FATE July 1959- Vol. 12, No. 7
Strange sights reported by astronomers suggests our satellite is being explored by an unknown race.
By Samuel Gordon
Science Editor, Washington Daily News
Although it has been claimed that UFOs have been seen on or near the moon, it is the purpose of this article to avoid such controversial reports and, instead, to present observations by orthodox astronomers which prove that the moon is a changing, living world and not a barren, airless, changeless “celestial museum piece.” Indeed, there is strong evidence that the moon currently is being explored by an unknown race.
The origin of the moon is shrouded in mystery. All conventional theories of our satellite’s beginning have serious flaws.
One of the most esoteric explanations of the moon’s origin—not supported by astronomers—is the “Cosmic Ice Theory” which states in part that the earth’s gravitational pull in past ages captured a series of planets, each of which became an earth satellite. In time each moon, spiraling nearer to the earth, disintegrated under the primary’s gravitational tug and plunged down upon our orb as debris. The Cosmic Ice Theory supporters believe that the last such catastrophe occurred some 250,000 years ago, that the then moon broke up into fiery remnants which rained on the earth in particles ranging in size from pebbles to mountains creating the Great Flood of the Bible and resulting in such myths as firebreathing dragons, Satan cast out of heaven, struggles between giants and gods and many other cosmic myths.
The mysterious Book of Revelation, this theory holds, is a highly poetical but actual eyewitness account of this ancient havoc which all but destroyed humanity.
According to this theory the current moon was captured by the earth about 13,000 years ago and the resulting stresses caused great earthquakes, the sinking of Atlantis and a great flood, although not as universal as the one mentioned in the Bible.
If the origination of the moon is a puzzle, our satellite’s very presence and size are deeper enigmas. If one discounts the tiny moonlets of Mars—said by some astronomers to be captured asteroids and by certain UFO believers to be artificial launching sites for space ships—the earth is the only terrestrial planet to have a satellite. (The terrestrial planets are those including and resembling the earth—Mercury, Venus, Terra and Mars.)
And the relative size of the moon compared to the earth is an anomaly. The moon’s diameter is one-fourth of the earth’s and no other planet in the solar system has a satellite so near its primary in size. Titan, largest moon in the solar system, has only one-twentieth of Saturn’s diameter. In fact, the earth and moon are often called sister planets.
However, if the moon’s origin and size are mysteries, recent occurrences on the lunar surface are no less confusing to astronomers—and our military intelligence personnel as well. To the bewildering complexity of the lunar landscape have mushroomed a number of “domes, weird lights, moving objects and disappearing and appearing surface features.” No wonder that reports persist that our major observatories are taking a long “second” look at the lunar surface—at the request of the military.
When—if ever—the first man-made missile begins to orbit the moon and televise close-ups of the lunar surface, the most careful scrutiny will be given to pictures of the mysterious domes. For whether they admit it or not, selenographers and Pentagon brass are deeply disturbed over the growing number of the domes. It now appears likely that recent lunar surveys persuaded American—and perhaps Russian—missile experts to abandon earlier plans to shoot a rocket directly at the moon but to try to put a missile into an orbit around Luna instead—or miss the moon entirely.
Readers will recall when the American Association for the Advancement of Science met in Washington in 1958, there was a great outcry against a direct moon shot. Fossils or other remnants of lunar life might be “contaminated” by contact with early germs, said the learned men. I think that there were other—and unpublicized—reasons for the objections.
Some of the scientists feared that if we struck the moon with a rocket, especially a rocket with an atomic warhead, somebody on the moon might strike back at the earth with a rocket equally lethal—or perhaps more so.
It is now obvious that the two (so far) so-called “lunar probes” were not probes at all, but experiments carefully designed not to venture too close to the moon. Russia’s Lunik, launched this past January, passed 5000 miles from the moon and it is now apparent that the objective was to place “Lunik” in an orbit around the sun. America’s Pioneer IV was launched in March to pass the moon at 15,000 miles but deviated from course and sped by Luna more than 30,000 miles away.
Why this fear of alleged “contamination” and the reluctance to send a missile too close to the moon?
It is my firm belief that the reasons for this are the lunar domes. For considerable observational evidence indicates that these domes are artificial dwellings of unknown entities who currently are exploring the moon, and our rocket experts are going to be exceedingly cautious about venturing too close to Luna until we know more about the aliens.
Let’s look at the facts. Lunar literature made practically no mention of the domes until the 1930’s. Even up until 1945 the domes were considered a rarity. After that year their number increased by leaps and bounds and today many hundreds are known. Please note that year: 1945. That was just two years before Ken Arnold sighted the first of the “modern” flying saucers.
In 1953, after two new domes were discovered, a noted astronomer wrote: “It’s curious to say the least that the earlier observers, many of them possessed of good telescopes, should have recorded so few of the domes…”
Was this because there were no domes at that time to observe?
And why domes?
It is the considered opinion of experts that when men reach the moon, dome-like shelters will be the simplest to erect and maintain. Early in 1958, Dr. I. M. Levitt, director of the Fels Planetarium in Philadelphia, predicted that in 20 years—perhaps sooner—plastic domed villages hastily built by earthmen will dot the lunar surface. A similar prediction was made by the British selenographer, Patrick Moore, several years ago. When men reached the moon, he wrote, it would be desirable as “soon as possible to have a large enclosure provided with air and protected from extremes of temperatures outside… The most likely form is a large plastic dome inflated to normal terrestrial atmosphere.” Such a shelter would need no additional support, he added, and would be a huge air bubble on the moon.
This describes precisely the domes already on the moon.
Physically, the domes resemble rounded hills, sometimes with a pit on top, varying in size from several hundred yards in diameter to giants miles across. Many are white in color. One astronomer described a dome as a low, gentle swelling of the moon’s surface but he quickly added there is a “real difference” between a dome and an ordinary lunar hill.
The distribution of the domes is not random. They tend to be concentrated in certain areas, notably the Arago region, the Prinz area, the Harbinger Mountains and parts of Oceanus Procellarum. Many lunar areas so far seem to be entirely free of the domes.
Surely this closeness of the domes to each other is a sign of intelligent activity since this affords mutual protection for the alien explorers.
One of the most puzzling features of the domes is that sometimes an entire group will vanish from an area and another cluster will appear at a different point. Does this occur on “moving days” for unknown explorers?
The domes are but a few of the lunar mysteries that are plaguing astronomers who so recently pictured the moon as a barren, lifeless globe.
Beginning in the 19th Century and continuing in the present, selenographers have been mystified by weird lights, mists, fog, creeping “dark bands,” craters that change their forms and objects seen crossing the lunar surface.
Quite a record for a “dead world.”
The most recent bombshell dropped among the hapless orthodox astronomers was the discovery of a volcanic eruption on the moon by the Russian observer, Nikolai A. Kozyrev. “The existence today of internal energy and the possibility of orogenic processes (mountain formation) on the moon seem to have been established,” he wrote.
That the moon has an atmosphere up to 1/10,000ths of the earth’s has been established by the British selenographer, H. Percy Wilkins, and by others. Wilkins believes that at the height of 50 miles the lunar atmosphere may be as dense as the earth’s at the same height and thus forms an efficient shield against meteoric bombardment.
There are many other evidences of atmospheric phenomena on the moon. Temporary obscurations of craters and crater interiors have recently been noted. Surface details sometimes seem to be hidden by mist or fog. Mists have been detected on the floors of the walled plain, Plato, and the crater Ptolemy.
In view of the lunar atmosphere, it isn’t surprising that signs of primitive plant life have been observed on the moon’s surface. Dark bands have been seen moving in craters as they follow the course of the sun. In Aristarchus, for example, the dark shadings can be seen as soon as the sun is high enough. The shadings become definite bands as the lunar day progresses and by midday the bands pass over the crater walls into the open plain beyond. “The bands… can be traced expanding and contracting just as we might reasonably expect vegetation to do,” one astronomer said recently.
A lunar atmosphere and plant life are perfectly natural phenomena even though many astronomers do not accept their reality. But craters that change form and size are something else again. One wonders if someone is doing a major job of face-lifting on the moon.
Nineteenth Century observers described Linne, in the Sea of Peace, as a clearly visible deep crater. But in 1866 the selenographer J. Schmitt said Linne had vanished and in its place was a white cloud. Today Linne is a low dome with a small but deep pit at its top.
If the case of Linne is a bad dream, recent observations of the neighboring craters, Pickering and Messier, constitute an astronomical nightmare. At one time one crater will appear the larger, then its neighbor will take a turn at being bigger. Then one or the other or both will be oval, then triangular. These observations caused one selenographer to ask plaintively: “How can solid objects change their shapes almost as though they were living things?”
That, as the politicians say, is a good question.
The puzzle of weird lights on the lunar surface is just as bothersome to the conventional astronomer as are the polymorphous craters. As far back as 1869 the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain launched a three-year investigation of a sudden eruption of lights on the moon. The lights appeared in regular patterns—circles, triangles and straight lines—with varying intensity as though they were under intelligent control.
Many of these light formations appeared in the Mare Crisium area where John J. O’Neill, late science editor of the New York Herald Tribune discovered a tremendous bridge linking two promontories.
(The nature of this bridge has been in dispute since its discovery in 1953. One school of thought holds it is an artificial object, the other that it is natural. One astronomer asked: “If it (the bridge) has always been there how is it that it has only recently been discovered and how has it managed to survive under…meteoric bombardment and (other forces of) disintegration?”)
In 1935 the craters Copernicus and Aristarchus were lighted by weird glows many hours before the sun rose. In 1941 a luminous speck was observed moving toward the walled plain Gassendi. (Gassendi is noted for its many clefts and ridges which never appear the same to different observers.) In 1945 three very bright lights shone on the wall of Darwin (a crater which contains a large dome) before sunrise.
As late as November, 1958, an observer viewing the crater Alpetragius noticed that half of the shadow covering the crater floor faded and was replaced by a much lighter shade. “I never saw anything like this before,” he said.
Bright flashes on the earthshine area of the moon’s surface are rather common. I saw one visible to the naked eye several years ago. Through binoculars it was a brilliant light which glowed for several minutes.
The nature of most of these lights is a complete puzzle. Perhaps some of the bright flares may be due to meteoric impact, but to be asked to believe that meteors strike the moon in triangular formations is to strain one’s credulity. Certainly in the case of lights whose brightness varies or which flash off and on, and perhaps in the case of moving lights, it is reasonable to suppose that some sort of intelligence is responsible.
Paralleling the enigma of the lights are the cases of moving and disappearing objects on or near the lunar surface. In 1912 Dr. F. H. Harris observed a dark object estimated to be 50 miles long crossing the Moon’s surface!
About three years ago, I saw a small object move over the entire lunar disk—a trip which lasted an hour. If this object were near the moon it was traveling at about 2000 miles an hour. If it was in the earth’s atmosphere (let’s assume it was a bird, balloon or plane) it seemed scarcely to be in motion at all.
Old craters have suddenly vanished and new ones just as suddenly have appeared. An astronomer and his colleague recently observed, for the first time, a prominent lunar ridge complete with a sharp shadow all so distinct that the pair named the object the “causeway.”
Shortly thereafter the ridge abruptly vanished; intense search for it was made in vain. “Either we dreamed this thing or else something has happened to it,” the astronomer wrote. It is interesting that the ridge was seen in the area where O’Neill discovered his bridge.
Thus the enigma of the moon continues to bemuse the astronomical fraternity as one by one their concepts of a changeless, airless globe evaporate. As one selenographer put it recently:
“Processes are going on up there, things are happening and events taking place which we cannot understand.”
Structures on Moon Visible Using Google Earth
Filer’s Files (www.ufoinfo.com/filer/index.shtml) reports that Richard Buchli, D.V.M., says that Google Earth shows a series of structures and craft on the Moon. Users can virtually go anywhere on the Moon and see places in photographic detail. This is a 3D model of the real Moon, based on real satellite images. To find these images for yourself, go to http://earth.google.com and download Google Earth. In the pull-down menu under “View,” hit “Explore,” select “Moon,” and put in the coordinates or browse the map. Artificial structures are allegedly visible, for example, at 19°58’48.31″ N, 21°11’35.57″E and 51°42’06″N, 19° 20’41.57″E.
