BY DON ECKER — Legendary UFO researcher and host of Dark Matters Radio on CyberstationUSA
Send the author an email message.
If we as a species should know about any celestial body, our Moon should be the most known, right? Well as it turns out, not necessarily.
(STARpod.org) — On July 20th, 1969 the American Apollo 11 Mission touched down, forever immortalized with Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” quote. So, if we as a species should know about any celestial body, our Moon should be the most known, right?
Well as it turns out, not necessarily.
The Moon — gazed upon for countless centuries by lovers in all seasons, used by farmers to illuminate their nighttime harvesting in the autumn, cursed by soldiers trying to sneak up on the enemy and looked upon with awe by first time young astronomers. The Moon has almost always presented a familiar if not friendly countenance peering down upon us with serene familiarity.
The “Man in the Moon” has been a familiar figure to generations of Moon watchers. The optical illusion of a face is generated by the craggy features set off by smooth plains of the lunar surface.
The Moon, of course, was also the catalyst that fueled a multi-billion dollar and ruble race between the American and Soviet space agencies in the early 1960s, when President John Kennedy threw down the gauntlet to the American public in his historic race to the Moon speech. And on July 20th, 1969 the American Apollo 11 Mission touched down, forever immortalized with Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” quote. So, if we as a species should know about any celestial body, our Moon should be the most known, right? Well as it turns out, not necessarily.
Mystery Lights
For the last several hundred years, astronomers have observed mysterious lights on the lunar surface. In the early 19th century, England’s Sir John Herschel saw unidentifiable lights on the Moon during an eclipse, and said some of the lights appeared to be moving above the Moon. Other astronomers of the period reported seeing geometrical patterns of lights that resembled city streets. In 1869, the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain began a three-year investigation when a “sudden outbreak” of mystery lights was observed in the area of Mare Crisium.
On the night of July 29, 1953, John J. O’Neill settled himself at his telescope for an evening of lunar viewing. O’Neill was the science editor for the New York Herald Tribune. The “seeing,” an astronomer’s term for viewing, was excellent. As O’Neill began to observe the area around the Mare Crisium crater, he was astounded to view what appeared to be a “bridge” that straddled the crater, a structure that appeared to stretch for 12 miles.
O’Neill reported his discovery to the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers. As he expected, O’Neill was attacked by a number of astronomers, but one month later O’Neill found support from England when legendary British astronomer Dr. H. P. Wilkens verified it.
A natural’ description
Patrick Moore, a leading member of the British Astronomical Association, also observed the bridge and reported it. Here was a bridge where one had never been seen before. O’Neill, careful in the extreme, called it a “natural” bridge that had somehow “popped up” almost overnight.
Lunar Transient Phenomena, or LTP, is an old subject with astronomers. Beginning several hundred years ago, certain areas of our Moon have consistently displayed light and object phenomena having no clear explanation. Starting in the 1960s, NASA began to study LTP in earnest. This study included anything that showed color, light, movement or anything mysterious, anything that was different from the norm.
In June of 1972, an astronomy magazine published a NASA announcement about a program for studying LTP. NASA was looking for anyone with the proper equipment and experience to study the Moon in detail. Thirty-two observers responded and were detailed to study four different sites that had shown LTP in the past. The program was not a success, as only six astronomers reported with regularity, and then not necessarily on the sites assigned.
Moore’s catalog
Patrick Moore began to catalog LTP, and the list proved to be fascinating. In the crater Aristarchus, blinking lights, red and blue lights, brightenings and pulsations have all been observed. In the crater of Plato, blinking lights, moving lights and red color have been observed. Other craters that have displayed LTP in the forms of unexplained lights, clouds, blinking and flashing displays and colored lights have included Eratosthenes, Biela, Rabbi Levi, and Posidonius.
NASA has attempted to explain the above examples of observed LTP as gas escaping from lava deposits, Moon sunrise that caused ultraviolet excitation of gas, solar flare particles that create luminescent excitation, or volcanic action that causes belching fire that would explain the lights and occasional smoke.
First published in 1976 by David McKay, George H. Leonard’s book Somebody Else is on the Moon became one of the first books to take a close look at high strangeness on the Moon. Leonard created quite a stir by delving deep into NASA archives and finding a great number of photos from the first unmanned missions, and the later Apollo missions to the Moon.
NASA photos
Many of the photos showed Moon anomalies that Leonard and others claimed could not have been natural. The Moon does not have any discernible atmosphere or weather, no air or running water. With the exception of changes from meteor bombardments, the surface stays much the same as it has always been. NASA has stated that the lunar body is almost geologically dead, yet certain areas have registered on seismic equipment left on the Moon by the Apollo missions. These areas correspond with areas that are known for LTP.
When it comes to Apollo missions, rumors have abounded for years about what the astronauts are reported to have witnessed. In Timothy Good’s Above Top Secret, it is reported that former NASA Chief of Communications Systems Maurice Chatelain says that Neil Armstrong viewed two UFOs resting on the rim of a crater. “The encounter was common knowledge in NASA, but nobody has talked about it until now,” Chatelain stated.
Soviet scientists confirmed the incident. Dr. Vladmimir Azahzha, a physicist and mathematics professor, has stated, “Neil Armstrong relayed the message to Mission Control that two large, mysterious objects were watching them after having landed near the moon module. But his message was never heard by the public – because NASA censored it.”
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New Moon efforts
Several years ago, Moon anomaly investigator James Sylvan contacted UFO Magazine requesting information on contacting Richard Hoagland of the Cydonia, Mars investigating team (now called the Mars Mission). Sylvan had been following up for years on George Leonard’s work, and had gathered all the photos that Leonard had referenced. Sylvan then sent Hoagland samples of photos showing the anomalies that Leonard had found during his investigation.
Sylvan’s set of photos showed items that truly did not appear natural. In the still-warm wake of his exclusive focus on Mars, Hoagland began to study the lunar question, and became convinced that certain areas did have huge artificial structures. The primary formations today are referred to as the “shard,” the “tower,” and the “cube.”
In this recent revival of lunar anomalies investigation, the crater Ukert proves to be most provocative. Noticed by Hoagland, the strange phenomena on Ukert prompted him to contact Dr. Bruce Cornet, and independent geologist. Now allied with Hoagland in the search, Dr. Cornet has published his analyses of the photos of the lunar areas in question, descriptions that can more or less be considered the current party line on Moon anomalies.
Dr. Cornet explained Ukert as “. . . a crater like feature that displays a circumscribed equilateral triangle at full moon in its center. I agree that this triangle is not natural, because the sides of the crater are much brighter only opposite the sides of this triangle. The angles of the triangle intersect the darkest three areas of the crater rim, while the brightest three areas of the rim are opposite the sides of the triangle. In addition, the brightest parts of the rim are midway between the apices of the triangle, and are at 120 degrees orientation from one another.”
‘Comments on the shard’
Cornet says, “The Shard is an obvious structure which rises above the Moon’s surface by more than a mile. Its overall irregular spindly shape (containing a regular geometric pattern) with constricted nodes and swollen internodes, if natural, has got to be a wonder of the universe. No known natural process can explain such a structure.”
Cornet goes on to say that “The Tower represents an enigma of the highest magnitude, because it rises more than five miles above the surface of the Moon, and has been photographed from five different angles and two different sides. The Tower exists in front of and to the left of the Shard in the Lunar Orbiter III-84M photograph. The top of the Tower has a very ordered cubic geometry, and appears to be composed of regular cubes joined together to form a very large cube with an estimated width of over one mile!”
Again working with NASA imagery, Cornet also describes evidence for a massive, but vastly damaged dome that appears in Mare Crisium. Cornet stated that he was able to make out a set of large, concentric and circular light patterns within the mare. Reportedly he identified a spire or tower that rises from the surface within the light circles. “Magnification of the area around this spire shows cubic patterns like those around the Tower in Sinus Medii.”
He has emphasized that computer enhancements of some of the formations show that they’re apparently made of some reflective, glass-like material, highly eroded on the Moon’s airless, vacuum-like environment.
NASA’s non-reporting
The next question that readers are likely to ask is, if this information is even half true, then why was none of it reported by either NASA or the Apollo astronauts? The answer might go like this: Even though NASA is a civilian agency, it is in part financed by Department of Defense funds, and in the past, most astronauts were active duty military officers on detached status to NASA. In effect, all are subject to the military regulations, and if these regulations are broken, fines and penalties await.
Sitting behind all this is the National Security Agency (NSA), which monitors all transmissions and screens all footage taken on missions.
Under these circumstances, the barriers to openness are close to insurmountable. Were our years-long effort and billions upon billions of dollars (1960s dollars) expended just to say we got there? Is it feasible that after a half dozen missions, we just quit?
For years, rumors abounded that we were “asked” to leave early on (by the much-speculated “somebody else on the moon”), but that would have caused massive questioning and perhaps panic if we suddenly stopped, so we completed the program and the went into hiatus – until Apollo-Soyuz in 1975, and then the Shuttle in the early 80s, and most recently the Clementine mission (which at press time was still unrecovered). Again, this idea is pure speculation and rumor.
But an underlying question remains: Where secrecy is possible, where can we be sure of getting the truth? The only way a solution to these new and highly important mysteries will be found, especially if the Cornet analyses are even remotely on target, is through yet another, completely open lunar mission.
Whatever else might be found from current data stands as is until then.
Copyright (c) 2011 Don Ecker. All rights reserved in full by the author. Published online by STARstream Research by permission of Mr. Ecker. Page design and layout copyright (c) 2011 STARstream Research. All rights reserved.
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