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The Black Knight Revisited


That fourth image looks suspicious. it looks like the source of the picture may have been taken from the ground and we are actually looking at a wide open vista and the edges may have been manipulated to look like the curvature of the earth as if taken from an orbiting satellite or high altitude craft. No orbiting satellite image i know could be made out in such detail and taken from earth unless said satellite is no longer orbiting and it is being followed by lots of flaming debris. Additionally it looks like in all the images the black knight is at anchor, judging by the lights it’s exhibiting :)
 
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I've mentioned this strange object before, but just came across this article today and wanted to share it. Have you heard about the Black Knight?

The Black Knight, A 13000 Year Old Alien Satellite?

Decker

Now this is a story that really gets my interest.

What is your opinion on it Don? Is this worth really digging into even as exo_dox pointed out that it could be a heat shield that got away in the photos we see or is that just a cover?
 
I flagged this to Brian Dunning when I suggested he looked at the Long Delay Echos mystery, in which some reports link the Black Knight satellite. He got around to researching just the satellite last year on Skeptoid number 365.

I know some folks have a problem with Dunning, his past, and his debunking. But sometimes stuff just needs debunking, or at least given an alternative explanation for consideration.

As an RF engineer and user of broadcast satellites, I reckon that his conclusions on the Black Knight are completely reasonable.

Another case of a mystery dissolving before our very eyes when the 'facts' are researched...?

Ian
 
Whatever it is, wouldn't it have exceeded the statute of limlitations in respect to its longevity ? It seems awfully close to Earth. If it was just a piece of flotsam/debris i would think it would have surrendered to Earth's gravity by now. Don't low earth orbiting satellites have a power supply to maintain their height ?
 
no

some have power/thrust to rise in orbit, therefore maintaining orbit.
drag is miniscule, so a rise of a few feet now and then keeps them in perfect balance.

So really, a satellites ability to maintain its orbit comes down to a balance between two factors: its velocity (or the speed at which it would travel in a straight line), and the gravitational pull between the satellite and the planet it orbits. The higher the orbit, the less velocity is required. The nearer the orbit, the faster it must move to ensure that it does not fall back to Earth.

certainly no free falling thermal blanket would be up there very long, months maybe IF it come of the space station, which orbits 100 miles above normal shuttle orbits.
 
Now this is a story that really gets my interest.

What is your opinion on it Don? Is this worth really digging into even as exo_dox pointed out that it could be a heat shield that got away in the photos we see or is that just a cover?

As far as those photographs go, I mis-trust them. The Black Knight information however, has been around for over 50 years. Major Don Keyhoe referenced this object in one of his books. Also, if memory serves me Frank Edwards also mentioned the BK.

A different incident entirely, involved detecting two objects in 1954 that took up orbits 400 miles and 600 miles respectively that Keyhoe also broke the story on. This one also made newspapers around the country and was explained by officialdom as "two asteroids" that somehow came close to the planet and took up orbits! Of course later these two "things" disappeared and no explanation was ever offered. This incident was one that always fascinated me. I suppose by the strict definition, UFO would apply to both these cases.

Decker
 
As far as those photographs go, I mis-trust them. The Black Knight information however, has been around for over 50 years. Major Don Keyhoe referenced this object in one of his books. Also, if memory serves me Frank Edwards also mentioned the BK.

A different incident entirely, involved detecting two objects in 1954 that took up orbits 400 miles and 600 miles respectively that Keyhoe also broke the story on. This one also made newspapers around the country and was explained by officialdom as "two asteroids" that somehow came close to the planet and took up orbits! Of course later these two "things" disappeared and no explanation was ever offered. This incident was one that always fascinated me. I suppose by the strict definition, UFO would apply to both these cases.

Decker

Thanks Don.
I have to admit that I have not really looked into this that much other than being aware of it being part of UFO lore.
I will have to do some serious reading, but the problem as you know is the amount of bull shit you have to wade through to get to the good information and that tends to put me off now and then.
 
Here, in case you've never seen it, is a really interesting video on the Black Knight satellite and the est. that it is approx. 13,000 years old. I do not know if that is correct but there is some decent history recounted in it.

Decker

 
Well Tesla probably heard whistlers. They were first heard on early telephone lines and no fancy equipment is needed to hear them. But without any technical details of what Tesla is reported to have heard or how he heard them, we'll never know for sure.

On what frequencies did the radio hams receive the signals? What were the call signs of these radio hams? How did they record the signals in the 1920s, and on what equipment were they received? How did the data suggest its origin was from the Bootes star system?

Rare and erratic delays in HF signals have been occasionally noted and recorded recently - it's an interest of mine. The most likely explanation is some as yet ill-understood mechanism in the magnetosphere. Probably not an alien satellite holding and relaying signals to draw attention to itself. Appealing though that may be, the satellite is doing it far too infrequently; an artificial device would surely do this on many more signals that escape the ionosphere - wouldn't it?

Like I said in post #6 above, read or listen to the Black Night satellite explanation from Brian Dunning. The holes in the story are revealed and he proposes what I feel is a more plausible explanation.

Just because stuff is reported, and repeated in neat Youtube videos, doesn't mean it really happened. These videos rarely reference any sources so fact can't be checked.

I'd like to believe this might be true, but as someone working in radio communications (MF/HF/VHF and satellite) I think the Black Knight story just doesn't stack up. Sorry chaps...

Nick
 
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This is another one that won't go away. Also one of those things where the closer you look, the less you see. It came up again over at Casebook some time in '13. It appears to be another hodgepodge of mistaken observations, a few real events that had nothing to do with a 13,000 year old satellite in a polar orbit, and a lot of wishful bullshit to glue it all together. The blanket or whatever it is has to be in low Earth orbit, else how were the photos made? From the ISS or a shuttle, on a nearly perpendicular orbit, at different altitudes, both object and camera moving at 17,000 mile an hour in different directions? Um, probably not.

There were a few interesting and odd things that happened in the early days of artificial satellites, that you'll find if you dig into the genesis of the Black Knight myth. So I guess urban legends occasionally have uses beyond pure entertainment.
 
There are 3 threads on this topic - would be nice to have them all pulled into one thread since there is good information on all three threads - hint! hint! ;)

Black Knight Satellite Thread - 2012
LINK: Black Knight Satellite | The Paracast Community Forums

The Black Knight Satellite Thread - 2013
LINK: The Black Knight Satellite | The Paracast Community Forums

The Black Knight Revisited Thread - 2014 (this thread)
LINK: The Black Knight Revisited | The Paracast Community Forums

It made no sense to start a new thread for 2015 :cool: though that would be in keeping with the established pattern. ;)

I came across this article in my news feed - wondering if anyone has any updates on the matter.

The Black Knight Satellite — The Truth is Up There
by Incognito Chupacabra on May 7, 2015 in Mystery, Science
LINK: The Black Knight Satellite — The Truth is Up There - disinformation

TEXT: "The Heavens abound with no shortage of weirdness, mystery and wonder and despite intense scrutiny there is a dearth of solid, factual information; fantastic speculation isn’t going to stop any time soon and that suits your Humble Narrator just fine.

"Who wants to get weird?

"Beginning in the mid-fifties (though some reports claim the 1940’s and certain weird rumors assert that Tesla himself discovered something strange back in the latter days of the 19th century) a curious phenomenon manifested itself in the heart and minds of a population’s budding fascination with Unidentified Flying Objects — the discovery of an unknown satellite in Polar Orbit, possibly broadcasting something to unknown agencies allegedly before humans had the technology to accomplish such a feat.

"Needless to say, with the Cold War raging accusations and suspicious abounded.

"According to TIME magazine on Monday, March 07, 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.
"But in 1954 both the St. Louis Dispatch and San Francisco Examiner (see image, below) raised the question of whether or not there was something up there six years before the first successful launch of a Polar Orbit Satellite. [see link for newspaper insert]

"And on August 23, 1954 the magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology wrote:
Pentagon scare over the observance of two previously unobserved satellites orbiting the earth has dissipated with the identification of the objects as natural, not artificial satellites. Dr. Lincoln LaPaz, expert on extraterrestrial bodies from the University of New Mexico, headed the identification project. One satellite is orbiting about 400 miles out, while the other track is 600 miles from the earth. Pentagon thought momentarily the Russians had beaten the U.S. to space explorations. [see link for picture insert]
"According to Ancient-Code.com, an Ancient Astronauts Theory website:
Interest in the Black Knight was higher each year, in 1957, an unknown “object” was seen “shadowing” the Sputnik 1 Spacecraft. According to reports, the “unidentified object” was in Polar orbit, at that time The United Stated nor the Russians possessed the technology to maintain a spacecraft in Polar Orbit. According to our research 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 a observational Satellite, the only question here is, who placed The Black Knight in a polar orbit and for what purpose?

The Object continued to amaze Astronomers World Wide. In the 1960’s the Black Knight was located once again in Polar Orbit. Astronomers and Scientists calculated the objects 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, as it was moving twice as fast when compared to any other man-made Spacecrafts.
There are also several reports that 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. At that point people all over the world started identifying the object in the sky, which could be seen as a red light moving at higher speed compared to other satellites in a East to West orbit. 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 final 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. NBC reported this but after Cooper returned to Earth, the Reporter were not allowed to ask Cooper about the unidentified object. The official explanation given to Coopers sighting were “high levels of carbon dioxide, which caused hallucinations“.
"The Wikipedia entry for the Black Knight is short and sweet and contains the Official Story:
The satellite mystery originated in 1954 when newspapers including the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the San Francisco Examiner ran stories attributed to retired naval aviation major and UFO researcher Donald Keyhoe saying that the US Air Force had reported that two satellites orbiting Earth had been detected. At this time no one had the technology to launch a satellite[2]

In February 1960 there was a further report that the US Navy had detected a dark, tumbling object in an orbit inclined at 79° from the equator with an orbital period of 104.5 minutes. Its orbit was also highly eccentric with an apogee of 1,728 km (1,074 mi) and a perigee of only 216 km (134 mi). At the time the Navy was tracking a fragment of casing from the Discoverer VIII satellite launch which had a very similar orbit.[2][3]

An object photographed in 1998 during the STS-88 mission has been widely claimed to be this “alien artifact”. However, it is more probable that the photographs are of a thermal blanket that had been lost during an EVA.[1]
"Whew, it was just a weather balloon thermal blanket. I’m glad we got that settled. Clumsy astronauts! This is totally coming out of your allowance." :)
 
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This video is from Stonehart's 2013 thread: The Black Knight Satellite. Thought it would be nice to pull it over here.

The Black Knight Satellite
TEXT: "Published on Jul 10, 2013: What is the Black Knight satellite? Why do some people think it's a UFO? Tune in to learn more about the story of the Black Knight satellite in this episode."
 
Just saw this thread - it showed up in the bottom feed. So it's been debunked?

Sounds like a long process to find out since there seem to have been a variety of reports connected with this item. It's interesting, though, so I will take some time to pursue all the links in these threads and anything further that's posted elsewhere. It's so easy for some people to say, as well as accept, that something has been 'debunked' without persuasive evidence and/or reasoning to in fact disprove it. And add to that the amount of information suppressed by governments, intel agencies, and scientists in their employ or service and one would be ill-advised to assume that all the relevant information is out here, available to we the public.
 
@Constance I will await your research. I haven't listened yet to the podcast where Duncan Lunan apparently debunks the 'legend'. But I find Double Nought Spy's comments notable -

This is another one that won't go away. Also one of those things where the closer you look, the less you see. It came up again over at Casebook some time in '13. It appears to be another hodgepodge of mistaken observations, a few real events that had nothing to do with a 13,000 year old satellite in a polar orbit, and a lot of wishful bullshit to glue it all together. The blanket or whatever it is has to be in low Earth orbit, else how were the photos made? From the ISS or a shuttle, on a nearly perpendicular orbit, at different altitudes, both object and camera moving at 17,000 mile an hour in different directions? Um, probably not.

There were a few interesting and odd things that happened in the early days of artificial satellites, that you'll find if you dig into the genesis of the Black Knight myth.
So I guess urban legends occasionally have uses beyond pure entertainment.
 
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