United States Naval Observatory

It is literally the most precise way humans can measure a second.

So Hafele and Keating synchronized these clocks with a master clock at the US Naval Observatory.

And then they just bought them plane tickets?

Yes.

The government is failing to address their concerns, and an entire generation is watching it happen in real time.

White and Koerbel compare political time to the master clock at the Naval Observatory in Washington.

The American political landscape keeps a clock of its own.

Every generation or so, a president like Lincoln, Roosevelt, or Reagan resets it.

You know? And that's kinda goes back to the argument that Paine had about the necessity of government because people are not all angels, and neither are people in government always virtuous people.

As Madison testified in The Federalist Papers.

You and Matthew Kerbel use the metaphor of the Naval Observatory master clock.

Thought that was interesting, the idea that Reagan reset political time for a generation.

that was going on, absolutely insane times, which we later found out was completely orchestrated by the CIA.

And they started it in around 1991 when Robert Harrington of the Naval Observatory literally discovered Planet X.

And it was a planet that was down in the lower solar system.

It had a companion.

And he was the head of the Naval Observatory.

Tom Van Flander was his assistant.

And in the 80s, Van Flander gave him the impetus to start looking for this thing because Uranus and Neptune were being pulled down in their orbits.

She was vice president.

I've never lived in the Naval Observatory.

He's a senator.

She's a congressman.

In 1842, Maury was placed in charge of the US Navy's Depot of Charts and Instruments in Washington.

And when the US Naval Observatory was formally organized, he became its first superintendent in 1844.

And that position gave him access to something enormously valuable: old ship's logbooks.

And here I need to shift gears a bit and explain exactly what ship logbooks are and why they are kept.

Maury offered charts and sailing directions to captains who agreed to participate in his observational program.

They received standardized log forms and instructions explaining how observations should be recorded.

Captains recorded information during their voyages and returned these observations to the Naval Observatory.

Maury's staff analyzed the new information and incorporated it into future editions.