{"id":10859,"date":"2019-09-25T02:35:37","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T02:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/american-satellites-tracked-in-rapa-nui\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:30:21","slug":"american-satellites-tracked-in-rapa-nui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/american-satellites-tracked-in-rapa-nui\/","title":{"rendered":"American satellites tracked in Rapa Nui"},"content":{"rendered":"

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American satellites tracked in Rapa Nui<\/strong><\/h1>\n

It was the year 1966.\u00a0 A US Air Force base with 120 men under the command of Colonel John Ashley was installed on Rapa Nui with the name of Ionosphere Research Center ITT, which was authorized by the then Chilean president, Eduardo Frei-Montalva as part of an agreement with the Chilean Air Force.\u00a0 This foundation\u2019s mission was to track satellites.<\/p>\n

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The Rapanui people were awed.\u00a0 In Mataveri, where today one finds the offices of the Civil Aeronautics Authority, sixty containers began to fall from the heavens with material for dormitories, cafeterias and dining halls, offices, electrical generators, a dental clinic.\u00a0 The enormous Hercules airplanes also left another fifty containers on the side of the road to Rano Kau volcano in an area that was totally surrounded by a barbed wire fence.\u00a0 No Island authorities were allow inside, only the Americans.\u00a0 They all wore white; to the locals, they looked like doctors.\u00a0 They even denied entry to the then President of the Chilean Senate, Dr. Salvador Allende , who visited the Island escorting guerillas who had survived the jungle battles alongside Che Guevara to French Polynesia (Tahiti).\u00a0 His only comment was, \u201cHere in Chile, many things are going on about which we have no idea.\u201d\"\"
From one day to the next, the tranquility and passivity of the Island was transformed into cheerfulness and a flood of dollars.\u00a0 More than 100 Islanders, both men and women, were hired by the \u201cMarite\u201d<\/em> (Americans) to work as drivers, in the dining halls and in the construction, all at very good salaries.\u00a0 The Americans maintained excellent relations with the community and everyone was happy, especially the pretty young girls of the time.\u00a0 Every Friday there was a party and dancing which lasted until the early hours of the morning.\u00a0 Everyone had a good time and nobody lacked for money.\u00a0 This caused an economic development as never before seen on the Island.\u00a0 Everything began to change.\u00a0 There was more clothing, household items, radios, tape recorders, dolls, perfumes, deodorant, creams and electric shavers \u2013 all new to the locals.\u00a0 Liquor and soft drinks also began to arrive and were cheap.According to some, the Americans caused irreparable damage in the local population by changing their traditional Polynesian life style for one more continental.\u00a0 However, the Rapanui looked upon it differently.\u00a0 \u201cWe Islanders learned to feel that we were decent people.\u00a0 Here the streets were all unpaved.\u00a0 When a Chilean would drive by, all you would see was the cloud of dust, but when the Americans drove through, they went slowly.\u00a0 It was the first time that we felt as if we were being considered and respected as persons.\u00a0 That was the difference between the Americans and the Chileans.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sudden departure of the Americans caused great surprise in the Island.\u00a0 It began on September 5, 1970, one day after the election of Salvador Allende as President of Chile and was completed in January of 1971.\u00a0 Very early, around 5 a.m., the Hercules airplanes landed again at Mataveri airport and the US naval transport \u201cWayandot\u201d<\/em> and a SHOLS (Single Hoist Ordnance Loading System)<\/em> frigate dropped anchors outside Hanga Pico Bay.\u00a0 In less than seven hours, most of the military base was dismantled, with no explanation offered.\u00a0 At midday an airplane brought the US Ambassador to Chile, David Young, to sign a document with the local governor in which the United States donated to the government of Chile for Easter Island the electrical station to light the houses of the town, a crane, six trucks and a small bus, a bulldozer and other heavy machinery, a radio station and the dental clinic to be run by the Chilean Air Force.\u00a0 As soon as that was done the ambassador returned to the airport to re-embark.\u00a0 The Hercules planes had already left, as well as the naval vessels.\u00a0 The now-unemployed personnel and many Rapanui girls, some pregnant and others with babies in arm, said emotional good-byes to their \u201cgringos\u201d<\/em> with many tears and waves,\u00a0 For some, the sadness didn\u2019t last long.\u00a0 A short while later a special plane from the US Air Force appeared to take 13 Rapanui women and one Chilean to rejoin their beloved airmen.\u00a0 Today at least five of them have come back, either alone or bringing their family.\u00a0 The Rapanui, sooner or later, always return to their Island.\"\"
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Featured Reports:<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American satellites tracked in Rapa Nui It was the year 1966.\u00a0 A US Air Force base with 120 men under the command of Colonel John Ashley was installed on Rapa Nui with the name of Ionosphere Research Center ITT, which was authorized by the then Chilean president, Eduardo Frei-Montalva as part of an agreement with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}