Who Was Orbiting Earth Before Satellites?

[Solvedit]

Nope.  That experiment was done from 1948 through 1950.  It was called the Bumper project and started at White Sands Proving Ground. The Army was flying V-2s captured from Germany at the end of WWII and shipped back to the US.  

I was guessing that perhaps before the official tests started, a few V2s may have been expended by short-sighted officers bent on ordinance disposal.  There's no way to prove no one ever tried to shoot one into space before the official US government tests. 

Perhaps some of them were found in a state of readiness which made them too dangerous to move?  Perhaps the oxidizer tanks weren't made to be filled and kept in a state of readiness long-term?  One of the fuels for the rocket-powered Me163 was highly corrosive and would injure or kill pilots when the 163's too-simple landing gear caused damage to the plane upon landing. 

V2s were produced in large numbers.

It is also possible the Nazis themselves tested a few of them to see how high they could go without a 1,000kg warhead.  Perhaps they also tested different propellants and found a better one which they wound up unable to use because of supply issues.

[ArMaP]

yeah there's all kinds of dancing around it, like this obvious bs: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...18GL078150 to hide that fact that the bottom of moon craters being convex rather than concave obviously points to it being a rigid artificial structure clad with a 33km camouflage mantle.

Which craters have a convex bottom?

[sahgwa]

@KKLoco & @UltraBudgie

I'm not entirely sure but didn't Randall Carlson say something to the effect that the moon likely helped stabilize the cooling and heating periods of the earth at the end of the Younger Dryas? Could it be that the moon has only been here about 12 thousand years give or take? 

I could be wrong about this claim, his lectures tend to be long and meandering and maybe I'm not remembering it fully. 

Anyone know how the changing of the tides affect weather patterns? Because it seems like they do..

Just sayin'...the moon could be a good thing...

'They say' prior to the moon we had far more mist and rain, and the moon helped stabilise the weather patterns, and to turn the planet from a large swampy kind of oceany place to a more balanced one. 
Egyptian mythology is fascinating in this regard. Also Sumerian/Babylonian, with the world being first without form then as a giant ocean. 

RE unnatural satellites, Philip K Dick's VALIS comes to mind, and I don't think he was just schizo or ill, I think he did get something beamed to him from orbit.

[sahgwa]

Which craters have a convex bottom?

He may be recalling 'flat' more than convex. As I recall reading that they were much flatter down there than normal impacts would have you expect , as well as the 'soil' being harder.

[BeyondKnowledge]

Nope.  That experiment was done from 1948 through 1950.  It was called the Bumper project and started at White Sands Proving Ground. The Army was flying V-2s captured from Germany at the end of WWII and shipped back to the US.  The German Paperclip scientists--including Wernher Von Braun--were stationed at nearby Fort Bliss to help US scientists learn all about ballistic missiles. But before the end of the war, the Army was already secretly developing its own liquid-fueled ballistic missile along the lines of the V-2, only smaller.  It was called the WAC-Corporal and was developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which, at that time, was a government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) facility owned by the Army.  The WAC-corporal was the first successful US sounding rocket and weighed about 700 lb.  They removed the warhead from V-2s (2,200 lb) and placed the WAC-corporal on the nose as a second stage.  At the time, these were the two best-performing rockets on the planet.  The combination was able to get up to a speed of about 2.24 km/sec at burnout.  Orbital velocity is about 8 km/sec.  The first rocket able to achieve a burnout velocity of 8 km/sec was the massive Soviet R-7 in 1957 which incorporated much more powerful liquid oxygen-kerosene engines and 4 strap-on boosters.

Thank you for covering the facts for the rockets able to reach orbital velocities. As I was reading through this thread, I was about to start digging for the numbers. I knew the history but you covered it all.

Nothing human could make it to orbit during the time covered in the op. 

Very interesting discussion.

And about the Moon or coloney ship commonly refered to as Noah's Ark. A common misinterpretation of its origin.

A few small objects in orbit are understandable. There is a second, much smaller, natural moon in orbit now, but hundreds? That would take planning.

[Sirius]

'They say' prior to the moon we had far more mist and rain, and the moon helped stabilise the weather patterns, and to turn the planet from a large swampy kind of oceany place to a more balanced one. 
Egyptian mythology is fascinating in this regard. Also Sumerian/Babylonian, with the world being first without form then as a giant ocean. 

RE unnatural satellites, Philip K Dick's VALIS comes to mind, and I don't think he was just schizo or ill, I think he did get something beamed to him from orbit.

Tonight I'm feeling like it's all pointless. I don't know where all the resistance is coming from. I have had signs in the sky, laser beams in the yard, things shot at me. Angles, ghosts, demons, faeries whatever..I see this shit all the time. I'm not alone, literally not alone, externally verified.

'meeeeeeeeh, where is the proof!' proof has been given multiple fucking times, but it is rejected every time.

'I saw xyz, oh my gosh the reality I believed in isn't real there is more and the things I ignored is real'..."Yes my son, this is what's going on"...'no! that cannot be not reality!'..."eh? but you just said..nvm......

[sahgwa]

Tonight I'm feeling like it's all pointless. 

Tonight I'm feeling like it's all pointless. I don't know where all the resistance is coming from. I have had signs in the sky, laser beams in the yard, things shot at me. Angles, ghosts, demons, faeries whatever..I see this shit all the time. I'm not alone, literally not alone, externally verified.

'meeeeeeeeh, where is the proof!' proof has been given multiple fucking times, but it is rejected every time.

'I saw xyz, oh my gosh the reality I believed in isn't real there is more and the things I ignored is real'..."Yes my son, this is what's going on"...'no! that cannot be not reality!'..."eh? but you just said..nvm......

If you mean that convincing other people is pointless, I generally have to agree.
it seems like anomalous experiences are generally 'aimed' at people specifically, individuals or groups, and , much like astral visions, really only will have meaning for those that experienced it. Like gnosis. 
Trying to convince people is generally pointless, but perhaps you can open their minds to wonder and possibilities.

[Karl12]

I’ve been following this story for a while, and it's starting to gain traction.
 
 • In late 1952, Menzel became director of the Harvard Observatory. One of his first acts?

 • He destroyed one-third of the Harvard plate collection.

 • He halted all sky photography for 15 years... the infamous “Menzel Gap.”

Wouldn't put anything past Menzel mate and although 'MJ12' is controversial it has come out he was secretly working for the NSA.

He was also 'mentor' to infamous pseudo-sceptic Philip Klass and the first two videos in this thread follow connections to Menzel, the CIA's Bobby Ray Inman and the debunking cult CSICOP (now CSI).

Cheers.

[Karl12]

Regarding the launch of Sputnik this video shows how the Americans were perfectly aware of its upcoming launch and how the current narrative about it being the '911of its time' is complete bollocks.

[andy06shake]

I’ve been following this story for a while, and it's starting to gain traction.
 
A team led by astronomer Dr. Beatriz Villarroel discovered something stunning:
Bright, orbiting objects were recorded on astronomical plates from the 1950s... years before Sputnik or any known satellite.
 
They move like artificial satellites… but no human technology was in orbit at the time.

All based on verified, scientific sky data from the First Palomar Sky Survey.
Multiple objects. Multiple events. No conventional explanation.
 
And now… it looks like someone connected to MJ-12 may have tried to cover it up.

Research paper (preprint, July 2025):
Aligned, Multiple-Transient Events in the First Palomar Sky Survey
Reports discovery of aligned, point-like objects in 1949–1957 sky plates — including a 3.9σ candidate that matches the 1952 Washington D.C. UFO flyover. Another aligns with the peak of the 1954 UFO wave.
Also reveals a 22σ deficit of transients in Earth's shadow — suggesting sunlight reflections may be involved.
 
Dr. Villarroel even connects Dr. Donald Menzel... the same Menzel listed in Majestic 12 documents... to a potential cover-up:

Meanwhile... Palomar Observatory was quietly running photographic surveys… capturing the very anomalies he may have been trying to bury.

This guy is spot on... great channel: FF to 11:00 minutes on Menzel.
[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxwZXPp6K7I]

So… who or what... was already in orbit back then?
And why would someone connected to MJ-12 go to such lengths to erase the record?

cue music... 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2d6T5G2rrY

If true, the question begs why the person would be destroying any of the plates?

Unless he had some kind of ulterior motives.