Bill Scott black projects blog

Desert Dawn said:
.... I am now pretty much sure the photo the guy sent me was one of these two, nothing to do with HGV.
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Interesting, 'the guy' posted under the name 'wolfbane'?
 
mr_london_247 said:
Desert Dawn said:
....Confirms a lot of things i already had learned....
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Back to the future?? ;):

http://spacefellowship.com/Forum/post-20270.html
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Ok, I've read through the posted thread.... Still not "getting" the reference... Inside joke I'm missing?

Randy
 
And there was me thinking the 'Blackstar' story was dead and buried by Dwayne Day, No?? ;)

The Truth is Out There - A veteran reporter describes his search for the aircraft of Area 51. By William B. Scott
Air & Space Magazine, September 01, 2010
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http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/The-Truth-is-Out-There.html?c=y&page=1

The article being dated in the future just adds to the mystique I suppose! ;D

.... who said book promotion?
 
Doesn't it simply tell that he didnt get corporate clearance to publish them?
 
While I agree someone says "I have proof" and then fails to reveal the evidence strike me as "curious". However, that said could there be "National Secrets Act" type illegality for him to show the evidence?
 
blackstar said:
Nope. Doesn't work that way in the United States. The United States does not have an "Official Secrets Act" like they have in the UK, for instance.
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Correct. In the US, if you have a security clearance and a job that involves dealing with classified information, you can get in *serious* trouble if you release the information under your control. However, if you are a journalist and somebody gives you secret info, there's not a law in the country that can be used against you if you re-publish. Look back a few years ago to when Robert Novak published that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked with the CIA and was in a position to get him cushy gigs... Novak got the information from career bureaucrat Richard Armitage. While the press and prosecutors were going bonkers trying to find some Republican political operative to blame the info-leak on, Robert Novak was left out of the Five Minutes Of Hate because he had broken no laws. Journalists can publish the Pentagon Papers, ninty thousand reports from Afghanistan, the blueprints for the Apollo landing sets in Area 51, detailed design specs for Fat Man, NORAD war plans, Bill Clinton's detailed medical records, Obama's school records, Dick Cheneys Sith Academy records or any other secret information The Government Doesn't Want You To Know. The only time you get in legal trouble for this sort of thing is when you have signed over your rights... typically in a non-disclosure form.
 
Right. So the Wiki leaks guy doesn't really need to hide then? And the fake rape charges out of nowhere aren't the CIA spooks trying to get him?
 
sublight said:
Right. So the Wiki leaks guy doesn't really need to hide then? And the fake rape charges out of nowhere aren't the CIA spooks trying to get him?
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I invite you to re-read what I and Dwayne wrote, and see if you can find anywhere where either of us said "being in the legal clear is proof against Administration dirty tricks if you do something to embarass the current leadership."

It's not illegal to re-publish US military secrets if you were not officially entrusted with 'em in the first place (especially if you're not even a US citizen). Of course, it's also not illegal to walk through Central Park at night wearing a three-piece suit sewn together out of $100 dollar bills, or to hold a White Pride gathering in Compton, or to build a mosque in a building trashed by Islamic terrorists or to sell Whaleburgers at a PETA convention. All perfectly legal. How *wise* they are is another matter.

If you promise to reveal military secrets that will endanger US troops, you can expect to have some opposition. But revealing photos of a decades-old failed spaceplane? Unless the CIA and Jack O'Neill are secretly out there fighting the Space Commies, I have a hard time imagining that the dirty tricks department is really going to get in a twist.
 
There has to be an element of fear, regardless of first amendment rights. If everyone was so free to publish without fear of reprisals then I don't think we'd have a wikileaks out there now would we? And if people weren't so frightened, you'd certainly see a pretty special platform or two break cover on these here forums first.... So while Bill Scott could technically be in the clear with the courts, does he really have no fear(s)?
 
sublight said:
So while Bill Scott could technically be in the clear with the courts, does he really have no fear(s)?
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If he is frightened, why does he talk about it at all? (especially to say he has classified info) Doesn't that just attract attention ...
 
sublight said:
So while Bill Scott could technically be in the clear with the courts, does he really have no fear(s)?
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I can't see why he would. What happened to the Av Week folks who flew over the B-2 unveiling ceremony? What happened to the Area 51 watchers who got early photos of the F-117?

What incentive would there be for the USAF to ham-handedly try to shut a well-known reporter up about a decades-old program that's not in service?
 
Orionblamblam said:
... What happened to the Area 51 watchers who got early photos of the F-117?
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Exactly. Who are these people, and where is the photo? You'd think the name and the photo would be floating around the internet, but it isn't. If it isn't fear that's keeping them anonymous, then what is it?
 
sublight said:
Orionblamblam said:
... What happened to the Area 51 watchers who got early photos of the F-117?
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Exactly. Who are these people, and where is the photo?
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It was published for all the world to see in Av Week.

What, did you think it was dark and mysterious? Nope.

Reason why it's not all over the internet? Because as photos go, it sucked.
 
saintkatanalegacy said:
errm... thread derailed?
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No, not entirely. Still discussing the topics raised on Bill Scott's blog... and the reasons for the lack of followthrough.

Here's *my* excuse for similar lack of blogarific followthrough: I'm lazy and scatterbrained.

Trust me, if I had photos that I trusted showing a manend spaceplane that the US actually buiult and flew into space... either I'd say not a damned thing, or I'd post the damned things (or put 'em in the next issue of APOR and make you buy 'em). "I have a secret, and it's awesome, but I'm not going to tell you" irritates me to no end.
 
Orionblamblam said:
"I have a secret, and it's awesome, but I'm not going to tell you" irritates me to no end.
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Personal experience? ;D

Sorry, just a joke. Although as the quiet bird illustrated, we sometimes wonder what secrets the senior members hold
 
blackstar said:
.....As for me killing the Blackstar story, I'd never claim that....
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OK, so 50/50 with Jeff Bell then (http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Blackstar_A_False_Messiah_From_Groom_Lake.html), who's counting!

Thing with the Blackstar story is it sounds plausible to the uninitiated, which is why it just refuses to die: and I don't mean that as a slight against those posting in favour of Bill Scott - I really don't. I'm referring instead to those who may have a passing interest in such things and come across the story anew, and it fits in with what they imagine might go on at a place like Groom. So Bill Scott is able to rehash the story afresh and carry on regardless [and he does have a book coming out].

It's just that, even in lieu of a photograph, the fact is no old time engineer (nor anyone else for that matter), who wouldn't have to worry about security anymore ever came forward to say they worked on the program. They didn't pump the gas and kick the tyres on it at Groom, participate in Orbiter recoveries, and they don't think it's time to support Bill Scott on it. This would have been a big deal after all. No one has come forward seperate from the original story, nada.

Not one single person.
 
I have to admit that I, too, fell victim to the "It's in Aviation Week so it must be true" syndrom.

Back in 1989, when I first subscribed to AW&ST, I had to give credentials as an aviation professional to be able to subscribe (I was a language instructor in the Armée de l'Air then, so it wasn't too difficult). The magazine was not readily available to the general public then perhaps only a European situation, I don't know). For that reason alone, the impression stuck that if the mag was selective enough to be reserved to the pros of aviation and the military, it MUST be accurate and verify all its sources beforehand.

AW&ST revealed the F-117, the B-2 and some more stuff in that period of time, so when the story of the so called "SR-75" came out, I never questioned it. When Blackstar came out, 10 years on, I was no longer a subscriber, but by then the mag was readily available at selected bookstores. I grabbed myself a copy, and I went for the story for exactly the same reasons. Apparently the integrity of AW&ST has grown extremely questionable, and is like that of too many journalists nowadays: subject to a lot of wariness.
 
Stargazer2006 said:
I have to admit that I, too, fell victim to the "It's in Aviation Week so it must be true" syndrome.

SNIP

Apparently the integrity of AW&ST has grown extremely questionable, and is like that of too many journalists nowadays: subject to a lot of wariness.
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Actually, it has had weak periods and strong periods. And if you're an expert in certain areas, you can see if they are really good in your area. I don't work in commercial aviation or airlines, so I don't know how good their coverage is. It is possible that there are some really obscure publications out there that cover commercial aviation and airlines better than AWST (a friend of mine actually writes for an air cargo newsletter that probably follows that subject much better than AWST). Or maybe AWST is the world leader on that specific subject. I just don't know. I do know that in the area of classified military space programs, they haven't been all that good for at least 20 years. As somebody who knows this subject pretty well pointed out, he has not seen them reveal a codeword for a secret satellite in at least a decade or more.

Over many decades, Aviation Week has occasionally published some really dubious stories. As I pointed out in my article, back in 1958 Aviation Week ran an article about a top secret nuclear powered bomber that the Soviet Union was operating. Turns out the story was totally fictitious. They've run a few other things that were very sketchy, like the hypersonic nuclear bomber (I think that was the pumpkin seed one).

But... here's the thing. When I was paying close attention to the Blackstar story, I decided to search through old Aviation Weeks (I can access it through the Lexis/Nexus database) from the early 1980s. What I found was pretty interesting. They actually had pretty good information about the stealth fighter in the early 1980s. I found 2-3 articles that referred to the aircraft in rather general terms. From a careful reading, it was clear that somebody who knew about the aircraft was giving AWST information on it. This included stuff like the fact that they had built prototypes and that one had crashed, etc. What was also clear was that whoever was giving the AWST reporter information on the F-117 was very careful not to reveal anything about the technology itself. Nothing about the faceted shape of the aircraft or how totally weird it looked.

It was a really interesting example when held up to the Blackstar story. The differences were a little hard to see, but they were there. In the case of the stealth story, even though the source was anonymous, it was clear that the source had first-hand knowledge. And there were specific details. There was minimal speculation by the reporter.

I'll have to see if I can find that article and post it here.
 
blackstar said:
...What you NEED is more solid insider evidence, like somebody who worked on it, or put fuel in it, or was involved in the planning and operations....
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Absolutely.

blackstar said:
...claims that the submarine USS Scorpion was sunk by a Soviet submarine in 1968...
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It really can't be overstated that the submarine service was THE silent service, and that the Cold War was at its Hottest undersea. I've read at least one of those books and the speculation centres on the search for the Scorpion allegedly starting early in secret, and the anecdotes of those who either claim to have heard or seen SOSUS transcripts. Of course such a thing never reaches the public domain, so all we have are the anecdotes from former military service members. There was a Soviet loss fairly close before or after which has to be taken into account too. At the time of course the revelation of a sub being blasted to the bottom with the loss of all hands could have tipped the Cold War into 'Hot', more than enough reason to bury it, but certainly not indefinitely. So I'd say the quality of witness statement quoted in the Blackstar story is certainly worse. (In fact if the Blackstar story had an anecdote by a named former military member of another military member assisting with 'XOV' recoveries for example I'd like it a lot better..).

But of course the general point on the quality of a source with respect to a story is correct.

Stargazer2006 said:
.... The magazine was not readily available to the general public (then perhaps only a European situation, I don't know). For that reason alone, the impression stuck that if the mag was selective enough to be reserved to the pros of aviation and the military, it MUST be accurate and verify all its sources beforehand....
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This is fair enough, I used to think the same wrt 'Aviation Leak' and all that, so I'd say this was certainly a European perspective of the time.
 
blackstar said:
... What you NEED is more solid insider evidence, like somebody who worked on it, or put fuel in it, or was involved in the planning and operations.
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I just spoke to a buddy at length. He told me that people involved in black projects over the last 30 years would have signed a maze of NDA's, some with expiration dates some without. The contractors aren't given copies of the NDA so they have no idea what they are entitled to talk about and what they aren't.

It's a shame there isn't a legal precedent for an 'expiration period' or more people would come forward with their stories...
 
Oh, one more thing. Its a common tactic among the press to deliberately get the facts wrong in order to fuel ones ego into a correctional response. I'm not saying all AWST stories use that ploy, but certainly a few could have....
 
SOC said:
Awesome link for one reason: I had no idea there was a sequel to Space Wars! I enjoyed the hell out of that book.
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I saw that too. Going to buy "Counter-Space" now.
 
mr_london_247 said:
blackstar said:
...claims that the submarine USS Scorpion was sunk by a Soviet submarine in 1968...
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It really can't be overstated that the submarine service was THE silent service, and that the Cold War was at its Hottest undersea. I've read at least one of those books and the speculation centres on the search for the Scorpion allegedly starting early in secret, and the anecdotes of those who either claim to have heard or seen SOSUS transcripts. Of course such a thing never reaches the public domain, so all we have are the anecdotes from former military service members. There was a Soviet loss fairly close before or after which has to be taken into account too. At the time of course the revelation of a sub being blasted to the bottom with the loss of all hands could have tipped the Cold War into 'Hot', more than enough reason to bury it, but certainly not indefinitely. So I'd say the quality of witness statement quoted in the Blackstar story is certainly worse. (In fact if the Blackstar story had an anecdote by a named former military member of another military member assisting with 'XOV' recoveries for example I'd like it a lot better..).

But of course the general point on the quality of a source with respect to a story is correct.
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K-129, Golf-II class Soviet "Boomer": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)
USS Scorpion, (SSN-589) "Skipjack-class" SSN: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_(SSN-589)

The Book(s) are "Red Star Rogue", and "All Hands Down" The K-129 went down @8 March, 1968, the Scorion went down on or about 22 May, 1968

There is, (as will be noted even in the wikipedia articles) a LOT of still unaswered questions over these two boats, what happened to them, and why.

Randy
 
There is also a book titled Scorpion Down by Ed Offley that claims that USS Scorpion was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine.

To quote Professor Marcello Truzzi "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."

Bill Scott's black projects blog should be considered conjecture and not fact.
 
mr_london_247 said:
And there was me thinking the 'Blackstar' story was dead and buried by Dwayne Day, No?? ;)

The Truth is Out There - A veteran reporter describes his search for the aircraft of Area 51. By William B. Scott
Air & Space Magazine, September 01, 2010
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http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/The-Truth-is-Out-There.html?c=y&page=1

The article being dated in the future just adds to the mystique I suppose! ;D

.... who said book promotion?
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Probably his most balanced and non-science-fictionny article so far. He kept to relatively safe stuff only, but this is all stuff that we have heard about since years (and most of which unconfirmed from other sources, so...). The only real new find her presents is the Dripper. Now that's something new, but not really surprising if you are doing some research or are reading this website regularly, based on the AJAX Russian concept, there has been USAF AFRL research (in wind tunnel models) to reproduce the AJAX concept, i guess it comes as no surprise that NASA or USAF or both would have tested a small, unmanned or possibly manned concept demonstrator to study this, though i would expect it to have no more performance than say the Bird of Prey. Most likely a small subsonic proof-of-concept study prototype.

However i am quite surprised that there is not a word on the North Sea sighting, Macrihanish or the Boscombe Down crash, all of which are very well known (unless the British reporters invented everything froms scratch.. which i doubt).
 
Now i wonder why no one ever mentionned nor wrote and article about the spectacular crash fire at Groom Lake atop that mountain a few years ago which was photographed at the Dreamland Resort forum.

The USAF tried to pass the thing as a crashed B-52, but i am sure people can easily verify that no B-52 was lost on that day, and to have something that BIG burn for such a long period of time (the next day it was still burning...). Picture of the event looked almost like an erupting volcano...

I don't know but i am thinking about something large possibly made of composites... What could burn for that long anyway.
 
Desert Dawn said:
The USAF tried to pass the thing as a crashed B-52,
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Actually, a B-52 fuel tank.
 
Desert Dawn said:
And your source is ?
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http://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/crash_a51.html

I have an email from a public affairs officer at Nellis to that effect as well, though it is on a computer that no longer starts up.
 
The broken telephone effect in action. This is how rumors start...
 
I wondered why he abandoned the blog. Apparently his son was killed right about the time he stopped blogging....

http://www.erikbscott.com/
 
sublight said:
I wondered why he abandoned the blog. Apparently his son was killed right about the time he stopped blogging....

http://www.erikbscott.com/
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Yikes. It's a hell of a tale:
http://erikbscottmemorialblog.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html
Short form is that Erik Scott was legally carrying a concealed firearm, someone freaked out for no good reason and called the cops who showed up in overwhelming force, shot him dead, and then shot him a couple times in the back, just to be sure.

This would be an appropriate time for a political rant, but it's the wrong forum. In any event, it's understanable why Bill Scott lost interest in his other blog.
 
The events in the aftermath of the shooting were outrageous as well. I dont think Bill Scott is going to rest until justice has been served.
 
I guess this may be a bit late, but good luck to him and I hope justice is served.
 

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