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New Mexico observatory closure stemmed from FBI child porn probe
- bcheung 8y agoAnd here I was thinking it was aliens.
- cannonedhamster 8y agoThat's strangely pedestrian, though if you didn't know who was the suspect, I suppose closing down the entire place is the best course of action to prevent tampering.
- vondur 8y agoWeren't people reporting that they were seeing BlackHawk helicopters around the installation. Seems awfully overkill for a child porn probe.
- rootusrootus 8y agoPeople make terrible witnesses. If they did see a helicopter, it was probably a news copter and not a Blackhawk.
- partiallypro 8y agoIt's really close to a US Air force base...it's entirely possible the helicopters were just coincidence. That being said, I had sort of leaned toward it being a case of espionage that had been busted...so, this -could- be a cover story. I don't know why they'd lie about it though, unless it involved an ally. I think the stranger parts were that they shut down surrounding areas/homes and even the local post office. That still to me makes no sense with just a child porn ring.
- sigacts 8y agoThe FBI shut down the entire site, which is made up of several buildings. There was a small post office in one of those buildings.
- reaperducer 8y agoWeren't people reporting that they were seeing BlackHawk helicopters around the installation. A lot of military aircraft were relocated around the country because of the hurricane. Plus, the average person couldn’t tell a Blackhawk helicopter from a Blackhawk hockey player.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoYou are exaggerating, but, yeah, most civilians don't know the difference between a Bradley fighting vehicle and a tank. When I was a kid, my cousin and I would lay in the grass in the front yard and watch the house across the street and basically spin the slightest shadow or bit of wind or what not into some tall tale for entertainment, being very serious and like we were actually onto some X Files style mystery and had the detective skills of Sherlock Holmes.
- psergeant 8y ago> yeah, most civilians don't know the difference between a Bradley fighting vehicle and a tank Most ancient Jews couldn’t have told you the difference between whales and fish, either. Some distinctions just don’t matter most of the time: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-mad...
- DoreenMichele 8y agoThat's true. And irrelevant. The point is that we have statements that may not be reliable.
- samstave 8y agoto be fair, helicopter tails and hockey sticks are awfully similar in shape...
- closeparen 8y agoIsn’t the site pretty remote? Maybe it’s just an expedient method for traveling there.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoI want to say it’s a 15 minute drive from Alamogordo.
- mythrwy 8y agoIt's around 15 miles but up a windy mountain. More like a 40 minute drive.
- ObsoleteNerd 8y agoPeople keep saying it could be coincidence because of the nearby military base, but the Sheriff himself was the one quoted, and you'd assume he'd know the difference between a random Blackhawk flying nearby because of the base, and one actually coming to the town? > "There was a Black Hawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything," Sheriff House explained Not to mention, ELEVEN days because of a laptop seeding child porn? I'm usually the first to assume the non-conspiracy option, but this doesn't even come close to passing the sniff test.
- stjohnswarts 8y agoYep 11 days to get a janitor -- definitely a "Roswell" incident here ;)
- ObsoleteNerd 8y agoIt only took 11 days for the aliens to realise we weren't worth their time and leave.
- mtgx 8y agoOkay, but what's the real reason?
- furgooswft13 8y agoAliens downloading child porn.
- int_19h 8y agoMaybe it was aliens uploading child porn. To frame people who were trying to expose them. ~
- rurban 8y agoI can only imagine it has to do something with building activities over there, because the Google maps pictures have been edited to use only old 2013 pictures, and all the new ones in that frame have been edited with clouds over them, but all neighboring frames are not cloudy. so there was certainly something going visible per satellite.
- seibelj 8y agoI’m sure this is what it is. But... if it actually was aliens, this will certainly make people totally dismissive!
- stjohnswarts 8y agoDefinitely aliens, this is a cover up
- yellowapple 8y agoMaybe the janitor was the alien?
- danielvf 8y agoAnyone have a link to the unsealed documents?
- stjohnswarts 8y agoAlex Jones is on it!
- danielvf 8y ago"In August, they began speaking to the chief observer at Sunspot, who said he found a laptop running in several empty offices over the last few months. He told the feds what he found on the desktop was "not good," and that it appeared to be child porn. The search warrant states the feds then monitored all the IP addresses and found the exact time child porn was being sent out. It matched only one employee: a janitor. Once that janitor realized his computer was no longer there, the director says he "feverishly started looking through the facility," started making comments about "lax security at the facility," said it was "only a matter of time before the facility got hit, and he "believed there was a serial killer in the area" and that killer might enter the facility and execute someone. The director says that's when he became concerned for his personal safety, and along with the agencies that operate the facility decided to evaluate it and shut it down. "
- gammateam 8y ago"but the whole facility? .... for 11 days?" - future Congressional House Budget Committee hearing
- King-Aaron 8y agoMaybe they were under the impression that he could have left an explosive device in or around the facility - going by the above comments - and closing the facility for that time was required until they were 100% sure that no device existed? One explanation I suppose.
- Janeman544 8y agoSomething about this story does not add up. In the director's perspective the janitor should have been the problem and he could have called local police. Why FBI ? Also if one janitor in our office acts weird are we going to send everyone home for 2 weeks ?