posted 03-16-2002 12:43 PM            

The truck left soon after I turned off all the lights, shut down the computer and got off the phone. The next morning when I looked out, when it was light, I saw, as I suspected, that there are NO signs,side by side at the edge of that parking lot, and that the two "panels" were in fact, part of that new fangled pickup truck.
I have seen these big pickup trucks, brand spanking new around the town, and they usually have one of those lightning bolts in their licence plate numbers. A few days after that night , I was with that same friend I was talking to at a place we planned to meet at,, we go there maybe 10 times a year. There was a man there.. very friendly, who managed to get into our conversation, which wasn't about anything in particular. She mentioned to me later that was she thought it was strange he had a piece of scotch-tape wrapped around one of his hands. I noticed he drove away in one of those big newfangled unmarked utility trucks, with a lightning bolt in the licence plate number. I have also noticed here in Connecticut, that 99.9 percent of all pickup trucks have the letter "C" in their licence plate numbers somewhere. I wonder what that means?
Could it be "C"onfiscate the 4wheel Drive?
We also have the quadrant signs markings on all the road signs here.
http://www.tackamarks.freeservers.com/

posted 03-16-2002 05:46 PM               

I'm not sure but I might have seen one of those utility trucks. I live at the end of a dead end street and people are always turning around in my driveway when my gate isn't closed. I had to run out for a minute to do an errand, and one of my friends was doing some yard work for me so I left the gate open. When I returned, there was this unmarked white pickup truck turning around in my driveway. I didn't think much of it at the time, but after reading your story, they might have been checking my place out.

posted 03-17-2002 12:49 AM               

I alerted my team to keep a look out for any suspicious looking vehicles when they're out looking for jets or just goofing off on cloudy days. We kind of have a habit of driving around at all hours of the night and prowling all the 24-hour stores so we can keep our eyes on the sky during the day and so we're bound to run into one of them somewhere. And when we do, we'll be sure we take plenty of pictures.

posted 03-18-2002 11:47 AM            

If it had a utility body, it's most likely at least a one ton pickup frame & cab (Ford F350 or Chevy/GMC C/K3500), although 3/4 ton picukups can be fit with the utility body, but it severly limits the load you can carry on the truck because the bed itself weighs so much. Not very practical...

As for the lightning bolt in the plate, I do believe HAM operators can get vanity plates with their call letters and the lightning bolt on it. There isn't a picture, but CT DMV has it listed at http://dmvct.org/sipamat.htm as an option for customized plates (entire list of plates is here - http://dmvct.org/cuspage.htm).

Not sure what the panels off the back could be.....maybe it had something to do with his amateur radio hobby.....

posted 03-18-2002 09:44 PM            

quote:

---

"They're nondescript, they look like normal vehicles," says Buckner. "It's more of a stealth vehicle that doesn't cause alarm, that doesn't make people nervous."

---

posted 03-20-2002 04:20 PM            

"Gursky, who has security clearance and credentials to shoot at the Pentagon, said he had finished filming a police stop of a white pickup truck on a Virginia public highway from what he thought was public property near the Pentagon, when military personnel stopped him and asked for his tape.

Gursky was told he was on government property without a permit. He refused to give up the tape, after which officials frisked him, handcuffed him and said he was being arrested for disobeying a police officer, the cameraman said Wednesday."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48355,00.html

posted 03-21-2002 12:38 AM               

We'd better install the high intensity lights on our vehicles now so that we can shed a little light on these trucks when we encounter them at night. The pictures just come out so much better.

posted 04-01-2002 01:07 AM               

Coming Soon: Flying Fascism on Your Doorstep

New high-tech surveillance equipment revealed at the Redstone Arsenal's Weekly Arms Bazaar promises a dismal future for freedom-loving people of the world.

The Friendly Colonel has filed the latest report from the most recent arms show at the Redstone Arsenal, which has been shut down and is essentially used for storage. Housed in this facility are several thousands of the new modified urban control Humvees, equipped with 14.5 mm cannons as well as many aerials and satellite dishes. Some are camouflage in color, but most of them are dark matte gray. They looked like they were painted with a sealer coat of paint (primer paint), before the final coat is painted on depending on the theater of operation in which they will be used.

Of greater significance was the introduction of the new DCHD (Domestic Control Hover Drones), which were displayed and offered for sale. They're about a meter in diameter and probably weigh about twenty kilograms each. It looks like a life ring (life preserver) with a motor in the middle of it.

The Chinese and Russian arms dealers were interested in them, and evidently the British Government has been one of this device's primary buyers. Evidently we're not selling them to a lot of foreign countries at this time, but still building inventories for ourselves. Each of these DCHDs costs $178,000 a copy.

He met with an Iranian colonel who is some sort of an engineer, who was trying to explain to him what these things can do. The Friendly Colonel admitted that he didn't even know such technology even existed.

Here are some specs. They can hover to a maximum ceiling of 500 feet, although they're really meant to hover about 50 feet off the ground. They not only hover, but they can go forward and back. Their maximum speed is 50 miles an hour, and they can stay aloft for up to three hours at a time. There are counter-rotating rotors in the middle of the device with what appears to be an engine on top. All of the internal components appear to be made of some sort of super-advanced composite, like boron-graphite composite material that is very, very light, but is also very strong. The propellers are also made of this same material, and they weigh practically nothing.

There are two counter-rotating propellers, two propellers that rotate counter-synchronously, the way the Russians used to build turbo-prop airplanes like the TU-95s. The reason they do it that way is because it gives a much higher speed, lift and stability.

They're controlled electronically - either through satellites or through what they call Fixed or Mobile Relay Command Centers, built right into the Humvee. They showed how the two worked together.

The Friendly Colonel reports that inside this Humvee, which can control a certain quad of these things, it looked like the inside of a spaceship. The components and views screens, which appear to be holographic, and the technology are simply amazing -- "It's like nothing you ever saw."

The surveillance drones come in different color schemes -- a very dark black matte for night use or a two-tone matte white and sky blue top -- so it's hard to see them during the day.

They started one of these hover drones up, and he said it virtually makes no sound at all. Even if you're ten feet away, you couldn't hear the thing. That's how quiet they are.

They are fitted with what is purported to be one of the most-advanced micro-cameras ever invented by the US Government. Through satellites, their transmission capability is virtually limitless. Satellites can access its transmissions and give it directions, signals, codes, and tell it what to do.

They can be pre-programmed for certain flight paths, but the computer has the ability to think, so that if it acquires a target, it can deviate from a flight path. It also has sensors so it can get out of the way and not run into a tree or the side of a building. It also has infrared cameras and high-resolution night cameras with multiple neutral density filters.

They also have see-through capability -- with a thermal imaging sensor camera, which can actually see inside of buildings and see through walls. The device is meant to be used as a domestic control drone. It not only has cameras, but the most sensitive audio receivers that have ever been made. It can pick up a human conversation from five hundred feet away -- one human conversation. Not only can they photograph and relay still shots and real time video and transmit video, but they also have a "non-lethal" weapons capability, some sort of stun gun based on energy discharge technology. They're powered by what's known as a fusion power cell, which looks like a square pack of film. The power is produced through some sort of chemical reaction.

These drones can stop and detain people. Since they have a microphone, they can hover right in your face, while you're looking into the camera. It also has a transmitter, which can play pre-recorded messages, or someone can actually talk to you even though they're a thousand miles away.

During the demonstration, they hovered the thing around the room and then it came down in front of this Air Force captain's face, and it said, "Citizen, kindly present your national identification card."

Then a little telescoping plate comes out of it, and you're supposed to hold your national identification card in front of this plate. They wouldn't reveal all of its abilities of the drone because some of it was still classified. The manufacturer is the same company, located in Indiana, which makes other equipment for the NSA.

Let's think about where this device could be used. How about South Central Los Angeles street corners? Using these devices, only Government-Authorized crack dealers would be able to sell their product. Crack dealers, not approved by the Government, could then be sanctioned -- or removed.

The exhibit hall had high-definition presentation screens around the room, which showed how these things could be used. It showed them moving down a darkened street at night, and then it showed what the cameras were seeing, pictures of the people and how they looked through an infra red camera and an ultra violet camera and how different images looked through different camera receptors. It looked like it was right out of Star Trek.

(Author's Note: Usually we wouldn't publish this information, which could be construed as conspiratorial in nature. However, since it came from a reliable source, actually present on site, we decided it was important for Al Martin Raw readers to know the facts.)
http://www.almartinraw.com/column48.html

I was actually planning to build a similar type of surveillance device once I found the right people to do the actual construction of it. I might be able to draw out things on paper, but couldn't wire circuitry if my life depended on it. The concept of my device came out of a UFO sci-fi book that I am currently working on in my spare time. The book itself is about a team of investigators who use the device to chase after UFOs and photograph them. Of course the one I wanted built was just a simple aerial platform that could only take off and land. Just something that would hover above the trees and have an unobstructed 360 degree view of the sky. Oh well.

posted 04-01-2002 01:25 PM               

Nowhere to Hide?

FCC okays technology capable of "seeing" through walls

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has opened the regulatory doors for the development of a new generation of wireless technology capable of feats as noble as saving lives and as potentially threatening as watching us inside our homes.

On Feb. 14, 2002, the FCC unanimously approved a First Report and Order that permits the marketing and operation of certain types of new products incorporating ultrawideband (“UWB”) technology. UWB is basically an advanced form of radar that operates by producing billions of short duration, low-powered radio frequency pulses. An operating example of a UWB device is this ground penetrating radar system for landmine detection.

An FCC press release touts UWB as paving the way for, "a vast array of new applications that have the potential to provide significant benefits for public safety, businesses and consumers in a variety of applications such as radar imaging of objects buried under the ground or behind walls and short-range, high-speed data transmissions."

The FCC approval process of ultrawideband took more than three years, during which developers were required to satisfy fears that the high-speed transmissions would interfere with the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS), now critical to the safe navigation of everything from hikers, to airliners, to B-2 bombers and cruise missiles.

Good Genie
Some clearly beneficial applications of UWB include:

*devices to help rescue workers locate victims trapped in collapsed buildings
medical imaging systems capable of "seeing" inside the body in real time

*systems for finding structural problems in buildings, bridges, dams and other structures

*collision-detection and avoidance radar systems for cars, trucks and busses
extremely high-speed, short-range wireless data and voice transmission

Not So Good Genie?
Probably viewed as not so clearly beneficial by civil liberties and personal privacy groups is a developing application of UWB dubbed "through-wall imaging systems."

According to the FCC, through-wall imaging systems can "detect the location or movement of persons or objects that are located on the other side of a structure such as a wall."

Since conventional concealed cameras would no longer be needed, officials using through-wall imaging devices could monitor the movement of persons inside buildings without ever having to physically enter the building.

While federal regulators are quick to emphasize that operation of through-wall imaging systems will be limited to law enforcement and emergency services, the potential threat to personal privacy posed by a device capable of remotely monitoring the movement of individuals inside their homes should not, and probably will not, be overlooked. http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa021802a.htm

posted 07-11-2002 01:35 AM               

The idea is to clear the numerous devices that modern warfare leaves strewn around on the ground. Small mines are often scattered from helicopters and trucks, and cluster bombs spray out hundreds of smaller bomblets, many of which fail to explode on impact.

"When dropped on soft ground, you can get dud rates of 30 per cent," says Owen Hofer of Sparta, the firm based in Huntsville, Alabama, that is developing Zeus for the Army.

Green beam

The laser is mounted in a turret on top of one of the Army's all-purpose armoured "Humvees". A soldier sitting at a console inside the jeep uses a joystick to point a low-power green laser beam at the target.

They then switch on a more powerful solid-state infrared laser of the type used for industrial cutting and welding, which delivers between 500 and 2000 watts through the same optical system as the green targeting beam.

When the beam strikes a mine, the heat burns off the explosive or detonates it. Sparta says its own tests on dummy munitions show Zeus should work on mines with metal or plastic cases, as well as unexploded artillery shells and bombs.

It reckons the laser will be able to destroy landmines and bomblets from between 25 and 250 metres away. Laser beams cannot penetrate soil, so it won't work against buried mines.

Total clearance

One of the challenges of building Zeus is preventing it from overheating. Industrial lasers are usually cooled by a continuous flow of water, but that luxury is not available on the battlefield, so Sparta has had to develop a closed-cycle cooling system.

But however well Zeus serves the military, it is unlikely to meet the needs of civilian de-mining organisations, says Harry Thomas of the humanitarian de-mining programme at Warwick University. De-mining during military action is a very different business from clearing up after a conflict, he says.