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The Alamogordo Daily News reports:
The Sunspot Observatory is temporarily closed due to a security issue at the facility that's located 17 miles south of Cloudcroft in the Sacramento Mountains Friday, an Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) spokeswoman Shari Lifson said.
"The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy who manages the facility is addressing a security issue at this time," Lifson said. "We have decided to vacate the facility at this time as precautionary measure. It was our decision to evacuate the facility." She said she cannot comment on the specifics of the security issue.
[...] Otero County Sheriff Benny House said the Otero County Sheriff's Office was asked to standby. "The FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] is refusing to tell us what's going on," House said. "We've got people up there (at Sunspot) that requested us to standby while they evacuate it. Nobody would really elaborate on any of the circumstances as to why. The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say."
He said he has a lot of unanswered questions about what occurred at Sunspot. "But for the FBI to get involved that quick and be so secretive about it, there was a lot of stuff going on up there," House said. "There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything."
Why would the FBI order a sunspot research facility closed, but be unable (or unwilling) to give a reason?
Also at Popular Mechanics, Vice, and Gizmodo.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by exaeta on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:51PM (15 children)
A few things first.
The facility was shut down by the FBI at the request of the owners.
The people wondering about the mysterious closure are the local law enforcement, not the owners.
Possibilities?
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:08PM
Why exactly were they digging? Was it to install several new varieties of bathrooms for millennial employees? If so, why was the post office closed? Are any of the mail carriers millennials?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:39PM
This is some great brainstorming. Just want you to know people appreciate it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:09PM
I would have given you another "interesting" mod except for:
Yes, because we know life can't possibly exist on planets, and even if it could, there's no way to get into space, and even there was a way to get into space, computers and automation are impossible, and even if they were possible, none of the non-existent planetary life that can't get into space with #fakenews automation would ever think of such a thing.
So there's that.
OTOH, I would have been okay with "but another observatory probably would have spotted such a thing if that was the issue, so it probably isn't the issue."
I now return you to your regularly scheduled ground nutter agenda*. :)
*and for the record, I'm leaning towards "envelope of powder" and/or "bomb threat."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:25PM (1 child)
"Undetonated warhead ... I think this is the most likely explanation."
-
BULLSHIT.
If an unexploded warhead was the problem, you'd see EOD personnel on site.
Better luck next time, smart boy.
(Score: 1) by exaeta on Friday September 14 2018, @04:58AM
I think that doesn't rule it out. Seeing as FBI presence doesn't rule out EOD presence. They could, you know, both respond to the issue?
FBI shoos everyone away and keeps people out, while EOD cleans up a mess?
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 4, Funny) by DECbot on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:25PM
You left out the one obvious possibility: Russians.
The FBI commandeered the observatory to view and investigate the sabotage on the International Space Station, which will conclude in allegations that Russia did it.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:58PM (4 children)
Or they found a large underground cavern (possibly Cold War related or dungeon full of bodies) when digging down for whatever reason. The cavern may extend towards the post office and may be prone or ready to collapse (possibly due to subsidence from the digging).
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 14 2018, @11:47AM (3 children)
Holloman AFB is close so no idea why you'd intentionally put it under an existing observatory. And yes the observatory was founded and in use at the dawn of the cold war, its unlikely cold war nuclear training flights accidentally dropped a H-bomb under the telescope foundation and they finally got around to noticing.
Its remotely possible they're pencil whipping something that was installed there in 1960 and forgotten about, perhaps a classified radar monitor station, and once they rip the monitoring gear out they can pencil whip the decommissioning paperwork and everything can go back to normal. Pretty unlikely, but smells very likely military. The guy who was assigned the task of declassifying the project signed off in the 70s and died in the 90s so they "can't" pencil whip it; I could see it as realistic fiction. Some Chinese national "astronomer" working for the uni stationed at the scope site sees some rusty half century old thing, tweets his family back home or sneaks a pix for good boy points back home, FBI intercepts, someone in .mil does the ohshit.jpg face, next thing you know there's crime scene tape up and bulldozers everywhere until some mysterious box thats been locked and forgotten about since 1960 disappears.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday September 14 2018, @09:05PM (2 children)
Close, but it's more likely they were looking for something relatively new that was "placed" at Sunspot by someone. It's a nice high place with line of sight to both Holloman and White Sands Missile Range. And it gives absolutely iron clad scientific reasons for a given foreign national to be there on a regular basis.
Remember, the FBI does counterintel work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday September 14 2018, @09:49PM
I agree with you completely, with a side dish of it had to be at an observatory because the general public is used to seeing inexplicable equipment observing things at an observatory; which is why this all didn't go down at some random hiking trail or parking lot.
(Score: 1) by exaeta on Monday September 17 2018, @01:20AM
This actually might make the most sense of any explanation so far.
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday September 14 2018, @01:01AM
So aliens then?
Got it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 14 2018, @01:08AM
Do you know the owners personally?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 14 2018, @04:41AM
Drug growers.
Up in the mountains? Far from everyone? I'm not sure what the terrain looks like, but you hear stories of drug cultivators or organized drug groups in this sort of area. It's possible the FBI/DEA is conducting a raid. If they're evacuating local-by's, it could genuinely be to keep them out of harm's way until they can hunt everyone down.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Friday September 14 2018, @01:49PM
No, any aliens that made it here would have to be fairly intelligent. Unless maybe they were just the chimp-equivalent test subjects locked into the capsule by the intelligent folks back home? Lots of opportunities for misunderstanding here.