IFOCE Makes Formal Request To Keck Observatory In The Interest Of Human Advancement

February 26, 2014

Mr. Taft Armandroff Observatory Director W. M. Keck Observatory 65-1120 Mamalahoa Hwy Kamuela, HI 96743

Dear Mr. Armandroff:

As you may know, the Research Division of the International Federation of Competitive Eating has been expanding its scientific research efforts in an attempt to give back to the community.

Following on the heels of the successful Belt of Fat Theory (2002), the IFOCE released the Chicken Wing Consumption Model (2014), a study that has been widely recognized for saving Americans 500 million hours in lost labour and productivity each year.

The IFOCE is now launching an enquiry into the upcoming event involving the black hole, Sagittarius A*, and the gas cloud, G2. Our goal is to study the black hole’s consumption of the gas cloud in an attempt to identify intake methods that can be employed by humans here on earth to increase eating efficiency.

Our organisation has purchased a telescope as the first step in this project, but we are concerned about two items: one is the power of our telescope, which has a magnification level of 225x, and two is locating Sagittarius A* with the telescope.

In a recent test run we identified a phenomenon that resembled Sagittarius A*/G2 in the western sky, but my daughter, who is currently studying science, suggested that it may, in fact, have been the DirecTV satellite over Texas.

In the event that we are unable to accurately gather data with the IFOCE telescope, we would like to request several hours of the time with the Keck telescopes, ideally in late March, or early April before it gets too hot in Hawaii. We estimate that we will need no more than 90 minutes, but it is likely that we will require some operational instruction as we have not previously worked with an infrared telescope.

We insist on providing the Keck Observatory with an honorarium for this courtesy, and we will share authorship of any studies with the Keck team. On a related note, we wanted to clarify that the asterisks in Sagittarius A* is part of the name and does not indicate that further information about the black hole is contained in a footnote somewhere.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

George Shea Director, Research Division, IFOCE