Congressional, White House, UFO-related Constituent Correspondence, 1998

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"Said to be ranging lights" on Gemini-12, according to Sandler. Compare with
earlier ph.:ito showing Agena in the sunlight. Deliberate slanting of e•1idence.
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reproduced with the caption: "Shot
during Gemini XII on Novamber 13,
1966, and said to be Agena Ranging
Lights
prior
to
docking".
The
erroneous implication of these twisted
words is that this is another NASA
excuse for some remarkable UFO
photographs. Said to be ranging lights,
indeed, sneers the book!
"'that's exactly what tney were!"
Underwood told me plaintively. "They
are part of the complete sequence of
twenty
photographs
showi11g
the
• Agena as it moves from the sunlit
side of Earth inLo the shadow".
As Underwood anJ l stood in the
photo laboratory inside buildini,: No. 8
at the historic Hou$ton sµac.:e center.
the 1;equence was rii:ht thcrt) in fro11t
of our eyes 011 the gluwin~ viewing
board. How did the '·UFO rcscarc.:hcr"
react to this expl:rnalion, [ asked°!
He continued to explain: " I took
the
whole sequence with me to
Hollywood along with other films
which NASA was providing. I showed
the sequence to Sandler. He wasn't
interested.
Unfortunately he went
ahead and used
the phot_ographs
anyway". Thousands
more people
v.-ere deceived.
The flight of Gemini-11 h:5an a
long battle between astronattt Ch:irles
"Pete" Conrad and UFO belieVPI". The
astronauts had taken three even more
remarkable
photogr::iphs.
"Pete"
Conrad had spotted a morir.g ubj..-ct
outside his ·sindow and had s.1apped
off a few frames of film, varying the
.:xpo:;ure on t•ach sh,H in an :.ittempt
to get at least 011t) ~oud ,ic·v which
w<rnld show ;omclhin~.
Pt-r a rcque,;t from NASA, NORAD
soon reported th:it the object had b~en
47
:1 ;~;,._b;i:Ll t;4..., 111i,; r:t;, ::::),)i":lil•i':-· c•.:;;._.,J
I'.'<.>tull .:;_
:\ci;()r:]ti,;_;
LO
.\i I°
r\,, l"'::
c:0111 pulet,. it ·soul:I ha,,~
.::; ,~-;,;.:(J
Gemini's orhil s~v,.-ral l111 i1d;-_,J r,1;ks
t,,-ilind Lh,• $p,,,:<;crart. Yet titis c,bj..-.:!
wa~ in .i diftc'<cnt di:c·<.:tinn ;i ,1d
1•. a.,
nt\l('h l;)O do•;C. It ','/a_; :I lir O'.
Dt)spilc these, objc.::tio.1.,. NOR ..\D
wJ,; right i;:ir the wro11g re:1.,cns. T ;:l'
object w,:s indeed
P1:otor.-3, Hen
tJ1ot,6h
tlt•J
Aeri:tl
Phe,:om,mo:':
Research Organizatiur, (APRO) and it~
research directo,·, Dr. James Harder, has
made much of the cfocrepa,:cy and
consid1m this the h\?st Gemini l=FO
ever seen. c~(:_ plttf-5 11~1g~1q >1.'3,~\f')
Few researchers hJ\"P. noticed. a;1d
none had recogniz,,d the significacce
of the fact, that the Proton-3 sateIiite
was only hours away from burning up
in
the atmosphere.
As its orbit
decayed toward a fiery doom, it
circled Earth fastPr and faster, run-r.ing
ahead of the schedule predicted by
NORAD.
The simple truth, oft2n ig11ored or
distorted by many writers, is that
NORAD does not "track e\'erything in
space" like the rada:.- screens of sor.1e
air traffic control center. Inste:!d,
objects which pass through tha beatt15
of a handful of worldwide radar sit<'s
(at a range of a thousand miles or Jess)
are observed and catalogued, a:id their
orbits are calculated. These calcyla­
tions are then projected for'.'.'ard in
time (the mathematical term is ··extra­
polated") to plot where the spacecr:11t
should be if its orbit hasn't been
changed.
Gemini's orbit had been changed by
a rendezvous rocket firing. Proton's
orbit was changed by its decay. I
ordered microfilm copies of the la.;t
few NORAD predictions from the
Tracking Reports Section at the NASA
Goc!dard Space Center in Greenbelt,
M;u-yland, and as soon as I read them l
knew the answer.
The predictions were off by Se\·eral
hundred miles per da~: ! Each new
projection made a correction to the
previous one. Using a combination of
these figures, a new dtitude difference
between Gemini and Proton could
easily be compul.:?d. It 11·:is entirdy
close enough to coincide with th.­
astron:.iuts' sighting.
Furthermore, th.i astronaut~ r.ad
made a visual :.is ·,1·1.'ll ;i~ a i:;hoto5rJ,1hic
record. Their
t• y c11 i1,·,.:-.;s lestin:,>ny
dcscrib.:s a sat,)lliw that looks [;;.e
Proton-3 look.-d. a.-; shown by exhibit.;
in Rus.,iail muse11111:;: a stubbv cyli.itkr