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Game of LIGO

I believe LIGO is playing a game with the scientific community. This is bad for science to maintain its credibility.
LIGO stopped being consistent in November 2019.
The reason for this inconsistency dates back to August 2017 when LIGO received its Nobel Prize.

The only way to prove this conclusion is access to the LIGO internal results of each wave's analysis which is not publicly available,

This case uses only publicly available information.

LIGO was tasked with detecting gravitational waves, a prediction by Einstein. However these waves have no definition to allow a direct measurement.

In 1957 a meeting was held in Chapell Hill to discuss General Relativity.
One conclusion was these gravitational waves (GW) must be detectable though only a minimal definition by Poincare in 1905 as propagating similar to electromagnetic waves.
Having nothing to measure directly the LIGO system detects any disturbance in the crust and then looks for a computer generated template in this signal which comes from the most sensitive interferometers ever. This signal is mostly noise with an expected signal in there.
The 4 templates being used were the strongest possible waves from the 2 most massive bodies, the merger of black hole with neutron star or any combination of the 2.

LIGO relies on software analysis to detect gravitational waves and determine their origin. Multiple detectors should enable triangulation.

This software is a critical part of this game.

The following dates and events are part of the public record.

These details are cryptic or this post must be long.
I will use these acronyms:

ETP - Earth Tide Peak. Tthis earth tide caused by the Moon or Sun along with the daily rotation of the Earth results in a wave in the crust that the LIGO system reacts to.

The ETP events: Full Moon, New Moon, PeriGee, Perihelion.

SMRE - Sky Map Ready event. This is a milestone in the LIGO analysis where it has determined the location of the merger which caused the GW.

PERE - PERE - PE Ready event. This is usually the final milestone in the LIGO analysis where this event is publicly announced on the Wikipedia page listing the GW events with their identified merger pair.

GWE - GW event but no merger (no confidence in an assignment).

GWM - GW event with identified merger (some combination of BH-NS).

GRACEDB is the web site listing all the LIGO GW detections in the O3 run, which began in April 2019, with their individual  Sky Map Ready and PE Ready status.

For brevity I will use dates like 19-12-05 for 2019 - December 5.

Background in 2017:

2017 time line of events to be mentioned below

17-01-04 ETP PH - LIGO claimed a GWM on this day
17-01-04 GWM  - GW170104 BH-BH
17-06-08 GWM - GW170608 BH-BH
17-06-09  ETP FM  - LIGO claimed a GWM on the day before

17-07-23 ETP NM - LIGO claimed a GWM 6 days later
17-07-29 GWM - GW170729 BH-BH

17-08-07 ETP FM LIGO claimed a GWM 2 days later
17-08-09 GWM - GW170809 BH-BH

17-08-14 GWM- GW140814BH-BH
17-08-17 GWM - GW170817 NS-NS - this is the controversial event

17-08-18 ETP PG - LIGO claimed 2 GWM before this ETP and 1 GWM on this day
17-08-18 GWM - GW170818 BH-BH

From the BackReaction blog is this excerpt===

What’s up with LIGO?
Posted by Sabine Hossenfelder at 12:48 PM <September 4, 2019>

For most physicists, the 170817 neutron-star merger – the strongest signal LIGO has seen so-far – erased any worries raised by the Danish group’s claims. That’s because this event came with an electromagnetic counterpart that was seen by multiple telescopes, which can demonstrate that LIGO indeed sees something of astrophysical origin and not terrestrial noise. But, as critics have pointed out correctly, the LIGO alert for this event came 40 minutes after NASA’s gamma-ray alert. For this reason, the event cannot be used as an independent confirmation of LIGO’s detection capacity. Furthermore, the interpretation of this signal as a neutron-star merger has also been criticized. And this criticism has been criticized for yet other reasons.

It further fueled the critics’ fire when Michael Brooks reported last year for New Scientist that, according to two members of the collaboration, the Nobel-prize winning figure of LIGO’s seminal detection was “not found using analysis algorithms” but partly done “by eye” and “hand-tuned for pedagogical purposes.” To this date, the journal that published the paper has refused to comment.

The LIGO collaboration has remained silent on the matter, except for issuing a statement according to which they have “full confidence” in their published results (surprise), and that we are to await further details. Glaciers are now moving faster than this collaboration.
=== end

my comment:

By August 17, 2017 LIGO had claimed 5 BH-BH mergers that year. These have no possible independent confirmation.The first events ever claimed by LIGO were in 2015 and those 3 were also BH-BH mergers.

LIGO (probably) did not know these 5  were from a PH, NM, FM, PG, PG (a double).

One can wonder whether that BH-BH combination was the most likely outcome for these waves from an ETP; without access to the software one cannot know of such tendencies for their pattern match filter.

I assume some LIGO personnel were concerned they were claiming detections but with no justification for the claims.

When NASA detected a rare GRB, LIGO took the opportunity to create an event which could use that GRB for confirmation (described above).

This deception was rewarded with the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Resuming the story in 2019.

2019-April - O3 run begins with greater sensitivity.

As a result, LIGO claims more GW for a single ETP.

2019-October - LIGO down for maintenance
19-11-01 - LIGO resumes O3

19-11-05 GWM - S191105e BH-BH
19-11-09 GWM - S191109d BH-BH
19-11-12 ETP FM - LIGO claimed 2 GWM before this ETP

19-11-10 at 16:xx UTC:

I posted my prediction for LIGO wave detections between Nov 10 and 14, Nov 21 and 25, 24 and 28.
This prediction was done to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration facebook page.
Within only hours:


19-11-10 at18:09 UTC  SMRE - S191110x
19-11-10 at 23:11 UTC   SMRE - S191110af

The S191110x was 2 hours after my prediction.
The S191110af was 7 hours after my prediction

After seeing these events I added to my comment informing LIGO my prediction was confirmed. I had expected LIGO to report detections from the full moon. LIGO did that.
I followed up with predictions for the 5-day ranges in December and January (for future ETP) as well as the historical statistics showing LIGO is not detecting what it claims.
All of these comments remain on the LIGO facebook page for anyone to see.

One or both on Nov 10 could have been a PERE or even a GWM.

19-11-14 passed with nothing though based on the LIGO history around this date there should have been at least a GWE.

The lack of LIGO activity after 19-11-10 is suspicious.

I must point out the S191105e GWM is also suspicious for several reasons:
a) it was 7 days before the ETP; historically this 7 day separation happened only once, with S190822c earlier in 2019;
Before O3 began in 2019 the maximum separation was only 5 days.
b) one can wonder whether LIGO was excited for their first GWM after resuming after maintenance. They posted an event as quickly as possible.

It is impossible to know whether any wave detections after 19-11-10  were suppressed, or never posted to GRACEDB.

7 days later LIGO resumed activity.

19-11-17 - SMRE - S191117j - this is 5 days after the FM; note: LIGO had reported a GWM 7 days before this FM so this could have been a GWM but LIGO did not give it that status.

19-11-20 - SMRE - S191120aj - 3 days before PG
19-11-20 - SMRE - S191120at - 3 days before PG
19-11-23 - ETP PG

LIGO can detect 2 waves on the same date though both are 3 days from the ETP.
This double event alone should impact the credibility of LIGO claims having no confirmation.

19-11-24 - SMRE - S191124be - 1 day after PG
19-11-26 - ETP NM
19-11-29 - SMRE - S191129u - 3 days after NM
19-11-29 - GWM - S191129u - BH-BH - despite no PE_READY status (not consistent)

19-112-04 - SMRE - S191204t - 7 days before FM
19-12-04 also: GWM - S1911204t - BH-BH - despite no PE_READY status (because 7 days away?) (not consistent)
19-12-11 - ETP FM

My conclusion:

GRACEDB reveals the progress of the LIGO analysis. In the past both Skymap and PE ready status flags were needed for its posting to Wikipedia.

That is no longer the case as seen in the last two merger events.

Because no entity requires LIGO to verify their claims, when looking over the LIGO history there is no justification to trust LIGO's claims.

I am concerned many are convinced LIGO actually detects gravitational waves. LIGO has never verified its claims so many are working with an invalid assumption.
I expect they don't know LIGO is playing a game with no one asking for the rules.


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