OSINT Exercise #015 Walkthrough: Declassified CIA Records & Historical Geolocation

A special thanks to Sofia Santos (Gralhix) for designing this challenging and educational historical OSINT exercise.

The Challenge Overview

Sofia Santos’s OSINT Exercise #015 presents a screenshot of a declassified CIA Caption Report documenting an undisclosed photograph taken by an intelligence agent in January 1953.

The Objectives:

1. Find the original photograph referenced in the CIA caption report.
2. Determine the exact final location where the telescope was installed once completed.

Step 1: Deconstructing the CIA Caption Report

The first step was extracting all actionable metadata from the report card:

• Manufacturer: AT ASKANIA FACTORY (Askania-Werke, a prominent German optical and precision instrument maker located in Berlin).
• Target/Client: BUILT FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN.
• Technical Specs: Camera size of 20 feet, 3-ton weight, optical field 20x larger than the Mount Palomar telescope.
• Stage/Context: being assembled at factory (Indicates the photo was taken inside a manufacturing workshop, not an observatory dome).
• Date of Intelligence: JAN, 18, 1953.
• Report Origin: Berlin, Germany.

Step 2: Querying the CIA FOIA Database

To verify the document index and examine full records, I queried the CIA Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room using the document identifier CIA-RDP78-05867A000100170017-3.

This search directly retrieved the declassified FOIA PDF containing the collection of Ground Photo Caption Cards from the era.

Step 3: Finding the Photograph (Task A)

Standard web searches for historical telescopes often default to modern, high-resolution photos of operational domes. However, the CIA document specifically emphasized the assembly stage inside the workshop.

Using the query university of bonn telescope, I began cross-referencing visual records with historical press archives.The search surfaced the exact black-and-white press photograph:

• Subject: A technician in a workshop coat actively assembling the internal mirror/aperture.
• Background: Industrial workshop ceiling beams and a heavy-duty hoist chain matching the “being assembled at factory” description.
• Archive Reference: IMAGO Images ID 0061895213 (“Jan. 01, 1953 - Gigantic telescope built in Berlin Factory...”).

Step 4: Tracking the Final Installation Location (Task B)

With the instrument identified as the Schmidt telescope (Schmidt-Spiegel) commissioned from Askania-Werke by the University of Bonn, the next task was locating its permanent home.

1. Historical Context: Due to urban light pollution at the original Alte Sternwarte in Bonn, the university established a dedicated out-of-town observing station in the early 1950s: the Observatorium Hoher List (Hoher List Observatory) near Daun in the Eifel mountain region.
2. Installation: Construction began in 1953, and the Askania Schmidt telescope was officially installed in the first completed dome around 1954.

Site: Observatorium Hoher List (Hoher List Observatory)

1. Location: Schalkenmehren / Daun, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
2. Coordinates: 50°09'46"N 6°50'55"E (50.1627° N, 6.8486° E)

Key Takeaways

• Deconstruction First: Parsing every text entity (factory name, client, date, state of assembly) eliminates guesswork before querying.
• State of Assembly: Recognizing the distinction between an operational instrument (in an observatory dome) and one under construction (in a factory workshop) was crucial for filtering out false positive images.
• Archive Precision: Press photo databases often index historical machinery better than modern academic repositories.