Planet X: HEAT from NASA et al

It goes beyond what I’ve already described goes on, when a member of the
public goes into an observatory, asking to look THERE.  This takes the
tack of observatories being either [Closed Indefinitely], as in
Vancouver, [Refusing to Look], as in South Africa, or [Partially
Cooperating], or [Pretending to Cooperate], as in the Southeast US, all
creating the comic situation noted below.  Details on this are available
as [links] from the TEAM page. 

(Page http://www.zetatalk.com/teams/tteam342.htm)

> To share some of the experiences reported to me, the 
> tack taken by observatories this Fall [2001] has been to:
>
> 1. Refuse to look THERE.  "We ain't gona look THERE, 
>    and never mind why."  
>
>    This works as long as the refusal does not become
>    too obvious.  One has to wonder, why NOT?  If there's
>    nothing to hide, why NOT?
>
> 2. Refuse to look ANYWHERE.  "We're closed for repairs, 
>    indefinitely.  Go away."  
>
>    This is what Steve is reporting in Vancouver.  
>    Observatories in the vicinity closing down too.  
>    All it takes for an observatory to close is for 
>    Steve Havas to glance it its direction. If there's
>    nothing to hide, why CLOSE? 
>
> 3. Give extensive help, which does anything but. 
>    "Here, lets take a CCD image for 3 minutes or so, 
>    and compare to the star charts ... see, nothing 
>    there but the usual stars. Too cloudy for infrared 
>    today, though."  
>
>    Presented with an explanation that the object 
>    searched for is so tiny it may be a pixtel on 
>    an image, needs infrared or red spectrum search 
>    to stand out, and does not have the intensity of a
>    star nor is it reflecting sunlight as Pluto does,
>    infrared is refused and a short time CCD is 
>    proferred.  If there's nothing there, why not 
>    LOOK?

(Posting at http://www.zetatalk.com/usenet/use90318.htm)