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In the 1970s, during the heights of the Cold War, more than 1,000 engineers
worked on a project
so secret that they couldn’t tell their wives and children decades
after it was over.
In September 2011, the project – a series of spy satellites so advanced
that it could see objects about 2 feet wide from space (mind you, this
was in the 1970s before the ubiquity of computers so the satellites were
built with slide rules), was declassified and with it, the stories of
the men who kept their secret for 45 years:
"Ah, Hexagon," Ed Newton says, gleefully exhaling the
word that stills feels almost treasonous to utter in public.It was dubbed "Big Bird" and it was considered the most
successful space spy satellite program of the Cold War era. From 1971
to 1986 a total of 20 satellites were launched, each containing 60 miles
of film and sophisticated cameras that orbited the earth snapping vast,
panoramic photographs of the Soviet Union, China and other potential
foes. The film was shot back through the earth’s atmosphere in buckets
that parachuted over the Pacific Ocean, where C-130 Air Force planes
snagged them with grappling hooks.The scale, ambition and sheer ingenuity of Hexagon KH-9 was breathtaking.
The fact that 19 out of 20 launches were successful (the final mission
blew up because the booster rockets failed) is astonishing.So too is the human tale of the 45-year-old secret that many took
to their graves.
Helen O’Neill of the AP has the fascinating story: Link – via Boing Boing | More at SPACE.com
What happens when a top-secret government project is canceled? The details are not quite clear, but it’s hard to keep a secret when prototype parts are sold for scrap and end up on eBay.
Anyone interested in top secret aircraft will know of the A-12 Avenger II, which was cancelled in 1991 and remains at the centre of ongoing litigation to this day. The stealth attack aircraft, developed by General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas, was terminated before the first airframe had been assembled. But the latest twist in this still-shadowy tale comes in the form of an A-12 canopy appearing on eBay – and it looks like the real thing.
See more pictures at Urban Ghosts Media. Link
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Man, Christmas seems to come and go faster each year! These ads harken back to a simpler time, a time when cowboys were all the rage, and gun ads were allowed to appeal to kids during the holidays.
It’s a nice bit of nostalgia, and a few of the pics in this gallery are definitely chuckle worthy. Just don’t shoot your eye out!
Link –via BoingBoing
Well, of course. Did you think that he was going to use an alphorn? Those things take up too much room in a sleigh.
The tune becomes more recognizable about halfway through the video.
-via View from North Central Idaho
A lot of wars get left out of our history books because they left no changes in maps or the balance of power. However, some of these lesser-known wars lasted for hundred of years! There are also declared wars in which no one was killed, and, in the case of the Paraguayan War, hundreds of thousands killed for no apparent reason.
The President of Paraguay, Francisco Solano Lopez, was a huge admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte. He fancied himself a skilled tactician and excellent commander, but lacked one thing, a war. So to solve this problem, in 1864 he declared war on Paraguay’s three surrounding neighbors, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The outcome of the war? Paraguay was very nearly annihilated. It is estimated that 90% of its male population died during the war of disease, starvation, and battles with enemy armies. This was perhaps one of the most needless wars in history since Lopez had almost no reason to declare war on his more powerful neighbors.
Read about ten of these obscure and bizarre conflicts ay Listverse. Link -via The Daily What
Comments Off YouTube user Hickok45, who we’ve seen previously seen carving a jack-o’-lantern with a Glock, knows how to use tools in unorthodox ways. He starts out trying to chop down a small Christmas tree with a heavy knife but then adds a unique “attachment” that gets the job done.
There are thousands of tiny soldiers locked in eternal combat in Valencia, Spain, housed in the Museo de los Soldaditos de Plomo (museum of the little lead soldiers).
What started as a small collection belonging to Museum Director Alejandro Noguera’s father has become a collection of over one million, with 85,000 on display in diorama scenes straight out of history. You can see more of Derek Workman’s beautiful photos of the historical tableaus at the link below.
Link –via BoingBoing –image credit:Derek Workman for Smithsonian Magazine
Image: Sir
EDW/Flickr
Protecting Santa is a tough job, so Santa's Defense Forces need heavy-duty weapons like this candy cane small arm that is standard issue on the North Pole:
The core of the system is the Candy Cane Carbine (C3), a modular candy cane small arm that can be tailored to a variety of applications. For more serious threats to Santa, especially those hardened against small arms fire, there is the weapon of last resort, the Mark 12 Tenenbaum Launcher.
Link - via Laughing Squid
This amazing custom rifle, more of a hand cannon really, fires modified .50 caliber rounds and looks badass punching giant holes in targets. Here’s how this rifle puts the WTF in firearms:
The cartridge, named the .700 WTF (“What The F…”) and is made by fire forming a .50 BMG brass case, trimming it to 3″ in length and then sizing it. The round is loaded with a 1132 grain paper patched .700 lead cast bullet.
The rifle, with just a 16.25″ barrel, can push the 1132 grain of lead up to 2300 fps. Thats 13,000 ft/lbs of energy, right up there with the .50 BMG and far exceeding the .700 Nitro Express. The cast lead bullet has enough energy to pass clean through a 1/4″ steel plate.
It’s a must-have when you come face-to-face with an angry dinosaur, or Godzilla on the rampage. Hit the link to check out a video of this bad boy in action.
Link –via Geekologie
The Comp Bullet is a intriguing invention by an Italian firm of the same name. The bullet feature vents that, the company claims, increase velocity and reduce noise. Steve at The Firearms Blog writes:
According to the company, these vents reduce friction by allowing gas to lubricate the bullet as it passes through the barrel and then act as a muzzle brake as the bullet exits the barrel. They apparently also reduce smoke, increase velocity (a rocket effect as they leave the barrel) and reduce muzzle flash. In other words, they are miracle bullets. [...]
As for the muzzle brake and “rocket” effect claim, the physics is beyond me. I cannot work out how gas venting out of the bullet for a brief moment in time would have any effect on recoil. Surely because the bullet is not fixed to the gun any muzzle brake effect would slow down the bullet not the recoil of the gun?
Do you think they would work?
The Scottsdale (Arizona) Gun Club invites you to have your picture taken with Santa Claus ..and his machine guns. Other firearms are available for your photo shoot, and you can even try out the machine guns! Link to story. Link to website. -via Arbroath
This guy is known for making some serious head choppers. Artisans like Korehira Watanabe are fading into history, as their creations are no longer in demand and the inherent secrecy of their craft makes passing on the legacy virtually impossible. Watch this master in action and see the skills that may someday be lost to antiquity.
–via BuzzFeed
Everyone joined in the war effort during World War II, helping out however possible stateside. Disney artists decided to join the cause by creating various forms of propaganda, like this surreal animated short, meant to show how food will help the Allies win the war. Using morbidly obese Americans to “black out all of Berlin” never seemed like a valid wartime strategy until this short came out!
Want to take your pillow fights to the next level? These pillow weapons were designed with you in mind! Guaranteed to cause less bodily harm than a real scimitar, or lightsaber for that matter, they will make you fee like you’re armed with a real weapon when the pillows start flying. Now go forth and plush the heck out of each other!
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The US Army wants a means of determining if mysterious objects may be improvised bombs. Specifically, they want to be able to fire a chemical pellet at an object and tell from the color of the splatter if the object is an explosive:
The system would work by loading up projectiles with materials that advertise the presence of explosives — sort of like a litmus test for bombs — and firing them at the suspected bombs. Picture paintballing, but with a target that might really kill you. [...]
The paintball idea is comparatively low-tech. The Army notes that the technology to detect explosives with paints and powders is already a commercial reality. They point to Raptor Detection Technology’s SAFE-T Spray, which turns orange on contact with certain explosives, as an example.
Link -via GearFuse | Photo: Flickr user VisitLakeland
Mental_floss is marking 11/11/11 by posting lists of 11 things all day long! It’s also Veterans Day, so what better time to learn about some heroes that you might not otherwise know, like eleven women of various nations who served in World War II. One was Nancy Wake, a New Zealand native who was living in France when Germany invaded.
Wake immediately went to work for the French resistance, hiding and smuggling men out of France and ferrying contraband supplies and falsified documents. She was once captured and interrogated for days, but gave no secrets away. With the Nazis in hot pursuit, Wake managed to escape to Britain in 1943, and joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British intelligence agency. After training with weapons and parachutes, she was airdropped back into France -as an official spy and warrior. Wake had no trouble shooting Nazis or blowing up buildings with the French guerrilla fighters known as maquis in the service of the resistance. She once killed an SS sentry with her bare hands.
Read what happened to Wake and ten others in this list of eleven at mental_floss. Link
Colonel Doolittle (second from left) and his flight crew.
The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Salutes the Armed Forces.
After Japanese air power struck a stunning tactical blow to the U.S. military forces at Pearl Harbor, a retaliatory strike against the Japanese was a priority for president Frankin D. Roosevelt, who challenged his general staff to devise a way to attack the heart of Japan.
PAYBACK PLANS
By mid-January 1942, a carrier-based air strike against Japan was accepted as the most plausible solution to FDR’s request. When Admiral Ernest J. King, chief of Naval Operations, was asked to evaluate the possibilities, he passed the idea to General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, who then asked Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle to work out the details with the Navy. In the days immediately after Pearl Harbor, service rivalries took a back seat to striking a blow against the enemy.
B-25s specially modified for this mission are ready to go.
After preliminary test flights, the North American B-25 Mitchell bomber was selected for the mission. Eighteen B-25s flew from their Oregon home base to Indiana for modifications. The range of the unmodified Mitchell was only 1,300 miles on a favorable day, so additional internal tanks were added to allow for more fuel. At the last second, 10 five-gallon cans of gas were stowed in the radio operator’s seat. The heavy guns were removed, along with the highly secret Norden bombsight, whose classified technology couldn’t fall into Japanese hands. In the planned scenario, the Norden bombsight wouldn’t have been very accurate at the low altitude that would be flown anyway, so it was replaced with a simple metal aiming sight. Aircraft radios were also removed, since the mission would be executed under strict radio silence. These changes allowed each aircraft to carry just over 1,100 gallons of usable fuel, which under typical flight conditions would allow for a range of 2,400 miles. After all of these radical modifications, four 500-pound bombs barely fit into the bomb bay.
more …
A pack rifle is one that is carried by backpackers for self-defense and emergency hunting. They need to be sturdy, compact, and above all lightweight. This .22-caliber single shot design by a firm called Mountain View Machine & Welding weighs under a pound.
It doubles as a fishing rod. See what the man’s left hand is covering? That’s where the extending rod comes out. Attach the reel to the grip. Now you’re ready to catch supper a different way.
Link -via Say Uncle | Photos: Pack Rifle
You’ve got to protect your kids from all harm, but that’s not why this stroller has a rifle and a shotgun attached. Competitive practical shooters, particularly those in 3-gun competitions (rifle, shotgun, and handgun) have to transport a lot of gear around. Some have found that it’s easier if they modify jogging strollers to carry their equipment. You can see more examples at the link.
Link -via Say Uncle | Photo: Yar
This clip, recorded in the 1930s, features Confederate Army veterans demonstrating the “rebel yell.” It is part of the Library of Congress’ collection of rare footage of Civil War veterans committed to film before they passed on. Smithsonian describes some of the films that still exist, and how they give us a glimpse into not only the Civil War era, but also how it was remembered for decades afterward. Link
John Foster of Accidental Mysteries blog came across this piece that crystallizes the words "swords into plowshares" into a real life object:
I purchased this from my friend Joshua Lowenfels, who found it at a flea market in NYC. He purchased it from an old German fellow who was parting with a few things from his life. The handle is only about two feet long, so it appears to have been used as a sort of ladle for scooping and pouring wet concrete. I got weak-kneed when I saw it. If this isn’t the most perfect statement on the whole failed Nazi experiment, and of war in general, I don’t know of one.
Why don’t you apply? You’re not getting paid for that office clerk internship anyway.
Nidar Singh of Wolverhampton, UK, may be the last living master of the Sikh martial art shastar vidya, which means the “science of weapons”. He himself was taught by an octogenarian in Punjab who thought that he was the last serious practitioner. Singh remembered the first day of his training:
On his first day of training, the frail old man handed him a stick and instructed Mr Singh to hit him. When he tried, the master threw him around like a rag doll.
“He was a frail old man chucking me about and I couldn’t touch him,” he says. “That definitely impressed me.”
Link -via Geekosystem | Photo: Beyond Exposure Photography
Did
Occupy Wall Street cause gun crimes to jump higher in New York City? That's
what the NYPD is sayin':
Four high-ranking cops point the finger at Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying their rallies pull special crime-fighting units away from the hot zones where they’re needed.
Since Occupy Wall Street took over Zuccotti Park on Sept. 17, the NYPD has relied heavily on its borough task forces, the department’s go-to teams for rowdy crowds.
But such protest duty takes the special units away from their regular jobs -- patrolling public housing and problem spots and staking out nightclubs plagued by violence, supervisors said.
“Normally, the task force is used in high-crime neighborhoods where you have a lot of shootings and robberies,” said one source.
“They are always used when there are spikes in crime as a quick fix. But instead of being sent to Jamaica, Brownsville and the South Bronx, they are in Wall Street.”
Link (Photo: David Shankbone/Wikipedia)
While searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, US Forces found some pretty interesting things in the desert, like this MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor. It was hidden underground with its wings removed. Military personnel dug it up by hand in 2003 and transported the jet to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for examination. Eventually, it will go on display to the public. Read the story of this reclamation project, and see more pictures at Urban Ghosts. Link
In the movie Predator, Jesse Ventura’s character carries a M134 minigun, which he fed with a huge box strapped to his back. US soldiers with the 133rd Infantry Regiment in Afghanistan saw the movie and thought that such a box, while ridiculous for a minigun, might solve one of their own ammunition transportation problems. The Mk 48 machine gun is heavy and gunners have to carry their own ammunition. So Staff Sgt. Vincent Winkowski decided to build a back-mounted rig that would feed smoothly into his rifle:
So Winkowski grabbed an old ALICE (all-purpose lightweight individual carrying equipment) frame, welded two ammunition cans together — one atop the other after cutting the bottom out of the top can — and strapped the fused cans to the frame. To that he added a MOLLE (modular, lightweight load-carrying equipment) pouch to carry other equipment.
“We wondered why there wasn’t some type of dismounted (Common Remote Operating Weapons Station) that fed our machine guns instead of a mini-gun as portrayed in the movie,” Winkowski said. “So, I decided to try it using the feed chute assembly off of the vehicle CROWS. We glued a piece of wood from an ammo crate inside the ammo cans to create the decreased space necessary so the rounds would not fall in on each other.
Link -via TechCrunch | Image: Fox, 133rd Infantry Regiment
We’ve featured slingshots by German CEO Jorg Sprave before, but this amazing pump-action slingshot was just too awesome to ignore. True, it might not fire machetes, circular blades or any of the other horrendously deadly ammo he has used in other machines, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be hit by one of these shots.
Via Geekosystem
Office cubicle warfare just got a whole lot cooler. This LEGO replica of a Lancer Rifle, the type carried by the characters in the very popular Gears Of War video game franchise, is so well designed that it functions as a rubber band gun, and has a clip so you can fire in burst mode. Good thing the chainsaw doesn’t work, or else someone would lose more than an eye!
–via Joystiq
There’s little information available at the Japanese-language website about this model. But from the pictures, it’s clear that this is a precise model of the Nagant M1895 revolver, a handgun produced in vast numbers by Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. Other pictures at the link show that it’s articulated at several joints and can be loaded with wooden cartridges.
Link (Google Translate) -via The Firearms Blog
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Competitive shooting champion Rico Gonzalez Papa owns this magnificent modified handgun. He calls it the “Modified Megatron.” I doubt that it transforms into something more awesome than its current form, for such a thing is not possible.
Link -via Sharp as a Marble | Photo: Rico Gonzalez Papa
Special thanks to Paul Erhardt for helping me find information about this photo.
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It’s easy to look at this picture and wonder, “why is this umbrella so special that it is locked in a glass case?” But that’s before you learn it was a brilliant Soviet spy weapon:
So it was that one day, while Markov was walking to his car in London, he felt a sharp bite on his thigh. When he turned around he saw nothing, only a man who fumbled briefly with an umbrella before running off. The next day he became deathly ill, and died, as one is wont to do when becoming deathly ill. To this day no one has ever been tried for the murder.
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