Are There Buildings On The Moon?

By James Donahue

It has been over 30 years since American astronauts made their dynamic trips to the Moon and back on the Apollo Rockets. Those of us old enough to remember those daring events can remember being glued to our television sets when Neil Armstrong said those historic words: "First Small Step for Man" as he jumped from the Lunar Lander and planted the United States flag in the dust.

Through the fuzzy pictures sent to us live, we watched Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin jump and bounce their way in bulky space suits, assisted by light lunar gravity, as they explored that strange unearthly place. They picked up rock samples, took pictures, and drove around on a wheeled "moon rover" designed to take them on brief exploratory missions.

There were six successful moon landings like that between 1969 and 1972. After Eugene Cernan closed the door on his craft in December, 1972, the Moon missions came to an end. Cernan still holds the distinction of being the last known human to walk on the Moon.

In addition to the landings, NASA sent four earlier manned orbital missions to the Moon. Each time the astronauts circled the Moon, taking lots of pictures.

The images they projected showed us exactly what everyone expected to see. The Moon appeared as an airless, rocky, uninhabited object in space. It was proven once and for all (or so we thought) that the old fables about a "man in the Moon," and that the Moon was made of green cheese were wrong.

I am personally convinced that there was no green cheese found on the Moon. As for evidence of habitation by some form of intelligent life . . . that may be a different story.

Author Richard Hoagland should probably be credited (or blamed) for launching stories about strange and unnatural structures discovered on the Moon. At the time of the Moon landings, Hoagland was gaining some fame for his theories about NASA photographs depicting a mile-wide engraved humanoid face on Mars. His book, "Monuments of Mars," was only then gaining popularity among the growing number of conspiracy theorists.

Hoagland began expounding his theories during appearances on the popular Art Bell radio talk show. Eventually he had his own web site, at www.enterprisemission.com. Here he not only promoted his theories about proof of a lost Martian civilization, but also began promoting the idea that NASA was hiding evidence of glass or crystal towers found on the Moon.

As I recall, Hoagland's first "proofs" of the Moon buildings were found in a few "accidental" photographs released by NASA that showed unexpected anomalies in the background, or in reflections on the visors of astronauts.

Since Hoagland began his quest, other writers and Internet theorists have joined in the search for proofs that NASA is covering up something very strange found during those historic visits to the Moon. And . . . they seem to be turning up some curious information.

Work by Michael Bara that shows on a site titled "A Village on the Moon," uses enhanced pictures from the Navy's Clementine moon mapping project in 1994 to show various square, triangular, straight line and "polygonal pattern" images in a cluster, near the rim of the Tycho crater.

Bara suggests that the polygonal pattern may even be an indication that a "substructure" exists beneith the crater floor, and that the shallow depth of the Tycho crater "resembles a skin stretched over a gridwork."  He also suggests that certain peculiarities of the Moon, namely that all of the craters seem to look alike and that the consistency of the Moon seems to lack the "proper density," support a theory that the Moon is an artificially manufactured body "or at least partially modified."

An article by UFO researcher C. A. Honey, e-mailed to me in a package of odd articles gleaned from who knows where, suggests evidence exists that alien visitors have been on the Moon and may still have a base there.

Honey writes that NASA issued a press release on Nov. 22, 1966, with pictures from Lunar Orbiter 2, showing "amazing things" on the Moon. The story and pictures appeared in various newspapers at the time, but for some reason did not get national attention.

He quotes a United Press International story that stated: "Moon spires never seen before that looked like tall, skinny pyramids showed up in a photograph of the moon . . . scientists said today . . .

"Judging by the shadows cast by the sun, one (spire) looks like the George Washington National Monument," said a spokesman at Cal Tech's Laboratory. "Some of the smaller ones look like upside down ice cream cones," he said."

Honey wrote that Apollo 12 landed in the general area of the moon where the spires were photographed, although the crew of that mission made no mention of seeing any anomalies. "It would seem to me that such things would be of primary interest to scientists and astronauts," he said. "To me this is most unusual, unless of course security was invoked. . ."

Hoagland has remained actively involved in the research. One of the newer articles on his web page, "The Hidden Side of the Moon" written by Steve Troy, provides enhanced photographs and data showing various anomalies within Chaplygin crater.

Among the structures revealed by the picture, Troy said, are various Roman style arches, found both near the rim and in the debris within the crater area.

He wrote: " The form of one of the larger arches . . . remarkably resembles the Roman 2nd century Trajan Arch in Benvenuto, Italy."

In addition to the glass or crystal structures, Troy said Hoagland has found large triangular shapes, some of them miles across.

He concluded that: "As we’ve said so many times, there has been nothing but denial from NASA regarding the artifacts that we have found over the years. The blatant fact is that we simply have glimpsed the real Moon and have learned that we were not the first to leave artifacts not only there, but also across this solar system."