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PHANTOM SPACECRAFT BUZZES CHURCH SCHOOL
By BOB PETERSON Editor
The staff and students at a church school here were held spellbound for 2 hours Friday, November 9, by the "commander" of Discovery, the U.S. space shuttle that is orbiting the earth at 17,400 miles per hour. They could hear beeping sounds and roaring noises in the background to simulate onboard activity. Word of the surprise call spread rapidly though Grace Christian Academy. Excitement built as students popped questions at the commander who said the school had been randomly selected from among 150 schools for the call. "I asked him what would happen if an astronaut sneezed?" said student Scott Kieper. "It would propel you against the wall." the caller said. Eric Allison and Kelly Curington questioned the space shuttle commander. They wanted to know what he and the crew of six were doing and what it takes to become an astronaut. The answers kept coming. Commander "Crippen" said it was easy to drink liquids through a straw, but more difficult to eat solid foods.
Commander Crippen! Six crew members? Wasn't Crippen the commander of another space shuttle? Are they not five crew members aboard the Discovery? Isn't Rick Hauch its commander? Tilt! A hoax?
"It is physiclly impossible... to communicate directly with the ground for two hours," Terry White, of NASA Mission Control in Houston, Texas said. White said the spacecraft will lose contact with a ground station as it passes behind the earth. "Other than the White House Oval Office, there is no other calls receivable except at Mission Control." White explained. He said the continuous contact with an orbiting space station or shuttle is possible though the use of ground receiving stations and satellites which relay the messages from one side of the planet to the other. When the space shuttle comes into range in can transmit messages for no longer than 45 minutes before there is a LOS -- loss of signal No commander can afford two hours in space to talk freely with the ground, White said.
"I really had no reason to believe there was anything until the name Commander Crippen was mentioned." Principal J. Emmett Weich said. Weich said he was not at at the school at the time the call came in at 1:30 p.m. Although the professional way in that the caller conducted his scharade caught the staff off guard, the school followed up with a call to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral and to Mission Control. As it turned out the caller was very much earth bound. "We have heard of this of this happening before," White said. Mrs Jeanette Welch, substitute teacher and secretary at Grace Christian Academy, talked with the imposter. "He said he wanted to talk with the students," she said. "I said what grades, and he said he wanted to talk with two students from each grade. There was a constant beeping sound and there was static-like background noises. "He spoke with authority. He sounded intelligent, answered questions. We all thought the call was authentic. On Friday night, after church, I started checking on the call," Mrs. Welch said. A third and fourth grade teacher said the caller identified himself as Commander Crippen aboard the space shuttle "Challenger" and then corrected himself with a laugh, saying "Discovery".
According to Jim Martin, who also is the school's assistant youth pastor, "He was not a kid. He had a man's voice, and he spoke very intelligently. He said, 'We have two tests going on at the time that I spoke with him." Martin said the hoaxter appeared "very motivated with a great bit of drive." The caller was alert and did not appear to be under the influence of any drugs, he added. Kleper asked the caller if it was "fun up there?" The caller said that the crew had fixed and put another satellite into orbit." Accordind to Allison, the caller said "they were trying to put two satelittes into orbit and he said, there were six crew members aboard the shuttle." The Dade City Police Department and Sheriff's Office have no record of nuisance calls involving a fake shuttle commander.
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