THE MEN-IN-BLACK are REAL...
By W. Scott Malone
Tales of M-I-B sightings dating back to the 60's and 70's were once legion among computer geeks everywhere, and would become the impudent impetus for the WorldWideWeb's very first, backdoor- viral, "word-of-mouth" ad-campaign for Will Smith's 1997 blockbuster, Men In Black.
With a flick of the viral wrist, M-I-Bs were seemingly transformed overnight went from sinister lurking apparitions to respectably cute Secret Alien Police.
CONTINUES at page bottom below...
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Scott Malone's FRONTLINE investigation of the ROSWELL INCIDENT
US/1; ATTN:
Irregular Warfare Center of ExcellenceThursday, November 8, 2012
NAVAL DRONES Unmanned Naval SystemsThe Next Wave - Swarming Underwater Drones
Experimentation
with large numbers of low cost quadrotors operating in swarms has
produced some interesting results, including potential for future
military applications. Now some researchers in Germany are working to
transition these concepts to the underwater realm, building autonomous
underwater vehicles (AUVs) that behave like fish in a school. A team at
the University of Luebeck's Institute of Computer Engineering has
developed an affordable AUV designed for environmental surveys called MONitoring System and Underwater Navigation Robot (MONSUN) II.
The swarming technology demonstrated by MONSUN vehicles is designed to overcome several of the limiting factors inherent in unmanned underwater vehicles. The most important capability a swarm brings AUVs is redundancy. Rather than relying on a singular, expensive platform, MONSUN uses a number of low-cost, homogenous robots that can alter their role within the swarm. While a portion of the AUVs conduct tasks underwater, the others act as communication relays. If one of these vehicles has a mechanical failure or is lost, the swarm continues to operate.
Another challenge with conventional AUV operation is underwater navigation. Because at least one of the AUVs will always be at the surface, the entire swarm can get an idea of its position relative to the fix from the surfaced vehicle's GPS. Currently, MONSUN uses very short range infrared sensors to maintain the relative position of each vehicle, but eventually, the vehicles will be equipped with acoustic modems capable of communicating with each other out to approximately 50 meters. A second well known UUV issue is limited duration and energy consumption. The MONSUN AUVs are positively buoyant, so the surfaced vehicles can save battery power by turning off their vertical thrusters and cameras. In this manner, the energy load is balanced throughout the swarm, leaving the vehicles underwater to continue their surveys, and extending the mission duration for the entire swarm. The surfaced vehicles can also transmit data collected by the swarm to a ship or other base.
In tank testing, the Luebeck researchers have demonstrated cooperative
vehicle behavior using two of the AUVs (see above video). More complex
swarm algorithms have been examined virtually with the Institute's
Marine Robot Simulator. Future improvements are planned for the
software that integrates the AUVs cooperative behavior and the vehicles
themselves.
This technology is interesting, and has likely scientific uses, but what about naval applications? Force protection hull inspections are a common task for explosive ordnance disposal divers and increasingly ROVs. These dives require a methodical, meter by meter inspection of a ship's underwater surfaces, usually in the dirty, low visibility water of a sea port. A dozen low-cost AUVs may be able to inspect larger numbers of ships in busy ports as they come and go.
The advent of unmanned systems continues to reduce the risk to sailors performing mine countermeasures, but these operations remain extremely time consuming. Large numbers of smaller AUV's operating together in a swarm might enable more rapid localization and identification of sea mines in a given area, allowing higher end, specialized UUVs to positively identify and neutralize them.
In the future, the ability of AUV swarms to dwell quietly, execute a coordinated hunt, and mass for an attack may enable some interesting offensive capabilities. One tactic might involve air dropping a group of AUVs into a choke point before an enemy ship transits. Like current generations of smart mines, the AUVs could listen silently and discriminate between targets and neutral shipping based on acoustic or other signatures. Unlike mines however, the AUVs would move to thwart detection and mass to envelop a ship with small shaped charges.
Similarly, in an anti-submarine warfare role, underwater drone swarms could operate as a mobile sonobuoy fields, repositioning through various acoustic layers in response to the movement of a target sub, and relaying their tracking data to air platforms to prosecute the submarines.
Sooner or later, much as UAV technology has become accessible to the masses, so will cheaper AUVs. The resulting technical and tactical experimentation will be interesting to watch.
MONSUN
II is a 4 kilogram AUV equipped with a series of vertical and
horizontal thrusters to maneuver and maintain orientation. The
vehicle maintains its position relative to other AUVs in the
school using infrared sensors and a nose camera with a form of computer
image recognition called "blob detection."
The swarming technology demonstrated by MONSUN vehicles is designed to overcome several of the limiting factors inherent in unmanned underwater vehicles. The most important capability a swarm brings AUVs is redundancy. Rather than relying on a singular, expensive platform, MONSUN uses a number of low-cost, homogenous robots that can alter their role within the swarm. While a portion of the AUVs conduct tasks underwater, the others act as communication relays. If one of these vehicles has a mechanical failure or is lost, the swarm continues to operate.
Another challenge with conventional AUV operation is underwater navigation. Because at least one of the AUVs will always be at the surface, the entire swarm can get an idea of its position relative to the fix from the surfaced vehicle's GPS. Currently, MONSUN uses very short range infrared sensors to maintain the relative position of each vehicle, but eventually, the vehicles will be equipped with acoustic modems capable of communicating with each other out to approximately 50 meters. A second well known UUV issue is limited duration and energy consumption. The MONSUN AUVs are positively buoyant, so the surfaced vehicles can save battery power by turning off their vertical thrusters and cameras. In this manner, the energy load is balanced throughout the swarm, leaving the vehicles underwater to continue their surveys, and extending the mission duration for the entire swarm. The surfaced vehicles can also transmit data collected by the swarm to a ship or other base.
 |
| Surfaced AUVs acting as relays provide position data to the swarm. |
This technology is interesting, and has likely scientific uses, but what about naval applications? Force protection hull inspections are a common task for explosive ordnance disposal divers and increasingly ROVs. These dives require a methodical, meter by meter inspection of a ship's underwater surfaces, usually in the dirty, low visibility water of a sea port. A dozen low-cost AUVs may be able to inspect larger numbers of ships in busy ports as they come and go.
The advent of unmanned systems continues to reduce the risk to sailors performing mine countermeasures, but these operations remain extremely time consuming. Large numbers of smaller AUV's operating together in a swarm might enable more rapid localization and identification of sea mines in a given area, allowing higher end, specialized UUVs to positively identify and neutralize them.
In the future, the ability of AUV swarms to dwell quietly, execute a coordinated hunt, and mass for an attack may enable some interesting offensive capabilities. One tactic might involve air dropping a group of AUVs into a choke point before an enemy ship transits. Like current generations of smart mines, the AUVs could listen silently and discriminate between targets and neutral shipping based on acoustic or other signatures. Unlike mines however, the AUVs would move to thwart detection and mass to envelop a ship with small shaped charges.
Similarly, in an anti-submarine warfare role, underwater drone swarms could operate as a mobile sonobuoy fields, repositioning through various acoustic layers in response to the movement of a target sub, and relaying their tracking data to air platforms to prosecute the submarines.
Sooner or later, much as UAV technology has become accessible to the masses, so will cheaper AUVs. The resulting technical and tactical experimentation will be interesting to watch.
http://blog.navaldrones.com/2012/11/the-next-wave-swarming-underwater-drones.html
------------------------------------------------------}
Nano Drones, Ethical Algorithms: Inside Israel’s Secret Plan for Its Future Air Force
By Amir Mizroch
Email Author May 11, 2012 | 2:00 pm |
Since mid-2009, some 300 Israel Air Force officers have been brainstorming about the next steps for one of the world’s most advanced air forces, and the main pillar of Israel’s strategic power. This “IAF 2030″ project has just come to an end. Besides a standard press release issued by the military, little has been disclosed about it. Exclusive details are reported here for the first time.
The task of preparing the project was given to Major Nimrod Segev, head of the IAF’s long-term planning department. Segev divided his 300 officers into nine teams: Advanced Information Technology, Vast Data, Space, Cyber, Environment, Intelligence, Human Factor, Organizational Behavior, and a ‘Red Team,’ to challenge the other eight’s assumptions.
The participants were asked to think ahead — far ahead — something that doesn’t come easy in the military culture here, where long-term planning is almost unheard of. What changes would it have to make in weapons systems, platforms, technology, manpower, and organizational behavior to meet potential new threats? What new planes, guidance systems, and technology would they want? Let loose, the officers were told. Don’t worry about the how and the how much; just let your imaginations go. The air force even brought in Israel’s number one dreamer — President Shimon Peres — to fire their imaginations with a pep talk.
The vast majority of the “IAF 2030″ document is classified. The interview with Segev at the IAF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv — nicknamed the “Canary” — was conducted with a security officer present. No questions about the Red Team were answered.
Segev did open about one of the more controversial ideas that came up, however: the notion of “mathematical formulas that solve even the difficult ethical dilemmas in place of human pilots.” The air force has been developing technologies for quite some time now that can divert missiles in midair if all of a sudden a civilian pops up near the target, but often this kind of thing happens too quickly even for the most skilled operators. It’s part of an uneven, decade-long IAF effort to try to bring down collateral damage — a necessity, since the air force fights asymmetric enemies in densely populated areas. But this is something the IAF is keen to develop even more.
The concept of a computer taking over almost all the functions of this kind of thing is very tricky, though; you can’t very well say at a war crimes tribunal that you’re not responsible for unintended deaths, or tell the judge it was all the algorithm’s fault.
Some machines may vanish, too.
In the meantime, some machines may vanish. Many in the IAF 2030 group thought that the future didn’t lie in large, expensive simulators at air force bases, but rather portable simulators you can use almost anywhere. “Virtual training from your office. Strap on a helmet and you’re in the air,” Segev said.
While the last aerial dogfight between Israeli and Arab warplanes took place somewhere in the early ’80s, Segev said that aerial combat was now, and would continue to be, a staple of IAF pilot training. “While we didn’t get to the point of making the human pilot obsolete, we do see that the job of a pilot is vastly different from what it was. These days the air-to-air missile is the ‘dogfight’ – the missile can be launched from a vast distance at an enemy plane. The point is to see the enemy way before he sees you, and for that you need datafighters, not dogfighters,” Segev says.
Segev also told Danger Room that the Space and Intelligence teams found the 100,000 feet layer of the stratosphere “very interesting.” These days, the best warplanes can only fly to somewhere around 50,000 feet, and the best satellites in low orbit can get down to 500,000 feet. That leaves a whole ‘middle layer’ where “you can get really creative,” he adds.
Another off-the-wall idea: farming out complex coding and other technical tasks to a network of six technical high schools run by the IAF across the country. These technical schools already exist. But by 2030 — when today’s infants will be enrolled — these teenagers could be at the core of a revamped Israel Air Force.
CONTINUE Reading Full Story HERE...
[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]
REX 84 Exercises DoD/DHS Emergency Preparedness -- Circa 21 MAY 2012?bLACKhELICOPTERS?-
LIMITED DISSEMINATION
US/[redacted]; SR-6; CO/[redacted]; US/1; ATTN: HST/2
Media buzz as US confirms Russian troops to train on American soil
RT.com [Russian TV] Published: 28 April, 2012, 18:04
The US has confirmed that Russian troops will carry out joint anti-terror drills on American soil in May. Reports of the unprecedented initiative had triggered hysteria in American public debate, with claims of the US fraternizing with “the enemy.”
This is part of a “formal bilateral exchange program between the US and Russia that seeks to develop transparency and promote defense reform,” she wrote.
Around twenty airborne Russian troops with arrive in Fort Carson, Colorado to take part in the training program targeting “terrorists”. It will be the first time Russian soldiers have conducted military training on American territory.
However, the landmark news of the Russian troops’ arrival was not greeted with enthusiasm by everyone. Fear-mongering reports in US media called the exercise “a front” for the Russians to turn US weapons against the Americans and “take and hold Denver airport.”
Citing an erroneous report that it said came from the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, US website theblaze.com claimed just that.
“Russian airborne troops (using US weapons that they had previously trained with at Fort Carson) will fly to and then parachute from their planes having the objectives of seizing the CIA’s main computer facility in Denver, the NSA’s main computer facility in Bluffdale, Utah, and taking control of main runways and terminals of the Denver International Airport,” the publication wrote.
The report goes on to say the exercise is for the “evacuation of the key personnel and equipment previously ‘freed’ from the CIA’s Denver base.”
There is currently no information either in English or in Russian that describes such a drill on the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation website.
It is unclear where these reports originated, as RT verified with Russian Airborne Forces spokesperson Col. Aleksandr Kucherenko that he had said nothing pertaining to the capture of Denver airport.
RT reported on the story on Wednesday, citing Kucherenko who announced that “Airborne troops from Russia and the United States will hold joint anti-terror drills in the US state of Colorado between May 24 and 31.”
Besides the military drills, the Russian soldiers are expected to get a taste of local life at a baseball game in Colorado Springs.
Foreign troops operating and training in the United States have been a continuous bone of contention in American public debate.
Paul Watson, writing for prisonplanet.com says that their presence touches upon latent fears of “global UN peacekeeping troops being used to quell unrest inside America.”
Drills involving outside troops also raise worries that the US would have to “rely on foreign mercenaries to restore order, confiscate weapons or even incarcerate citizens during a national emergency, because of the likelihood that Americans would refuse to carry out such orders against other Americans,” Watson writes.
[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]
OPEN SOURCE
BlackFIVE.net; US/1; ATTN: HST/1; HST/2; NSW/1
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Military's Secret 'Space Plane' Mission Extended Indefinitely: Very few people know the purpose behind the Air Force's X-37B, even while it continues to orbit close to a Chinese space lab.
U.S. News & World Report
March 26, 2012
Very few people know the purpose behind the Air Force's X-37B, even while it continues to orbit close to a Chinese space lab.
The military's mysterious, experimental unmanned space plane is doing such a good job that its mission has been extended indefinitely--if only anyone knew what its mission was.
The military's mysterious, experimental unmanned space plane is doing such a good job that its mission has been extended indefinitely--if only anyone knew what its mission was.
Details on the mission involving the X-37B are virtually nonexistent. The official U.S. Air Force fact sheet says the vehicle is being used as an "experimental test program to demonstrate technologies for a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform for the U.S. Air Force."
[Spectacular Snapshots of Space]
In November, the Air Force announced that the X-37B's mission was being extended beyond its planned 270 days. At a breakfast with reporters Thursday, General William Shelton, head of the Air Force Space Command, said the mission, whatever it is, has been extended indefinitely.
"We don't have an exact re-entry date for it, but we've had a successful mission and we're very happy with its performance," he said. "That vehicle is performing a great service."
Asked to give adjectives for the X-37B, he offered up "spectacular," and "game-changing."
In January, Spaceflight magazine reported that the vehicle is closely following the orbit of China's spacelab, Tiangong-1, leading the magazine to suspect that the X-37B is spying on that satellite.
"Space-to-space surveillance is a whole new ball game made possible by a finessed group of sensors and sensor suites, which we think the X-37B may be using to maintain a close watch on China's nascent space station," Spaceflight editor David Baker told the BBC in January. China is expected to send manned missions to Tiangong-1 later this year.
[Solar Flares Likely Knocked Military Satellites Offline]
Other experts have refuted Baker's claims, speculating that the X-37B could be used to covertly deploy smaller satellites, while conspiracy theorists have wondered if the X-37B could deliver weapons from space.
Here's what is known about the X-37B: The 29-foot ship was built in a Huntington Beach, Calif., lab by Boeing. It looks like a miniature, solar-powered version of a space shuttle, and it's the second "orbital test vehicle" the military has launched into space--the first was launched in 2010. The Air Force calls it the "newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft," and it has the ability to land autonomously. Technologies being tested "include advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature structures and seals, conformal reusable insulation, lightweight electromechanical flight systems, and autonomous orbital flight, reentry and landing."
Beyond that, the X-37B has been shrouded in secrecy--from its mission to its budget. Thursday, Shelton repeatedly dodged questions about what the military is up to with the ship.
"I think there's a good reason to keep [the budget of the X-37B] as quiet as we possibly can," he said. "If you reveal budgets, you sometimes reveal the capabilities, the amount of technology inserted into a program. It's a good, strategic national security decision."
[Spectacular Snapshots of Space]
In November, the Air Force announced that the X-37B's mission was being extended beyond its planned 270 days. At a breakfast with reporters Thursday, General William Shelton, head of the Air Force Space Command, said the mission, whatever it is, has been extended indefinitely.
"We don't have an exact re-entry date for it, but we've had a successful mission and we're very happy with its performance," he said. "That vehicle is performing a great service."
Asked to give adjectives for the X-37B, he offered up "spectacular," and "game-changing."
In January, Spaceflight magazine reported that the vehicle is closely following the orbit of China's spacelab, Tiangong-1, leading the magazine to suspect that the X-37B is spying on that satellite.
"Space-to-space surveillance is a whole new ball game made possible by a finessed group of sensors and sensor suites, which we think the X-37B may be using to maintain a close watch on China's nascent space station," Spaceflight editor David Baker told the BBC in January. China is expected to send manned missions to Tiangong-1 later this year.
[Solar Flares Likely Knocked Military Satellites Offline]
Other experts have refuted Baker's claims, speculating that the X-37B could be used to covertly deploy smaller satellites, while conspiracy theorists have wondered if the X-37B could deliver weapons from space.
Here's what is known about the X-37B: The 29-foot ship was built in a Huntington Beach, Calif., lab by Boeing. It looks like a miniature, solar-powered version of a space shuttle, and it's the second "orbital test vehicle" the military has launched into space--the first was launched in 2010. The Air Force calls it the "newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft," and it has the ability to land autonomously. Technologies being tested "include advanced guidance, navigation and control, thermal protection systems, avionics, high temperature structures and seals, conformal reusable insulation, lightweight electromechanical flight systems, and autonomous orbital flight, reentry and landing."
Beyond that, the X-37B has been shrouded in secrecy--from its mission to its budget. Thursday, Shelton repeatedly dodged questions about what the military is up to with the ship.
"I think there's a good reason to keep [the budget of the X-37B] as quiet as we possibly can," he said. "If you reveal budgets, you sometimes reveal the capabilities, the amount of technology inserted into a program. It's a good, strategic national security decision."
CONTINUE READING FULL ARTICLE Here...
--Study: Human Body May Not Be Able to Survive Long in Space
--Switzerland Announced Plan to Clean Up 'Space Junk'
--Check out U.S. News Weekly: An insider's guide to politics and policy.
--Study: Human Body May Not Be Able to Survive Long in Space
--Switzerland Announced Plan to Clean Up 'Space Junk'
--Check out U.S. News Weekly: An insider's guide to politics and policy.
[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]
US/60, HST/2
August 24, 2011
Libyan Rebels Reportedly Used Tiny Canadian Surveillance Drone
By IAN AUSTEN
25 August 2011
OTTAWA — Libyan rebels have been coordinating their attacks using a Canadian-made, unmanned surveillance aircraft, the drone’s manufacturer announced Tuesday.
David Kroetsch, the president and chief executive of the manufacturer, Aeryon Labs of Waterloo, Ontario, said in an interview that his company was first approached by a representative of the Libyan Transitional National Council early in June, after members of the group searching the Web saw the company’s surveillance aircraft — essentially a tiny, four-rotor helicopter dangling a pod carrying stabilized-image day- and night-vision cameras.
The drone is extremely compact — the company says that it weighs about three pounds and fits into a backpack — and its operator does not need any knowledge of flight. Mr. Kroetsch said such factors were crucial for the rebels. The device is simply controlled by tracing flight paths on maps displayed on a touch screen display. Its base price is $120,000.
“They knew that they needed air support of some kind because they were fighting blind on the ground,” Mr. Kroetsch said. “But they couldn’t afford helicopters.”
Aeryon notified the Canadian government about the potential sale, both to get approval and to verify the identities of the buyers. Mr. Kroetsch said the government had no objections, partly because the sale involved a civilian version of the battery-powered drone sometimes used by oil companies to survey spills. Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. There was no independent confirmation of the sale from the rebels in Libya.
Mr. Kroetsch described the process as involving “a series of connections” over several weeks.
“It was a very complicated set of people involved,” Mr. Kroetsch said. “It’s not the most organized group in general.”
Ultimately, the drone was purchased for the transitional council by a private security company based in Ottawa, Zariba Security, which has given training and operational support for other Aeryon customers.
Charles Barlow, the president of Zariba, said that he brokered the purchase, and that assembling the financing involved hundreds of e-mails among people in eight countries, suggesting considerable donations from outside of Libya.
Mr. Barlow delivered the drone himself in July, taking it on an 18-hour voyage from Malta to the Libyan port of Misurata on a former South Korean fishing ship chartered by the rebels. The ship was also carrying a BBC film crew, two ambulances from the German Red Cross, several cellphone engineers and some mine-removal experts.
Mr. Barlow said he stayed in Misurata for two days to train the drone’s operators while the city was under steady artillery and rocket assault.
When he left Misurata, Mr. Barlow said, he was told that the drone would first be used to survey the highway to Tripoli. Where it has been used since is unclear, but Mr. Barlow was told about three days ago that the drone was still flying.
CONTINUE READING Full Story HERE...
[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]
U.S. Aides Believe China Examined Stealth Copter
By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — In the days after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s intelligence service probably allowed Chinese military engineers to examine the wreckage of a stealth American helicopter that crashed during the operation, according to American officials and others familiar with the classified intelligence assessments.
Such cooperation with China would be provocative, providing further evidence of the depths of Pakistan’s anger over the Bin Laden raid, which was carried out without Pakistan’s approval. The operation, conducted in early May, also set off an escalating tit-for-tat scuffle between American and Pakistani spies.
American spy agencies have concluded that it is likely that Chinese engineers — at the invitation of Pakistani intelligence operatives — took detailed photographs of the severed tail of the Black Hawk helicopter equipped with classified technology designed to elude radar, the officials said. The members of the Navy Seals team who conducted the raid had tried to destroy the helicopter after it crashed at Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, but the tail section of the aircraft remained largely intact.
American officials cautioned that they did not yet have definitive proof that the Chinese were allowed to visit to Abbottabad. They said that Pakistani officials had denied that they showed the advanced helicopter technology to other foreign governments. One military official said Sunday that Pakistani officials had been directly confronted about the American intelligence.
One person with knowledge of the intelligence assessments said that the American case was based mostly on intercepted conversations in which Pakistani officials discussed inviting the Chinese to the crash site. He characterized intelligence officials as being “certain” that Chinese engineers were able to photograph the helicopter and even walk away with samples of the wreckage. The tail has been shipped back to the United States, according to American officials.
Pakistan has a close military relationship with China, and large numbers of Chinese engineers work at military bases inside Pakistan. Pakistani officials have even suggested that the Chinese Navy might eventually have its own base along Pakistan’s coastline.
Several Pakistani officials reached on Sunday declined to comment. The American assessments were disclosed Sunday by The Financial Times. The newspaper cited Pakistani officials who denied the accusations.
When pictures of the helicopter’s tail emerged in the days after the Bin Laden raid, defense experts said it bore little resemblance to a standard Black Hawk helicopter. They said that the helicopter in Abbottabad appeared to have a special coating designed to elude air defenses, and that the Black Hawk’s sharp edges seemed to have been replaced with curved parts that could further confuse ground radar systems.
Pakistan’s anger about the Bin Laden operation was so intense that officials in Islamabad, the capital, hinted in news reports in May that they might allow the Chinese to see the helicopter wreckage, but it was unclear at the time whether Pakistan’s government might follow through on the veiled threats. Pakistani officials also made a high-profile trip to Beijing shortly after the Abbottabad raid, part of a not-so-subtle campaign to show the strength of Pakistan’s alliance with China amid faltering relations between Washington and Islamabad.
Meanwhile, the intelligence services of the two countries have quietly carried out their own spy games. Pakistan’s military spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, arrested a group of Pakistani citizens in May who the agency suspected were working with the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the Bin Laden raid.
One of those arrested was a Pakistani doctor who had helped the C.I.A. set up a phony vaccination program in Abbottabad. The doctor had set up the vaccination scheme in the hope of gaining access to the Bin Laden compound and getting hard evidence that Bin Laden was hiding there. The doctor remains in Pakistani custody, according to American officials.
The C.I.A., for its part, has continued to carry out missile strikes inside Pakistan using armed drone aircraft, a campaign that has been tacitly blessed by Pakistani leaders but that has further aggravated relations between the C.I.A. and the ISI.
The relationship between the spy services began fraying in the months before the Bin Laden raid, after a C.I.A. contractor was charged with murder and jailed in Lahore. The contractor, Raymond A. Davis, killed two men at a crowded traffic stop in Lahore in January, in what American officials described as an act of self-defense after the two men tried to rob Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis was eventually released from jail, but American relations with Pakistan declined steadily in subsequent weeks and sank even lower after the Bin Laden raid.
However, amid the recriminations and threats by members of Congress to cut all military aid to Pakistan, some senior members of the Obama administration have tried to dial back tensions before they do permanent damage to the shaky alliance.
Despite the headaches of an alliance marked by mutual distrust and competing agendas, the officials argue, the prospect of Washington permanently severing ties with a nuclear-armed country as volatile as Pakistan would be far more dangerous.
[Information contained in BKNT E-mail is considered Attorney-Client and Attorney Work Product privileged, copyrighted and confidential. Views that may be expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of any government, agency, or news organization.]
BlackSHADOW Mini DRONE HELICOPTER:
SEAL Team VI
Stealth BlackHELICOPTER in ABBOTOBAD
FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STING LIKE BEE -- Mohammed Ali
Thanks Due PurePURSUIT Intelligence NET and TED
--------------------------------------------
- flash- OPEN SOURCE
PurePURSUIT; US/1; ATTN: ALL BKNT – Partner EDITORS
 |
| - CAUTION: SEALs at work… |
[en.note: CNN is now confirming a ‘mysterious’ downed drone BlackHELICOPTER...]
NATO loses contact with drone chopper over Libya
By ADAM SCHRECK, Associated Press Adam Schreck, Associated Press – Tue Jun 21, 2011
TRIPOLI, Libya – NATO said one of its unmanned drones disappeared over Libya on Tuesday, disputing reports that forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi had shot down an alliance attack helicopter.
Libyan state television repeatedly broadcast images of what appeared to be aircraft wreckage, including shots of a red rotor and close-ups of markings in English.
It quoted an unnamed Libyan military official saying a NATO Apache attack helicopter crashed in Zlitan, about 85 miles (135 kilometers) east of the capital Tripoli. The report claimed it was the fifth Apache that had been downed — a charge NATO denied.
Wing Cmdr. Mike Bracken, an alliance spokesman, said NATO instead lost radar contact with an unmanned helicopter drone Tuesday morning along the coast in central Libya, and is investigating the incident. He said the drone was performing an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission.
"This is the first piece of hardware that I am aware of that has been lost" since NATO's air campaign began, Bracken said. A U.S. F-15E jet crashed near the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in March before NATO assumed command of the international intervention in Libya.
A coalition including France, Britain and the United States began striking Gadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31. It's joined by a number of Arab allies.
It was not clear whether ground fire or a mechanical failure brought down the drone.
Britain and France began deploying attack helicopters as part of the NATO-led mission earlier this month to boost the alliance's firepower and flexibility against Gadhafi's forces.
NATO had previously relied on jets that generally fly above 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) — nearly three miles (five kilometers) high. The attack helicopters give the alliance a key advantage in close-up combat, flying at much lower altitudes. Airstrikes by attack jets remai
n the backbone of NATO's Libya campaign, however.
At least one distant explosion rumbled across Tripoli Tuesday as warplanes roared overhead. It wasn't immediately clear what was hit or whether there were casualties.
What started as a peaceful uprising inside the country against Gadhafi and his more than four-decade rule has devolved into a civil war. Rebels control the eastern third of the country and pockets in the west, and are trying to push their front line forward from their western stronghold of Misrata toward the nearby city of Zlitan.
Gadhafi's forces have countered with barrages of rockets and mortars, and the fighting on the front lines in Dafniya, some 15 miles (25 kilometers) west of Misrata, has been fierce in recent weeks.
Rockets fired by Libyan government troops have been hitting closer to Misrata this week. On Monday, a rocket struck the front yard of a home in the area of Ruweislat in Misrata, killing a 14-year old boy and burning his mother and brother, according to the boy's uncle, Taher Abu Sheiba.
Pieces of the rocket were laid out on the rubble as children from the neighborhood climbed the broken wall around the home. The smell of smoke hung in the air as family members walked through the destroyed kitchen.
Officials at the front-line hospital in Dafniya said six rebels were killed in overnight clashes, and 50 were wounded.
Rebels are also attacking government forces on a southern front in the Nafusa Mountains near the border with Tunisia.
The watchdog group Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that more than 150 anti-personnel land mines allegedly laid by government forces have been discovered and removed north of the mountain town of Zintan. The group said it is the first confirmed use of land mines in the Nafusa area.
Human Rights Watch said Libyan government land mines have now been found in six separate locations in the country. It urged both sides in the civil war to refrain from using the weapons.
In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron rebuked military officers who have questioned whether the U.K. can continue its key role in NATO's Libya campaign over the long term.
The country's top naval officer last week warned that British forces might not be able to respond quickly to new threats if Libyan operations extend beyond September. On Tuesday, concerns surfaced from Britain's head of air force combat operations, who said the air force was running short on pilots and ground crew staff because so many personnel were either deployed or resting following a period of combat duty.
___
Associated Press writers Hadeel al-Shalchi in Misrata and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report.
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CIA flew stealth drones into Pakistan to monitor bin Laden house
By Greg Miller,
The CIA employed sophisticated new stealth drone aircraft to fly dozens of secret missions deep into Pakistani airspace and monitor the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, current and former U.S. officials said.
Using unmanned planes designed to evade radar detection and operate at high altitudes, the agency conducted clandestine flights over the compound for months before the May 2 assault in an effort to capture high-resolution video that satellites could not provide.
The aircraft allowed the CIA to glide undetected beyond the boundaries that Pakistan has long imposed on other U.S. drones, including the Predators and Reapers that routinely carry out strikes against militants near the border with Afghanistan.
The agency turned to the new stealth aircraft “because they needed to see more about what was going on” than other surveillance platforms allowed, said a former U.S. official familiar with the details of the operation. “It’s not like you can just park a Predator overhead — the Pakistanis would know,” added the former official, who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the program.
The monitoring effort also involved satellites, eavesdropping equipment and CIA operatives based at a safe house in Abbottabad, the city where bin Laden was found. The agency declined to comment for this article.
The CIA’s repeated secret incursions into Pakistan’s airspace underscore the level of distrust between the United States and a country often described as a key counterterrorism ally, and one that has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid.
Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, last week offered to resign over the government’s failures to detect or prevent a U.S. operation that he described as a “breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty.” The country’s military and main intelligence service have come under harsh criticism since the revelation that bin Laden had been living in a garrison city — in the midst of the nation’s military elite — possibly for years.
The new drones represent a major advance in the capabilities of remotely piloted planes, which have been the signature American weapon against terrorist groups since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In 2009, the Air Force acknowledged the existence of a stealth drone, a Lockheed Martin model known as the RQ-170 Sentinel, two years after it was spotted at an airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The aircraft bears the distinct, bat-winged shape of larger stealth warplanes. The operational use of the drones has never been described by official sources.
The extensive aerial surveillance after the compound was identified in August helps explain why the CIA went to Congress late last year, seeking permission to transfer tens of millions of dollars within agency budgets to fund intelligence-gathering efforts focused on the complex.
Channel intelligence
May 15, 2011
A Military Post’s Secrets: Espionage, Not Aliens
By JANET MASLIN
AREA 51An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military BaseBy Annie Jacobsen523 pages. Illustrated. Little, Brown and Company. $27.99.
At the start of “Area 51,” Annie Jacobsen’s cauldron-stirring book about America’s most mysterious military installation, Ms. Jacobsen offers a passing glimpse of a large-headed little gray space alien being interrogated by scientists in white coats. This is both a tease and a distraction. Yes, Ms. Jacobsen will eventually address the U.F.O. issue with which conspiracy theorists eagerly associate Area 51, but her book is not science fiction. It’s much more levelheaded. It is an assertive account, revelatory but also mystifying, of the long-hidden United States weaponry and espionage programs to which she says Area 51 is home. (Some say Area 51 is home to nothing, because it does not officially exist.)
What is it about Ms. Jacobsen that has made her privy to such inflammatory material? It’s best to know her answer to this question before delving into her book. And her answer is strange and byzantine in the way that all things about Area 51 seem to be. Ms. Jacobsen, a national security reporter and contributing editor to The Los Angeles Times Magazine, happened to be at a 2007 family dinner with her husband’s uncle’s wife’s sister’s 88-year-old husband, the physicist Edward Lovick, when Mr. Lovick leaned over and said, “Have I got a good story for you.”
That happened to be the year when formerly top secret records about the development of certain stealth technology, most notably the C.I.A.’s A-12 aircraft, code-named Oxcart, were made public, even though the creation of the A-12 had occurred nearly 50 years before. In any case, Mr. Lovick had been instrumental in A-12 research, and he did much more than relate his story.
He plugged Ms. Jacobsen into a network of elderly scientists, pilots, engineers and other witnesses who had firsthand accounts of Area 51 and its surroundings, a test range located in southern Nevada. (“I tell you all this, Annie, because you give a damn,” one of them told her.) This testimony pointed her in the direction of extremely arcane documentation, material of needle-in-a-haystack obscurity. (Sample source: a secret 1948 memo of “European Command Message Control Secret Priority” to United States forces in Austria regarding a glider of parabolic design that might have been flown in the 1920s and then developed into a flying saucer.)
Thus armed with numbingly intensive documentation, Ms. Jacobsen has put together a set of strong allegations about Area 51’s covert history. Part of “Area 51” is devoted to the nuclear weapons testing that began with the Manhattan Project, continued under the aegis of the Atomic Energy Commission and prompted The New York Times to tell tourists, in 1957, about a project called Operation Plumbbob: “This is the best time in history for the non-ancient but nonetheless honorable pastime of atom-bomb watching.” Ms. Jacobsen recoils at the weaponry that was being developed and the ghastly results of atomic testing. But she acknowledges ways in which it wound up keeping Americans safe.
Her book moves on to the surveillance technology that was meant to override the need for nuclear arsenals. And her research into the world of “overhead,” the aerial espionage that needed to be developed in extreme secrecy, is compellingly hard-hitting. One of her sources is Col. Richard S. Leghorn, whom she calls “the father of peacetime overhead espionage...”
[MONEY QUOTE: ]
[MONEY QUOTE: ]
Great news for ufologists: the still-untold truth, this man finally admitted, is bigger than the crouton. Bigger than the plate. To the delight of conspiracy fans everywhere, it remains bigger than the whole table. [Hoyaaah!]
Channel
Intelligence - OPEN SOURCE
US/1
Stealth choppers played key role in bin Laden raid, but some secrets may have been exposed
By Associated Press,
WASHINGTON — Secret until now, stealth helicopters may have been key to the success of the Osama bin Laden raid. But the so-far-unexplained crash of one of the modified Black Hawks at the scene apparently compromised at least some of the aircraft’s secrets.The two choppers evidently used radar-evading technologies, plus noise and heat suppression devices, to slip across the Afghan-Pakistan border, avoid detection by Pakistani air defenses and deliver two dozen Navy SEALs into the al-Qaida leader’s lair. Photos of the lost chopper’s wrecked tail are circulating online — proving it exists and also exposing sensitive details.
President Barack Obama traveled Friday to Fort Campbell, Ky., and met privately with the elite Army pilots who flew the daring mission. They are members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, nicknamed the Night Stalkers, and he saluted them in public remarks afterward.
“It could be much more difficult to fly, particularly at slow speed and landing than you would expect from a typical Black Hawk,” Goure said.
The U.S. military’s first stealth aircraft, the now-defunct F-117 fighter jet, was notoriously difficult to handle in flight, officials have said.
Night Stalker pilots also fly other, publicly acknowledged versions of the Black Hawk that are specially equipped with advanced navigation systems, plus devices allowing for low-level and all-weather flight, day or night. Those are rigged to permit occupants to “fast rope” from the helicopter as it hovers just off the ground — a technique used in the bin Laden assault.
Also taking part in the bin Laden mission were two MH-47 Chinooks, specially modified versions of the heavy-lift Chinook helicoptersthat are widely used by the Army’s conventional forces.
The MH-47s are flown by the 160th, the Night Stalkers. Those aircraft are not known to have stealth capabilities, although one was summoned to the scene of the raid after one of the stealthy Black Hawks crash-landed, in order to help ferry the SEAL contingent out of Pakistan.
Many aspects of stealth technology have been known for decades, including the use of angled aircraft edges and composite materials to make aircraft less visible on radar. The Army began a program to build a new class of helicopter with stealth technology in 1992. Known as the RAH-66 Comanche, it was canceled in 2004, in part to speed up development of drone aircraft.
Bill Sweetman, editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International and a long-time student of stealth aircraft development, said the biggest secret behind the stealth helicopter is simply that it existed.
“There was obviously a fairly high risk that you were going to compromise it one way or another the minute you used it,” he said in an Associated Press interview.
Continue Reading full Article here...
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THE MEN-IN-BLACK are REAL...
Tales of M-I-B sightings dating back to the 60's and 70's were once legion among computer geeks everywhere, and would become the impudent impetus for the WorldWideWeb's very first, backdoor- viral, "word-of-mouth" ad-campaign for Will Smith's 1997 blockbuster, Men In Black.
With a flick of the viral wrist, M-I-Bs were seemingly transformed overnight went from sinister lurking apparitions to respectably cute Secret Alien Police. This particular noir-nomenclature was derived mostly from UFO sightings during in the 1960s and the 70s, when uncommunicative black-clad 'government' men would descend seemingly from nowhere, to inflict clinical interrogatories upon the various adherent eye-witnesses--tin-foil hats notwithstanding...
Jim Hogan, author of Spooks, his 1979 tome about the privatization intelligence and political dirty-tricks, was one of the first MIB flag-waivers with an early 1990's article on the burgeoning, almost quasi-religious MIB phenomena. Penned with only the tiniest hint of tongue-in-cheek, Jim Hogan was already out-there half a decade before the phenomena was to be cynically, if brilliantly, exploited to ramp-up movie buzz.
Yet the Men-In-Black are REAL.
Scott Malone actually met FIVE of them in late 1987, after showing up at the Radiology Department of Georgetown University in search of a radiation-detecting Geiger Counter with which he could scan his "exploded nuclear warhead" for remnant radiation.
Because Malone's long-time brother and sometime housemate, Douglas Harrison Malone, had been complaining vociferously and non-stop for weeks on end about the possible radiation he and our two Goldens--Bugsy and RedDOG--were unwittingly being exposed too from the blackened, two-square-foot trophy chunk of exploded warhead sitting under the fireplace mantle.
"It has been sitting within inches of 9-megaton's worth of plutonium for 25-years," Doug kept loudly and repeatedly emphasizing. When he threatened to call their Mom, Scott Malone picked up the phone and called the near-by Georgetown Hospital Center.
The U.S. Air Force demolition technicians handed the detonator plunger to Malone and let him personally demolish the ten-foot tall, resign-encrusted nosecone/re-entry warhead with seventeen-pounds of C-4 Plastic explosive.
The Prince, Malone and wife
WSM © 1999 -2011 MindBENDER, Inc.
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[1999 photo above of three future BlackNET Members was taken at a Russian Embassy Gala some twelve-years after the Titan warhead-silo story for LIFE.]
Prince Obolensky later spent most of the 1970’s single-handedly producing simultaneous, almost real-time, six-language translations as the SALT Treaties proceeded through their tendentious, and TOP SECRET, drafting.
In gratitude, the US State Department and some OGA allowed the Prince to KEEP the singular, secret, cryptologic machine he had so successfully deployed to keep America’s Nuclear negotiations SAFE—a 1938 Olivetti Upright TYPEWRITER.
With his family’s permission, Malone hopes to arrange for the Prince’s "historic" crypto-machine to be donated to the NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum outside Ft. Meade, MD.
[1999 photo of three future BlackNET Members, taken at a Russian Embassy Gala some 12-years after Malone’s Titan warhead-silo story for LIFE Magazine.]
--------------------------------------------------------------|Back in 1987 Arkansas, after hanging photographer Ressmeyer half out of the gray helicopter, they had to race the helicopter at top-speed with its side door wide open back to the airport to clear security for the last flight of the day out of Little Rock. To the frowning security screeners and cheerfully inquisitive flight attendants, the only repost proffered by Malone was simple: "It's the business end of an ICBM." Not once did anyone further question the meaning of that statement.
And he was allowed to board, ICBM business-end tucked firmly under arm, the last plane out of Little Rock ...
"Swords Into Plowshares."
Meanwhile, back in 1987, when Malone showed up at the Georgetown University Hospital office of the Chief of Radiology, there were, and he claims that he is NOT making this up, FIVE men in black suits also waiting there.
When he demanded to know "who the f**k are you?" of those thus-assembled M-I-B.s, they declined Malone's rather abrupt invitation to further expository discourse, and promptly vacated the premises without another word...
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Meanwhile, back at the Georgetown Hospital Center circa 1987, the chief radiologist had finished his wand-waiving examination of the large, blackened nosecone fragment with his Geiger Counter.
"No low-leverl gamma radiation," was all he said.
Such nuclear-weapon-specific knowledge about that little known--but critical--detail about gamma ray emission properties, could only have been derived from experience somewhere in the radiologist's past.
So you were in the military then? Air Force or Navy," inquired Malone about the only two branches which still have nuclear weapons to maintain.
"No," was all he said...
Go figure...
...or GO TO AboveTopSecret.com,
if you really love a good conspiracy, now and then...
COMING NEXT -- How Malone almost got to ride on the very secretive FBI Hostage Rescue Team's real-life BlackHELICOPTER.
AND THEN -- US Air Force General Hoyt S.Vandenburg, Jr., also a future BlackNET Member, talks out-of-school about the 1947 ROSWELL INCIDENT for the first time ever exclusively with Scott Malone.
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