|
The
Sunspot Solar Observatory, near Holloman Air Force Base and
White Sands Missile Range, sits atop the Sacramento mountains in
southern New Mexico. It has been closed since the FBI evacuated
staff on Sept. 6.
The facility's location, near military installations two hours'
drive from the town of Roswell, has sparked speculation on
social media. Roswell was the site of a famous 1947 sighting of
UFOs which the Air Force later said were top-secret high
altitude weather balloons.
"Sounds like a case for Mulder & Scully," tweeted Ian Caverney,
referring to the 1990s science fiction television series "The
X-Files."
"This is very abnormal," Everisto Gomez, a dispatch operator for
the Otero County Sheriffs Office, said on Friday.
The FBI has not responded to requests for comment, referring
questions to the observatory's manager, the Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).
The group said in an email on Friday it would remain closed
until further notice, citing an unspecified "ongoing security
concern." Its sunspot activity data is used nationwide. Sunspots
are regions of reduced temperatures on the sun that appear as
dark spots on the surface.
"Our people just locked up their offices and made their way to
all their homes around the area" after the closure, said Dr.
James McAteer, who runs the solar telescope at the observatory,
in an interview.
(Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso and Joey Roulette in
Orlando; Roulette; Writing by Bill Tarrant; Editing by Richard
Chang)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
