The national Sunspot Solar Observatory in an isolated, mountainous region of New Mexico was set to reopen Monday after it was shut down on Sept. 6 with little explanation.

The group that manages the facility announced on the observatory’s Facebook page Sunday that it had been “cooperating with an on-going law enforcement investigation of criminal activity that occurred at Sacramento Peak.”

During that time, said the statement from the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), “we became concerned that a suspect in the investigation potentially posed a threat to the safety of local staff and residents. For this reason, AURA temporarily vacated the facility and ceased science activities at this location.”

Officials had said very little about why the observatory, near Alamagordo, shut down. Local law enforcement officials said the FBI was involved in the closure — which the feds have not confirmed or denied — and the resulting lack of information led to all kinds of conspiracy theories.

Hmmmm…I see potential for a mystery novel here: “Murder at the Observatory”.

Referring to your sidebar about shooting out the big reflector’s mirror, I remember reading about that. As it turns out, a bullet will gouge out a piece of glass from the mirror, but will usually not crack the glass, affecting a larger area. Since the figure, or paraboloid curve of the reflecting surface, is still intact, the only repair that needs to be made is to paint the chipped-out bullet crater with flat black paint to suppress stray reflections. The only effect on optical performance is a tiny reduction (area of chip/area of mirror)in the brightness of the image, the resolution or sharpness is not affected at all. Remember, in a big reflector, there are already many obstructions (such as the secondary mirror and its supporting struts) suspended in the light path.

A similar issue occurs in large refractors. The molten glass used in making large lenses unavoidably forms tiny bubbles at the foundry. These bubbles are trapped in the glass as it cools, but they do not affect the image quality because they are out of focus at the focal plane. Likewise, the dust and atmospheric pollutants that fall on the glass are only cleaned off infrequently because of the potential of damaging the figure of the lens. The image brightness is affected only negligibly by these obstructions, and the image sharpness and resolution not at all.

There are constant training flights over there… I lived and worked in the area for about 6 months in 2013…

At a small solar observatory tucked away in the woods of a national forest here, scientists and other personnel were commanded last week to leave at once. A week later, the facility remains vacant, and no one is willing to say why.

The mysterious and lengthy evacuation, in a state known for secretive military testing and a suspected UFO crash, has spawned a wealth of speculation.

Did the researchers spot something extraterrestrial? Was the solar telescope hacked by a foreign power and deployed to spy on, say, the state’s missile testing range? Or is there an innocuous explanation, suppressed only because of corporate and government resistance to transparency?

On Friday, the entrance to the National Solar Observatory was blocked by yellow crime scene tape and two security guards, who said even they had been kept in the dark. The guards, from Red Rock Security & Patrol in Las Cruces, N.M., did not give their names but said it was the first day the company was guarding the entrance and that only the “director and an assistant” were allowed in. There was no obvious sign of law enforcement activity.

“We don’t know anything. We’re just as curious as anyone else,” one guard said.
A spokeswoman for the nonprofit group that runs the facility said the organization was ad­dressing a “security issue,” but offered no additional information, other than, “I can tell you it definitely wasn’t aliens.” She said Friday that the facility “will remain closed until further notice.” Neither the FBI — which was spotted on the premises around the time of the evacuation — nor those who worked at the facility would tell local law enforcement what had happened, said Otero County Sheriff Benny House.

“They wouldn’t give us any ­details,” House said. “I’ve got ideas, but I don’t want to put them out there. That’s how bad press or rumors get started, and it’ll cause paranoia, or I might satisfy everybody’s mind and I might be totally off base.”

Unlike some of New Mexico’s other research facilities, the solar observatory in Sunspot is not usually shrouded in such secrecy.
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House, the sheriff, said that just before 10 a.m. Sept. 6, staffers at the Sunspot facility called to report that they were “evacuating the building” and asked if deputies could assist. He said a sergeant and a deputy were dispatched and told upon arrival that the FBI had been there earlier.

But neither staff nor the bureau would explain why the facility had to be vacated, House said. He said a volunteer fire chief claimed that the FBI had told him there had been a “credible threat” but would provide no details.

The sheriff’s office, House said, saw no evidence of a threat, and deputies left after a few hours.

“We tried to find out the threat and what their concerns were,” House said. “They wouldn’t identify anything. They were pretty hush mouthed about it.”
……………

The property manager also went into the post office on the facility and asked the woman working there to leave but gave no indication why that was necessary, said Rod Spurgeon, a Postal Service spokesman. Spurgeon said post office operations have continued at the nearby Cloudcroft facility.

Kinsey Featherston, a spokeswoman for Rep. Stevan Pearce (R-N.M.), said the congressman’s office contacted the FBI and was told there was an “ongoing investigation.”

“We will continue monitoring the situation, but at this time, we have no information,” she said.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment, referring questions about the matter to the consortium that manages the buildings. Shari Lifson, a spokeswoman for the AURA consortium, said in a statement that her group was ­“addressing a security issue” and had “decided to temporarily vacate the facility as a precautionary measure.” She said they were “working with the proper auth­orities on this issue.” Lifson declined to specify who those authorities were.

https://gizmodo.com/telescope-did-not-see-aliens-director-of-mysteriously-1829058158

I’m in North Carolina right now, watching the weather on the horizon, hence the weather link.