From: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com (skunk-works-digest) To: skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Subject: skunk-works-digest V9 #67 Reply-To: skunk-works@netwrx1.com Sender: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Errors-To: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Precedence: bulk skunk-works-digest Saturday, September 2 2000 Volume 09 : Number 067 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** Re: Panther Piss Shape and size FWD (SK) More Kursk conspiracy flying rules/1920 concorde FWD (IUFO/Multiple) Re: TOP SECRET UMBRA [NSA's UFO Files] Stealthy Nobel laureate Clearances, compartments, etc. *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 23:54:58 -0500 From: "Albert H. Dobyns" Subject: Re: Panther Piss JNiessen@aol.com wrote: > > Hey guys, > > You might track down a copy of my book on the B-2 and find the answer to your > "PP" in there. I don't have a copy handy, otherwise I'd provide the data on > acid injection/contrail formation, myself. Additionally, are you all aware of > the environmental menace that has appeared out of nowhere in the atmosphere > (in concert with the operational debut of the B-2)? There was a piece in > several of the local newspapers about a mysterious chemical combo that has > only recently been discovered...and that remains unexplained. There are > serious concerns about its impact on the environment. It's much more > insidious than ozone. > > Cheers, Jay Miller Jay, I wasn't aware of the mysterious chemical combo that doesn't sound environmentally friendly! I wonder if it's related to "acid rain" that was a hot topic several years ago. Don't we have a way to generate ozone at high altitudes (like where the U-2Rs fly)? Years ago there was an attempt to scramble info that went through an underground cable from one computer to another. I got a chance to look at the "scrambler". Just a motor turning a disk that had something like a small brush made with metal bristles. This thing probably scrambled the data but it sure as hell smelled like ozone! Couldn't stay in the room for long because of the odor. cheers to you also, Al ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 10:34:06 -0700 From: "T.Toth" Subject: Shape and size I just hope this is clear enough ! Depending on wavelength a target aircraft can be seen by radar as a number of 'reflecting' points. On stealth aircraft most parts and shapes are blended in (smooth transition, saw-tooth etc...). (If it does) how does this affect the number of 'points'. Could two blended shapes (air intake for eg.) made to be seen by radar as one shape (reflecting point)? And is this preferable? It seems shaping is going towards a reduced number of reflecting 'points' (as B-2) rather than greater number of 'deflecting' points (as F-117). The reason I ask this is because as I understand this the larger the shape the lower the theoreticaly ideal frequency, the least chance of 'Raleigh' type scattering etc.. in essence it would make shaping more effective Timothy ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 15:10:59 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD (SK) More Kursk conspiracy In case you have not seen-the rest of the story in unclass version. The Kursk's dark mission K-141 is down. The Kursk, an Antyey type 949A nuclear attack submarine, was lost in the Barents Sea. The Kursk, one of eight active Oscar II class submarines, was the pride of the Russian navy and the leading edge of the new Northern Fleet. Commissioned in 1995, the Kursk was the Northern Fleet's most powerful weapon. It made a high-profile voyage to the Mediterranean in September 1999 and was due to return later this year as part of a planned Russian nuclear task group deployment to the MiddleEast. The August Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea was designed to provide the West with good reason to remember the Kursk. Reports now show the exercise was intended to showcase the Kursk as she performed her two primary roles, killing American carriers and submarines. The Russian navy exercise also drew a small crowd of interested observers in the form of two U.S. Los Angeles attack submarines, loitering in the shallow polar sea over 50 miles from the Kursk That fateful morning the Kursk reportedly completed a successful firing of her main killer, the Chelomey Granitmissile, NATO code-named SS-N-19 Shipwreck. The Kursk and her sister boats carry 24 Shipwreck missiles. The missiles are stored on each side of the huge submarine in banks of 12, hidden between the layers of the boat's thick twin hullskin. The Shipwreck missiles are stored in launching tubes external to the inner pressure hull where the 118 crewmembers worked and lived. The shipwreck missile fired by the Kursk that Saturday morning contained a 1,600-pound conventional warhead. It reportedly scored a direct hit against a Russian hulk target over 200 miles away. The Shipwreck is intended to strike U.S. carriers but can also be targeted against U.S. cities. Russian naval sources indicate that the Shipwreck missile can be armed with an H-bomb warhead equal to one half million tons of TNT, more than enough to flatten Los Angeles or New York City. That fateful August Saturday, in the dim afternoon light of the arctic summer sun, the Kursk began her last performance, the simulated destruction of a U.S. submarine using the 100-RU Veder missile. The Veder, NATO code-named SS-N-16A Stallion, is a rocket-boosted torpedo. The Stallion is launched from the huge 26-inch diameter torpedo tubes installed on each Oscar II class submarine. The Stallion is so secret that no picture of the weapon has ever been published. The Stallion is fired from the submarine's torpedo tube but flies like a missile. The Stallion rocket booster ignites underwater once the weapon is clear of the submarine, sending the missile to the surface. The missile then flies to the target under rocket power where it finally ejects a lightweight torpedo at supersonic speed. The mini-torpedo then uses its own little parachute, slowing to drop gently into the water directly above the target. The mini-torpedo then homes in on the target submarine for the final kill. The conventional Stallion fired by the Kursk was armed with a mini-220 pound explosive warhead. Jane's Defense reports that the missile can also be armed with a mini-nuclear warhead equal to 200,000 tons of TNT. According to Jane's, the last moments of the Kursk were recorded as She prepared to fire the Stallion. Seismologists in Norway told Jane's that a monitoring station registered two explosions at the time the Kursk sank. The first registered 1.5 on the Richter scale. A second, stronger explosion measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale equivalent to one to two tons of TNT was recorded just over two minutes later. The Stallion rocket motor may have ignited inside the sealed torpedo Tube just before firing. The Stallion may have jammed itself inside the torpedo tube as it was fired. In any event, the underwater rocket appears to have ignited inside the inner manned pressure hull. The force of the Stallion rocket motor would have twisted the huge torpedo tube, melting through the metal walls within seconds. Just enough time for alarms to sound and men to die. Then the small 220-pound warhead exploded, blowing a gaping hole in the twisted skin of the attack submarine. The submarine immediately fell forward as the icy water rushed to fill the forward weapon bay. The last moments of the Kursk and most of her crew were filled with fire and ice as the vessel plunged into the cold arctic depths. The rush of cold water did not extinguish the fire since the Stallion rocket booster was designed to burn without air. The exploding warhead would have sent huge flaming chunks of the rocket booster into the forward weapon control room. The force of the 14,000-ton submarine striking the bottom on the damaged torpedo bay was the final blow, detonating one of the many weapons inside upon impact. The force of the explosion inside the twin hull submarine ripped the starboard side open back to the sail. The manned areas forward of the reactor compartment, including the control room and living quarters, rapidly flooded, leaving no time for personnel in those compartments to escape. This may not be the end of the story. There are now suggestions that the West should help Russia raise the Kursk. Yet, despite being broke, Russia continues to build and deploy the Oscar II submarine force. There are seven active Oscar II class boats. The latest, K-530 the Belgorod, is still under construction at the Severodvinsk Shipyard. Budget cutbacks have slowed progress on the boat to a standstill but construction continues. There are rumors that China is interested in buying K-530. The Kursk sailed the Mediterranean in late 1999 as a show of flag to Russian allies such as Syria, Libya and Serbia. At the same time the Kursk was touring the Mediterranean in 1999, a Pacific Fleet Oscar II Submarine was quietly cruising the western seaboard of the United States, within missile range of California, Oregon and Washington. While we all mourn the passing of K-141 and her crew, we should also reflect on exactly what her mission was. - ----------------------------------------------- - -- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@frontiernet.net > Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program - ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org >[Allies, CIA/NSA, and Vietnam veterans welcome] Southeast Asia (SEA) service: Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade (Jan 71 - Aug 72) Thailand/Laos - Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand (USARSUPTHAI), Camp Samae San (Jan 73 - Aug 73) - Special Security/Strategic Communications - Thailand (STRATCOM - Thailand), Phu Mu (Pig Mountain) Signal Site (Aug 73 - Jan 74) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 15:20:27 GMT From: "wayne binkley" Subject: flying rules/1920 some of these 80 year old rules still sound reasonable today. wayne - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regulations For The Operation of Aircraft January, 1920 1. Don’t take the machine into the air unless you are satisfied it will fly. 2. Never leave the ground with the motor leaking. 3. Don’t turn sharply when taxiing. Instead of turning sharp, have someone lift the tail off the ground. 4. In taking off, look at the ground and the air. 5. Never get out of a machine with the motor running until the pilot relieving you can reach the engine controls. 6. Pilots should carry hankies in a handy position to wipe off goggles. 7. Riding on the steps, wings, or tail of a machine is prohibited. 8. In case the engine fails on takeoff, land straight ahead regardless of obstacles. 9. No machine must taxi faster than a man can walk. 10. Never run motor so that blast will blow on other machines. 11. Learn to gauge altitude, especially on landing. 12. If you see another machine near you, get out of the way. 13. No two cadets should ever ride together in the same machine. 14. Do not trust altitude instruments. 15. Before you begin a landing glide, see that no machines are under you. 16. Hedge-hopping will not be tolerated. 17. No spins on back or tail slides will be indulged in as they unnecessarily strain the machines. 18. If flying against the wind and you wish to fly with the wind, don’t make a sharp turn near the ground. You may crash. 19. Motors have been known to stop during a long glide. If pilot wishes to use motor for landing, he should open throttle. 20. Don’t attempt to force machine onto ground with more than flying speed. The result is bouncing and ricocheting. 21. Pilots will not wear spurs while flying. 22. Do not use aeronautical gasoline in cars or motorcycles. 23. You must not take off or land closer than 50 feet to the hangar. 24. Never take a machine into the air until you are familiar with its controls and instruments. 25. If an emergency occurs while flying, land as soon as possible. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 16:39:00 GMT From: "wayne binkley" Subject: concorde Concorde runway had metal debris - - - - - - - - - - - - - By Geir Moulson Sep. 1, 2000 | LE BOURGET, France (AP) -- An inspection of the runway used by the doomed Concorde was delayed for a fire drill, meaning the runway was not fully examined for more than 12 hours before the supersonic jet took off on its fatal flight, investigators said Friday. Authorities have said a metal strip that was lying on the runway gashed a tire on the plane, possibly triggering the chain of events that brought the Concorde down on July 25. It was not immediately clear whether the inspection delay had any bearing on how the metal ended up on the runway that day. "It is not yet established" how the metal part appeared on the runway, Paul-Louis Arslanian, chief of France's Accident and Inquiry Office, told a news conference Friday. Investigators have said the part -- bent at one end and covered with what appeared to be a greenish epoxy on one side and a reddish putty -- did not appear to belong to the doomed plane. But, Arslanian said, "it looks very like an aviation part." The first inspection of runway 26 at Charles de Gaulle airport was carried out at 4:30 a.m. the day of the crash, investigators said. A partial inspection was made at 2:30 p.m. because a plane was believed to have collided with a bird, but a second full inspection at 3 p.m. was postponed because of a drill involving the airport's firefighting crews, they said. The Concorde took off at 4:42 p.m. The remaining 12 Concordes operated by Air France and British Airways have been grounded in the wake of the crash. During Friday's news conference, Arslanian said last month's recommendation to suspend the supersonic plane's airworthiness certificate "still seems valid." He declined to say when the Concorde might be cleared to fly again. The new details came a day after the Accident and Inquiry Office released a preliminary report on the accident. The report offered a blow-by-blow account of the final moments of Air France Flight 4590, which plunged in flames into a hotel north of Paris less than two minutes after takeoff, killing all 109 people aboard and four on the ground. According to the report, Capt. Christian Marty tried to gain speed for an emergency landing less than two minutes after takeoff. "Concorde zero ... 4590, You have flames. You have flames behind you," the control tower warned. Seconds later came Marty's chilling words: "Too late." The report provided a graphic account of the final moments of the flight -- a chillingly professional cockpit exchange that indicates the control tower gave the first alert of trouble but that the crew was powerless to change their aircraft's course. The highly technical 75-page report detailed debris found on the runway, including an approximately 9-pound tire part with a nearly 13-inch gash caused by the strip of metal. The report stresses that it was the destruction of a forward tire on the left landing gear that likely triggered a chain of events dooming the flight: High-speed tire debris apparently flew into the engines, which burst into flames. An airport official said Friday that nothing untoward had been reported on the runway, either by pilots using it or by cleaners and the firefighters conducting drills, in the hours leading up to the crash. Airport authority spokesman Didier Hamon said Charles de Gaulle airport generally carries out three inspections per day at "relatively flexible" times. "If anything wrong would have existed, it would have been noticed immediately," Hamon told reporters. "We do believe that everything was done that day as it is normal to do." Arslanian said the issue of the runway inspections "has not been addressed yet by investigators. It's too early in the process." The Accident and Inquiry Office drew no conclusions in its preliminary report, released on the Internet. Arslanian said the final report is "several months away at least." A judicial investigation also is in progress. Associated Press | September 1, 2000 _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 11:24:12 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD (IUFO/Multiple) Re: TOP SECRET UMBRA [NSA's UFO Files] >EXCLUSIVE FOR/EYES ONLY ECHELON (NSA, GCHQ ...) AND CARNIVORE (FBI) Oh no, not that BS again..... Has anyone bothered to read Bamford's book, which described what people now insist is "Echelon" back in 1983? I could probably pay my hosting bills for a few years by posting Amazon links for that book to UFO mailing lists! >QQQQ >FORWARDED FROM THE IUFO MAILING LIST. >CAVEATS AND MESSAGE FORMATTING LOOK FAMILIAR. >WNINTEL AIR DEFENCE HOT SPOTS INDICATE ALL UFOS ARE BALLOONS! > >TWC > >P.S.: Caveat - NSA site opens and spools slowly. > >--- >(Umbra has Latin roots, FWIW. Shelter. Cover. Help me, Obi Wan >Kanobie! You're my only hope! --SW) > >------- Forwarded message follows ------- >Date sent: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 23:56:07 +0000 >From: Scarecrow >Subject: [SO] Top Secret Umbra >To: Skyopen >Organization: Search For Truth > >[ Double-click this line for list subscription options ] > >Here is some more information regarding Security Classifications higher >than Top Secret. I found in "Alien Agenda" by Jim Marrs, this quote by >Barry Goldwater: "The subject of UFOs is one that has interested me for >some long time. About 10 or 12 years ago I made an effort to find out >what was in the building at Wright-Patterson AFB where the information >is stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was >understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top >Secret." Taken from a letter he wrote in March 28, 1975. "Above Top Secret" is actually Secret Compartmented Information. Legally, Top Secret is as high as it can go- but things like compartmented information circumvent whatever law it was that laid out classification levels back in the 1940s. UMBRA was a generic compartment for SIGINT/COMINT material that NSA used until it was publically compromised in the late 1970s or early 1980s, when UMBRA was replaced with a new codeword. No one has ever denied UMBRA, and it's been public knowledge for at least 20 years. Dan - ----------------- [-] > Here is some more information regarding Security Classifications higher > than Top Secret. I found in "Alien Agenda" by Jim Marrs, this quote by > Barry Goldwater: [-] Hmmm...I've discussed the notion of the 'Above Top Secret' classification with people who should know, and I always receive the same answer: There is no higher level of classification than TS, because any disclosure of such information would seriously damage NatSec - and by definition that's as bad as it can get I'd be surprised if anyone on the SW list doesn't know that access Special Access Programs is compartmentalised - i.e.on a Need To Know basis. If this alleged Above TS classification was ever cited - with FOIA evidence ( even if it was totally blacked out) for anything other than UFOs - I'd be very interested to see it. Best David - --------------- Obviously, this was written by someone with no experience in military security. There are ONLY 4 levels of classification, period, end of point, no argument: Unclassified, Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. That's it. Ain't no such thing as "above Top Secret." The classification level is determined by the harm that would occur if the information were to become known to the enemy. It also determines the degree of protection required. What the author of that was seeing was the access restriction on the classified information. Besides an appropriate security clearance, one must have a "need to know" to get access to information. In some cases, access to particular information must be specifically granted. That includes some intelligence information, particularly where the very existence of the information could reveal something about the source of the information. (That was especially important before the official confirmation of the existence of surveillance satellites.) It also included information about some programs (the so-called "black" programs--the SR-71 and the F-117 Stealth Fighter were once in that category); some types of contingency and war plans; nuclear weapons; "national means of verification"; cryptographics--codes, code-breaking, etc.; and more. A document or bit of information might be classified as Confidential, but still be restricted access. Special/restricted access material got additional protection (even the official list of people granted access was classified--we could say that an officer had a "TS-ABCEDFG" clearance, but to officially _confirm_ that, a classified/encrypted message had to be sent by the right people. For several years, I held a TS clearance with SI/TK authorization. (I can't say even what those initials stood for, though one of them has been talked about in several books.) Now, what would the author have thought if he'd seen "SECRET UMBRA," which conceivably could happen? (I don't know that much about Umbra, except what I read in the same book I mentioned above.) I saw many documents markd "SECRET SI" or "CONFIDENTIAL TK." These UFO nuts should really learn something about what they're writing about before spouting off and showing their ignorance. George Slusher/Eugene, OR - ------------------ Actually I saw an interview with Barry Goldwater in which he told the story of requesting the information and was turned down. I don't remember the classification of the document but I do know that Barry Goldwater was a General in the US Air Force and was on several committees in the Senate which dealt with secret military matters. Someone with brass balls turned down his request. Joe Needham - ---------------- Regardless of the security classification you hold, if you don't have a legitimate "need to know" you won't get access to the material. ============================ Dean A. Batha Los Angeles, CA - ------------------ If I recall correctly, there is another level of classification between unclassified and confidential. I believe it's called "for official use only." It's used for materials which would normally be unclassified but contain "essential elements of friendly information." >The classification >level is determined by the harm that would occur if the information were >to become known to the enemy. It also determines the degree of protection >required. The basic elements of protecting classified information, at every level, are proper identification, a security clearance equal to or higher than the information in question, and a verified need to know. It does not depend upon the rank or status of the person requesting the information. ============================ Dean A. Batha Los Angeles, CA - ------------------ According to _The US Intelligence Community_ Third Edition Umbra is the compartment for the most sensitive Special Intelligence, or signals intelligence. The Spoke classification also pops up in the referred documents. It "might contain information from intercepts of PLO communications" according to the same book. The notice "WARNING NOTICE INTELLIGENCE SOURCES AND METHODS INVOLVED" that's on a lot of the documents would explain why there's so much blacked out in reports about balloons. Ben Avery - ---------------- my 2 cents. I talked with someone at the DOD Security Institute a couple of years ago and he said that there is no rating above Top Secret, only Special Access Programs that limit access to those in the SAP. He said there was testiony in Congress a few years before where someone said "That's above Top Secret" and that's where the rumor started that there is a higher clearance. I also heard from a person who worked in a weapons lab who said " in -- division you need a higher than Q clearance." (The top clearance the Energy Department has). But another person said its a compartmented clearance, (added to the Q clearnace). All the research I've done says TS is the limit, SAP's are added to TS clearances to limit access. James - --------------- > All the research I've done says TS is the limit, SAP's are added to TS > clearances to limit access. That's my understanding, and I worked in DC for some 25 years, held TS, various SCI, SAP/SAR clearances. The way I came to think of it is that the classification system is two-dimensional: the vertical axis, corresponding to CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, TOP SECRET, is defined in terms of direness of damage to the national security if revealed; the horizontal is a codification of "need to know," with a very large number of compartments corresponding to various activities. Kind of a 3x3,000 table. People with a vanilla TS clearance wouldn't be able to see CONFIDENTIAL HOPTOAD material if they hadn't been read into the HOPTOAD compartment. In practice, for very tightly held information and activities, the compartmentation could easily create the impression -- and the effect -- of "above TOP SECRET." - --------------- That fits in well with my work experience. At one time I had a "Q" clearance. A group who ran a particular program needed to have it updated. I had to wait until I was given special access to that program before I could work on it. Once i was done with it, the special access was withdrawn. Al ps: if I had gone through the whole interview process with the CIA, I wonder what sort of clearance I would have had. I guess ones like "L" and "Q" were associated with AEC (old) and DOE gov't agencies. - -- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1@frontiernet.net > Alternate: < terry_colvin@hotmail.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/8958/index.html > Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 13:38:17 -0500 From: "Allen Thomson" Subject: Stealthy Nobel laureate In http://www.nro.gov/PressReleases/prs_rel40.html one reads that a reconnaissance pioneer to be honored at the NRO's upcoming 40th birthday bash is "Edward M. Purcell, Ph.D. (posthumous) "Harvard Nobel Laureate and radar expert, Dr. Edward Purcell worked on all early overhead reconnaissance projects that operated at extreme altitudes. His main contribution involved methods to make these vehicles, if not invisible to radar, hard to observe with radar. He also chaired the Land Panel subcommittee that selected the Program B follow-on film recovery reconnaissance system. " ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2000 14:16:37 -0500 From: "Allen Thomson" Subject: Clearances, compartments, etc. Al wondered and guessed, > ps: if I had gone through the whole interview process with the CIA, I wonder what sort of > clearance I would have had. I guess ones like "L" and "Q" were associated with AEC > (old) and DOE gov't agencies. Nope, a blue CIA staff badge just gets you plain old TS. In the Directorate of Intelligence, which works day to day with SIGINT and satellite pix, the common clearance level adds SI/TK/G (denoted by an "H" on the badge). And, of course, there is a large variety of clearances associated with other channels, compartments, subcompartments, levels, etc. scattered here and there in various places around the Agency. Many of them, such as Q clearances, are granted by other government entities. Such compartmentation can get in the way of getting the job done, as one might imagine: see http://archives.his.com/intelforum/msg02009.html ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V9 #67 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe in the body of a message to "majordomo@netwrx1.com". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe in the body. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to georgek@netwrx1.com. A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "skunk-works-digest" in the commands above with "skunk-works". Back issues are available for viewing by a www interface located at: http://www.netwrx1.com/skunk-works/ If you have any questions or problems please contact me at: georgek@netwrx1.com Thanks, George R. Kasica Listowner