Tag: unanswered questions

Space Force launches a top secret ‘space domain awareness’ satellite into orbit from the bottom of a jet in first project by mystery ‘Space Safari’ unit

The U.S. Space Force successfully launched into orbit a ‘space domain awareness’ military satellite that it designed and built in less than a year, under a significantly tighter timeframe than what’s usual for space launches. 

The satellite, dubbed Odyssey, is the first launch of the Space Force’s secret, special projects unit. Odyssey hitched a ride inside a Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket fixed to the bottom of a modified ‘Stargazer’ L-1011 carrier jet and launched from California‘s Vandenberg Space Force Base early Sunday morning. 

The hush-hush mission is the Space Force’s first trial with condensing the timeline it typically takes to launch vehicles into space. 

According to a press release from aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman, it ‘seeks to introduce speed, agility, and flexibility into the launch enterprise in order to respond to dynamic changes in the space domain.’ 

As its guinea pig, the Space Force used Odyssey, which is a surveillance satellite used to detect foreign objects floating in space.

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G7 Summit: Body found by cliffs near the meeting of world leaders

The death is being treated as unexplained and not suspicious, Cornwall Live reports.

Hell’s Mouth is approximately eight miles from Carbis Bay, where the world leaders are meeting, but there is currently nothing to suggest the incident is linked to the event.

A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard agency said: “At approx. 11.15am today (11 June), HM Coastguard’s assistance was requested by Devon and Cornwall Police in the North Cliffs area.

“Portreath coastguard rescue team and the St Ives RNLI lifeboats were sent, alongside the search and rescue helicopter from Newquay.”

A statement from Devon and Cornwall Police said: “Police attended an area near Bassett Cove, Cornwall after a body was located at around 11.30am.

“Colleagues from the Coastguard and the RNLI also assisted officers at the scene.

“Police are currently treating the death as unexplained but there are not thought to be any suspicious circumstances.”

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Jan. 6 video mystery: Senator asks about officer ‘gesturing toward’ doors as intruders file past

The top Republican on one of the Senate’s most powerful investigative panels says video footage from the Jan. 6 riot shows more than 300 people gained unauthorized access to the Capitol through a single doorway, and he is demanding answers from the police officers who were nearby.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), the top Republican on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a letter late Thursday to U.S. Capitol Police Acting Chief Yogananda Pittman divulging the findings of his security footage review and asking whether the officers present during the episode have been interviewed.

“Have these officers filed detailed reports of this incident?” Johnson asked. “Has USCP conducted transcribed interviews with them? If so, I request copies of these reports and transcribed interviews. If not, I respectfully ask for the opportunity to interview these officers.” 

The  Wisconsin lawmaker said the footage showed approximately 309 unauthorized people flowing into the Capitol building through the upper west terrace doors during a 14-minute span on Jan. 6. Since USCP estimated that at least 800 unauthorized people breached the building that day, this entry would be tied to as much as 38% of that total figure, he noted. 

“At approximately 2:26 p.m. on January 6, a security camera showed a male inside the Capitol attempting to open one of the upper west terrace doors to exit the building,” Johnson wrote. “This unauthorized individual, who was by himself at the time, walked through a narrow hallway to the double doors and attempted to exit through the left door by pushing the door’s crash bar. The door did not open and the individual turned around and walked back through the hallway and away from the doors.

“Approximately seven minutes later, at 2:33 p.m., security footage showed five unauthorized individuals walking down the same hallway, past a police officer. The security footage, which did not include audio, appeared to show the police officer gesturing toward the doors as these individuals walked past him. Once at the double doors, one of the five individuals pushed the left door’s crash bar and this time, it opened. All five individuals exited the building at approximately 2:33 p.m.”

Johnson is asking Pittman several questions, some of which include whether she concurs with the assessment that about 309 people gained entry to the facility through those doors and whether USCP still thinks about 800 unauthorized people entered the building that day.

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‘There is stuff’: Enduring mysteries trail US report on UFOs

The blob, captured on distant, fuzzy video by Navy pilots, seems to skitter just above the ocean waves at improbable speed, with no discernible means of propulsion or lift. “Oh my gosh, man,” one aviator says to another as they laugh at the oddity. “What … is it?”

Is it a bird? A plane? Super drone? An extraterrestrial something?

The U.S. government has been taking a hard look at unidentified flying objects like this one. A report summarizing what the U.S. knows about “unidentified aerial phenomena”—better known as UFOs—is expected to be made public this month.

There won’t be an alien unmasking. Two officials briefed on the report say it found no extraterrestrial link to the sightings reported and captured on video. The report won’t rule out a link to another country, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss it.

While the broad conclusions have now been reported, the full report may still present a broader picture of what the government knows. The anticipation surrounding the report shows how a topic normally confined to science fiction and a small, often dismissed group of researchers has hit the mainstream.

Worried about national security threats from adversaries, lawmakers ordered an investigation and public accounting of phenomena that the government has been loath to talk about for generations.

“There is stuff flying in our airspace,” Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, one of the senators who pressed for the probe, recently told Fox News. “We don’t know what it is. We need to find out.”

Congress late last year instructed the director of national intelligence to provide “a detailed analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena data” from multiple agencies and report in 180 days. That time is about up. The intelligence office wouldn’t say this past week when the full document will be out.

The bill passed by Congress asks the intelligence director for “any incidents or patterns that indicate a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities that could put United States strategic or conventional forces at risk.”

The chief concern is whether hostile countries are fielding aerial technology so advanced and weird that it befuddles and threatens the world’s largest military power. But when lawmakers talk about it, they tend to leave themselves a little wiggle room in case it’s something else—whether more prosaic than a military rival or, you know, more cosmic.

“Right now there are a lot of unanswered questions,” Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California told NBC this week. “If other nations have capabilities that we don’t know of, we want to find out. If there’s some explanation other than that, we want to learn that, too.”

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FBI demands info on readers of USA Today story about agents killed in child porn raid

The FBI is demanding that newspaper giant Gannett hand over identifying information on readers of a USA Today story about a suspect in a child porn case who killed two agents in February.

Federal investigators served the company with a subpoena in April seeking the IP addresses and phone numbers of the people who accessed a news article, between 8:03 a.m. and 8:38 a.m. on Feb. 2, about the Florida shooting that left two FBI agents dead and three others wounded.

The information sought by the feds, “relates to a federal criminal investigation being conducted by the FBI,” according to the subpoena.

Gannett, the publisher of the paper, fought back against the order in federal court on May 27, claiming the demand is unconstitutional and in violation of the Department of Justice’s policy for subpoenaing information from the press.

“A government demand for records that would identify specific individuals who read specific expressive materials, like the Subpoena at issue here, invades the First Amendment rights of both publisher and reader, and must be quashed accordingly,” Garnett lawyers wrote in the motion, made public Wednesday.

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Feds never alerted authorities about San Jose shooter Samuel Cassidy’s manifestos in 2016: report

In 2016, federal officials detained the San Jose man accused of killing nine of his colleagues last week, finding him with books on terrorism and detailed writings about how much he hated the people at his work — but nobody bothered to alert local authorities, according to reports.

Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen told USA Today Friday the intel might have helped prevent the mass attack by Samuel Cassidy Wednesday that resulted in the deaths of nine employees at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail hub.

“The DA’s office was not notified,” Rosen said, adding he wasn’t aware of a single agency in the area that was told this information. “I would like to have known this in 2016.”

Cassidy was stopped on a trip back from the Philippines in 2016 by US Customs and Border Protection.

A Department of Homeland Security memo from the stop, which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal, states that an officer found Cassidy had “books about terrorism and fear and manifestos … as well as a black memo book filled with lots of notes about how he hates the VTA.”

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Prison guards ‘didn’t notice’ that Satanist tortured, beheaded cellmate

California prison guards “didn’t notice” that a self-described Satanist decapitated and dissected the body of his cellmate, a state investigation found.

Why the officers at Corcoran State Prison didn’t discover the grisly scene until the following morning is not detailed in the reports, the Los Angeles Times reported. A lawsuit filed by the dead inmate’s family claims the cell bars were covered with a sheet and accuses the guards of not checking the cell.

The mutilated corpse of Luis Romero, 44, was discovered the morning of March 9, 2019, in the cell he shared with Jaime Osuna, 31.

Osuna was serving a life sentence for torturing and killing a woman at a motel in 2011 and had a history of attacking fellow inmates. He had never had a cellmate before.

He allegedly used a homemade knife to cut out one of Romero’s eyes, chop off a finger, remove part of his ribs and slice out part of a lung. He ultimately cut off his head. He also posed the body, slicing Romero’s face open on either side of his mouth to resemble an extended smile, according to an autopsy.

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The Mysterious Death of Iron Butterfly Bassist Philip Taylor Kramer

Kramer was due to pick up associate Greg Martini and Martini’s wife from the airport on Feb. 12, 1995 in L.A., and take them back to his home for a relaxing evening. But according to the Los Angeles Times, Kramer called home to make his wife aware that plans had changed, but that he would be there with a big surprise for her. He then called his old friend and band mate, Iron Butterfly drummer Ron Bushy. “He said, ‘Bush, it’s Taylor, I love you more than life itself,'” Bushy recalled in a news report, “Then he hung up.”

After that, another call was made to his wife telling her: “Whatever happens, I’ll always be with you.” Reports from his family say that Kramer had been working around the clock, and hadn’t slept for close to two weeks leading up to his disappearance. At 11:59AM, Kramer made a 911 call. “This is Philip Taylor Kramer. I am going to kill myself,” he reportedly told the operator, which was the last anybody had ever heard from him.

Police searches yielded nothing. For more thsn four years, it was as if Philip Taylor Kramer had simply vanished into thin air. “Something happened during that time – either in his head or at the terminal – that made him turn away,” said former L.A. police officer Chuck Carter, who worked on the case. “And I’ll tell you, I haven’t a clue. The guy didn’t have an enemy. The guy was a dedicated family man – I checked him out. Whatever happened in his head while at the airport, or whatever happened right in the airport, I’ve got a feeling we’ll learn from Kramer himself.”

Four years later, on May 29, 1999, Kramer’s 1993 Ford Aerostar van was spotted at the bottom of a Malibu ravine by hikers in a canyon about 1.5 miles east of the Pacific Coast Highway. His remains were found inside the vehicle, and later identified through dental records. Though his death was ultimately ruled a “probable suicide” by authorities, his family’s doubts as to the actual events have remained. “My brother would not have left his family,” Kramer’s sister said in an interview with VH-1. His widow told the L.A. Times that Kramer “would never, for any reason or under any circumstances, allow himself to completely abandon the family he loves more than life itself.”

Kramer had reportedly been working on a revolutionary method of transporting information and matter through space, and his father remained unconvinced his death was a suicide. “Taylor had told me a long time before, there was people giving him problems,” he said. “They wanted what he was doing, and several of them had threatened him. He told me ‘If I ever say I’m gonna kill myself, don’t you believe it. I’m gonna be needing help.'”

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Growing mystery of suspected energy attacks draws US concern

The Biden administration is facing new pressure to resolve a mystery that has vexed its predecessors: Is an adversary using a microwave or radio wave weapon to attack the brains of U.S. diplomats, spies and military personnel?

The number of reported cases of possible attack is sharply growing and lawmakers from both parties, as well as those believed to be affected, are demanding answers. But scientists and government officials aren’t yet certain about who might have been behind any attacks, if the symptoms could have been caused inadvertently by surveillance equipment — or if the incidents were actually attacks.

Whatever an official review concludes could have enormous consequences. Confirmation that a U.S. adversary has been conducting damaging attacks against U.S. personnel would unleash calls for a forceful response by the United States.

For now, the administration is providing assurances that it takes the matter seriously, is investigating aggressively and will make sure those affected have good medical care.

The problem has been labeled the “Havana Syndrome,” because the first cases affected personnel in 2016 at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. At least 130 cases across the government are now under investigation, up from several dozen last year, according to a U.S. defense official who was not authorized to discuss details publicly. The National Security Council is leading the investigation.

People who are believed to have been affected have reported headaches, dizziness and symptoms consistent with concussions, with some requiring months of medical treatment. Some have reported hearing a loud noise before the sudden onset of symptoms.

Particularly alarming are revelations of at least two possible incidents in the Washington area, including one case near the White House in November in which an official reported dizziness.

The new higher number of possible cases was first reported by The New York Times. CNN first reported the case near the White House and an additional incident in November.

Advocates for those affected accuse the U.S. government of long failing to take the problem seriously or provide the necessary medical care and benefits.

“The government has a much better understanding of it than it has let on,” said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who represents several people affected. Zaid has obtained National Security Agency documents noting it has information dating to the late 1990s about an unidentified “hostile country” possibly having a microwave weapon “to weaken, intimidate, or kill an enemy over time.”

Chris Miller, the acting defense secretary during the last months of the Trump administration, created a Pentagon team to investigate the suspected attacks. That was after he met a soldier late last year who described how, while serving in a country Miller wouldn’t identify, he had heard a “shrieking” sound and then had a splitting headache.

“He was well-trained, extremely well-trained, and he’d been in combat before,” Miller told The Associated Press. “This is an American, a member of the Department of Defense. At that point, you can’t ignore that.”

Defense and intelligence officials have publicly promised to push for answers and better care for people with symptoms. Lt. Col. Thomas Campbell, a Defense Department spokesman, said the causes of any incidents “are areas of active inquiry.” Officials have not identified a suspected country, though some people affected suspect Russian involvement.

CIA Director William Burns testified before Congress that he would make the investigation “a very high priority to ensure that my colleagues get the care that they deserve and that we get to the bottom of what caused these incidents and who was responsible.”

Burns receives daily updates on the investigation, which covers employees who have reported cases this year. He has met with those reporting injuries as have other top CIA officials. The agency has worked to reduce the wait time for its employees to receive outpatient treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

The CIA also replaced its chief medical officer with a doctor seen internally as more sympathetic to possible cases.

“We were treated so awfully in the past,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a 26-year CIA veteran who was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury following a 2017 visit to Russia. “Now they’re putting people in place who not only believe us but are going to advocate for our health care.”

One key analysis identified “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy” as the most plausible culprit. Published in December by the National Academy of Sciences, the report said a radio frequency attack could alter brain function without causing “gross structural damage.” But the panel could not make a definitive finding on how U.S. personnel may have been hit.

And a declassified 2018 State Department report cited “a lack of senior leadership, ineffective communications, and systemic disorganization” in responding to the Havana cases. The report says the cause of the injuries was “currently unknown.” The document was published by George Washington University’s National Security Archive.

The report also noted that the CIA ultimately closed its Havana station, a victory for a potential adversary.

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