Editor’s Note: This is an 1,100 word excerpt from a 5,000 word article on the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the NSA’s partner in surveillance, a black budget version of NASA that runs space based operations and rumored to be the agency responsible for tracking UFOs as they enter and leave the Earth’s atmosphere. It was originally published in issue #2 of Hexagon. -Matt

A chart’s rising sign describes the immediate physical appearance of the chart’s owner. For instance, when a spy agency has its ascendant in Leo, the sign of royalty and monarchy, it’s likely to have a headquarters so distinctive you can’t possibly miss it. As explained in the Summer 2015 issue of this magazine, the NSA has its ascendant in Leo (the king), ruled by the Sun in Scorpio (secrets). In true Leo ascendant fashion, the NSA headquarters is so large and ostentatious you can almost see it from space while its all-black, Darth Vader style outfit practically demands you take notice of it.

In contrast, an agency that has its ascendant in Scorpio, the sign of the “Covert Operative”, will likely have a headquarters completely hidden from public view. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the infamous Area 51 base in the Nevada desert is a Scorpio rising installation.

A Virgo rising agency like the NRO won’t have a headquarters that’s highly visible like a Leo rising agency nor will it have one that’s completely hidden like a Scorpio rising agency. It’s going to have a headquarters that people can see but are unlikely to take notice of. The building(s) can thus be expected to simply blend in with other buildings in much the same way people in often under-appreciated Virgoan professions such as maids, mechanics, plumbers, janitors, and computer repair staff who anonymously blend in with their surroundings while on the way to work.

In true Virgo rising fashion the NRO is headquartered in a large, corporate looking office park in the Virginia suburbs that, while quite sizeable, looks like pretty much every other large, corporate looking office park in the Virginia suburbs. In contrast to the NSA’s ostentatiously Leonine headquarters, the NRO’s subtle Virgo style headquarters blends into its background well enough that for years even people inside the highest levels government didn’t take notice of it. According to a 1994 article in the Los Angeles Times, even “Leon E. Panetta, former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and now President Clinton’s chief of staff, had no idea that the four office towers belonged to the government.” (Source) Virgo rising can be sneaky like that.

In their book Skymates II: The Composite, astrologers Steven and Jodie Forest tell us that people with their ascendants in helpful, highly competent Virgo are the sort of people you want around should your jeep break down in the deserts of Africa. Along these lines, the NRO has developed a technology called “Red Dot” that utilizes spy satellites to detect improvised explosive devices (IEDs), home-made, landmine type weapons that have been the leading cause of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Source) In other words, the NRO is not literally out “fixing jeeps in the deserts of Africa” but they have designed technology to prevent Humvees and their human passengers from being destroyed in the deserts of Iraq. Virgo has an eye for the smallest of details and the “Red Dot” technology is thought to work by detecting energy emissions in IEDs as infinitesimally small as those given off by cell phone batteries all the way from satellites in geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above the planet. (Source) Even those of us opposed to the war economy, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex, etc. can acknowledge that detecting emissions that small from that far out in space is a pretty astonishing example of Virgo’s reputation for precision, service, and technical wizardry all rolled into one. Given the horrible carnage inflicted by IEDs, the NRO’s “Red Dot” technology can even be analogized to a form of preventative medicine, a practice Virgo has long been associated with.

Virgo rising people are often quite organized but also prone to “testiness.” For instance, the hissing cobras depicted in this NRO morale patch are believed to represent a series of classified spy satellites.

They also happen offer an excellent approximation of what happens should you mess with Virgo’s filing systems or database management protocols.

Pisces on the Descendant: Spooky Spouse(s)

While the ascendant sign represents the chart owner’s physical identity, it’s the sign on the descendant (7th House cusp) that represents “the other”, ranging from spouses and business partners to clients and patrons to rivals and open enemies. In the chart of an intelligence agency it will also refer to other intelligence agencies. With Virgo (analysis) on the ascendant, the NRO has Pisces (imagery) on the descendant. Symbolized as two fish, Pisces is the sign of the Psychic and the Seer, the Mystic and the Mist, the Specter and the Spook. People with Pisces on the descendant often partner with others who possess the ability to move in and out of unseen realms as naturally as a fish moves in and out of ocean currents. Pisces’ orientation to the non-material means it’s also the sign most likely to simply disappear from the radar of society, whether for tragic reasons or more strategic ones. Astrologer Linda Goodman warns her readers that once a Pisces disappears, “Don’t try to use your binoculars to spot them. Binoculars don’t work in the Deep.” The NRO’s 7th House partners include an armada of spooky, hard to spot (Pisces) defense contractors that can be likened to a large, predatory species of fish (Pisces) gorging themselves amid the oceanic depths of the black budget. Many of the NRO’s corporate partners such as Lockhead Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) prefer to stay as deep beneath the radar of the body-politic as much as possible.

Furthermore, while the NRO is responsible for generating imagery, it’s the NRO’s partner agencies such as the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency responsible for interpreting that imagery. In this way the NRO can be analogized to the technicians and repair people (Virgo rising) who handle the machinery at a sleep lab while the NRO;s partner agencies (7th House entities) can be analogized to the dream interpreters and mystics (Pisceans) who make sense of the imagery produced by the technicians at the sleep lab.

With Pisces on the descendant, the ruler of the NRO’s 7th House is Neptune (planet of imagery, intuition, and revelry but also deception) in Scorpio (sign of secrets), in the 2nd House (house of income and skill set). With the ruler of the house of partnership in the house of income, the NRO is married (7th House) to the contractors it pays money (2nd House) to for the processing of imagery (Neptune) regarding covert operations (Scorpio). Neptune (deception) in Scorpio (covert operations) in the 2nd House (money, resources) has “black budget” written all over it.

About the Author: Matt Savinar is a California licensed attorney (State Bar #228957), voluntarily inactive as of June 2013. He can be reached for questions, comments, or consults at his contact page.