My previous article was on the subject of Project Moon Dust, a U.S. program that – for many UFO researchers – is tied to the matter of crashed Saucers and dead aliens. In that previous article I wrote: “For years – decades, in fact – there have been rumors to the effect that there’s a secret U.S. program to quickly retrieve damaged, malfunctioning and crashed alien spacecraft. Many UFO researchers point their fingers in the direction of a project that goes back to the 1950s. For years, it was titled Project Moon Dust (also spelled Moondust). Today, however, it has a classified title. Mention the operation to a lot of Ufologists and they’ll tell you that Moon Dust is the key to the secrets of where crashed Saucers and dead aliens are stored away. But, are their thoughts and conclusions correct? Nope. Time and again I have seen UFO researchers say that the available Moon Dust documentation (via the Freedom of Information Act) proves that UFOs have crashed. Actually, in relation to aliens, it doesn’t prove anything at all.”
With that said, now onto how, for decades, the U.K. government has had emergency plans in place to deal with the likes of spacecraft and satellites slamming into the ground – just like Project Moon Dust. In 1979 a U.K. government Home Office document with the title of “Satellite Accidents with Radiation Hazards,” was carefully and quietly prepared in 1979 by the U.K. Government’s Home Office. It was sent to every single Chief Officer of Police, every Chief Fire Officer and every County Council in England and Wales. “Similar circulars are being issued by the Scottish Office and the Northern Ireland Office,” said the author of the paper. An examination of the 1979 file makes it clear that the Home Office’s decision to circulate the document on such a large scale was, ostensibly at least, because of an event that had occurred twelve months previously – as the following extract from the file reveals: “Following the descent of a nuclear-powered satellite in Canada on 24 January 1978, consideration has been given to contingency arrangements for dealing with the possibility of a similar incident in the United Kingdom.”
The Home Office added that the possibility of a nuclear-powered satellite crashing within the U.K. was “remote.” It was, however, careful to add that “the special considerations that affect the use of nuclear materials and the safety standards applied to them make it prudent to devise plans to deal with such an incident.” According to the file, one of the hardest predictions to make was when and where a stricken, nuclear-powered space vehicle, possibly spiraling wildly out of control and at hundreds, or even thousands, of miles-per-hour would impact. On this issue, the author of the document stated: “Although it is likely that knowledge of changes in the orbital pattern which might lead to premature return to Earth would be available many hours or even days before re-entry occurred, it would not be such that a reasonably accurate prediction of the final orbit over the Earth could be made until 12 to 24 hours before impact. Even then forecasts of the precise point of re-entry along this track might still be in error by thousands of kilometers. It is possible accurate warning would not be available till a few minutes before impact and it is possible there might be no warning.”
The document also makes it very clear that the Home Office was well acquainted with the more technical aspects of satellite technology: “Some satellites are designed in such a way that they will disintegrate on re-entry; others are so designed that fairly large components will remain intact on entering Earth’s atmosphere.”And, if a space vehicle were to impact on the U.K. what would be the outcome? The author of the document had a few ideas: “Although the parameters of the orbit of a crashing satellite can be fairly closely defined, debris might fall over an area 2,000 kilometers wide. It would not be possible to alert police forces on a selective basis. In the event of a warning that a satellite might crash in or near the UK, all police forces would be alerted.” In other words, official authorities all across the nation would potentially be put on stand-by to deal with the crash and recovery of exotic, space-based technologies. And that would only be the beginning, as the file demonstrates.
The crash of a nuclear-powered satellite would present problems such as: “There would be a possible radiation hazard; debris from the crashed satellite might be scattered over a very large area, perhaps the greater part of the country; and the individual pieces of debris might be very small, yet each might present a small radiation hazard.” Most significant of all, however, is a section of the document that refers not to when, but if the public should be informed of such a disaster: “A Government decision would then be sought on whether the police should be alerted and whether a public statement should be made. If such actions were to be decided upon, overall responsibility for the measures to deal with an incident would be exercised from a central point in Whitehall, in a manner similar to procedures already established to handle a terrorist incident.”
In many respects, these outlines and plans of the U.K. government mirrored what the United States had been doing as far back as the 1950s with Project Moon Dust.
The post When Potentially Dangerous Space Technology Comes Down in the U.K. first appeared on Mysterious Universe.