What is that thing on my ceiling?

Infrared remote doorlock receiver.

oil

Aliens dude....Aliens Nick

That's "ConStar", a precursor to what we now know as OnStar.

When motorists required assistance, they could activate ConStar via satellite to one of 26 federal penitentiaries. Volunteer inmates would accept calls and provide a variety of assistance from driving directions, contacting emergency services and what ultimately led to it's demise - remote lock out assistance. Participating inmates would monitor specific vehicles for out of service patterns. Once an inmate could establish that a vehicle would sit in a specific location for a predictable amount of time, it became a "target car". Target cars were then "sold" to inmates ready for release and were given a time and location for unlocking.

It's quite a coincidence that you bring this up. In fact it was 16 years ago to this day (April 1st, 1999) that ConStar was mothballed. General Motors recognizing it's usefulness fine tuned the system and named it OnStar. And now you know the rest of the story.

-Paul Harvey

It's either the receiver for the key fob, or it's the automatic high beam turner-offer.

my 1988 xj has that also. I think it was left over when the previous owner removed the cell phone installation. might be a remote speaker or micraphone. old john

On Fri, 1 Apr 2005 09:52:53 +0200 in , "Odd-Inge" graced the world with this thought:

In 1988 the U.S. government installed these in all Jeeps to keep track of the people who bought them, because they fit a particular profile that the FBI was interested in.