Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2018

28 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2018 OBSERVATORIES Despite the good will of Alamogordo Daily News reporters, we do not find the slight- est mention of a possible concrete reason that could justify the evacuation of the en- tire area centered on the observatory. To get less generic information, in those days we, therefore, went looking in the section “The war zone” of Thedrive.com, and here we add some, perhaps, revealing details. Otero County Sheriff Benny House said the FBI asked him to support the initial evacu- ations at the observatory itself, but gave him no other information and that he and his deputies left after there was no evi- dence of an ongoing or imminent threat. “There was a Black Hawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything,” Sheriff House explained. “We went up there and everything was good. There was no threat. Nobody would identify any specific threat. We hung out for a little while then we left. No reason for us to be there. Nobody would tell us what we’re supposed to be watching out for.” [...] Otero County Sheriff Benny House stated to local media: “The FBI is refusing to tell us what’s going on,” House said. “We’ve got people up there (at Sunspot) T he post office of the small village of Sun- spot, also evacu- ated by the FBI. [National Science Foundation] Left, NMSU as- tronomy profes- sor and Sunspot Solar Observatory Director James McAteer. [Darren Phillips] Sep 16, 2018 − The National Solar Observatory in Sun- spot will reopen Monday, according to a statement released Sunday afternoon by Association of Universi- ties for Research in Astron- omy, the organization that oversees operations at the facility. According to AURA, the observatory was closed due to investigation into possible criminal activity at the site. The residents that vacated their homes will be returning to the site, and all employees will return to work this week, the release stated. “In light of recent developments in the inves- tigation, we have deter- mined there is no risk to staff, and Sunspot Solar Observatory is transitioning back to regular operations as of September 17 th ,” the news release stated. AURA did not specify the nature of the criminal activity.