The First Infra-Red Satellite, Europe’s Roswell, and How NASA Perpetuates the Myth of Planet X

While trawling the Internet waiting for a new job prospect to return my call, I stumbled upon an interesting video. It’s a documentary on a subject I’d heard about previously, but had never bothered to spend time on.

‘Europe's Roswell: UFO Crash at Aberystwyth’, is a documentary film by Mark Olly, available on You Tube, and sold on Amazon, outlining a mysterious event that took place in January 1983.

You may be familiar with it, if not, prepare to be astonished by what I have discovered using the aforementioned researcher’s own methods. I present information here that will prompt the question, ‘why is NASA lying to us?’

I am not a UFO sceptic or debunker. However, this ‘other-worldly’ report of a crashed alien craft has to be revealed for what it is. Hoax is too strong a word for it. Perhaps ‘misguided’ is more apt considering what I uncovered.

Background – as explained by the author

“On a dark winter's night in January 1983, the sleepy Welsh village of Llanilar near Aberystwyth was buzzed by a strange flying craft, which hit trees, scattered shiny metal debris over four fields and flew off apparently unaffected.

One farmer witnessed the debris and clean- up operation; one national newspaper carried the story; one civilian investigation team made it to the site; one collection of strange metallic debris remains.

Mark Olly is an author, musician, historian, archaeologist and lecturer. He is best known for writing and presenting the ITV Granada/Sky History Channel's popular television series "Lost Treasures." Here he presents this first investigation in a series of internationally important hidden mysteries.”

The low-budget documentary is worth watching (if you can get through the first 30 minutes) because of what it reveals to us, perhaps unintentionally, of how myths are perpetuated in the minds of people who are willing to believe what they are told without question.

In the film the researchers outline the ‘facts’ uncovered. These are interesting as they lead us straight to the answers. While the eager Ufologist waxes lyrical about space aliens, and time travellers, and pieces of metal not from this earth, the clues to the mystery bombard us from all directions. I ask myself if anyone else has bothered to look at these ‘facts’ a little closer?

Was it really a crashed alien space craft or something more terrestrial?

 The Pieces of the Puzzle

• A report in a national newspaper (The Sunday Express) with a hand written date January 23rd, 1983, which cannot be confirmed
• A farmer who remembers that four fields were covered in metal debris one night in late January 1983
• No local news reports
• No local airplanes flying over the area
• A second hand report of nothing ‘unusual’ on RAF radar
• A second hand report that the MOD had nothing in the area
• A hand-full of light-weight grey/green/silver metal pieces of various sizes
• A metallurgical report stating that the fragments are made of ‘Duralumin’

I started by confirming that the Sunday Express journalist exists, he does. Andrew Chapman was contacted by the researchers and he told them that he cannot remember what he reported on over 25 years ago. However, the researchers make a point of telling us that it is unusual that a National Newspaper reports the UFO story, but no other newspaper, not even a local one, runs the story.

So the source of this tale is The Sunday Express only.

The researchers contact the farmer, and he tells them that he remembers the scene like ‘something out of a James Bond movie’, where the MOD clears the fields of all debris and takes everything away. No trace of any metal can be found there.

The researchers speak to the locals that were mentioned in the newspaper articles and they confirm what they were told by the RAF and the MOD. i.e. nothing of any significance.

Metal-Mickey or just taking the P***?

In the film we see a sample of the metal debris fragments, and a description is given of their composition and their ‘abilities’. Again, the researchers tell us the truth; the metallurgical report states that the fragments are ‘man-made’. But still the researchers continue with their ‘other-worldly’ theories!

The metal fragments, which are the only tangible evidence of anything crashing in Wales in January 1983, are made up of Duralumin which is a metal used in the aerospace industry, along with sintered stainless steel filters and masking.

As there are no newspaper reports from the period other than The Sunday Express, nor any local reports, nor any eye witnesses to the event, we must look elsewhere for an explanation as to what happened in farmer Irwell Evans field.

The date of the event is just a rough estimate, mid to late January 1983. So what was happening back in those days that possibly has any relation to metals used in the aerospace industry?

A quick search will reveal that scientists were measuring the atmosphere above Aberystwyth, studying the fallout from a Mexican volcano. That’s not it. A bill was passed in Parliament to make seat-belt use compulsory. That’s not it.

What else happened in late January 1983?

NASA and Planet X

On January 25th 1983, the launch of the very first Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) took place. It was the first space-based observatory sent into orbit. Wikipedia tells us that like most infrared satellites that followed its life was limited by its cooling system.

“The on-board supply of liquid helium was depleted after 10 months on November 22, 1983, causing the telescope temperature to rise, preventing further observations.”

We are told that the dead spacecraft continues to orbit close to the earth.

( http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/project/15 )

In order to understand what I was reading I looked up the specs of the IRAS, I looked at the IRAS Explanatory Supplement, the description of the satellite and its makeup. I discovered that duralumin and sintered stainless-steel and other metals are used in its construction.

 (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/IRASdocs/exp.sup/ch2/index.html#ref )

Quote: “The focal plane assembly contained the infrared and visible detectors, cold electronics, and associated masks, filters and field optics” unquote.

I am not a satellite engineer or NASA scientist, but I found these documents quite easy to understand. They even talk about 16-bit computers, it is a report about 1983 after all, so the technology seems quite primitive, amazing as that sounds.

Quote: “The helium gas left the main cryogen tank through a porous plug made from densely packed sintered stainless steel” unquote.

When you look at pictures of the IRAS and its construction materials, you can see how they are quite similar, if not identical, to the materials shown in Mark Olly’s documentary.

So now the mystery deepens. If the farmer found pieces of a crashed NASA satellite, and not an alien spaceship, as it undoubtedly appears to be, then what is flying in space? Is there anything up there at all?

We are told that for eight months the IRAS was surveying infra-red wavelengths and discovering new planets and on December 30th, 1983, NASA's Chief Scientist announced that NASA had discovered Planet X. 

Just one week after the story of Planet X was released to the public, the magazine US News and World Report had a story retracting the announcement by NASA.

( yowusa.com/planetx/2012/planetx-2012-03a/1.shtml )

Justin Braithwaite of Yowusa.com has some interesting and well researched articles on the so-called Planet X cover-up. Although he argues that the IRAS furthers the cause as evidence of Nibiru or whatever, I posture that opposite is true.  Justin also gives us an insight into the sudden death of the chief astronomer working on the IRAS program.

But the IRAS was not the only spacecraft orbiting the planet in 1983.

From the Columbia Encyclopaedia we can read…

…a large number of satellites were launched to study solar and galactic radio waves, X rays, gamma rays, and ultraviolet rays. In addition to the United States a number of countries participated, among them the Netherlands with ANS-1 (1974-76), which studied soft and hard X radiation; India with Aryabhata (1975), which returned atmospheric data for only four days before being silenced by a power failure; Japan with Hakucho (1979-85) and Tenma (1981-84), both of which studied X radiation; and the European Space Agency (ESA) with Exosat (1983-86), an X-ray observatory. This period also saw the first cooperative efforts, such as the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), a joint effort of the United States, ESA, and Great Britain (1978-96), which returned data on ultraviolet radiation…

I Want to Believe… in aliens!

To use purple prose, which I enjoy regardless of what others may think. I put it to you that what crashed just outside of Aberystwyth in January 1983 was the IRAS. Indeed the MOD cleared up the debris and sent it all back to the research labs. The story was then planted in The Sunday Express due to fears of locals reporting what they had seen. Luckily for NASA no one saw anything except the farmer got himself some interesting souvenirs.

As NASA had other satellites in orbit, the research scientists had ample data to work with since then. It could have originated from any number of orbiters. However, as the goal was to search for the elusive Planet X, how convenient it was to use the now defunct IRAS. The media fuelled the fantasy by reporting NASA’s tantalising clues to the existence of a new planet, a planet that might hold life, or be the harbinger of extinction. Perpetuating the myth was easy.

The questions you have to ask yourselves now are:

Do I believe that aliens crashed in Wales in 1983, or that NASA lost the IRAS? If NASA lost the IRAS then Planet X must not exist? A cover-up on this scale is almost unbelievable. If one IRAS has been lost, have other’s crashed that were not reported?

Stranger still, the information that these satellites collect are the source of all that we know about our galaxy, the universe, the cosmos and life on earth, this implies that we have been lied to for a very long time.

I’ve written myself into a corner here. Either I believe in aliens or I believe NASA has lied about life, the universe, and everything.

Why should I be the only one to suffer this dilemma… here is the video… watch it if you dare…