The Ring of Needles Around the Earth
In 1963, the US military put 480 million tiny copper needles into orbit, to make an artificial ring around the Earth. Some of them are still up there.
What was reported
During the Cold War, the US military worried that its long-distance radio communications could be cut if undersea cables were destroyed. Project West Ford, run by MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, planned a solution: a belt of tiny copper wires, each about 1.8 centimetres long, in orbit around the Earth, to reflect radio signals like an artificial ionosphere.
After a failed first attempt in 1961, a launch in May 1963 released about 480 million needles into orbit, which spread into a thin ring. It worked: radio messages were successfully bounced off it.
Explanations offered
Astronomers protested strongly, fearing that such rings would ruin observations of the sky and set a dangerous precedent. Communications satellites soon made the idea unnecessary. Most of the needles fell back to Earth, but some clumps are still tracked in orbit as space debris.
- When
- Launched in 1961 and 1963
- Where
- In orbit, launched from Vandenberg, California, USA
- Witnesses
- Astronomers and the US military
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.