Swezey-Minnich Observatory

The Music of the Spheres
The GPCA observatory was created by Kevin A. Ross and was first described in The Stars Are Right, pg. 109 [122–123], which includes an interior map drawn by Tony Santo. The observatory in Bible Black is larger and features two buildings: the dome itself, and the “Capitol” support building.

The Swezey-Minnich Observatory

The Swezey-Minnich Observatory is located at the northwest corner of the “big cross,” a few hundred meters from the Workshop. It’s exterior is made from Indiana limestone, and the galvanized steel dome is painted a pleasing gold. Designed to resemble the Nebraska State Capitol, the observatory boasts a neoclassical exterior with art deco embellishments.

Henry Annesley and the SMO (1973)

History

In 1949 the Hayden Prairie Trust was selected to host an observatory funded by a consortium of university donors and overseen by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The observatory was designed by Trautwein & Howard, who constructed a handsome, neoclassical structure in the art deco style of Bertram Goodhue’s Nebraska State Capitol. The observatory was named after UNL professor Goodwin DeLoss Swezey and amateur astronomer Charles S. Minnich, two noble souls whose attempts to construct a University observatory were foiled by budget cuts in 1917.

The Swezey-Minnich Observatory was completed in early March 1952, with UNL astronomer Kevin Ross appointed its first director. It was equipped with an Alvan Clark 18” refracting telescope. First light was received on 20 March 1952 by Director Ross, who captured a stunning image of Pluto as it swung by Epsilon Leonis at 9:12 PM. Unfortunately, when posing for a publicity photo, Ross dropped the developed plate and shattered it irreparably. It was an omen of the observatory’s unhappy future.

A New Telescope
When Hayden was selected as the site for the Great Plains Cruciform Array, the SMO’s 18” refractor was replaced with a 24” Boller & Chivens f/13.5 Ritchey-Chrétien Cassegrain reflector. The new telescope was named the Ross Reflector.

Decade of Misfortune
The SMO continued to function until a series of misfortunes closed it down in 1986.

The Lipton Tragedy
The first and most tragic incident occurred in the summer of 1978. Visiting astronomer Matthew Lipton was on the outer catwalk when the operator accidentally rotated the dome. Even though the door was open, the safety mechanism failed, and the dome continued to rotate while Lipton was outside. The startled astronomer tripped and his clothing became ensnared in the mechanism. Dr. Lipton was dragged across the catwalk and crushed against a metal ladder.

The Algol Incidents
The second incident occurred in the spring of 1984. A graduate student named Miguel Cisco became deranged after a long night observing Algol and other variable stars. Walking quietly to his car, Cisco returned with a shotgun and began emptying rounds into the telescope itself. (He was later arrested, tried, and spent the remainder of his life in the Norfolk Regional Center.) The damage was repaired at great cost, but three weeks after reopening a defect was discovered in the new secondary mirror. During the installation of its replacement, a young astronomer named Rachael Baumgartner quietly placed a noose around her throat and lashed it to the telescope. Crying out “Rosh ha Satan!” she jumped from the ladder. Baumgartner was cut down before she suffocated, but died six hours later in the Great Plains Regional Medical Center. According to GPCA legend, Baumgartner’s last words were “Animam Primae Gorgoni offero,” Latin for “I offer my soul to the First Gorgon.” (This has never been confirmed; however, Baumgartner had a minor in comparative religion and spoke both Hebrew and Latin.) Some say that Dr. Baumgartner’s ghost still haunts the observatory.

The Blizzard of ‘85
A final incident in 1985 confirmed the so-called “Curse of the Old Observatory.” A telescope operator named Alan Whitman and a principal investigator named Gabriela “Gabby” Mesa were scheduled to observe red giants the night of 12 November 1985. Unfortunately, their plans were cancelled when a freak blizzard engulfed McCaine County. For reasons that have never been clear, Whitman and Mesa opened the dome in the middle of the storm and began taking observations of Aldebaran. It was the third coldest night in Nebraska history, and the combination of wind, subzero temperatures, and driving snow caused irreparable damage to the telescope, cameras, and electronics. Dr. Mesa froze to death at 9:11 AM, but Whitman survived to be discovered a day later. He was treated for fourth-degree frostbite, losing four fingers and the tip of his nose. Whitman claimed he could not remember his experience. Five years later, Alan Whitman smuggled himself to Antarctica and marched into the interior, never to be seen again.

Closure
The damage inflicted by the blizzard necessitated the closure of the SMO. Director Henry Annesley (1972–1986) wrote a grant for funds to repair the damage and install a larger telescope. After Annesley perished on Mexicana de Aviación Flight 940 in late March, the NSF appointed Benjamin Savage (1986–1987) as Acting Director of the GPCA. Savage made the executive decision to shutter the ill-starred observatory once and for all. On 25 April 1986 the SMO closed its doors and became a footnote in the larger GPCA story.

Space Disco
In 1987, some cheeky operators and technicians strung up Christmas lights and hung a mirror ball from the telescope, and began using the observatory for clandestine “Space Disco” parties. Several months later, the GPCA’s new director Palmer Banks (1987–1992) made an unexpected visit to the SMO and heard “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” spilling from the equatorial room. The irate director ended the party and fired the responsible operator. After that, the observatory was simply used for storage.

2009–2010 Renovations
In 2008, Director Sarah Potter (2007–2012) drafted plans to renovate the SMO and reopen it with a new telescope. Budget cuts destroyed her dream, but the observatory received enough funding to remodel its interior as a “seminar space.” Since then, it’s been used for seminars and lectures, social events and fundraisers, and the occasional “Flashback Disco.”

Layout

The SMO consists of two attached structures, commonly called the Capitol and the Dome.

Security
The Swezey-Minnich Observatory is locked, as are many of the rooms inside. Four keyrings may be found onsite. One set is secured in the GPCA director’s office, another is held at the reception desk, the third hangs in the Workshop supply depot, and the fourth is found in the administration archives. It’s an open secret that “unauthorized” copies of these keys exist, and are possessed by various old-timers and other long-term personnel. The locks date from the original construction, and can be easily picked with a Regular Locksmith roll.

The Capitol

The Observatory’s support building was dubbed “The Capitol” because of its stylistic similarities to the Nebraska State Capitol. The interior is kept clean and tidy.

Vestibule
The entrance to the observatory features beautiful oil paintings of the night sky above the Nebraskan prairie. A mural by Kenneth Evett called “Labors of the Sky”  depicts stalwart astronomers in lab coats directing a golden telescope into an art deco sky ablaze with stars and planets. The vestibule contains a vintage sofa and wooden reception desk from the 50s, both restored during the 2010 renovations and covered with plastic when not in use. A display easel holds a laminated poster that features photographs of the observatory’s construction and 70s renovation, along with a brief “History of the Swezey-Minnich Observatory.” Although the poster claims it was shuttered in 1986 after “a series of misfortunes,” only Matthew Lipton is mentioned by name, and Baumgartner’s suicide is omitted altogether. The Blizzard of 1985 is treated as a natural event— “But it was the Blizzard of 1985 that delivered the final stroke to the troubled observatory…”

Kenneth Evett, “Labors of the Head,” Nebraska State Capitol

Record Room
This small room is locked. Inside are the archived records of the SMO from 1949–1986. There’s nothing particularly interesting here, but 1D3 hours of searching gathers a basic history of the SMO.

The Joel Stebbins Library
Occupying nearly a quarter of the Capitol, the Joel Stebbins Library is a library in name only—after Director Savage closed the observatory, the books were removed and the shelves dismantled. It now serves the GPCA as a social space, hosting drinks and hors d’oeuvres during conferences and the odd fundraising gala. Illuminated glass cabinets display photographic plates from the original observatory, along with a collection of Goodwin Swezey’s astronomical lantern slides from the early twentieth century. A photograph of University of Nebraska alum Joel Stebbins at Lick Observatory hangs on the wall, and the library’s original three-panel mural has been restored. A delightful piece of social realism from the 50s, it depicts a variety of heroic astronomers heroically doing astronomy. The original wood fixtures and floor tiling have also been restored, but the lack of air conditioning makes this room unbearable in the summer.

Joel Stebbins at Lick Observatory

Panel from the Stebbins Library mural

The Lecture Room
The observatory’s lecture room is adjacent to the library. This room escaped renovations, and has been used for storage since the 1970s. The door is unlocked, but there’s nothing interesting inside.

Bathroom
This small bathroom was first modernized in the 70s, and again during the recent renovations. It’s clean and functional, but still retains its uncomfortable mid-century fixtures. In 2021 Carrie Osbourne placed a “Gender Inclusive Restroom” sign on the door, a courtesy Director Neal considers irrelevant—“The door locks, doesn’t it?”

The Director’s Office
A classic “mahogany and leather” office inspired by countless nineteenth century universities, this room escaped renovations, so lacks modern conveniences and computer hookups. Uninhabited since the Hayden Radio Observatory was finished in 1963, its last resident was Director Ambrose Tillinghast (1960–1969), who moved into the HRO the moment his new office was ready. There’s nothing of interest in the room except the wooden desk. Director Arnold Hird (1959–1960) had the nervous habit of carving the wood with his penknife, and left an incomprehensible palimpsest of doodles, reminders, and brainstorms.

Hird’s Graffiti
A Spot Hidden roll made while examining the graffiti detects an unusual sentence among the layers of stellar coordinates, laundry lists, and sudden flashes of administrative inspiration: “Many are the horrors of Tond, the sphere which revolves about the green sun of Yifne and the dead star of Baalblo.” If this is discovered, other dreamlike passages emerge from the palimpsest—“Great cities of blue metal and black stone are built on Tond, and some yarkdao speak of a city of crystal in which things walk unlike anything living,” and “One world embeds into another and sits like an egg in a nest.”

An Astronomy roll fails to recognize any of these strange names. Was Hird some kind of weird fiction writer? A second Spot Hidden roll followed by a successful Mechanical Repair detects a structure hidden under the graffiti, almost like a diagram or blueprint. If this is discovered, a Physics roll suggests it has something to do with acoustics—but what? Furthermore, a third Spot Hidden roll finds a doodle of what appears to be an alien with smooth features, tentacular fingers, and huge, pupilless eyes. A Paranormal Studies roll suggests it’s a “tall gray” alien. A Hard success notes that Hird’s depiction is a little avant-garde for 1959–1960, as “gray” aliens didn’t become popular until after the Barney and Betty Hill abductions in September 1961.

The Darkroom
The observatory’s darkroom is located behind a locked, windowless door. It was used to prepare and develop the photographic plates used by the SMO astronomers, and once contained racks of Kodak plates pre-treated with various emulsions, a plate cutter, a pair of enlargers, a small oven, a tank of distilled water, developing baths, and idiosyncratic treatment fluids such as lemon juice or ammonia for infrared photography. All that remains now are the plate cutter and enlargers. Last visited in July 2024, the room currently serves the GPCA as a “forgotten” storage space, where people stash things they don’t quite know what to do with, but aren’t willing to discard. (There’s a persistent rumor that Rachael Baumgartner’s noose is among the boxes.) The darkroom has no windows. Flicking the light switch illuminates a red lightbulb suspended from the ceiling.

The Photographs
Last year the darkroom was reclaimed for its original purpose by an amateur photographer named Waylon Rideout. One of the GPCA’s cryo techs, Rideout replaced the safelight and installed new developing trays.

The room still contains Rideout’s most recent photographs, left behind after a brain aneurysm claimed his life. They hang from a string stretched across the room. An Appraise roll, an Art/Craft (Photography) roll, or a Hard Education roll recognizes them as the work of a talented amateur. Some of the photos were taken at a great height, possible from the top of a dish or AWP. From left to right, the black-and-white photos depict: an antenna being transported at sundown, Stanley Arnold holding a pair of screwdrivers to his head like bug antennas, Gary Wilson flexing his muscles, a rose being immersed in liquid helium, that same rose being shattered against a table, and Maurice Spencer playing guitar at the Iron Horse. The final three photos show a bikini-clad woman sunbathing at the edge of a radio dish. She’s quite young and attractive.

Making Sense of the Photographs
A Spot Hidden roll notices that each bikini photo is marred by a small black spot in the sky. Even though the photos were clearly taken at different times, the spot remains fixed in place. An Art/Craft (Photography) roll suggests the spots are not flaws in the developing process—is it a distant airplane? Then why hasn’t it moved? Is it a flying saucer? The back of the photos are dated with a grease pencil, “June 21, 2024.”

A second Spot Hidden roll discovers Rideout’s changing bag, which contains a business card tucked inside a screened pouch. The card reads: “Waylon Rideout, B&W Photography,” and features a mobile number and an address in Sutherland. (The phone number has been disconnected, and the apartment rented to someone else.) A Computer Use roll discovers that Waylon Rideout was a 32-year old cryogenics technician at the GPCA and died of a brain aneurysm on 1 August 2024. The player characters are free to investigate Rideout, but there’s nothing much to discover. He was generally well-liked, and people remember him as a fun-loving guy who enjoyed taking photos. The sunbather is Rideout’s girlfriend Sophie Truman, the manager of the electronics department at the North Platte Target. If questioned, it seems that has Sophie moved on, and is now dating a dentist. She does not recall the black spot.

Ruth Swann’s Belongings
A determined search or a spontaneous Spot Hidden roll finds a cardboard box Sharpied “R. SWANN 4/17/24.” The box contains Ruth Swann’s personal belongings, retrieved from her office a few days after her death. The box includes a few science books, Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, Stanisław Lem’s Solaris, Ross Coulthart’s In Plain Sight, a Berkeley “Cal” ball cap, a photograph of Swann with her niece, a ceramic pencil holder in the shape of a chubby bird, a pair of binoculars, a hotel keycard from the Omni Orlando, a postcard from Jodrell Bank sent to Ruth by Ann Druyan, and a GPCA ID badge made out to William Snow for the dates “February 13–19, 2023.” All the books are embossed with a custom book stamp reading, “From the Library of Ruth Swann.”

The Monastery
The SMO features a small apartment for visiting astronomers. Called “the monastery,” the room offers two beds, a wardrobe, a writing desk, and a small bathroom with a claw-foot tub. The walls are decorated with black-and-white photographs of astronomers from the 50s and 60s.

The first astronomers of the SMO (1952)
(Director Kevin Ross lower middle, K. Perotine Jekyll lower right)

From the time it was built until the mid-60s, women were not allowed to use the monastery. It was astronomers Anneila Sargent and K. Perotine Jekyll who first challenged this tradition, and in 1966 Director Tillinghast (1960–1969) struck down the restriction—provided, of course, the room would not be occupied by astronomers of the opposite sex unless they were lawfully married. Once the GPCA dormitory was built, the monastery fell out of favor, and has never been modernized. After the SMO closed down, it was sometimes used by employees looking for furtive naps, and it’s certainly seen its share of workplace trysts. When Director Neal was informed of this in 2013, he ordered the room locked.

General Office, Storeroom, Plate Room
The Capitol contains three more unrenovated rooms: a general office, a storeroom, and an archive of developed photographic plates. All are locked, with the office and storeroom being used for general storage. The plate room contains hundreds of beautiful images taken between 1952 and 1986. All of these plates were carefully digitized under Director Dalton Louck’s administration (2000–2007). The best of the plates are on display in the Joel Stebbins Library, while others have been loaned to various observatories or museums.

Trifid Nebula

Andromeda Galaxy

Pluto

The Control Room
The largest room in the Capitol is the “warm room,” renovated in the late 1970s to account for the new Boller & Chivens reflector and associated computer systems. Restored and repainted during the 2010 renovations, the room has a vague, mid-century museum vibe: the silent stare of ancient computers, reel-to-reel tape spools, a Princess telephone and Bakelite ashtrays. Still, a few signs of recent use are apparent, such as a USB charger plugged into the wall, a modern NRAO coffee mug, and a forgotten Silmarillion paperback. The room is connected to a pair of closed-circuit cameras inside the dome. Updated during the renovations, these cameras feed into a modern communications suite with a two-way microphone and split-screen color monitor.

The Dome

The SMO’s equatorial room is a two-story structure typical of most small observatories, consisting of an observation floor, a mounted telescope, and a galvanized steel dome. The dome remains operational, but the telescope is damaged beyond repair. During the recent renovations the room was refurbished into a handsome seminar space. It boasts new floor tiles and wall paneling, adjustable LED lighting, and modernized wiring. A dozen folding chairs are collected on a rack. Six Klipsch “Reference Premiere” RP-8060FA II Dolby Atmos speakers surround the room, all wired to a soundboard positioned near the dome controls. A pair of closed-circuit cameras mounted on the walls feed directly into the adjacent control room, while a speaker/microphone panel allows two-way communication. Three black-and-white photographs are framed on the walls: the original Alvan Clark 18” refractor, a portrait of Goodwin DeLoss Swezey, and the unused Minnich telescope from 1915.

Party Favors
Shortly after arriving at the GPCA, Mason Dauterive discovered the old disco ball from the 80s and restored it to its original location. Since then he’s added a fog machine, some party lights, and a box of garish 70s and 80s costumes. All of these accouterments are located in a cabinet near the dome controls. While Neal isn’t wild about the staff’s Disco Flashback Parties, he permits them as long as they “remain respectful of the observatory’s history.” This admonition was thrown to the wind during the 2022 “Gorgonea Prima” Halloween Party, when invited guests were encouraged to dress like “GPCA notables and unfortunates.” Fortunately no photography was permitted, so the famously humorless director never saw Mason Dauterive dressed like a frostbitten astronomer, Leo Sawyer in “Sybill Trelawney” drag as Sarah Potter, or Nora Kelly painted like a ghost with a rope around her neck. To their credit, Matthew Lipton was considered off-limits; but Michael Beckmann did show up as Henry Annesley “having survived the plane crash and returned 36 years later with a ‘what did I miss?’ attitude and ready to seize the reigns from Director Neal.”

Sonifications
The equatorial room is where the Nemesis Team gathers to hear Jenny’s latest sonifications. (See “Chapter 6—March 20 Thursday,” Encounter 9 for details.)

Sources & Notes

The Swezey-Minnich Observatory combines elements from four actual observatories: the Sommers-Bausch Observatory at the University of Colorado; the Van Vleck Observatory in Middletown, Connecticut; the University of Illinois Astronomical Observatory; and the Whitin Observatory at Wellesley College. A few events in the “series of misfortunes” are partially inspired by actual incidents, including the tragic death of astronomer Marc Aaronson in 1978 and the shooting of the McDonald Observatory’s 2.7-meter reflector in 1970. Both of these are related by Emily Levesque in her wonderful book, The Last Stargazers.

The photograph of SMO astronomers from 1952 is actually the Washburn Observatory staff in 1945, with Charles M. Huffer as Director Kevin Ross (sorry Kevin!) and Helen Mathews as K. Perotine Jekyll, a fictional astronomer from Kingsport, Massachusetts, who’d later be appointed director of the GPCA. The photo of the 18” refractor is actually the 20” Alvan Clark from the Van Vleck Observatory. The astronomical plates are mostly from 100-inch telescopes, but they look nice, don’t they? The images of Henry Annesley, the Stebbins Library mural, and the darkroom were created using Google Gemini 2.5.

Bible Black > Locations
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Author: A. Buell Ruch (Based on work by Kevin A. Ross)
Last Modified: 10 November 2025
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
Bible Black PDF: [TBD]