Turning UFOs into IFOs - NOSS
Turning UFOs into IFOs - NOSS
During October of 1999, a UFO case came to my attention from the Thingwall area of the Wirral on
Merseyside. A fifty five year old sales engineer called John was walking his dog
in the fields on the Tuesday night of the 5th of October. John and
his dog were located to the north of Prenton Brook, and to the east of Lower
Thingwall Lane. It was ten o’clock at night and the sky was slightly covered
with cloud, it was not raining and there was no wind. In fact, John could see a
clear night sky. A slow moving point of light had caught his attention, and it
appeared to pass through the constellation of Cassiopeia. The man believed that
what he was looking at was a satellite. However, another detail had caught his
eye, he noticed a second light and then a third appearing together to form a
triangular formation, with one light being the lead light and the others forming
a base line, an isosceles triangle formation. All three lights were moving
together simultaneously. Satellites? Moving in formation? His initial thought
was that he was observing three individual objects and not three lights that
were fixed onto a single body. They appeared to move at the correct speed for a
satellite and at the correct height. The lights disappeared from view “as they
entered the Earth’s shadow”. Normally, most investigators, like myself,
would probably connect the sighting of triangular lights with suspect prototype
military aircraft. However, because the witness had submitted a number of
important observational details on his sighting form, I was able to focus the
investigation on astronomical phenomena. My first point of call was my computer Skymap program and reference
books of the Merseyside night skies, which are published by the Liverpool
Astronomical Society. With this in hand I was able to locate Cassiopeia. From
John’s description of the lights the witness had observed them traveling from
the west to the east. I had never heard of satellites traveling in formation
before so my next move was to contact the British Astronomical Association - Artificial Satellite Section, and also to look on the
Internet for a satellite tracking site called Heavens-Above Gmbh, which is based
in Germany. From this website I was first able to locate a satellite called
Cosmos 1943 rocket which was close to the estimated object altitude and
location. It is a single object which passes at 22:03:05 at a magnitude of 3.9
and first appears in the south west. This object fails to account for the lights
witnessed, firstly because it produces a singular light in the sky, secondly
because it appears below Cassiopeia and not through it, and finally because it
moves in the opposite direction, from the south west to the north east. Not the right solution, I know, but I was certain I was on the
right track. Soon after, on the 25th October 1999, I received an
email from the BAA with an explanation that it could well be NOSS. The email
carried with it the following information. “A
couple of summers ago, meteor observers certainly became familiar with the
‘NOSS Trio’ of satellites, which were in an equilateral pattern. Onboard
sensors apparently allowed researchers to measure precise distances between
these, and how they were affected by gravitational pertubations over time. The
NOSS satellites were also comparatively faint - visual mag. +3 or
thereabouts.” Searching carefully through the net, I had come across a piece that
had been written by CNI News, it was continuing a story that had appeared on the
1st September 1996 in the Toronto Star newspaper regarding the annual
Perseid meteor shower. During the nights of the 8th, 9th
and 10th of August of that year a set of three “unblinking”
lights in triangular formation had “cruised across the star fields.” These
lights had never been seen before and were described as being fainter than the
constellation of Ursa Major. The article goes on to say that Ted Molczan, a
satellite orbit expert based in Toronto had figured out what the three lights
were...they were NOSS, and there was not just one set but there were actually
three sets of satellites traveling in formation. They were code named Parcae,
after the three daughters of Zeus, and were a part of the US Navy’s space
borne
electronic intelligence system. NOSS was the name given to these satellites by
non-military satellite specialists and stood for Naval Ocean Surveillance
System. Until 1996, the US Government had denied all knowledge of these
satellites ever existing. Each group of satellites, apparently, fly at an altitude of 1100km
and in formation approximately 100km across. The satellites are meant to track
the position, speed, and direction of all military ships at sea. This is done by
detecting communication, navigation and weapons control signals that are emitted
almost continuously by naval ships. Three satellites can track these ships more
accurately than a singular satellite could by measuring the time difference of
signal receipt. According to this CNI News article, three sets of satellites
were launched in 1990, 1991 and 1996. Each satellite measures approximately
three meters in length, larger than the earlier versions of this system. You can look at this page on
the world wide web if you go to its original file name which is CNI: Triangle of
Stars?? http://www.cninews.com/Search/CNI.0475.html This sounded fascinating to me because it indicated that any ship
belonging to any nationality could be identified and located anywhere in the
world. It has some interesting implications with the use of satellite
technology. I conducted a further search and found a number of question and
answer pages from satellite enthusiasts. They not only enquire as to whether
these satellites can remain in tight formation and how they maneuver in orbit.
These satellites move with a leading satellite first and the remaining two
following behind, they are not capable of remaining in tight formation but will
appear in a triangular formation as well as a formation of lights that travel in
a straight line. This actually ties in with a couple of other cases which fit
just that description. One of the answers given states this: “The
NOSS constellations consist of three visible satellites, each of which moves in
a roughly geocentric orbit. The shape of the triangle formed cannot be
maintained because the orbits must intersect one another when viewed from
Earth’s centre. Thus from time to time the satellites will even appear to be
in a straight line from that point of view. All other times they form some sort
of triangle, but its shape must vary continuously. I tried viewing them from
above in simulation in Starry Night. It is possible to do so, but it is very
difficult.” I recommend the following web pages: http://www.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Aug-1997/0296.html http://www.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Aug-1997/0299.html http://www.satellite.eu.org/sat/seesat/Aug-1997/0303.html Out of curiosity I wanted to know a bit more and fortunately found
a few pages from The Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Space Policy
Agency: Military Space Programs. From here were pages which described, White
Cloud (NOSS). Its opening sentence begins: “The
White Cloud Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) performed wide area ocean
surveillance, primarily for the Navy White Cloud which is used to determine the
location of radio and radars transmissions using triangulation. The identity of
naval units can be deduced by analysis of the operating frequencies and
transmission patterns of the emitters. Each
NOSS launch placed a cluster of one primary satellite and three smaller
sub-satellites (that trail along at distances of several hundred kilometers)
into low polar orbit. This satellite array can determine the location of radio
and radars transmitters, using triangulation, and the identity of naval units,
by analysis of the operating frequencies and transmission patterns. NOSS
used the ELINT (Electronic
Intelligence) technique called “time
difference of arrival”, TDOA, rather than true interferometry. Conceptually,
TDOA and interferometry are very similar, though distinct, techniques. They may
also use the frequency-domain version of TDOA, FDOA, which exploits doppler
shifts somewhat in the way the COSPAS/SARSATs do.” The initial phase of Operation White Cloud was in operation from
1976 right through to 1987 when 9 satellites were sent into orbit. This phase
used one main and three sub-satellites and used Atlas F rockets to project them
into orbit. It is not explained how
these satellites remained in formation flight, it is suggested that extremely
long wires held them together but that these would have been several hundreds of
kilometres long! From 1983 to 1987 a total of five groups of modernised SSU-1A
satellites with upgraded stabilisation and data transmission systems were
launched to replace failed satellites. By 1990, these satellites were launched
using only three bodies. A number of infrared sensors were incorporated into
these, and a company called Martin Marietta had manufactured these. By 1996
these satellites were using a stronger and more reliable Titan 4#17 rockets. More details can be gleamed from the following: http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/surveill/noss.htm Finally, there is also a paper given by a Russian military advisor
called Major A. Andronov entitled “The U.S. Navy’s “White Cloud”
Spaceborne ELINT System”. This gives an excellent explanation as to why three
satellites are used. The first has a wide observation swath, but by itself
cannot determine the coordinates of radio emitters. The second satellite, with
the first, gets a fix on the ship-borne emitters, the position of the ship is
obtained, but with some ambiguity. The third body gets the fix of the
emitters’ signals, enables their coordinates to be determined precisely and
then transmits the information to navy ships for weapons employment. You can
therefore take out an enemy surface craft long before it appears on radar. The targeted information is not only relayed to US Navy ships but
also to land stations such as Blossom Point in Maryland, Winter Harbor in Maine,
Edsel in Scotland, and smaller stations in the Pacific such as Guam and Adak. Major Andronov states that a satellite group is able to receive
signals from a zone with a radius of about 3500km on the surface of the Earth,
and under clear conditions can monitor the same object 108 minutes later. A
system of four satellite groups enables any region at latitude of 40 to 60
degrees to be monitored more than 30 times a day. This space based ELINT system
is one of the basic means for over-the-horizon targeting for warships equipped
with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Today, these information receiver systems are
employed by nuclear submarines. For further details please see the following: http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/surveill/noss_andronov.htm My interest in the field of UFOs entails the possible identification of satellites as an origin of the sighting. With this case, I feel that I have done so. I am now aware that certain satellites do travel in formation and they also create different shapes of lights. For me, in Merseyside, it also means solving a number of other cases which have been previously labeled insufficient data. |