Dang. So that's where I parked it.

Having been an early student of radio astronomy at the University of Florida Radio Observatory (UFRO), I can attest to the fact that this trailer was very likely NOT abandoned and this photographer is at the very least a trespasser.

The UFRO is located in a very remote portion of Florida that was selected because of the low amounts of man-made EMI/RFI. The observatory itself covers many acres, but there are a few buildings and trailers located on site that, perhaps ironically, were donated as surplus from the NASA Apollo missions. The intent of the UFRO was to study radio emissions from Jupiter, and during my time there, we were a centerpiece of NASA's outreach program: RADIOJOVE

As can be seen in this Google map, the UFRO is a unique property in the middle of pine tree farms and hunting lands. While for years this isolation proved helpful for the science, unfortunately it has also meant curious hunters or worse, malicious thieves who increasingly vandalize and destroy very expensive equipment, sensitive wires, antennas, and other custom radio gear.

From the Gizmodo photo gallery, it appears that this trailer is part of a radio astronomy study, and I'd be willing to bet that this is near Victorville-Apple Valley. One image clearly shows a Very Long Baseline Interferometer, while other images indicate power spectra from what I am guessing is the binary star, HR2142...though I don't know enough about this system to understand what the data is showing.

If the photographer found it on, chances are it's an ACTIVE study, and he should have turned right around, and gone on his merry way...

If the OVRO & VLBI acronyms seen in the pictures stand for Owen's Valley Radio Observatory, and Very Long Baseline Interferometry, then this suggests that the trailer was used to support radio astronomy work at OVRO. The graph also supports this.

We could use some more office space on MSL. ATLO anyone?

In one of the pictures, a digital display is lit up, as is a light below it. It appears that the trailer is powered.

Also the pieces of paper displayed do not look aged. Probably less than (at a maximum) six months old.

This story is completely misleading. I have been in this trailer myself. It is on the grounds of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory, operated by the California Institute of Technology. It is used to control a small radio antenna nearby, and is NOT abandoned. The poster could not have obtained these photos without trespassing on the grounds of the Observatory, whose entrance is clearly posted with a sign saying "Authorized Personnel Only". I have forwarded this weblink to the appropriate officials at Caltech for them to pursue any action they deem appropriate.

Dr, Karl Stapelfeldt
Astrophysics Section
NASA / JPL / Caltech

Tod Lauer has good eyes, that is definitely Owen's Valley Radio Observatory gear, which was a partner with the UFRO on various studies, the last of which I believe was the 1995 Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet impact of Jupiter.

The 40M Power difference spectrum that is printed out is likely data from the Owens Valley 40 meter dish, from an observation of what I'm willing to bet is the binary star V0696 Monocerotis, (aka HR2142).

In one of the photos there is a piece of masking tape that says "31 Aug 01", and in the root directory of the photographer's website, the 'nasa' subdirectory is dated:

03-Sep-2007 17:03

Point is, Gizmodo may have found this post recently, but the trespass happened at least a year ago, and if the masking tape is any indicator, it was 7 years ago.

A rare sighting of a survivor of the 'worm' purge.

Editor's note: Yes, apparently worm logos have survived in the desert ....

I'll second what both Karl and Matthew are saying; I've also been in that trailer (in fact, during the 1995 Shoemaker-Levy impact period), on the OVRO site just outside Big Pine, CA.

Very likely the photographer ('Harrington') must have trespassed to get to the position of the trailer, though if he went cross country (and across the Owens River) he may have been able to reach it without seeing a sign. however, it is not abandoned in any sense, and it reasonably close (few hundred yards at most if my memory serves) from a complex of buildings which constitute the OVRO dorms, kitchen area, and lab space, as well as the two solar radio antennas (which are large!). In the nearby distance, closer to the mountain range would be the 40m radio dish, and beyond that the VLBA antenna (25 m diameter. Here is a picture of the 40-m, looking back toward the main complex (in the distance past the two solar array antennas in the lower left).

http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/OVRO-CMB/40m.jpg.

If this was 2007, the OVRO millimter array would not have been there any longer, but if it was as early as 2001, it certainly was (consisting of another six 10.4 m antennas. There are also a few smaller radio dishes, notably a 5.5-m antenna, on the site as well. Given that the trailer was powered, and near a site with a significant number of radio antennas, it seems unlikely that he could really have felt it was 'abandoned', and more likely just wanted to cause a stir by calling it such.

OVRO is hardly on the way from LA to Vegas either, unless you're in particularly masochistic mode with gas at in the high $4 range in those small eastside towns.

Again, if you look in the photographers root directory on his web page http://thisisharrington.com/projects/Wrangler_campaign_shots/, you can see either the 27m or the 40m telescope in the background. Obviously he was on site to do a photo shoot (whether tresspassing or not) and had malicious intentions by posting this as a "lost" trailer.

Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion. I work at OVRO (24.5 years!) and occasionally people show up asking if they can take pictures. Caltech policy is that if the images are going to be used for commercial purposes, then approval needs to be obtained from Caltech. If the images are for personal use, then we let people take all the images they want. Several years ago, Richard Harrington stopped by and asked if he could take pictures for non-commercial use. I granted him permission and spoke briefly with him about the observatory and what we do here (radio astronomy). Richard put the images on his website and someone later copied them and created a story about 'abandoned NASA trailer', etc. All the equipment images are from the inside of the 40 meter telescope, for which permission was also granted. I am sure the person who created the story is getting quite a chuckle about this.

I would like to invite anyone who would like to see any of this old equipment and the NASA trailer to come for one of my monthly tours. The tours are on the first Monday of the month at 1 p.m. May through October the tours are at the CARMA site and November through April are at OVRO. I normally don't include the NASA trailer on my tour, but I certainly can; it's not much to look at though, and it is locked. OVRO website: www.ovro.caltech.edu CARMA website: www.mmarray.org. If you pull up a map of OVRO, the trailer is listed as 'building #11'. The trailer had to be given a building number for the fire department.