though a whiteout condition occurred on the icecap at times it seldom reached up and over the Radome 80 feet above the surface. Thus a laser optics receiver was to be placed atop the Radome and synchronized to track the Moon’s trek across the sky.
CHAPTER 6
Fire in the Sky and Lake on the Ice
There was a knock on the VIP room door at 0030 hours in the morning. One of the radar techs woke Sheridan telling him that there was an ELT, (emergency locator transponder) radio beacon going off, and one of the ice drilling rigs had reported seeing a glow over the northern horizon. He threw on his fatigues and boots and headed down the stairs toward the radar console room. The door was open when he got there. Vince Beach was studying the radar display and the ELT beacon was audible on the speaker set.
All aircraft are equipped with an ELT transponder. This beacon is activated when a switch built into the unit is activated by high G-forces, such as in a crash. It is analogous to an air bag going off and the car notifying OnStar of the deployment via cell phone. However, this is a radio beacon that uses a universal frequency of 1030 to 1090 MHz. In the event of a crash the radio beacon can be used as a directional finder to locate the crash site.
The funny thing about this ELT activation was that nothing was on the radar screen prior to its activation. No distress signal was given. The beacon was coming from the north in the direction of the glow over the horizon.
Vince got on the tropo-phone hotline and notified the Space Command HQ in Cheyenne Mountain of a suspected crash. NORAD confirmed that there was no military or civilian aircraft in the region prior to the ELT. Then encrypted message traffic came in over the KW-7 instructing them to cease discussing the incident over the tropo-phone. They were to use the encrypted keyboard. The reason given was that it could be a Soviet aircraft that was testing the radar coverage area and it was flying below the radar. It may have actually crashed.
The ice drilling rig operator was now on the radio telling us that the glow on the horizon was moving slowly to the east. This sure didn’t look like a crash site. Captain Sheridan and Vince put on their parkas, iron pants, goggles, and gloves and headed outside onto the catwalk near the snow harvester dredge. They looked to the north and sure enough could see the glow. It was more than a glow though. It was a fuzzy inverted V-shaped object, glowing yellow, and then green. It looked to be just over the horizon. Whatever it was, it wasn’t burning and it was huge. Distances and size are deceiving on the icecap.
Space Command HQ authorized a Search and Rescue operation to be organized and sent out. Vince got on the PA system and hit the crash alarm. Everyone was up in an instant and met in the gymnasium. Blankets were gathered. Four men headed down stairs to the maintenance shed to fire up the site’s three snowcats. The tracked vehicles with a crew box were sort of like mating a minivan with a bulldozer. They held up to a dozen personnel each and were onsite in the event of a catastrophic event on the station. They were life boats so to speak. Each one had its own survival gear and first aid equipment stored on board.
Vince picked another half dozen men and had them report to the shed. He then had Jorgen man the infirmary. The snowcats were loaded up within a few minutes. The diesel engines were preheated and fired up quickly.
The glow was still moving slowly to the east as the three snowcats with the four men each lurched out onto the icecap. They made pretty good time. They would easily do about twenty-five mph. However, the snow rifts and drifts made it a slow go. Dan Wilson was in the lead snowcat. He was a little apprehensive. It sure did not look like a plane crash or fire on the horizon. The closer he got the higher the glow seemed to get until they reached a point where they could clearly see it hovering over the horizon and still apparently moving to the east. The only thing that kept everyone calm was the fact that an ELT was still going off. Only airplanes have ELTs, right? The snowcats were now out for about forty-five minutes. They were about fifteen miles out and could barely make out the DYE-3 site behind them. They were still quite a ways from the glow. It still looked like it was on the horizon, but higher now. It was still fuzzy and shaped like an inverted V. Sort of like the Star Trek symbol. Talk about irony.
Dan was feeling less guilty now for insisting they bring one of the only two weapons from the site, the old M-1 carbine. Nobody had ever even loaded the magazine in one of these things let alone fired it. However, Dan was now taking a crash course in ballistics. He gave up trying to figure out the stripper clip and manually placed one round in the chamber. Luckily he didn’t shoot a hole through the wind shield or blow his foot off, but he felt a little more secure and confident.
The snowcats were now out more than an hour and were twenty miles from the site. The glow was now moving faster to the east and was several degrees above the horizon now.
Vince flipped a toggle on the console communication panel and the radio speaker cracked to life. DYE-4 had contacted him to let him know they now had an ELT pinging. They could not see any glow however. DYE-4 was on an island mountain top near the Inuit village of Kulusuk on the east coast of Greenland about 150 miles from DYE-3. This confirmed it was not an equipment malfunction at DYE-3.
DYE-4 had notified Keflavik, Iceland of the ELT. Two F-15s were put on notice and short alert status. They could be airborne in a couple of minutes and make the seven hundred mile trip to DYE-3 in under an hour with use of afterburner. A midair refueling would be needed for the trip back. HQ SAC at Offutt AFB controlled the Air Force’s tanker fleet and were now involved with putting together a rendezvous with a KC-135 over the North Atlantic.
Dan had now been heading northeast of DYE-3 for over an hour. The site wasn’t visible now. Compasses are pretty much useless in the Arctic. They’re too close to the Pole to be reliable. One comfort was that the radar had picked them up using what is known as a side lobe. Using the same technique the Ravens use on setting up for a landing, the side lobe radar was now pinging on the only solid metal objects on the icecap. It couldn’t distinguish three separate vehicles but did register them as a group. They were twenty-two miles out with a relative bearing of 40 degrees true.
Vince was now watching the anemometer and barometric gauge. What he saw was unsettling. The wind gauge was starting to pick up and gust to twenty knots. The barometer was dropping. It didn’t take much wind up here to kick up the snow and produce a white out condition.
Vince told Dave to get suited up because they were heading outside on the catwalk around the Radome. From the catwalk, they could see the swirls of snow writhe up and over the snowdrifts. The odd thing was that there was not a cloud in the sky. The stars were out. The night was perfectly clear. Only the greenish yellow glow shined on the horizon. Whatever it was, it was really picking up speed now. It was now lifting up off the horizon with clear air visible beneath it.
Vince made a command decision to tell Dan to stop any forward motion. A few minutes after this the ELT suddenly went dead. DYE-4 reported theirs went dead, too. At about the same time, the glow suddenly reversed course, heading west at a rapid rate of speed. The glow got brighter, too. It got more yellow. Then it stopped dead in its tracks about where it was first spotted. It rose higher on the horizon, started spinning, and then flashed out of sight in an instant: no noise, nothing on the radar, and no trace. Swoosh, it spun and shot straight up. It was gone in an instant. They just looked at each other in disbelief.
The wind was now picking up to twenty-five knots and the snow was kicking up. The catwalk was a good forty feet above the surface. The blowing snow was only about fifteen feet off the deck. Dan had now reported that he saw the object spiral straight up and vanish in an instant. He was also worried about getting back to the site. They had plenty of fuel, but it was getting dangerous. They were more than twenty miles from the site blinded by the snow and he knew white outs could last days up here.
The funny thing about
