the basis of data from a single source or a system. For this to happen, a confirmation is necessary from several systems: ground-based radars, early warning satellites, intelligence reports, etc.” Petrov has said he does not regard himself as a hero for what he did that day. In an interview for the documentary film The Red Button and the Man Who Saved the World, Petrov says, “All that happened didn’t matter to me — it was my job. I was simply doing my job, and I was the right person at the right time, that’s all. My late wife for 10 years knew nothing about it. ‘So what did you do?’ she asked me. I did nothing.”The false nuclear attack warning involving Stanislav Petrov, however, is cited by CIA analyst Peter Pry as “the single most dangerous incident of the early 1980s

Did you know the ‘black box’ is really orange.
The word ‘queue’ is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
There is a city called Rome in every continent.
Winston Churchill was born in the ladies bathroom.
The acid in a vultures body can dissolve a nail.
A dragonfly can fly backwards just as fast as it can forward.
Pigs Don’t sweat.
like a cow, a elk has four stomachs.
Frogs don’t drink water.
Humpty Dumpty was a cannon.
An average ball point pen can draw a line 2 miles (3.2km) long
On September 17, 1994, Alabama’s Heather Whitestone was selected as Miss America 1995.) Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.”
–Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest.”Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.” –Mariah Carey
Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.” –Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC.
“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I’m just the one to do it.” –A congressional candidate in Texas. “Half this game is ninety percent mental.” –Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark “It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it….” –Al Gore, Vice President
“I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.” — Dan Quayle “We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?” –Lee Iacocca “The word ‘genius’ isn’t applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.” –Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback and sports analyst. “We don’t necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.” — Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor. “Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.” –Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina “Traditionally, most of Australia’s imports come from overseas.” –Keppel Enderbery ,”If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there’ll be a record.” — Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman