Memories of 14 September 2015

September 14th 2015 was a Monday. I had traveled to LHO on Sunday for a several-day meeting and I arrived at the observatory early that morning. I was not yet aware of the event that had occurred in the middle of the night. As I walked into the OSB Multi-purpose Room in the central corner building I saw a group of people huddled in the library or "fish bowl" office that has a window facing the multi-purpose room. It was the rapid response team and Mike Landry was there. It was clear to me that there was an intense discussion going on. When Mike saw me he came out of the office into the corridor to greet me and his first words to me were "we didn't do anything!". All the years of practice -- from the early blind injections to that day -- were now bearing fruit as folks worked to confirm the hardware configuration of the detector, the status of the simulated signal injection system, etc. As I recall, the LVEA as cordoned off to make sure the equipment was left exactly as it was during the previous night. Mike recounted to me how the events at LHO had unfolded since the momentous event a little before 03:00 local time. All through the day, as I went about my business for the purpose of my meeting at LHO, I would suddenly start and smile to myself with the wonder and realization that what we all had worked so long and hard for had happened -- and serendipitously so soon after Advanced LIGO had been dedicated on the 19th of May of that year!

Albert Lazzarini, LIGO Laboratory at Caltech lazz@caltech.edu