This news item expired on Saturday, August 19, 2023 so the information below could be outdated or incorrect.
Join Buncombe County Special Collections and the Asheville Museum of History on Saturday, Aug. 19 at 10 a.m. at Pack Memorial Library as we bring you History Hour: The Untold Stories of PARI. This free program airs live on Zoom and will be recorded.
For six decades, Western North Carolinians have asked the question, "What are those big satellite dishes doing behind that chain link fence?” in Transylvania County. In the early years of the site near Rosman, NASA gave public tours of the antennas it used to track space satellites. When the defense department took over, the tours stopped. Signs were posted that read, "Unauthorized Entry Prohibited," and armed guards patrolled the site. Wild myths took root: Underground tunnels held nuclear missiles; The site was a submarine base; A city built underground held captive space aliens. Then suddenly, the DoD departed. New owners, the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI), dusted off the satellite dishes and pointed them into deepest space. Public tours at PARI were reestablished and programs were created for a brand new mission: science education. Now author Craig Gralley tells PARI's full story.
This program is free and everyone is invited. Please register for the program if you plan to attend, or if you’d like the ZOOM link to watch at home.