Ancient Aliens on the Moon (33 page)

As I studied the image I was struck by what appeared to be an edge to the crater on lower left side just below the framelet line. Note that there is a distinct rim in this portion of the image. Given the shadow length, I was also a bit disturbed by the dark zone just below and to the right of the crater rim. If this were a normal crater, the area should be illuminated rather than pitch black. It occurred to me that there must have been a collapse of the surface skin in this dark zone.

By all rights, this should be a lopsided partial crater with a significant buildup of collapse material in the dark zone. The question then becomes “What is providing the structural stiffness of the crater itself?”

The simple fact is that unless the crater is an extremely stiff structural object, (like I don’t know, a satellite dish?) it should probably have collapsed into the recessed dark area. Given that it did not, I considered the winding, striated feature in the left center of the object as a possible support strut. It projects from the surface at a 45 degree angle and an apparently anchors under the rim of the crater.

Note also the parallel lines making up segments of the “Strut” are aligned at this same angle, rather than running along the direction of the surrounding terrain. It has all the earmarks of a spring loaded strut, similar to the earthquake absorption systems in modern office buildings. There is also an odd jagged edge on the right portion of the deeply shadowed area, as if a plate or board was broken by an impact. Underneath the “Strut” is an object easily recognizable as an I-beam or girder with lightening holes. This is similar to other such girders just north of the crater. It seems to be slightly stressed and bent under the “Strut.” The truth is, this object has all the engineering characteristics of an I-beam. It has a central web, raised sides (or flanges) and equally spaced lightening holes. I believe that the middle lightening hole is slightly distorted by the vertical line (which may be a defect) passing just through the middle of it in the photo.

When it comes to the “ground truth” we talked about in chapter 4, the Factory area is, in my opinion, one the best
proofs
yet of ancient alien inhabitation of the Moon. Not only are all the features plainly visible in both the analog and digital data sets, they defy any reasonable prosaic geological explanation. The terraced, multi-level topography and recessed bunker formations are indicative of military installations in remote areas of Earth, and the “Lincoln Memorial” (which is the size of a ten story building) evokes comparisons with power plants or other large-scale facilities.

The other objects discussed in areas adjacent to the Factory are also well outside traditional Lunar geologic modeling. They appear to be part of a massive and well organized underground facility in the region, and they reveal damaged and exposed support structures that make architectural sense while simultaneously defying natural explanation.

But the fact is, there are still those who will refuse to believe that what they’ve been shown in this book is proof of the Ancient Aliens on the Moon hypothesis, or that NASA would want to cover any of this up. That why I’ve saved the best for last.

Z
iggurats are massive Mesopotamian structures that were built thousands of years ago in what is today Iraq and modern Iran. Primarily used as temples and fortresses, ziggurats are stepped pyramidal structures architecturally similar to the step pyramids of Central and South America. They always had a specific set of architectural features that distinguished them from other pyramidal structures; a ramp or set of ramps leading to the top, high walls and a single ramp that led to a shrine or temple at the top, presumably to be used for rituals to the Gods that created or inspired them.

And there’s one on the Moon.

Late in the process of writing this book, I came across this close-up view of what can only be described as a full, functional and only partially buried ziggurat on the Moon. I found it on an internet message board while searching for something else.
¹
At any rate, the photo of the Ziggurat was listed as coming from Apollo 11 photographic frame AS11-38-5564. It is truly rare that a message board posting of this type actually comes with a frame number, but this time I was in luck. The image of the Ziggurat comes from an orbital view of the lunar far side (remember, not the dark side), somewhere west of the crater Daedalus at 7.5° S / 175° E. This is interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Daedalus is very close to 180° around the circumference of the Moon from the triangular crater Ukert on the front side. That means that the Ziggurat lies at what is called the “antipodal” point to Ukert, the point exactly opposite (or nearly so) on the lunar sphere.

The “Ziggurat” from Apollo frame AS11-38-5564.

At first blush, the image is impressive, showing a clear, pyramidal, walled structure with a central core (or temple, if you like) rising from the interior structure. The central temple has what appears to be a bridge or walkway leading into it, and the square temple housing has a dome on top of it. To the front are twin, angled ramps leading to the top of the wall. It bears a striking resemblance to the ziggurat at Ur, in southern Iraq, having all the same features if a somewhat different architectural arrangement.

When I did the side-by-side comparison, I was even more impressed with the resemblance.

Other comparisons with the artistic reconstructions of the ziggurat at Ur were even more compelling since the top few levels of the surviving relic are now nothing but dust.

The Ur Ziggurat.

Daedalus Ziggurat (left) and artistic reconstruction of Ur Ziggurat (right).

To me, this almost became the Holy Grail for the Ancient Aliens on the Moon theory. If this structure was real, there could be no doubt whatsoever as to its artificial origin. All I had to do was find it on AS11-38-5564 and confirm it with my own enhancements. After some pursuing of the internet, I found that this pyramid was fairly popular and that it had been spread around quite a bit. The original file that I downloaded was named “as1120pyramid20smallue2. jpg.” I did not find any specific reference as to who initially spotted it or put it on the Net, although John Lear’s name was mentioned in one message board. Lear however, denied that in a Facebook posting in July, 2012.

So after some searching, I downloaded the print resolution jpeg from the Lunar and Planetary Institute web site and began looking for the Ziggurat.

I didn’t find it.

As it turned out, there was a very good reason I didn’t find it. It wasn’t there. At least, not in the form that it was shown on the web sites I’d downloaded it from. It took me quite a while, but I eventually did find the area in frame AS11-38-5564 where the Ziggurat
should
have been—it just wasn’t there.

What was there was a fairly normal, bland, mundane looking lunar landscape.

So either the Ziggurat itself was a fake, or the current publically available NASA version of AS11-38-5564 was a fake that had been altered to cover up the presence of the Ziggurat. What I could see clearly on both images was the angled “ramps” that led up to the top of either the simple hill, or the structure, depending on which one was real. At least the ramps were real. Also, if the initial image of the pyramid was a fake, it was a very good one, with subtle details and the correct lighting to be a legitimate photo.

The Daedalus Ziggurat from as1120pyramid20smallue2.jpg (L) and from the current NASA version of ASll-38-5564(R).

The question is, was it? I tried to search the Internet Archive to see if the NASA web pages had been altered over the years, and sadly
not
to my surprise I found that LPI/NASA doesn’t allow their pages to be archived in this manner. In fact, I am probably responsible for this myself to a certain degree. Back in 2002 during a major controversy over infrared images of the Cydonia region of Mars, I had caught NASA’s Dr. Phillip Christensen in bald-faced lie about the images using the Archive. Since then, most NASA sites have opted out of the option of being periodically archived. Go figure.

Full version of AS11-38-5564 (NASA) white square indicates location of the Ziggurat.

At this point, I had no real way I prove the genesis of the Ziggurat image. It had no traceable lineage (unlike the Ken Johnston photographs) and I had never seen a full size version of AS 11-38-5564 with the Ziggurat on it in order to do my own context work and enhancements. The available NASA digital images were possibly sanitized and there was no way to trace if they had ever been altered after being placed on the web. I was at a seeming dead end, stuck in a he said/she said kind of spot.

Or was I?

See, in hunting for Ancient Alien artifacts on the Moon, or anywhere else for that matter, there is always the crucial factor of
context
in evaluating images. If the famous Face on Mars were an isolated landform, it would never have sparked the interest it has for over 30 years. The same concept applied here. If the Ziggurat were the only object that was unusual on AS11-38-5564, then we could safely assume that it was a prank or misinformation put out by professionals, and that the rather plain looking official version of the photo was genuine. But if even the sanitized NASA version had other anomalies on it, then the chances that the Ziggurat was real and had been (perhaps hastily) removed from AS11-38-5564 went way up.