The Black Knight Satellite: An In-Depth Investigation
If you ever happen to turn on The History Channel, you’ll notice that the channel has gone from showing actual moments in history to hypothetical moments in history that never happened at all. Ancient Aliens is a show that shows people with little to no educational background in any subject close to Astronomy. For Example: That guy with the crazy hair, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, is a 1998 graduate of Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, with a bachelor’s degree in sports information and communication.For several years in the early 2000s, before he made ancient astronaut research his primary career, he served as a bodybuilding promoter in IFBB sanctioned contests, including Mr. Olympia.
When you think about it, Ancient Aliens is a racist television program. Every episode revolves around Europeans stumbling upon a civilization of colored people who created structures and sciences they could understand. Explanation? Aliens. White people couldn’t understand it, so of course, sky people did it.
This has been reported to orbit the Earth from its observation from Nikolai Tesla in 1899 after hearing strange radio waves, to official discoveries in 1967 by Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) and graduate student Jocelyn Bell. After weeks of studying the phenomenon with her team, they noticed that the signal being emitted wasn’t from any natural source on this planet or from the Moon. It has since been more accurately reported that they both were getting signals from the discovery of a the first pulsar. Also, many conspiracy website explain that Jocelyn Bell first heard these signal at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in 1932, except she wasn’t born until 1943.
The Black Knight satellite is reported to be 13,000 years old. Why? Well, it gets a little complicated. Since the mysterious satellite was first discovered, many enthusiastic ham radio operators around the world have investigated it. One operator has said that they decoded a series of signals from the satellite and interpreted the data from it to say that it’s a star-chart that’s centered on the Epsilon Bootes Star System and that the Black Knight satellite originated from this System 13.000 years ago.
“The Epsilon Boötis is a double star in the northern constellation of Boötes. It has the traditional names Izar and Pulcherrima. The star system can be viewed with the unaided eye at night, but resolving the pair with a small telescope is challenging; an aperture of 76 mm (3.0 in) or greater is required.” (Via Wikipedia)
The satellite didn’t just stay under the radar with people staring at the skies and wearing tinfoil hats. The story of the satellite even made it into Time magazine on March 7th, 1960:
“Three weeks ago, headlines announced that the U.S. had detected a mysterious “dark” satellite wheeling overhead on a regular orbit. There was nervous speculation that it might be a surveillance satellite launched by the Russians, and it brought the uneasy sensation that the U.S. did not know what was going on over its own head. But last week the Department of Defense proudly announced that the satellite had been identified. It was a space derelict, the remains of an Air Force Discoverer satellite that had gone astray.” (Via Time Magazine)
And even more local newspapers from The San Francisco Examiner and St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1954:
- In the 1950’s. the object was seen in polar orbit. Astronomers knew it wasn’t of Earth origin simply because we didn’t have the technology to send an artificial satellite up to orbit that are of the Earth. It wasn’t until 1960 could we send a satellite up for Earth mapping that included a polar orbit.
- Here is a list of confirmed and unconfirmed facts we know about the Black Knight Satellite:
- According to monitoring agencies around the world, The Black knight satellite has been transmitting radio signals for over 50 years now.
The US and Soviet Union have shown particular interest in this “unidentified space object” - Rumors are that it was Nikola Tesla the first man to “intercept” a signal from the black knight satellite in 1899 after building a high-voltage radio device in Colorado Springs.
- In 1957, Dr. Luis Corralos of the Communications Ministry in Venezuela photographed it while taking pictures of Sputnik II as it passed over Caracas.
- The story of the Black Knight made its media debut in the 1940′s when the St. Louis Dispatch and The San Francisco Examiner wrote about the “Satellite” on May 14th 1954.
- The Time Magazine wrote about the Black Knight Satellite on the seventh of March, 1960.
- In 1957, an unknown “object” was seen “shadowing” the Sputnik 1 Spacecraft. According to reports, the “unidentified object” was in Polar orbit.
- In 1957. The United States nor the Russians possessed the technology to maintain a spacecraft in Polar Orbit.
The first Polar orbiting satellite was launched in 1960. - Polar orbits are often used for earth-mapping, earth observation, capturing the earth as time passes from one point and reconnaissance satellites. This would put the Black Knight in the category of an observational Satellite.
- In the 1960′s the Black Knight satellite was located once again in Polar Orbit. Astronomers and Scientists calculated the object’s weight to be over 10 tons, which would be at that time the Heaviest Artificial Satellite to orbit our Planet.
- The Black Knight’s orbit was unlike any other object orbiting Earth.
- The Grumman Aircraft Corporation gave much importance to this mysterious “Satellite”, On September 3, 1960, seven months after the satellite was first detected by radar, a tracking camera at Grumman Aircraft Corporation’s Long Island factory took a photograph of the Black Knight satellite.
- The Grumman Aircraft Corporation formed a committee to study the data received from the observations made but nothing was made public.
- In 1963, Gordon Cooper was launched into space. On his last orbit, he reported seeing a glowing green object in front of his capsule in the distance moving towards his Spacecraft. The Muchea tracking station, in Australia, which Cooper reported the object to, picked up this Unidentified object on Radar travelling East to West.
- It was the Ham Radio operator who apparently decoded a series of signals received from the UFO Satellite and interpreted it as a star-chart centered on the Epsilon Bootes Star System.
- According to the decoded message, the Black Knight satellite originated from the Epsilon Bootes Star System 13.000 years ago.
- On August 23, 1954 the technology magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology released a story about the Black Knight Satellite that angered the Pentagon who were trying to keep the information secret.
- NASA has released official images which apparently show the Black Knight Satellite which can be seen above. (Via)
If this is the first you’ve heard of the Black Knight satellite, it may be interesting to know that Pepsi made a short film about it with many famous celebrities.
Premise: Black Knight Decoded follows the journey of a father (Golden Globe nominee David Oyelowo for Selma) and daughter (Layla Crawford) on their quest to decode the radio signals transmitted from the Black Knight satellite. With the help of their friend Ahna (Freida Pinto, Slumdog Millionaire, Rise of the Plaent of the Apes), they seek to unite the world in anticipation of the Black Knight’s (voiced by Usher) revelation on Earth. Relying on support from communities around the world, the trio are in a race against time to decode the signals and respond before the government attempts to shut them down.
So you can see that this object orbiting Earth is no fairy tale. It has been actively tracked by some of the biggest agencies on the planet, but has been dismissed as space debris. Since we haven’t been putting anything into space since its initial discovery by Tesla, then what is it? Could it be an ancient satellite that has been circling the planet and observing us for thousands of years? Or could it just be a thermal blanket lost from an EVA?
Senior education support officer Martina Redpath of Armagh Planetarium in Northern Ireland explained the Black Knight satellite as a “jumble of completely unrelated stories; reports of unusual science observations, authors promoting fringe ideas, classified spy satellites and people over-interpreting photos. These ingredients have chopped up, stirred together and stewed on the internet to one rambling and inconsistent dollop of myth.”
So whatever we choose to believe, the majority of scientists explains it away as space debris, but that still doesn’t explain the weird signal that many have heard or photographed over the years of the object. I guess we’ll have to wait for more information as the years go along — that or a rival film from another soda company.
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post,UPROXX,BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com