Jeremiah Denton today

Truth and Fiction

At this point the Inquisition would have been tripping balls
In the TV series this scant information helps the police track the victim’s location, and in doing so, by degrees, close in on his tormentor. The character in question is a retired merchant seaman, who remembers the code and uses it.

Art is following life here. And the truth is just as compelling as any atmospheric Scandinavian noir.

Jeremiah Denton being held captive

Enter Jeremiah Denton

Jeremiah Denton is a former Republican Party senator and retired Rear Admiral from Alabama. He is now aged 87, and fought in Vietnam when younger. He displayed incredible toughness and resolve in situations he would doubtless have preferred never to have been in, although it probably later bolstered his political career.

Denton entered the US Navy during World War 2, going on to serve in many capacities of naval aviation. He specialised in atomic weapons delivery strategies and international politics. All in all he was a very accomplished aviator and military strategist.

This was why, on 18th July 1965, he found himself commanding a bombing mission of 28 planes over North Vietnam. But great personal ability doesn’t stop enemy weapons bringing your plane crashing out of the sky. He and his navigator were shot down and captured.

Steely Resolve

This is the beginning of the period when Mr Denton would need to use all his initiative and determination. He was held for 8 years, half of which was in solitary confinement. This would be enough to break most of us. At this point the Inquisition, for example, would be tripping balls.

But then Jeremiah got his chance. He was trundled in before assembled news cameras. The world was watching.

He was questioned on television. Those watching saw how he had been broken. He had an awful nervousness about the face.

But the more astute viewers saw that he was blinking in morse; all this while answering questions! They spelled it out:
T – O – R – T – U – R – E

The spoken answers were not, as might be expected of someone transmitting in two formats at once, curt. He responded when asked what he thought of US interventions in the far east, “I don’t know what is happening, but whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. Whatever the position of my government, I believe in it, yes sir. I am a member of that government, and it is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live.”

Have a look for yourself:

Denton addressing crowds on his return from captivity

Note: As usual our American cousins choose to make our lives more difficult. Along with their arcane spelling idioms, and absurd loyalty to imperial measurements they also have (had?) their own form of morse. The international version is shown here:

The Inquisition in Morse Code

Bibliography
Wikipedia entry on Jeremiah Denton
The Bridge’s IMDB entry
Scandinavian noir list
More on Scandinavian noir
Yet more on Scandinavian noir
Nordic noir on Twitter
Learn Morse Code in a minute (so they hyperbolically claim)
A more promising Morse resource. download the software and learn away.
In-depth about Morse Code
This is fun – text to morse player (does not work in all browsers)

Original content created by: The Inquisition

Stars Gather in 'Downtown' Milky Way. Our demise is out there somewhere. Eyeballing us. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Aliens Are Coming – The 1991 VG Alien Probe

1991 VG is 10-metre object on a heliocentric (earth-like) orbit. It made a close approach to the Earth in 1991 December. It is coming back in 2017, or thereabouts. With its return we will see out new overlords, at least according to some whackos.

The interesting thing about 1991 VG is that it was not discovered until a month before perigee (the point at which its trajectory is closest to Earth) with the Spacewatch telescope at Kitt Peak. In astronomical terms, it crept up on us, and leapt out shouting “Boo!”.

Kitt Peak by FLickr User Monsterweare. Used here under a Creative Commons licence.

It was discovered by James V. Scotti in 1991. Four years later, it was proposed as being of potential alien origin by Duncan Steel, “a research astronomer at the Anglo-Australian Observatory and a research fellow at the University of Adelaide, Australia”, a man whose name and job titles together make him sound like a Clive Cussler stereotyped character. Clearly his opinions, however absolutely batshit they seem, are to be taken seriously; really seriously, as in stroke your beard and tug your glasses-style seriously.

According to a later “interpretation” of Dr Steel “Its Earth-like orbit and observations of rapid brightness fluctuations argued for it being an artificial body rather than an asteroid. None of the handful of man-made rocket bodies left in heliocentric orbits during the space age have purely gravitational orbits returning to the Earth at that time. In addition, the small perigee distance observed might be interpreted as an indicator of a controlled rather than a random encounter with the Earth, and thus it might be argued that 1991 VG is a candidate as an alien probe observed in the vicinity of our planet.”

In essence what we are being told here is that because it is shiny, and compounded by the fact that it came close to us, then it was probably sent by aliens. Flawless reasoning.

Dr Steel’s proxy, unencumbered by scientific caution, goes on to suggest that there is a possibility of the object being controlled.

To be fair, in the original article by Dr Steel that started it all, he does end the article by saying his hunch is that its some junk left by us. We leave our rubbish out and then get frightened by it. Humans, who’d ‘ave ‘em?

Be Afraid

The loonies have taken the idea and run with it. They propose it is a Bracewell Probe, a hypothetical device whose existence the crazies are so sure of that it has an actual name. Bracewell probes were first suggested in the 1960s when the world got ahead of itself and wondered how we would communicate between our far-flung colonies. Now they are used by aliens spying on us, like someone looking in the window while we shower.

The aliens have found us. The party’s over.

Wait a Second…

New information has come to light in recent years. Small things, it turns out, spin faster, and lots of things have been found with earth-like orbits. So its probably just a rock. The spinning accounts for the fluctuating reflected light and the sun has a strong gravitational pull, making things (like the Earth) go around it.

Pouring More Water on the Aliens

A similar object, named SG344, once properly investigated, was found to be an asteroid; as can be seen from NASA’s photography, if you are trained to understand such astronomical imagery.

Bibliography
Duncan Steel dropping science; “The above has been intended to provide prima facie evidence that 1991 VG is a candidate alien artifact”
Once more, straight from the horse’s mouth. Duncan Steel tries to frighten the shit out of us all.
Centauri Dreams – looking forward to expanding our horizons
Wikipedia entry for 1991 VG
The masses specualte wildly, based largely on their partial information and willful misreadings.
NASA says 1991 VG is probably not going to hit us. Phew.
The Anomalist discusses 1991 VG (with greater reverence than here)
ADS Astronomy Entry for 1991 VG at Harvard
Downtown Loonyville. 1991 VG is discussed in an unexplained mysteries forum, including such appeals to common sense and logic as: “I prefer to believe that Unidentified Craft are likely time-travelers/extra-dimensional beings/Secret Ops/earthly-origin”.

Original content created by: The Inquisition