THE CRUISER AND THE SHOT

Date: 4/10/00 3:20:57 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Some notes for discussion on the cruiser image on 1654_c2. Our friend appears only on this frame, none before or after and therefore is not Mercury or Venus. This is most likely a physical object since it has the "wings" much like Mercury or Venus does due to the over saturation of the camera's CCD's caused by the overload of reflected light in these time exposures. Since the C2 frames are spaced at 20 minutes, this object could have been in the area for up to 40 minutes. Now, this object does not seem to appear in any of the C3 images from the same time period (1600-1800 UTC). What this seems ti indicate is a physical object that can either travel millions of miles in 20 minutes, or is stealthy, or pops into local space for reasons unknown and leaves again.

Now add to my astonishment image 1730_C2. The shot. What first raised the hairs on the back of my head was that this "line" was coming from the same angular direction as the cruiser in image 1654_c2, some 36 minutes later. I then noticed two things. The "line" was not affected by the refraction rings around the occultation disk. Well, I thought, this has to be a cosmic ray between the Occultation disk and the detectors. But then I noticed the "line" was blocked by the occultation disk and seemed to weaken in intensity as it traveled from the 10 o'clock position to the 4 o'clock area. Now I am truly puzzled.