British tech entrepreneur William Sachiti had been living and working in the abandoned Royal Air Force (RAF) air defense radar station for about three

A Tech Millionaire Bought a Giant Cold War Radar to ‘Find UFOs’

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2022-07-05 17:30:02

British tech entrepreneur William Sachiti had been living and working in the abandoned Royal Air Force (RAF) air defense radar station for about three months when he posted a thread on Reddit looking for help.

“Help! I want to bring this back to life,” he said in a post on /r/electronics that contained a photo of a gigantic AMES Type 84 radar unit. It’s a massive dish, 60 feet across and 25 feet tall, that sits atop a pedestal. It pumped microwaves out to a range of 250 miles and signs nearby warned of the ionizing radiation.

Sachiti has posted anonymously, but the Redditors quickly figured out it was him. Britain only ever built five of the Type 84s and Redditors were able to figure out where this one was located using some open source intelligence tools. Also, Sachiti’s purchase of the old RAF base and the tower were a news story in Britain.

Sachiti said he’s gotten responses from a few people who want to use it to scan the Moon. In the thread itself someone asked him why he bought the thing. “Because I convinced myself it may be good fun to use to attempt to find UFOs?” He replied .