The Rembis Report And Other Fascinating Topics - Volume CXXXI

The countdown had begun.

It was a half hour until midnight, local time, at Vandenburg Air Force base in California, on December 29, 2022. In ten minutes, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket would lift off into a starry night sky. Blast-off was flawless. It barreled into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. A minute later it was six miles high. In another ninety seconds it was moving at 3,700 miles per hour, roughly one mile per second, when the main rocket separated from the booster to return to Earth. The second stage climbed higher and soon reached hypersonic speed. Eight minutes after liftoff, in a display of fantastic precision and the ultimate in recycling, the first stage rocket returned to Earth to land upright.

The second stage kept soaring 275 miles above, at the equivalent of 18 times the speed of sound (if there were atmosphere to carry sound), an amazing three miles per second. The booster engine glowed white hot for two more minutes. When it was halfway to Hawaii and 300 miles above, the engine shut down and it coasted for another five minutes before separating from the satellite it carried into orbit, and deployed the payload.

The ISI EROS C-3 was aloft. It is one of the most sophisticated satellites ever built. The manufacturer does not call it a “spy satellite,” they prefer to say observation satellite, because that is exactly what it is. It is made to observe. There are many applications for such a useful tool. It is about the size of a minivan, or small SUV, or a little torpedo, take your pick. It is just 3 feet wide, by 13 feet long, with solar arrays like wings, stretching out 13 feet from end to end. But so high in the sky, and always moving at 3 miles per second, it remains virtually undetected as it points a camera that sports a resolution of clarity on the surface of the planet of about one foot.

Can it read a license plate?

Well, if the artificial intelligence employed by whoever is pointing the camera can get the proper angle and squelch that resolution to perfection, the answer is maybe. The manufacturer will neither confirm nor deny. The military application is for information and security. The public application is for high resolution mapping. Who gets what information is not something that is necessarily made public, but in 2023 it orbited the planet over 5,600 times while the world carried on below.

The EROS C-3 was built by ImageSat International (ISI) and is controlled by Israel Aerospace Industries. The eye in the sky passes by every 93 minutes and it is always watching something. In fact, you can rent it yourself and look at whatever you want.

If it were watching closely on New Year’s Eve, it might have spied the twin sisters who were born before and after midnight, giving them birthdays not just on different days, but different years. Or it may have noticed fireworks exploding at the stroke of midnight in each time zone as it flew overhead.

Did it train its lens on the memorial gatherings in Washington D.C., two years after the January 6th insurrection, seeking some face in the crowds? In case you missed it, in 2021, a crazed mob tried to stop the legal electoral process and overthrow the US government. Supporters of the coup are still calling this nothing more than a peaceful protest that got out of hand, saying that the liberal news media wants you believe that Donald Trump was behind it. Evidence to that effect is still being processed. Meanwhile, throughout 2023, Donye was indicted 91 times, more than any other ex-U.S. president (the record was zero), and more times than most people ever get indicted, period.

Whatever the satellite was watching on January 6th, it missed the six-year-old kid who shot his teacher with the gun he stole from his mother. School officials apparently knew he had brought a gun to school, and did nothing to disarm him. The teacher took a bullet to her arm and recovered. Mom went to jail.

The satellite also did nothing to stop the 50-car train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3rd. Eleven of the Norfolk Southern rail cars spilled about 100,000 gallons of toxic chemicals like vinyl chloride, benzene residue, and butyl acrylate. This is some really nasty stuff you don’t want to breathe. Lots of people were evacuated and it took months to clean up. Norfolk Southern trains had two more derailments in March, these times, with less damage and no toxic spills.

Whether or not this satellite had anything to do with spotting it, a big Chinese spy balloon was seen entering U.S. air space over Alaska in late January. It was visible from the ground, flying over Montana, on it’s way to the east coast. While they could have spent our tax dollars to do something really cool, like sending a troop of badass military dudes with jet-packs and wing-suits up there, to seize control and land it safely, while filming the whole thing with GoPros on their helmets and streaming it live, courtesy of Red Bull, who you know, would have sponsored it, instead, on February 4th over Atlantic waters off the coast of South Carolina, they had a fighter jet shoot it down and sent divers to retrieve a bunch of wreckage. A 15-year-old kid could have done that from his basement with a remote controlled drone. At this point, all we really know about it was that it could track cell phone data. Sorry folks, they got your podcast playlist. That’s the public narrative. If it had other capabilities, we are not going to find out. Not publicly, anyway.

In the following week, U.S. military aircraft shot down three more UFOs near Alaska (February 10), over the Yukon (February 11), and over Lake Huron (February 12). They were of varying shapes and sizes. Whatever they were, and what happened to them once they touched down in icy water or on land (the narrative is that they were never found), has not been made public.

On the other side of the globe, deep underground, tectonic plates were serving up over 30,000 aftershocks from the Turkey–Syria earthquakes that began with the biggest temblor of the year on February 6th, coming in at magnitude 7.8, the strongest this region has endured region since 1939. This was the most deadly natural disaster of the year, killing over 59,000 people.

Mount Merapi in Yogyakarta, Indonesia erupted on March 11th. It is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanos. An eruption in 2010 claimed over 300 lives. This eruption would last through the end of March with no deaths reported. Mount Merapi National Park was established in 2004.

Geez, Mike! Did anything good happen in 2023?

I am so glad you asked. Yes, indeed! Hang in there, we have lots of good news, too.

Taylor Swift kicked off her record-breaking Eras Tour on March 17th. The tour is scheduled through the end of 2024 and the 60 shows already performed played to over 4 million people. As previously reported (by me), Taylor has given her crew generous bonuses and shared her wealth with food banks in every city that hosted her. In Brazil, she stopped the performance over concerns about guests being overheated, got everyone water, and went on to finish the show. The massive production is a logistical masterwork of lights, fashion, stagecraft, and choreography that goes on for an immersive three-and-a-half hours. It has already touched down on four continents and generated over a billion dollars in revenue. Time Magazine honored Taylor Swift as their Person Of The Year.

On April 20th, a lady in Virginia spotted this online plea for a new home for Patches, a 40-pound tabby. Whether or not she was celebrating that day in the style of the original 4:20 Waldos is unknown, as our satellite has not produced any evidence of that, yet, she found Patches completely irresistible and brought him right home.

Patches has not run away and loves the munchies served at his new crib. He is now a darling of the internet with his own Facebook page. Join the other 40,000 followers of Patches Journey to see how his weight loss is coming along. As of this writing he has lost twelve pounds! Way to go Patches!

On May 5th, lots of people celebrated with margaritas in hand because it was Cinco de Mayo. They may not have a clue what May 5th truly means to Mexico, but that doesn’t matter, because a margarita is a margarita and they are usually two for one that day. The other big thing that happened that day was the World Health Organization officially declared an end to the Covid-19 pandemic. Time to rip off that mask and have a drink in public.

Many of us enjoy tracking our packages online. Sometimes they get delayed and we want to find out what the hold-up is. No spy satellite in orbit going to tell you why, but sometimes delivery drivers get rerouted when they find themselves needing to go above and beyond the call of duty. There were a couple of such incidents this summer. In the wee hours of July 26th, a San Diego FedEx driver stopped for a burning vehicle and rescued the young man inside. It was a single vehicle accident. Around 3:00 AM the driver hit a guardrail. No drugs or alcohol involved, maybe he looked at his phone or his radio, or dozed off, but lucky for him the FedEx driver arrived when he did and pulled him out of the car. Good job!

A couple days later, a postal worker in Tacoma heard a kitten crying for help. He got the cat out of where it was stuck, brought him home, and named him Peaches. He figured the little feline was good luck, so he bought a lottery ticket that day, and won $717,500. Peaches is going to be deep in cream for a long time!

This Halloween, a lady in Beverly, Massachusetts raised the bar on trick or treating when she decided to hand out pierogis instead of candy. The whole neighborhood got in on the action and soon, there was a guy passing out rotisserie chickens. What a great way to celebrate!

Whoa! Mike, hold up. You completely skipped over June, August, and September, and now you’re already back to holiday season? Didn’t any other nice things happen this year?

Sure, lots of great stuff. Check this out -

The Ocean Cleanup removed over 30 tons of trash from the Pacific Garbage Patch in August and September alone. You can’t see it from space, but it’s out there, halfway between California and Hawaii. They are now closing in on having removed 9,000 tons of floating garbage worldwide. You have probably heard about the Pacific Garbage Patch because it is so huge, but did you know there are four more significant floating garbage patches around the world? To find out how you can help, and contribute less plastic to the oceans, please click the links in this paragraph to learn more.

While it is great news to hear that all that pollution was cleaned up, there is plenty more still out there, and it is accumulating every day. It is eye-opening to learn how much we humans put out there.

Mother Earth fought back against all that pollution and delivered a banner year, full of climate records and catastrophes. Besides the aforementioned earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, she brought us cyclones, forest fires, and the hottest days ever recorded. July was the hottest month in 125,000 years. Lots of satellites recorded before and after pictures, but there was nothing to stop any of it. Once you roll a boulder downhill it only stops when it has to. The planet’s climate slope is really steep and nothing we do seems to help level it off. Full speed ahead. The brink of oblivion awaits.

In the midst of wildfires burning over 45 million acres across North America this spring, June 7th brought us the smokiest day in American history. A month later, on August 8th, Hawaii saw its deadliest wildfire ever, when the idyllic coastal town of Lahaina was destroyed. On October 24th, Hurricane Otis brought category 5 winds to the Mexican coast and leveled Acapulco. Late November rains doused Somalia with heavy floods and displaced over 700,000 people.

OMG Mike! We thought you were moving on to nice stories!

We did. Now we are moving on to other news. Hate the game, not the player. I don’t write history, I just report it.

But since you asked, let’s catch up with Antarctic explorer Captain Harpreet Chandi. You may recall that she completed her second trek to the South Pole on January 23rd. Visit her blog to read details of her recovery from the polar ice journey and the see the gnarly scar she got from exposure to the cold. She named it Elsa. Congratulation, Preet on your achievement, and happy that Elsa was your only wound.

Other explorers did not fare so well this year. On June 18th, the crew of the OceanGate Titan submersible took a trip to the wreckage of the Titanic and the craft imploded. Five intrepid adventurers on the little sub that was controlled by a video game console remain in the murky depths of the North Atlantic. If you want to check out the Titanic wreckage, but the up-close and personal experience isn’t right for you, CLICK HERE to see the 3-D imagery mapped by Magellan Ltd. It’s pretty cool.

In Hollywood, actors and writers were on strike from May 2nd to November 9th, the longest dual strike of both the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA unions since 1960. Intellectual property, residuals from streaming platforms, and protection from artificial intelligence utilizing synthetic media were at the heart of the disagreements with film studios. Productions shut down and shows like American Horror Story: Delicate stopped mid-story. I am still waiting to see what happens.

Speaking of things that didn’t last long, Kevin McCarthy was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from January 7th to October 3rd. After a couple of weeks of trying to figure out who they liked better, Mike Johnson became Speaker on October 25th. Congress was so busy with staffing they barely had time to work, resulting in the least productive congress in years. They have only passed 20 laws so far. One of them was a bill to mint a coin commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps. This one was notably spearheaded by George Santos, a guy who nobody thought was working, and was ousted from congress himself on December 1st, resulting from his two federal indictments alleging 23 fraud-related charges including money laundering, theft of public funds, wire fraud, and lying. All of which he has pleaded not guilty. His story is going to be covered in so many ways Hollywood writers may never run out of material. Georgey Boy was the focus of my six-part series, Russian Nesting Dolls, Gremlins, and Tribbles. When guys like him get elected is it any wonder that congress isn’t particularly productive?

They are certainly shying away from sending military aid packages to Ukraine. There is hard sentiment against supporting what appear to be endless wars. Investments in freedom are hard to sell.

On October 7th, another war started. This time in Israel. Whatever that Israeli-built satellite was looking at, they did not see the coming attack from Hamas militants. It was a complete surprise.

CLICK HERE to see what Gaza looks like from space.

Thousands of people were slaughtered and hundreds were kidnapped. Palestinian hospital patients were used as human shields. Bombing has been ongoing over the last three months, effectively obliterating the Gaza strip, and straining relations between Jews and Muslims around the world. Palestinian and Israeli lives are in turmoil. My hope is that people are able to leave because I don’t see any point in staying there, or in any other war zone, if you are not there to fight.

I don’t know if the EROS C-3 was sent into orbit to specifically watch for threats to the region, but I would guess that it is probably watching for them now. Maybe Israel’s military trained their spy cameras on every enemy they could find as soon as the war started. That would just make sense. Maybe that is how they found a senior advisor to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, and killed him in an airstrike in Syria on December 25th.

Hamas, Houthi, and Hezbollah militants are backed by Iran. It is widely considered that Israel and Iran are in a proxy war through these groups. A lot of people think the United States should get more involved in this conflict and the one in Ukraine. Others are against it.

In general, everyone is in agreement that fighting should stop, but how that is achieved is the greatest debate of all. The thing is, guns are big business. War machines cost a lot of money and it seems like no matter what, nobody ever runs out of money for this stuff, whether it is on the other side of the world, or right here at home, bullets find a way.

The United States averaged nearly 2 mass shootings every day in 2023.

I know that is a sad note to end on, but let’s look forward to the future, and hope that the right people pull together to get some good things accomplished in the years ahead. Look to the people who are looking for ways to clean up our planet, and slow global warming, and those who carry on in teaching, informing and entertaining us, and show your support.

Yes, entertainment is important, too. It is the one thing that makes us think about all that other stuff at a distance, with no true risk to ourselves. They help us cope, make us laugh, and empathetically console us when we cry as we live vicariously through their art, books, music, and films.

This year we lost our friend Matthew Perry, and many, many other fine entertainers. I mention Matthew Perry because I watched Friends for all those years, and I felt like I knew him. I did not really know him at all, but I knew his on-screen persona, Chandler Bing, and that dude - he was a great friend.

Today, on the last day of 2023, you will undoubtedly catch a showcase of those who have passed. That is our tradition. Maybe on CBS Sunday Morning’s Hail & Farewell segment, or on CNN, or on Fox, there will be one on whatever channel you watch. Turner Classic Movies put up a nice one a few days ago.

I guess I am out of stuff to say about 2023. Of course, I couldn’t cover it all, but I hope you like what I brought you.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.