Preliminary Report on Magnetic Field Measurements Recorded at Satus Fire Lookout

A twelve-hour magnetometer recording made at the Satus Fire Lookout on the Yakama Indian Reservation in central Washington, USA, revealed many, 30 mS to 15 S wide magnetic pulses of unknown origin. The characteristics of the pulses suggest that they are of mechanical origin, because of their highly patterned symmetry and amplitude characteristics. The nature of the data and history of the study area further suggest that the pulses may be related to electromagnetic disturbances seen in connection with the appearance of various Anomalous Luminous Phenomena (ALP). The data show similarities to electromagnetic measurements made by ALP researchers in other geographical locations. Since no ALP observations were made during the recording period, there is still the possibility that the source of the pulses may be the result of unknown human activities. This preliminary report discusses the data recorded and presents the results of initial analysis of the data set. © 2001 Willard J. Vogel Study All Rights Reserved. -1INTRODUCTION This preliminary report describes the characteristics of magnetic flux variations, recorded over a 12-hour period, at Satus Fire Lookout on the Yakama Indian Reservation in south central Washington state (USA). A 12-bit, three-axis magnetometer capable of resolving flux changes as small as one or two milliGauss (mG) was used to acquire the data. The flux changes were sampled at a rate of 100 samples/second, making it possible to resolve waveforms at rates up to about 50 Hz in frequency. The signals described here are probably related to Anomalous Luminous Phenomena (ALP). Though no observations of ALP were made during the time of the recordings, the history of the study area and similarities to instrument readings made elsewhere 2,3 strongly suggest an ALP connection. Other possible sources for the flux variations, which have not been positively ruled-out, are unknown military or commercial activities. Additional field work is ongoing to establish a stronger nexus between the magnetic flux variations described here and ALP observed in the study area. In the meantime, this preliminary description and analysis is being presented to point a way toward improved magnetic measurement techniques and discovery of a magnetic “signature” for the flux variations sometimes associated with ALP. DATA SET CHARACTERISTICS The data set, acquired on July 11, 2001, consists of a continuous recording of 12 hours and 8 minutes of local magnetic flux variations. Recording began at 1950 Pacific Daylight time (PDT) and continued, uninterrupted until the morning of July 12, 2001 at 0759 PDT. The original recording is 30,600,167 bytes long. The Satus Fire Lookout magnetometer was located at latitude 46° 15.4727' N and longitude 120° 45.2393' W (from GPS). The magnetometer head was fixed in position during the recording process such that the Yreading axis pointed towards true North, the X reading axis pointed to true East, and the Z reading axis was perpendicular to the earth’s surface. Note that the X axis component of the earth’s horizontal field intensity (H) is usually defined as positive to true north and the Y axis is defined positive to the east (D). Z axis magnitude is also defined as positive-downward. The magnetometer head, an engineering model, inverted the polarity of the flux changes on all three axes from standard geomagnetic definitions. The plotting and analysis done below adjust for these differences and follow the standard definitions. PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE DATA Analog signals from a anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) magnetic sensor hybrid (Honeywell HMC2003) were digitized in the magnetometer head module and fed into the serial port of a standard IBM-PC compatible computer. Recording software, running on the PC, synchronized and formatted the magnetometer head data. The raw binary data, along with synchronizing bytes was then recorded on hard disk.