I cringe every time I see the long retired Fouga Magisters of the Irish Air Corps being alluded to as some kind of lost fighter aircraft/air policing capability. They were trainer aircraft that could carry rockets & machine guns; they had no radar, no A2A missile capability, no ejection seats..

www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026... Article by @conorgallagher.bsky.social

I've just added three KH-7 images of the Matochkin Shar Nuclear Test Site to the declassified imagery gallery. These shots are gorgeous. There's something about film and snowy landscapes. October 4, 1965: spacefromspace.com/declassified... May 26, 1967: spacefromspace.com/declassified... cont.

what if i told you, through the power of forensic analysis, we are closer than ever to knowing the exact Far Side cartoon that is making Sting smile in this iconic photo. 🧵 👇

Irish Air Corps C295 MSA (#285) taking a look at sanctioned shadow fleet tanker PAZ, IMO: 9233765.

BREAKING: Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Christopher Yeaw has revealed new seismic data that hinted the Chinese had conducted a nuclear test and taken steps to hide it from the outside world. This is the event: 0918 Zulu/Kazakhstan PS23/around 2.7 magnitude

OK. Just a little thread about what the #seismic data says. The KNDC event is defined only by two stations: MAKZ and MK31 near Makanchi in Kazakhstan. This image shows data from the same station (IU.MAKZ) in the same frequency band for the time of interest compared with Lop Nor EQ 2022-02-27 (1/n)

Been a while since I was contrail spotting.... Here's a nice spiraling one over China, snapped in Sentinel 2 on 03 Feb 2026 ~42.437N 89.679E.

JAKE27 a Constant Phoenix aircraft, turned around over Norway and might be heading home.

I finally added the other two newer Greenland scans to my site Kangerlussuaq / Sondrestrom, March 24, 1966: spacefromspace.com/declassified... Pituffik Space Base / Thule Air Base, March 21, 1969: spacefromspace.com/declassified...

I wonder if this event is the alleged China nuclear test: 22 June 2020/0 depth/41.27, 90.75/~150 km from the test site, just outside error ellipse. The P/S amplitude ratio might show if it was an explosion--need a real seismologist for that. kndc.kz/index.php/en...

Great video giving an overview of Civil Defence planning in Ireland during the Cold War www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDXD...

False flagged DEYNA (false Tonga), turned AIS back on, after being dark for 22 days.

13 years ago #today, a small (~18 meter diameter) asteroid impacted over #Chelyabinsk, Russia, and exploded at 22 km altitude, shattering windows and damaging some buildings. Thousands of small (and a few larger) fragments like these rained down. It was the largest impact of the last 100 years.

Stargazer currently on its return journey to Arkhangelsk via the Irish Sea.

Nice drone footage of MV Alta. It drifted, abandoned, across the Atlantic before hitting the Irish coast. It was hopefully(?) something of a wakeup call for maritime surveillance here, as the vessel was observed in Sentinel 1 & other SAR systems before reaching land. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFHc...

The El Paso TFR was just as bad a mess as I feared, maybe worse. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/u...

Irish C295 MSA (#285) orbiting on the edge of territorial waters. Nothing obvious on AIS in the area.

This is what CBP used to shoot down the terrifying party balloon over El Paso (LOCUST cUAS laser) and aside from the specific dumbassery why in the absolute fuck is the Pentagon loaning these to DHS

The perils of me listening to radio at night before bed: hearing an instrumental piano piece, a section of which seems incredibly familiar, but without being able to place the original track/context: cue my descent into madness. The section starts at 8:05 ends 10:10. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBPA...

Norwegian Coast Guard vessel KV Bergen is on its way to join the trawlers - other vessels shown are a mix of Norwegian and Russian flagged. The Russian fish factory vessels are all operating outside of the Irish EEZ at this time.

The President of the Iranian Space Agency recently announced their spaceport at Chabahar was completed, but is that really the case? Thanks to our friends @planet.com I got to the bottom of it (short answer: no). Enjoy a light weekend read on the ACW blog: www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1221...

Flying from Shannon, a number of meteorological research aircraft from France and Germany, were also operating over the Atlantic earlier today. www.safire.fr/en/content_p... www.dlr.de/en/latest/ne...

Irish Air Corps C295 MSA (#285) returning home after an almost six hour sortie over the Atlantic. Plenty to look at - shadow fleet vessels, other commercial cargo traffic from Russian ports + huge amount of trawler activity - including Russian fish factory vessels on the edge of the Irish EEZ.

"We are describing a serious threat scenario," said Beate Gangås, Chief of the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) "Russian crews on board civilian vessels registered in a third country pose a significant threat in the realm of covert maritime intelligence in 2026."

Here it is! Feedback welcome youtu.be/nugkZvPePnI?...

I wrote War Plan UK over 40 years ago about the British governments dishonesty to the public about the consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare. Interest in the Cold War period has grown through this century, amplified by the brutal lawlessness of Putin and Trump.

1/ Last week the Italian researchers who have been looking at vulnerabilities in the TCAS system put out a press release about their analysis of the "phantom" resolution advisories that happened near KDCA last March. (Image via Google Translate.) life.unige.it/comunicati-s...

A 71-year-old pensioner from Alakurtti, Kola Peninsula, has been fined 30,000 rubles (€325) after he pressed ‘like’ on anti-war YouTube videos

Keep an eye out tomorrow for updated completion dates. Defence Minister will bring revised deadlines for the completion of major defence projects such as counter drone tech, medium lift helicopters and other key equipment for the Defence Forces tomorrow. jrnl.ie/6951979

Inbound Akademik Ioffe #AkademikIoffe 8507731 on its way through danish waters. #RDN #Forsvaret #DK #Denmark patrolvessel nearby

Playing around in QGIS again - the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority of Finland (STUK) share their data via opendata.fmi.fi - so you can build a timelapse of radiation readings from their sensor network. In case you are wondering - all are well within normal background: 0.05 to 0.30 μSv/h :)

The blogfather @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social did 2 podcasts this week. First one is on the death of New Start www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1221...

Vessel tracks through the ice off Saint Petersburg in Sentinel 2 and Sentinel 1 - the SAR image almost looks like a ready made heatmap of vessel traffic.

Shut it all down. We're never going to top this

Irish Air Corps C295 MSA (#285) and Irish Coast Guard B200 (EI-IRF) are both up today - Russian fish factory vessels Kapitan Demidenko, Aleksandr Mironenko & Ester may be getting some attention - they will shortly be joined by Baltiyskaya Kosa & Zakhar Sorokin in the region.

Meanwhile, in China, their version of the X-37B seems to have launched again, 4th time. Image below is the only public (in this case on-orbit) image we have so far...

TWO PODS IN THE CAN. (One on New START, another on Chinese nuclear testing.)

I'm back on Substack with reflections on today's very interesting reveal of what appear to have been previously classified U.S. intelligence conclusions about alleged Chinese nuclear-testing activity at Lop Nur panda.substack.com/p/china-us-i...

*looks at watch, impatiently waiting for Arms Control Wonk podcast covering the possible/claimed Chinese nuclear test*

Response from @ctbto.bsky.social today: www.ctbto.org/resources/fo...

C285 returning from patrol this afternoon - some potential vessels of interest in the area.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Pretty strong accusation against China on testing. Does this mean the US is now going to have a "yield producing nuclear test" (6 years later?)? Will the US release any supporting evidence?