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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Starlink satellites, not aliens, are those strings of lights in the night sky

Apparently many people have been seeing the reflected strings of SpaceX’s new Starlink satellites in the night sky, and are calling news organizations asking about them.

Some viewers have noticed the “lights” in the sky will go dark, one by one. This is due to the reflection of light from the moon and Earth and how the position of the satellites change.

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, detailed a plan this week to “mitigate the impact of their Starlink satellite constellation on night sky observation,” according to an article on Tech Crunch.

In that Tech Crunch article, Musk describes how they are installing sun visors on the satellites to prevent the reflections and make them hopefully invisible to the Earthbound observers.

This will make the astronomy crowd happy, which wants its new big ground-based telescopes to be useful. I think they should instead be focusing their effort in building more space-based telescopes.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • Gene

    I don’t believe in creepy hollywood aliens even though i liked M. Knight Shamylan’s (if that’s how you spell it) (maybe Abu from the simpsons can help with the spelling “it’s spelled just like it sounds”) movie from the late 90s. And I don’t consume anything alex jones puts out, even though the few things that I’ve heard him say are hilarious. frogs… :-0

    Mr. Z, do you have any ideas as to what these might be?

    Unidentified aerial phenomena: pentagon releases 3 ufo videos
    https://disrn.com/news/pentagon-releases-3-videos-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena

    I believe in the spiritual dimension that God created. Maybe it’s angels or fallen angels. I don’t know. Or it could be some country’s super secret technology that we have never heard of before.

  • F16 Guy

    I have flown many hours in two types of aircraft (A-7 and F-16) with targeting pods, as seen in the videos. A few comments:

    1. A ship had tracked some of these objects for weeks. Do aliens hang around that long in the same spot? Why not send a ship to the vicinity for better identification?
    2. The speed and direction of the jet makes the object appear to be moving quickly. Did you ever see a video of a helicopter filming a hot air balloon in the air? Looks like the balloon is moving quite fast. It’s not.
    3. If these UFO’s had been there for weeks, why not send other assets to get close enough to get unblurry video/photo’s ?
    4. Are these pilots truly aghast at what they are seeing, or is there a hint of acting? Many fighter pilots have been known to try and prank a fellow officer.
    5. Regardless of what this is, its not aliens nor UFO’s. After all, Area 51 had sightings of many “UFO’s” until it was announced the US Air Force had a new jet, under development in Area 51, called the F-117.

  • David Howard

    They are the buggy whip manufacturers of this century, whining

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