Jer WarrenAug 1, 2023
CosmicRami

A real fascinating story of how an 81-year-old former Air Force chap had come forward to announce he saw pulsars well before they were discovered but could not talk about it for half a century until the military instruments he observed them with were decommissioned and de-classified.

In a nutshell, he was using radar for a Ballistic Missile early warning system and noticed a pulsating signal showing up in his data, which was rising 4 mins earlier each day. He asked astronomers after writing down the location, and it was the Crab Pulsar!

The woman who discovered pulsars, Dame Prof. Jocelyn Bell Burnell - agreed with his discoveries.

https://www.nature.com/articles/448974a

Sent this to our team's slack channel overnight, and my supervisor told me he and another one of our team's astronomers were the folks that the Air Force chap got in touch with!

Small world, and a nice Aussie connection!

https://pubs.aip.org/aip/acp/article-abstract/983/1/642/620966/An-Independent-1967-Discovery-of-Pulsars?redirectedFrom=PDF

#Astrodon #RadioAstronomy #Pulsars #Defence #Science

Air force had early warning of pulsars - Nature

Staff sergeant spotted neutron star before astronomers.

Nature
Jul 31, 2023 at 9:17pmWeb
Show threadCloakerJul 31, 2023
@CosmicRami interesting! I wonder if we will think the same of different UAP and the air force officers who have seen them; which may be explained this century.
Show threadLuis VillaJul 31, 2023
@CosmicRami nifty story, thanks for sharing.
Show threadsparseMatrix 📻Jul 31, 2023

@CosmicRami

This story makes my day :)

Show threadAlex RobertsAug 1, 2023
@CosmicRami I would love it if our abc.net.au/news would get on board too #ABCnetAU
Show threadRegressionToTheMemeAug 1, 2023
@CosmicRami This is why agencies like the NRO have almost no staff, and yet a budget bigger than the FBI and CIA - you're trying to recruit the most brilliant minds in a university, and get them to agree to throw their science career away. That takes a lot of zeroes on a paycheck.
Show threadMartin Piper (he/him) 💙💛🌻💉Aug 1, 2023
@TeeCeeGee @CosmicRami they do use tens of thousands of defense contractors though. :)
Show threadRegressionToTheMemeAug 1, 2023
@martin_piper @CosmicRami They do splash a lot of cash around. 😄
Show threadsortiusAug 1, 2023
@CosmicRami that's pretty cool. He's a military person through and through, though. Wants no credit, just people to know
Show threadSam HallAug 1, 2023
@CosmicRami See also the rumours that cold war navies knew where the Titanic wreck was well before it was discovered in 1985