Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2018

30 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2018 OBSERVATORIES Holloman. With the capabilities of mod- ern electronics and batteries, it’s possi- ble that such a sys- tem wouldn’t even need to be hard wired. On 20 September, a few days after the residents went back home and after everything returned to normality in Sacramento Peak, an astonishing arti- cle in the Alam- ogordo Daily News proposes the official motivation of the evacuation. The mysterious closure of a solar observa- tory in New Mexico earlier this month happened after the FBI opened a child pornography investigation involving a jan- itor’s computer found at the observatory, and agents tracked wireless signals used to access child porn, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit. The mountaintop T he “Trinity Site”, near So- corro, is the place where the first atomic bomb was tested, on July 16, 1945. Both this site and the town of Roswell (which houses a bizarre UFO museum) are relatively close to Sunspot, and this has triggered the most imaginative theories about the evacuation of the solar observatory. without drawing outright attention. These could be used to record and intercept elec- tronic emissions related to military activities in, above, and around the valley below. At this point, the scenario seems a bit more concrete and credible, and the absence of official explanations, as well as attempts to ridicule the “spy story”, reinforce what ap- peared to be the most reasonable interpretation from the very beginning. Here are the conclusions of Thedrive.com. It seems more plausible that a foreign operative or an operative working on a foreign govern- ment’s behalf might have been able to install an an- tenna/sensor apparatus onto the top of a struc- ture that is part of the fa- cility and within line-of- sight of the valley below without anyone noticing. This could allow them to persistently gather elec- tronic intelligence on whatever might be hap- pening on, around, and over White Sands and at