Quote from: whitelancer64 on 02/22/2016 02:56 pm which would explain its prolonged period of classification. How about apathy as a reason for the long period. Static condition for most classified information in the past is to remain classified. Declassification is a proactive task. Somebody has to actively find the record and then work the declassification review, which take resources (time, money, personnel, etc). Keeping something in a safe, once it is in a safe, doesn't take much resources.
which would explain its prolonged period of classification.
[snip]As to whitelancer's contention that the tapes were classified because possible military applications to jamming of radio signals, that is hard to believe IMO. The radios were more or less ordinary VHF radios, albeit they were space-rated: certainly attempts by the Soviets to jam Apollo radio signals could be ruled out since the Apollo spacecraft was on the Far Side of the Moon. They were not encrypted AFAIK. And anyways, the radios were working perfectly; contact with Earth was reestablished the second they were within line-of-sight with the Earth. Therefore, it appears IMHO that the initial decision to classify the tapes is because they weren't sure that the origin of the "outer spacey music" was NOT of alien origin. The lore that has been handed down is that even as early the as Apollo 11, the "music" was explained away as an onboard electronic noise; and thus, as Jim suggests, the classification would have continued through mere bureaucratic inertia. The interesting point remains: that the emergence of these "outer spacey" tapes is evidence that NASA attempted to coverup evidence of intelligent ETs visiting our Solar System. The latter evidence was totally spurious of course, and hence it was declassified once someone took the proactive steps to get it declassified. But the fact that the "music" proved to be spurious is beside the point: the point being that evidently NASA took the recommendations of the old Brookings Institute's report to heart: namely that it might be better to withhold such information from the public, given the hysterical reaction demonstrated during Orson Welles radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds.Which entails that if NASA ever did have non-spurious evidence of aliens--THEY WOULDN'T TELL US!So when NASA assures us there is no evidence for aliens in this solar system, that is most likely very well to be the case, but we cannot believe it to be true on the basis of NASA's moral authority, as they have now proven that they would keep secret any such evidence. It makes one wonder. We've got a 91-one year old ex-president and former head of the CIA saying "Americans can't handle the truth". Either the guy's still sharp as a tack, retaining a sly, sarcastic sense of humor, or else he's completely senile, or ____________. Then there's the current President. Maybe he knows something we don't when cancelled the Constellation program, in favor of a goal that's perpetually 30 years in the future. Perfectly good Saturn V's mothballed... Trust me, I don't want to believe....
... NASA to investigate alien archeology sites on the moon ...
Somebody has to actively find the record and then work the declassification review, which take resources
Quote from: Proponent on 02/22/2016 08:57 amQuote from: Warren Platts on 02/22/2016 03:56 amWhat is interesting to me is that it was classified until 2008--nearly 40 years. This tells me that they weren't 100% sure it was not aliens.Maybe it's just that NASA was 100% sure that releasing the tapes would generate a lot of nonsense about aliens that it did not want to deal with.Respectfully disagree. Avoidance of nonsense is not a justification for classification. You call it nonsense now--but that is with the benefit of 50 years of hindsight. E.g., after the first few missions to the Moon, the astronauts were kept in quarantine in modified airstream trailers for like three weeks--much longer than the actual mission. We look back on that now and think about how paranoidally crazy that was, but at the time it was considered a legitimate safety precaution. <SNIP>But the question remains: If they were not sure that the "music" was not of alien origin, then why classify it? 40 years of classification goes beyond ordinary data embargoes that last until the scientists get their story straight. The only answer is that there must be a US government policy that extended to NASA, that in the words of the immortal George H. W. Bush, that "Americans can't handle truth" when it comes to the possible existence of intelligent extraterrestrial aliens...
Quote from: Warren Platts on 02/22/2016 03:56 amWhat is interesting to me is that it was classified until 2008--nearly 40 years. This tells me that they weren't 100% sure it was not aliens.Maybe it's just that NASA was 100% sure that releasing the tapes would generate a lot of nonsense about aliens that it did not want to deal with.
What is interesting to me is that it was classified until 2008--nearly 40 years. This tells me that they weren't 100% sure it was not aliens.
Quote... NASA to investigate alien archeology sites on the moon ...Are you serious? No one can investigate something that doesn't exist.
Quote from: A8-3 on 02/22/2016 07:17 pmQuote... NASA to investigate alien archeology sites on the moon ...Are you serious? No one can investigate something that doesn't exist.Serious. The moon exists. The only way to get the public interested in space exploration again is to look at interesting features near the Earth. The presence of microbes on Mars has never been proven, but there are are many instruments being sent to Mars to look for microbes. So why not look for alien archeology on the moon? The public would eat it up. Most of the materials that comprise our solar system are strongly believed to be 4.6+ billion years old. What if one finds something on the moon that was much much older? If the theory goes that life on Earth started from comets or asteroids impacting Earth, there ought to be some clues on the moon to differentiate that theory as fact or myth. But I'm with you... I say life generating asteroids it's a fraudulent myth.
The moon exists.
Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, and cultural landscapes.
If the theory goes that life on Earth started from comets or asteroids impacting Earth, there ought to be some clues on the moon to differentiate that theory as fact or myth.
Quote from: A8-3 on 02/22/2016 07:17 pmQuote... NASA to investigate alien archeology sites on the moon ...Are you serious? No one can investigate something that doesn't exist.Actually, I don't think that there's enough evidence one way or another yet.
Probably it was the result of a couple of factors IMO: the gain on the radio receivers would have automatically cranked up, and thus picked up electronic interference from the other equipment in the spacecraft. Computers in those days were known to project radio emissions that could be picked up by radios. Here is a video of an old DEC computer generating interference that is picked up by a transistor AM radio:
believing whatever you want