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Could Vanishing Stars Be Alien Satellites Or Is This a Cold War Relic?

2025-09-09 Science & Technology
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Anton Petrov
Anton Petrov
1.6m subscribers

Resolving the Mystery of Vanishing Stars: Photographic Flaws and Nuclear Fallout

Uncover why historical "vanishing stars" observed in 1950s astronomical plates disappeared, shifting the explanation from exotic phenomena to grounded issues involving photographic technology and Cold War operations.

Short Summary

  • Analyze findings from the VASCO project identifying groups of objects vanishing between sequential sky surveys.
  • Determine that inherent flaws in glass plate emulsions—bubbles and warping—mimicked astronomical signals.
  • Establish a likely link between these artifacts and radioactive fallout from nearby 1950s nuclear weapons testing.
  • Discover that Kodak maintained a secret agreement with the US government regarding nuclear test warnings to prevent product loss.

This discussion analyzes strange vanishing objects found in the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) plates from the 1950s. Learn how physical plate limitations and pervasive Cold War radioactive contamination provide a scientifically robust explanation for these anomalies, superseding more exotic theories.

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Description

Support this channel on Patreon to help me make this a full time job: https://www.patreon.com/whatdamath (Unreleased videos, extra footage, DMs, no ads) Alternatively, PayPal donations can be sent here: http://paypal.me/whatdamath Get a Wonderful Person Tee: https://teespring.com/stores/whatdamath More cool designs are on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QFIrFX Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the vanishing stars, Kodak and the government conspiracy of 1950s Links: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394040040_Aligned_multiple-transient_events_in_the_First_Palomar_Sky_Survey https://skyserver.sdss.org/dr5/en/proj/advanced/skysurveys/poss.asp https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.76.375 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.15896 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.00907 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.09035 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ab570f/pdf https://vascoproject.org/ 0:00 Cosmic mysteries and Kodak 1:05 VASCO project and vanishing stars 3:05 Photographic technology limitation 5:00 Glass plates and emulsion issues 7:00 Systematic issue 8:20 1950s nuclear tests 9:15 Kodak discovers nukes 10:35 Secret agreement between Kodak and US government 12:00 What this means for early astronomy 13:00 Conclusions Enjoy and please subscribe Bitcoin/Ethereum to spare? Donate them here to help this channel grow! bc1qnkl3nk0zt7w0xzrgur9pnkcduj7a3xxllcn7d4 or ETH: 0x60f088B10b03115405d313f964BeA93eF0Bd3DbF Thank you to all Patreon supporters of this channel Special thanks also goes to all the wonderful supporters of the channel through YouTube Memberships Credit: Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen Roy Boshi CC BY-SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_and_restoration_of_photographic_plates#/media/File:Glass_plate_negative.jpg Licenses used: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and relevant Creative Commons licenses

Top Comments (10)

@impossiblevisits 2025-09-09

Your explanations don't take into account the fact, as reported in the Villarroel-led study, that the transients don't appear when the upper atmosphere was shrouded in the shadow of the Earth. If the transients were the result of imperfections in the plates or nuclear test fallout, shouldn't they have been equally represented in images obtained during all phases of night? Furthermore, the incidence of transients is not positively correlated with nuclear test times and dates.

368 95 replies
@christopherchisholm564 2025-09-09

I live in Southern Ontario, Canada. I was born in 1950. When I was five, an announcement over the radio stated that we wern't able to drink milk as a nuclear test had been conducted with the fallout coming toward us. The cows would eat the grass with Strontium 90 contamination. So there was a two week period of no milk.

113 22 replies
@GBbBEFAbACCEbEGCCABbBCC 2025-09-10

It's fascinating what the comment section becomes when aliens are mentioned

73 17 replies
@whatdamath 2025-09-09

Hello, wonderful person! This is a two part series with the part 1 of the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Pw_rY04sI This is the part where the Earth shadow disappearance is addressed too Also another study confirming that this was a result of photographic paper packaging: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.76.375

48 12 replies
@movax20h 2025-09-09

That is why dark plates are important for calibration. Basically test exposure of nothing. So just developed of unexposed plates. While patter of dots will be different it can give idea of statistics and development process issues. With electronic sensors it is even more important as some pixels will persistently by bad so dark frames are more useful. But still useful in analog astrophotography.

29
@EdAllen 2025-09-09

I'd want to focus on objects that show on two plates but go missing on a third. To show it is not contamination spots on a single plate.

28 4 replies
@bigdatapimp 2025-09-09

I used to live just north of the Palomar observatory. You could see the telescope dome from my back yard. You can go and see the telescope still. There is a lot of history there. Its a pretty cool place.

27 1 replies
@briankleinschmidt3664 2025-09-09

I bought a Kodak for my dad when I was a kid. Within weeks there was a lawsuit for patent infringements. I was supposed to get a share of stock for the camera. The company sent a document but they never followed up. That's when I knew it was going to be a rough life. Thanks Anton. You are always there for me.

15
@virgoanwhammy 2025-09-10

If the plates still physically exist, you could take samples of the gelatine on the surface and at different depths at suspected transient/contamination points and empty space (as a control) and use a GCMS or some other kind of mass spec and look for specific radionucleotides and their specific end products to physically prove the contamination hypothesis. And at this point, it is only a hypothesis, lacking any verifiable evidence.

7
@Gesso64 2025-09-10

I have an original Kodak hat as well, it was my late dads he worked with them/at the place a bit from what my moms told me :)

5

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