Chapter 70: Look Ma, No Hands -- Or Head

[Paul S.]

OK Kids, grab the handlebars now, because this is where we're going next:

http://www.nro.gov/PressReleases/prs_rel40.html

"NRO HONORS PIONEERS OF NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE
August 18, 2000

I recognized one name in this list:

Reid D. Mayo
Mr. Reid Mayo, at the Naval Research Laboratory, conceived and designed the first Navy signals intelligence satellite, GRAB/DYNO, and later served as project engineer and technical director of Program C.

Some of you who have been following right along know that one of my "open" sources is a book called "Body of Secrets" by national security journalist James Bamford. That's where I saw Reid Mayo's name, on the heavily outlined and underscored pages 364-365 (which, if memory serves me, are pages that Morgan himself directed me to). I will excerpt for you:

At Howard Johnson's restaurant in Pennsylvania, during a blizzard, Reid D. Mayo was coming to the same conclusion. Stranded with his family at a rest stop during a snowstorm in early 1958, the NRL scientist began to work out the details with a pencil the back of a stained placemat...."I did some range calculations to see if truly we could intercept the signal from orbital altitude, and the calculations showed that clearly you could, up to something over six hundred miles..."

That paragraph marks the dawn of satellite reconnaissance. But wait, there's more:

Mayo had earlier completed another unique eavesdropping project: "The submarine service had us installing a small spiral antenna inside the glass of the periscope, and affixed to that spiral antenna was a small diode detector. It allowed the submarine skipper to have an electromagnetic ear as well as an eyeball above the surface. And it worked so well that we thought that there might be some benefit to raising the periscope just about -- maybe even to orbital attitude."

The next page goes into the (secret) launch of GRAB, the Navy's first "Elint" (Electronics Intelligence') satellite on May 5, 1960 (five days after the interception of Francis Gary Powers' U2 spy plane over Russia).

So, what you have there is a) submarine communications and b) satellite reconnaissance, and what ties them all together is c) some kind of "diode" detector.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to substantiate this, but I think that "diode detector" is something I will be introducing in the next chapter -- in, like, the section would be working on NOW if I weren't typing this instead.

Maybe Twigsnapper can ring a bell or something if we're on the right track here, but I think Townsend Brown and his "tunnel diode" (which drew on some kind of quantum tunneling phenomenon) are the link between all these puzzle pieces.

And of course, his name is NOT among those on the list honored by the NRO in 2000. But did you see the notation at the very bottom of the page?

*One Pioneer requested no identification.

Gee, I wonder who THAT mighta been??

--PS

[twigsnapper]

Bells ring and Angels sing. twigsnapper

[flowperson]

Hi All...To me the story of such things, Reich and his son portrayed by a woman, TTB and his daughter who "needs not to know", the rain being replaced by sunshine and vice versa, are all indicative of transformation and paradigm shifting. As far as I'm concerned this will be THE primary lessons that we all must learn in the 21st century.

In a way this stuff is at once scientific and biblical. Complex systems theory teaches that paradigm shifting is universal and never-ending. Change is always inevitable, and the longer that it is delayed and suppressed, nature dictates that the needed changes will be more transformative and extreme in their duration and effects once they do
occur.

And from the Gospel of Thomas, saying 22..
22 Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the<FATHER'S kingdom."

They said to him, "Then shall we enter the<FATHER'S kingdom as babies?"

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

flow....

[kevin.b]

Paul S,
If I knew where ideas pop into my head, I would know the answer.

The answers are within us all, we are all one.
You just have to write it all out, no pressure.

Kevin

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

Paul,

When Mayo said this

Mayo had earlier completed another unique eavesdropping project: "The submarine service had us installing a small spiral antenna inside the glass of the periscope, and affixed to that spiral antenna was a small diode detector. It allowed the submarine skipper to have an electromagnetic ear as well as an eyeball above the surface. And it worked so well that we thought that there might be some benefit to raising the periscope just about -- maybe even to orbital attitude."

Who was the WE he was speaking of particularly.... the Navy Research Lab .... or ..... who?

And if you are talking about 1958 and a snowstorm ..... I can fairly well identify that as the same storm that you will be writing about later ... and a certain log cabin in North Carolina. So what else was happening in rapid fire manner. I can see the world of secrecy ramping up. In fact I can't imagine anything more secret at the time than satellite communications systems. Elizabeth

[ladygrady]

Notice the feminine hand again fellows! <g> but first this comment on the name just above the mystery name. I wonder if his will show up anywhere else in this epic because " radar invisibility" or " stealthyness" is mentioned alongside it

"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."

There is much talk here of Program B and Program C and I just wondered JDB if you can explain those any better. You seem to know your way around the virtual halls of the NRO just a bit? It actually sort of surprises me that they even have a website. But I guess once Dan Brown starts writing about you you might as well admit to being there. I wonder, like his feminine character, what its like to get a message from the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office?

Oh and I will find the womans connection later but the name Jason ( as in Jason Group) did in fact come from reference to " Jason" ... the Heros Journey" and all of that. Some have ventured the thought that it was for meetings held mostly in the late summer ( July Aug Sept Oct Nov.) but that I understand was sort of a fanciful explanation.

Oh, and one last. When you get rid of all the fake commercial members on the forum ( up to 1730 now?) Would you please post what our actual numbers are? No rush at all but you know that I have an interest in that. Data you know. grady

!

[Paul S.]

Oh, and one last. When you get rid of all the fake commercial members on the forum ( up to 1730 now?) Would you please post what our actual numbers are? No rush at all but you know that I have an interest in that. Data you know. grady

I just pruned 1593 "bot" -registered users. God, I wish I knew a way to make it stop. And I can only prune those who have registered more than 24 hours ago. So the total now is 137, of which the actual participants past and presetn appears to be 106.

--PS

[kevin.b]

Paul S,
Of which the last REAL poster is?
Its a curse been phychic.
kevin

[Paul S.]

Of which the last REAL poster is?

The last real registrant, #106, is "Non_Serviam" who has yet to actually post. He signed up while I was out of town and received his activation notice this morning.

--PS

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

I am tempted to translate that last post member ( Non-Servium) as " Out of Service" .... but I hardly think thats right.

The only piece of Latin that has stuck with me was mentioned here on the Forum just a little bit ago. " E Tenebris Lux" .... which is , I understand something close to " Out of Darkness, Light.."

And grady, You have to be impressed. Just over a hundred active (?) people on the Forum and we all have generated more than 10,000 messages between us! And I would venture the comment that very few of those messages were lightweight or silly ( well, perhaps when Paul leaves us alone to our own resources too long!) but mainly we have had wonderful discussions that have had depth and clarity and have been a challenge I think. This is a special group here. Elizabeth

[kevin.b]

Paul S,
Got that slightly wrong , sorry.
Kevin

[Langley]

Notice the feminine hand again fellows! <g> but first this comment on the name just above the mystery name. I wonder if his will show up anywhere else in this epic because " radar invisibility" or " stealthyness" is mentioned alongside it

"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."
......... grady

!

"The Avro Vulcan, a British bomber of the 1960s, had a remarkably small appearance on radar despite its large size, and occasionally disappeared from radar screens entirely. We now know that it had a fortuitously stealthy shape apart from the vertical element of the tail." (Wiki)

This wasnt an accident. It was planned that way. Will have to look into Purcell, Avro, Titterton. You see the Vulcan was the delivery system for the British A bomb. I know from witnesses one passed over Broken Hill and created a hubbub when the local air traffic control couldnt see it on radar. It was on its way to fire a nuclear tipped missile at Maralinga. Operation Featherbed. Titterton before entry into atomic bomb making was into radar and part of the team who made possible aircraft versons of the magnatron. Of course Titterton links to Groves and Teller. He was only non US citizen involved in US nuke tests.

[Elizabeth Helen Drake]

and if you look hard at Avro .... you will see connections to the Rootes Group .... which included , among others, William Stephenson.

It was also the firm that developed the strange Avrocar and where it is said that Richard Miethe went to work after being walked out of a certain Russian Prisoner of War Camp. After that, his trail goes relatively cold ... at least as far as I have been able to tell.

So yes Langley, things are really connected here. I have to say, I REALLY enjoy your view on things. There are many things that you have mentioned that I have not known about. A great Thankyou! Elizabeth

[Langley]

and if you look hard at Avro .... you will see connections to the Rootes Group .... which included , among others, William Stephenson.

It was also the firm that developed the strange Avrocar and where it is said that Richard Miethe went to work after being walked out of a certain Russian Prisoner of War Camp. After that, his trail goes relatively cold ... at least as far as I have been able to tell.

So yes Langley, things are really connected here. I have to say, I REALLY enjoy your view on things. There are many things that you have mentioned that I have not known about. A great Thankyou! Elizabeth

Thanks Elizabeth, again, but for what you and others write I wouldnt know much, but just see a lot of unconnected dots. I found more about the Vulcan.

"The Avro Vulcan bomber began life as a radical flying wing concept, and as it emerged it proved radical enough. The exotic looks weren't just for show: the Vulcan bomber, in its B.1 and improved B.2 forms, would also prove to be an excellent aircraft."

Ring bells?

The initial designer was Roy Chadwick
http://www.wingweb.co.uk/biographies/Roy_Chadwick.html

The Vulcan was deployed in close cooperation with US SAC, some flying out of a base in Nebraska.

[flowperson]

Hi...Just saw a local news spot a short while ago that a Vulcan has been rebuilt into operational condition and is making periodic flights in the UK. Wasn't that the bomber depicted as being stolen in the James Bond film, Thunderball ?

flow....