THE EVENING STAR

Document Type:

CREST [1]

Collection:

General CIA Records [2]

Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):

CIA-RDP83-01022R000100230009-0

Release Decision:

RIFPUB

Original Classification:

Document Page Count:

Document Creation Date:

December 12, 2016

Document Release Date:

April 1, 2002

Sequence Number:

Case Number:

Publication Date:

February 12, 1960

Content Type:

NSPR

File:

Attachment	Size
CIA-RDP83-01022R000100230009-0.pdf [3]	66.58 KB

Body:

Air Force official informa- tion channels today ruled out the possibility that the mystery satellite now circling the world Lost Rocket Ruled Out As Mystery Satellite is a lost rocket from an old geared to send information Discoverer satellite shot-de-1 when triggered by some remote ti on, spite the opinion expressed yes- receiving sta terday by Air Force SecretaryIthe The object is Navy tracrs tes eaate Sharp. Air Research and Develop-) every 1041/2 minutes, sweeping ment Command sources said, over parts of the United States b t erer even though the stage isl ellite. 1 of the Discoverer second stages have disintegrated and rer VIII. And the Discov- vIII carrier rocket was 2002/05/01 tted only yesterday whiz- 'Approved Foelease 2002/05 weeks ago. They have not picked up signals from it. But there is no way of telling whether it might have been i s. on some of its or Moscow has made no official comment on the mysterv ob- ject. But a Soviet Sputnik ex- pert, Prof. Alla Masevich, said yesterday in London she very much doubted that the space baby is Russian. perigee of 103 miles and an, apogee of 1,000. Speculate on Parachute There is speculation - and this is just a wild guess in Air Force circles-that the dark satellite could be Discover VIII's nose cone plus a para- chute streaming behind. The unknown object is about 20 feet`long. The Discoverer nose -one is about 5 feet long, bu- it has a 20-foot parachute at- tached. Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin, retired chief of Army research. and development, said he has ao inside information, but be .ieves the mystery object is a 3tussian space spy that might given be able to distinguish one Mane from. another on Ameri :an airfields and send that in- formation back to the Soviet Union. Difficult to "Listen To" The Pentagon said Wednes- day the satellite could be of Soviet origin. Its near-polar orbit would be good for a recon- naissance vehicle. But Ameri- can space scientists have learned that it is difficult to receive signals from a space traveler that is tumbling in space as this one is. Washigg#o a Pebruary.,