Why was boiler plate 1227 so secretive?

[Jason Thompson]

I find it amazing how many people seem to think the cold war (or for that matter any war) was a totally either/or situation. Either the different sides were totally at each other's throats, looking over their shoulders, or else they were in cahoots and the whole conflict was a fraud. It's a totally absurd simplification of a complex situation. The idea that the two sides had tensions and conflicts but could also agree on things and even co-operate sometimes is totally alien and incomprehensible.

Reality is more subtle and more complex. That's why we can have a Cuban Missile Crisis and an Apollo boilerplate 1227. That's why we can have a Vietnam War and an Apollo-Soyuz. That's why we could have a 1914 Christmas truce in the middle of the most destructive war to date.

Not that it matters, because frankly I don't believe the OP believes anything about the Cold War. He has a long and irritating history of seagull posting crap like this without actually addressing any of the responses.

[Kiwi]

Hell, I'm 41 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Hell, I'm 69 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

I remember calculating that if a nuclear bomb was dropped on Palmerston North and I was at home at the time, my village would escape the worst of the blast because it is 35 km away on the coast. But what I didn't know was that the power of nuclear bombs had increased greatly since the article I used was written, and also that those bombs didn't hit the ground like the bombs I understood. They were detonated well above ground in order to cause destruction over the widest possible area.

Anyway, Inconceivable, are you satisfied from the link provided by Onebigmonkey in reply #3, that there was nothing secretive about boiler plate 1227? Many of us could pop into our local library and look up the newspapers of early September 1970 and read all about it.

The first reference to the event is to be found in the Modesto Bee newspaper dated 3rd September 1970. The New York Times followed it on 4th September as did the Deseret News and then the London Times and the Kingsport News on the 5th whilst the European Stars and Stripes followed with an article on Sunday 6th September. There are others for those prepared to search but all are based on a UPI release to a greater or lesser extent. Al Rossiter, who was the correspondent at UPI dealing with space matters at the time was most likely to have filed this release. The full text of this release, possibly posted in Washington sometime just before the earliest newspaper references, reads –

“WASHINGTON (UPI) — The Russians said Friday they were returning an “experimental U.S space capsule” they had found, but the U.S. space agency said it probably is an old dummy Apollo moonship that blew off a Navy ship two years ago. Tass, the official Soviet news agency, said the capsule that was discovered by Russian fishermen in the Bay of Biscayne off the coasts of Spain and France would be transferred to a U.S. icebreaker Saturday. While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said it was glad to get the thing back, a spokesman said as far as NASA could determine, the object was a dummy Apollo capsule that the Navy lost two years ago while practicing the pickup of astronauts returning from the moon. “It was later reported by several ships off the coast of Spain as a hazard to navigation, but we never could find it,” the spokesman said. He added that Russians recently asked in a telegram if the United States wanted the capsule back, and information was sent to the U.S embassy in Moscow to help positively identify it. “We haven't heard from the embassy yet, but we're sure that is what it was,” the spokesman said. Tass said the capsule had been launched into space and would be picked up by the icebreaker Southwind, but the space agency if it was the dummy capsule as it believed, it was never launched anywhere. “The experimental space capsule which was launched under the Apollo program and was found in the Bay of Biscay by Soviet fishermen will be transferred to U.S. representatives,” Tass said. “The U.S. icebreaker Southwind will come to Murmansk to take the capsule on Saturday.” The report did not say when the fishermen found the capsule in the Atlantic Ocean bay, which is cradled by the coasts of Spain and France. It did not describe the capsule. Tass said William Harben, a U.S. embassy official; Franklin Babbit (Babbitt), a naval attaché, and Richard M. Rodnia, a deputy military attaché, had arrived at Murmansk Friday. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Moscow had announced earlier that the Southwind, a 268-foot icebreaker sailing northern waters, would call at Murmansk Saturday through Monday to give its crew shore leave. He did not mention the capsule. “The purpose of the first American icebreaker to call at Murmansk is to provide an opportunity for rest and relaxation for the crew,” the embassy said. Capt. Edward D. Cassidy, commander of the Southwind, will be received by a deputy commander of the Soviet northern fleet. Intourist, the Soviet travel organization, has arranged a sightseeing tour for the ship’s 23 officers, 172 men, and 7 oceanographers, which includes visits to a fish-factory ship and a reindeer herd.”

[Kiwi]

Here's some more "secret" material for Inconceivable.

Roundup 25 September 1970, page 2
Dr. George Low Comments On U.S.S.R. Lunar Probe
https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/roundups/issues/70-09-25.pdf
   "The Soviet Union’s reported success in obtaining lunar material, depositing it in a sealed container and launching it from the Moon’s surface on a return to Earth with the Luna 16 unmanned spacecraft is a major engineering and scientific achievement. We wish the Soviet Union and its scientists and engineers success in completing this exciting mission."
   "The material collected by Luna 16 is from the Sea of Fertility, an area which has not yet been studied on the surface by manned or unmanned spacecraft."
   "Exploration of the Moon by manned and unmanned spacecraft is resulting in important discoveries concerning the orgin of the [text missing] laboratories on Earth as well as the personal on-site observations by United States astronauts and close-up photographs of the Moon’s surface by both the U.S. and Soviet Union already are proving their value to the worldwide scientific community."
   "We look forward to sharing in the information which will be developed by an analysis of the samples."



Roundup 23 October 1970, page 1
Soviet Cosmonauts Arrive In Houston, Tour MSC Today
https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/roundups/issues/70-10-23.pdf
   Soviet Cosmonauts Andriyan Nicolayev and Vitaley Sevastianov, who spent 18 days in earth-orbital flight in Soyuz 9 last June, were scheduled to have visited Houston and the Manned Spacecraft Center this week.
   They were scheduled to have arrived at Ellington AFB from Marshall Space Flight Center, Wednesday afternoon, followed by visits to astronauts’ homes. Thursday they were to have attended the AIAA conference at Astroworld Convention Hall in the morning and meet with Houston Mayor Louie Welch in the afternoon, followed by a tour of Houston and attend the AIAA banquet.
   Today a briefing and tour of the Manned Spacecraft Center is planned for the cosmonauts. A private dinner party is scheduled this evening. The cosmonauts and party are scheduled to depart Houston for Los Angeles Saturday morning.

[gillianren]

Hell, I'm 41 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Hell, I'm 69 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Sure, but I get told a lot that it's all "people who don't remember Apollo and don't really understand what things were like then."  Well, I was -7 when Apollo landed on the Moon.  I am aware of Cold War complexities, and I am probably one of the youngest people to grow up with a sense of Cold War foreboding.  I even had an air raid drill in junior high with literally everyone sitting in a hallway asking what the point of the whole thing was.

[jfb]

Other things interesting about this story is that it was found with a life raft attached to it. 

BP 1227 was used for recovery training.  Which occurred in the ocean.  So the fact that there was a life raft attached should not be surprising.

The Captain visited their cemetery to pay respects to American, Soviet and other allied that were killed according to online sources.

The Soviets were our allies in WWII (aka the Great Patriotic War) against the Axis powers, and suffered truly horrifying losses (something like 8.6 million military deaths, upward of 20 million total deaths).  Granted, that was partly because Stalin purged the Red Army of leaders who actually knew what they were doing.  But, without the Red Army, victory against the Nazis would have been much more difficult. 

[AtomicDog]

Never heard about this one before.  It was recovered by the Soviet Union after Apollo 13 launch 1970 and a secret mission to Murmansk load it onto US Coastguard cutter Southwind Sept 6.  Could they really have just launched boiler plates? Isn't this proof that the US and Soviet Union were in cahoots during the cold war? ri34j

So you'd like to make a blanket statement about a conflict lasting 40 years on the basis of one event lasting a few days (the amount of time the Southwind was in Murmansk)? How about I make a blanket statement that "The Cuban Missile Crisis is proof that the USA and USSR were on the edge of nuclear holocaust throughout the Cold War". Consider, after all, that the CMC lasted 13 days.

And anyway, collusion theories about the Cold War have another hurdle to cross: Who on each side of the "fake" conflict knew it was fake? Consider that on both sides, the people who knew had to come into possession of that knowledge. Every senior military official, diplomat, politician...whatever...had to start out as a snotty-nosed lieutenant, consular official or state party official of some sort before they reached the top of the relevant seniority ladder.

Then what? They get promoted to a certain level, and on their first day on the job they get called into an office and have it explained to them that everything they'd known up to then about the Cold War was wrong: all those people shot trying to cross the Berlin Wall, all those maneuverings of opposing submarines deep in the Earth's oceans, all those ballistic missile tests, all those shipments of arms to conflicts where Our Allies were fighting Them or Their Allies, all that propaganda and ritualised name-calling...all for nothing.

And yet, throughout the Cold War, all those people in the know of How Things Really Were never once spilled the beans to their underlings who thought it was all real?

Sorry, but, as my kids would say, Seriously?

So, the "Cold War Collusion" theory fails for the same reason the "Moon Hoax" theory does.

[Obviousman]

As it turns out, there is an interview with Jack Clemons, who worked in Mission Control during Apollo, Skylab and STS. He had this to say about the 'moon hoax':

There are numerous independent verifications of the truth of our moon landings—many from sources with no connection to NASA. During my talks, my answer is that 400,000 people, including me, worked on putting men on the moon. Do you imagine all of them could keep this big conspiracy a secret? Furthermore, why would I stand before an audience claiming we did land on the moon when I could make a heck of a lot more money exposing the conspiracy? I know I’m wasting my time—true believers are unpersuaded. But to paraphrase what astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson had to say about science, the good thing is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.

Read more at https://www.airspacemag.com/as-interview/Jack-Clemons-180969503/#2DPtS3ky2taVgivj.99

[AtomicDog]

As it turns out, there is an interview with Jack Clemons, who worked in Mission Control during Apollo, Skylab and STS. He had this to say about the 'moon hoax':

There are numerous independent verifications of the truth of our moon landings—many from sources with no connection to NASA. During my talks, my answer is that 400,000 people, including me, worked on putting men on the moon. Do you imagine all of them could keep this big conspiracy a secret? Furthermore, why would I stand before an audience claiming we did land on the moon when I could make a heck of a lot more money exposing the conspiracy? I know I’m wasting my time—true believers are unpersuaded. But to paraphrase what astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson had to say about science, the good thing is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.

Read more at https://www.airspacemag.com/as-interview/Jack-Clemons-180969503/#2DPtS3ky2taVgivj.99

As I have said repeatedly to hoax believers: if the moon landings were hoaxed, there are thousands of people who worked on Project Apollo who know for a fact that it was hoaxed; and they would have SOLID EVIDENCE of the hoax. The fame and fortune of being the first to reveal the hoax to the world would be irresistible to at least some of these people. So, in over 50 years, why has NO ONE from Project Apollo blown the whistle?

[jfb]

Hell, I'm 41 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Hell, I'm 69 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Sure, but I get told a lot that it's all "people who don't remember Apollo and don't really understand what things were like then."  Well, I was -7 when Apollo landed on the Moon.  I am aware of Cold War complexities, and I am probably one of the youngest people to grow up with a sense of Cold War foreboding.  I even had an air raid drill in junior high with literally everyone sitting in a hallway asking what the point of the whole thing was.

You were 8 to 16 while Reagan was President.  Of course you felt a sense of foreboding.  Joking about bombing Moscow in 5 minutes on a live mic tends to make one nervous.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Gipper, Morning in America, hope over malaise, blah blah blah radioactive fishcakes.  I spent my high school years genuinely terrified that they were going to bring back the draft specifically to send my ass down to Central America. 

Yeah, Inconceivable's fantasy of the US and USSR being in cahoots is just that - inconceivable. 

[ineluki]

I find it amazing how many people seem to think the cold war (or for that matter any war) was a totally either/or situation.

Amazing but it is just another example of Hoaxers having a 1-bit mind...

- radiation is either nonexistent or instantly deadly
- space travel is either completely risk free or suicide
- space travel is either childs play or impossible
- the temperature on the moon is either (depending on the source) 250° or -250°

[gillianren]

Hell, I'm 41 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Hell, I'm 69 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Sure, but I get told a lot that it's all "people who don't remember Apollo and don't really understand what things were like then."  Well, I was -7 when Apollo landed on the Moon.  I am aware of Cold War complexities, and I am probably one of the youngest people to grow up with a sense of Cold War foreboding.  I even had an air raid drill in junior high with literally everyone sitting in a hallway asking what the point of the whole thing was.

You were 8 to 16 while Reagan was President.  Of course you felt a sense of foreboding.

No, I was 4 to 12 while Reagan was President.  The first political discussion I remember having with someone outside my family was in 1984.  I was in third grade, and we agreed that our parents were voting for Mondale, because Reagan was a [insert third-grade epithet here].

[BDL]

Hell, I'm 41 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Hell, I'm 69 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Sure, but I get told a lot that it's all "people who don't remember Apollo and don't really understand what things were like then."  Well, I was -7 when Apollo landed on the Moon.  I am aware of Cold War complexities, and I am probably one of the youngest people to grow up with a sense of Cold War foreboding.  I even had an air raid drill in junior high with literally everyone sitting in a hallway asking what the point of the whole thing was.

You were 8 to 16 while Reagan was President.  Of course you felt a sense of foreboding.  Joking about bombing Moscow in 5 minutes on a live mic tends to make one nervous.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Gipper, Morning in America, hope over malaise, blah blah blah radioactive fishcakes.  I spent my high school years genuinely terrified that they were going to bring back the draft specifically to send my ass down to Central America. 

Yeah, Inconceivable's fantasy of the US and USSR being in cahoots is just that - inconceivable.

I’m pretty young so I’ve never really given bombs, missiles, and nukes too much thought.
The only time I was genuinely scared of those types of things was when Kim Jong Un started flying missiles over Japan, since some of my family lives there. Then my fears grew a little when I learned that the North Koreans had the capability to send some missiles over the US.

[raven]

I was just old enough to be deeply amused when my family bought a globe with the USSR emblazoned in it, only for it to be out of date a couple weeks after we bought it.

[jfb]

Hell, I'm 41 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Hell, I'm 69 and remember being terrified of nuclear war as a child.

Sure, but I get told a lot that it's all "people who don't remember Apollo and don't really understand what things were like then."  Well, I was -7 when Apollo landed on the Moon.  I am aware of Cold War complexities, and I am probably one of the youngest people to grow up with a sense of Cold War foreboding.  I even had an air raid drill in junior high with literally everyone sitting in a hallway asking what the point of the whole thing was.

You were 8 to 16 while Reagan was President.  Of course you felt a sense of foreboding.

No, I was 4 to 12 while Reagan was President.  The first political discussion I remember having with someone outside my family was in 1984.  I was in third grade, and we agreed that our parents were voting for Mondale, because Reagan was a [insert third-grade epithet here].

Derp.  Three semesters of calculus and a semester of DE 30 years ago rendered me incapable of simple arithmetic.  That or I popped a synapse and was thinking of 1984 for some reason (gosh, wonder why).