US SATELLITE APPROACHES CHINESE AND RUSSIAN SATS

A little over ten years ago, on February 10, 2009, an American and a Russian satellite collided. You may or may not remember that, but in case you don't, here's a brief review:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision

Now, there's a key word in the opening of the Wikipedia article's presentation of "the standard narrative" that I'm sure most readers of this website spotted immediately:

n February 10, 2009, two artificial satellites, Iridium 33 and Kosmos-2251, accidentally collided at a speed of 11,700 m/s (26,000 mph; 42,000 km/h) and an altitude of 789 kilometres (490 mi) above the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia.^{[1][2][3] [4][5][6]} It was the first time a hypervelocity collision occurred between two satellites – until then, all accidental hypervelocity collisions had involved a satellite and a piece of space debris. (Bold and italicized emphasis added)

As the Wikipedia review of the incident also observes, collisions of satellites do happen, but most often with debris, but the 2009 incident was the first time it had happened to two satellites, and two satellites of the world's two major nuclear powers, no less.

Needless to say, at the time that the story broke, my suspicion meter shot right into the red zone. I wasn't alone in my suspicions; Mr. Richard C. Hoagland voiced suspicions about it, as did a number of other people, and almost universally, our "suspicions" ran along similar lines: (1) both the USA and Russia maintain meticulous databases of satellites and space debris and (2) both countries monitor their satellite assets quite carefully. Additionally, (3) neither country deliberately launches its satellites so that they will be placed at risk by other satellites, and finally (4) both countries have developed the capability of maneuverable satellites. As the article also notes, the Russian satellite had been a communications satellite, but was no longer in use, and the American satellite was a communications satellite. The fact that both were communications satellites suggests that they did have a minimum maneuvering capability for making fine adjustments to their attitude, altitude, and orbits simple to maintain them in position and functioning properly.

In other words, both satellites, so far as we know, had minimum maneuvering capability, if any at all. Yet, they collided. This led to our speculation at the time that they had been deliberately collided. And that left open some high octane speculation possibilities: (1) either one or the other country had deliberately collided its satellite into the other in some sort of test or message/demonstration; (2) some other country or agency had hacked into the satellites' systems and had exploited any maneuvering capability to do so, again, as possibly both a test and/or a demonstration/message; or (3) some very different "outside" agency had done so.  What fueled such speculations at the time was that neither Russia nor the USA had talked about the incident very much, and both seem to have settled on the "accident" explanation rather quickly.

Case closed; nothing to see here, move along.

Well, the story appears almost to have happened again, according to this article shared by G.B.:

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_satellites_reported_to_have_approached_Russian_Chinese_GEO_satellites_999.html

In this case, the American satellites deliberately approached those of China and Russia:

According to the report, the US remains secretive about the activities of four operational GSSAP satellites, but by using the data from the ISON space surveillance network, operated by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the foundation has managed to reconstruct their movements since their launch in 2014. The SWF indicates that they have made approaches to Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, and Nigerian satellites, both civilian and military ones, using manoeuvring engines.

GSSAP satellites (GSSAPS) work in pairs, with one located slightly lower than geosynchronous orbit and the other a bit higher. When they were needed to inspect certain objects, they approached their targets. GSSAPS at times approached as close as 10 kilometres. Some approaches were made when the satellites were in the Earth's shadow, making their actions invisible for Earth-based telescopes, according to the report.

It's so far unclear what exactly the GSSAPS were doing and what information they had received from their studies. (Emphasis added)

Indeed, one wonders what information they "received"... and I doubt it was just "taking pictures." The reason why I doubt it is those strange UFO appearances over American ICBM bases in the 1970s, which I have talked about in the 2014 San Mateo Secret Space Program conference, and written about in the Covert Wars books. These UFO incidents were clearly national security incidents, since the UFOs apparently had been able to shut down entire flights of ICBMs, and even to reprogram targeting data remotely. Additionally, the Soviet Union experienced a similar incident in 1982 at Byelokoroviche in the Ukraine, when a flight of Soviet ICBMs actually had their launch sequence initiated by a UFO, again, remotely. This implied, as I noted at the time, an ability to scan a network remotely - perhaps even to map the "circuitry" of that network - and to alter data within it. Notably, after one such incident in Minot, North Dakota, the USAF called in the Boeing company to see if it could duplicate the phenomenon, and allegedly, Boeing was able to do so. If so, then that has profound implications, not only to the extraterrestrial hypothesis usually advanced as an explanation for some UFO activity, but also for satellite and anti-satellite capabilities.

Putting the two together yields today's high octane speculation: perhaps, again, a test was being performed in such a manner to send a message as well, and perhaps, in that context, it's no coincidence that it occurs approximately 10 years after the 2009 satellite collision. We may consider it a space version of the cat-and-mouse games that the USA's and USSR's bomber and submarine forces played with each other during the Cold War. And that means, inevitably, that Russia and China will respond, somehow, some day. The question is whether we will be told about it.

See you on the flip side...