JONATHAN YOUNG: Some stories
attribute great powers to the Moon.
It does have some effect on us.
DAVID CHILDRESS: Since the time
of the very first Apollo Moon mission...
NEIL ARMSTRONG: The Eagle has landed.
...researchers have pored over
photos of the Moon
looking for structures,
and they found some unusual things.
Only 300 kilometers away
from where Apollo 11 ended up landing.
This area has undeniable architecture
that looks like what you would see
from obelisks.
GEORGE NOORY: Somebody built something
on the Moon a long, long time ago.
And I don't think it was earthlings.
GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: The entire object
may be of artificial origin.
My question is,
who built the Moon?
NARRATOR: Since the dawn of civilization,
mankind has credited its origins to gods
and other visitors from the stars.
What if it were true?
Did extraterrestrial beings
really help to shape our history?
And if so...
might the answer be found not on Earth but on the Moon?
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Cape Canaveral, Florida. February 8, 2016.
NASA and Lockheed Martin project managers
announce preparations are underway
for the Exploration Mission 1,
a manned Orion spacecraft journey to the Moon.
The Chinese, Russian and Indian space agencies follow suit,
unveiling their own manned lunar exploration plans.
These missions would be the first time humans traveled
beyond low earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.
But what could be the reason
for this renewed interest in the Moon?
And just why has it taken humanity so long to go back?
MISSION CONTROL: Liftoff.
We have a liftoff.
Liftoff on Apollo 11.
(beeping)
ARMSTRONG: Tranquility Base here.
The Eagle has landed.
NARRATOR: July 20, 1969.
MISSION CONTROL: Okay, Neil, we can see you
coming down the ladder now.
NARRATOR: Over one billion people worldwide are glued
to their television sets
as they watch the shadowy figure
of astronaut Neil Armstrong slowly step off the ladder
of the Apollo 11 lunar module
onto the surface of the Moon.
(cheering and applause)
ARMSTRONG: That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
NARRATOR: The moment marks one of the most important events
in the history of civilization.
It is the first time a human being
has set foot on alien terrain.
Apollo 11 is what people think of when you talk about
Apollo today and Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon.
The Moon is roughly 220,000 miles away from the Earth.
Even the best telescopes can't see what you can see
when you're just standing on the surface.
BUZZ ALDRIN: Before we went to the Moon, NASA was cautioned by
doomsday predictors and different people.
People wonder what it would be like on a place like that,
so different from this place here.
YOUNG: The idea of landing people on the Moon
has been in the imagination long before the technology
was anywhere near making it possible.
After all, to be on the Moon
is to step into a mythological landscape.
The place of stories, the place of wonder,
to step into the heavens,
and stand on ground of a kind
that is not Earth.
WILLIAM HENRY: It was a huge moment for the human spirit.
While it was Americans that put a man on the Moon,
it was considered a victory for all of humanity.
Suddenly, science fiction became real
and it opened up a new age of exploration.
TSOUKALOS: I think that every journey
starts with a first step.
The Moon was our first step into the universe,
into our solar system.
It is awesome to think that already 50 years ago
we became extraterrestrials on another planet.
NARRATOR: The Moon has captivated
the imagination of humanity
since the dawn of civilization.
It is a quarter the size of the Earth
and is by far the most dominant celestial body
in the night sky.
RICK STROUD: It takes about 30 days to go round the Earth.
The Moon glows and that's not because of any property
within the Moon.
It's reflecting the rays of the Sun, which causes it to glow.
The reason that the Moon has phases is that
the Earth blocks the light of the Sun as the Moon moves
round the Earth, so it incrementally
gets a little bit more and a little bit more
of the Sun's rays.
JOHN BRANDENBURG: The Moon's importance is very great.
It leads to tides, which helped life transition
from living in the ocean to living on land.
It also stabilizes the Earth's tilt relative to its orbit.
Without the Moon, gravitational influences
can cause the poles of planets to wander around
kind of drunkenly, like a drunken sailor.
The Earth would have been a much more chaotic place for life,
especially advanced life, to develop
if it wasn't for the Moon.
NARRATOR: While the Moon is largely responsible
for allowing life to flourish on Earth,
this celestial body itself is inhospitable.
It has no breathable oxygen
and temperatures on the surface reach extremes
from 253 degrees Fahrenheit, when it's facing the Sun,
to -243 degrees in the shade.
STROUD: It was a very serious environment
'cause there's no oxygen.
So the astronauts, once they were on the Moon,
they have to be completely sealed.
Its surface gravity, which is what really counts
if you're gonna go there, is about a sixth of that on Earth,
which is why when you see those grainy images
of the early astronauts, they're sort of bouncing around,
and the Moon has no atmosphere whatever.
STROUD: The astronauts, once they were on the Moon,
suddenly they were able to look at the world
that they'd grown up on, the Earth, from a different place.
They were able to see all of mankind
in all its tininess in the universe.
And that I know had a very profound effect
on the astronaut.
NARRATOR: Reaching the Moon was such an unbelievable feat
that even to this day, many people are convinced
the entire event was actually staged in a Hollywood studio.
But ancient astronaut theorists suggest,
not only did we land on the Moon,
but what we found there was more incredible than we know.
MICHAEL SALLA: During the 1969 Apollo Moon mission,
after the landing there was a very strange two-minute gap
in radio transmissions.
And what happened during those two minutes
has been subject to a lot of controversy.
MISSION CONTROL: Neil, this is Houston, radio check, over.
(radio static)
MISSION CONTROL: Columbia, this is Houston, over.
(radio static)
NARRATOR: According to scientist and NASA researcher Otto Binder,
various ham radio operators were able to intercept
secret communications with Mission Control
that were not made public.
The astronauts apparently talked about
seeing extraterrestrial objects on the Moon,
including flying saucers parked along the edge of a crater
within their view.
Now, the truth of it is, is that each of the astronauts
had a separate medical channel.
That channel was not public and it could have been
very easily used to communicate information
that you didn't want to be heard
over the general public transmissions.
What's really interesting about that story, though,
is the fact that, within 30 minutes of the landing
on the Moon, that story was circulating around NASA
that, "Hey, guess what. They saw something
"on the rim of a crater. They were all upset.
"They didn't know what to do.
They didn't know if they should go out."
It is interesting when you watch the feed
of when they came back from the Moon.
They're not sitting there jumping up and down for joy
and saying, "I had the most incredible experience
in my life, I was on the Moon."
They're not saying that.
They look very solemn, very depressed.
They're looking down.
They almost look like they want to vomit,
that's how disturbed they look.
Could they have seen something there
that they didn't want to tell the public
because of the implications?
I believe that, uh...
what this country set out to do was
something that was going to be done sooner or later.
We find for the first time that man has a...
the flexibility or the option of, uh,
either walking this planet or some other planet.
It's a-a beginning of a new age.
NARRATOR: After Apollo 11, NASA would send
six more manned missions to the Moon,
culminating with Apollo 17
in 1972.
ALAN BUTLER: One of the most interesting questions
with regard to our interaction with the Moon
is why we have never gone back there again
since the Apollo missions, and what else is very telling
is that although the USSR at the time
was getting to be quite able to send its own astronauts
to the Moon, it never seems to have done so.
Could it be that there were agencies
associated with the Moon?
Aliens or other beings
who had warned humanity to stay away for some reason?
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the American astronauts
were not alone on the Moon?
Is that why after Apollo 17,
we never went back?
Some ancient astronaut theorists
propose an even more incredible possibility,
that the Moon came to orbit Earth not by chance,
but by design.
NARRATOR: Humans have been mesmerized
by the Moon since the dawn of man.
And although many theories have been proposed,
scientists cannot say with absolute certainty
how this celestial object came into being.
When I was a student, nobody really knew
where the Moon came from because it's so relatively big.
Uh, this was a real problem.
And I think that there is a tendency to think that
moons get somehow captured by the parent planet.
If you've got one body here and another body come, coming along,
it can't just get trapped into orbit like that.
The difficulty there is just basic physics,
and so this remained a puzzle
until about 20 years ago when another theory came along,
and that is that
the protoEarth was very early on in the history
of the solar system hit by a Mars-sized body.
Hit obliquely, that this Mars-sized body
plowed into the center of the Earth
and became the Earth's core, and a lot of
the outer material got stripped off by this
gargantuan collision and coalesced to form the Moon.
Now, they had to come up with a very, uh, bizarre theory
for how the Moon came into being
because all the conventional theories don't make any sense.
The best theory of the Moon's formation
is a phantasmagorically
catastrophic collision of two things, you know,
at just the right angle to form this belt of debris
that then formed the Moon, but the Moon,
its exact size is such that it gives us total eclipses.
Its disc exactly covers the Sun.
And the chances of that occurring are so,
literally, astronomically small,
it's, it's very disturbing.
NARRATOR: The Sun's diameter is 400 times greater than the Moon
and coincidentally the Sun also happens to be
nearly precisely 400 times further away.
This is the reason that the Sun and the Moon
appear the same size in the Earth's sky
and why we on Earth can experience eclipses of the Sun.
CHILDRESS: It's just perfectly in that orbit
to eclipse our Sun.
The odds of the Moon being in that orbit accidentally
are a zillion to one.
So that right there is evidence that our Moon
is in a perfect orbit around our planet
that's not accidental.
BARA: In order to have a solar eclipse the Moon has to be
exactly the size that it is, which is 2,160 miles.
Not 2,161,
not 2,159,
but 2,160 miles at its equator.
And there are people out there that actually think
that's a coincidence.
The fact is, is that that is by design.
NARRATOR: Throughout our observable galaxy,
this relationship and others have not been duplicated.
Other moons are sizably smaller by comparison
to their mother planet.
Earth's satellite not only orbits closer than it should
for its size, it is also the only moon in the solar system
that has a near-perfect circular orbit.
And no other lunar bodies are known
to have such a stabilizing role
as the Moon has with the Earth.
HENRY: Recent computer simulations have shown
that without the Moon's presence, the Earth's axis tilt
would be completely different than it is today.
We might not even have seasons as we know them presently.
Without the seasons
it could be very difficult for life on Earth.
So the Moon is actually performing
an incredible function.
It's life-sustaining.
Without it, we might not be here.
BUTLER: There are so many peculiarities
about the way the Moon has affected the Earth
that one might be forgiven for believing
that there is intelligence behind it,
that something made it that way.
The Moon is so strange, so odd in terms of what we find
elsewhere in the solar system, and particularly
in terms of what it does for the Earth,
having made the Earth into a haven for life,
that one feels obliged to ask the question,
"Could such things have come about by chance?"
Was it placed there deliberately?
Was it engineered, maybe by aliens?
And therefore,
is our whole existence a planned event?
NARRATOR: Ancient astronaut theorists suggest
that the perfect size and placement of the Moon
may not be the product of mere chance,
but was engineered by extraterrestrial beings
in Earth's prehistory.
As evidence, they point to ancient accounts
that speak of a time before the celestial object even existed.
Beginning in the 5th century BC,
Roman and Greek authors wrote of a time
"before there was a moon in the heavens."
Allusions to this can also be found in the Hebrew Bible.
And there are Zulu legends that say
the Moon was brought to Earth hundreds of generations ago.
Wowane and Mpanku were the names of two Zulu deities
from prehistory.
The Zulus have a legend that it was they
who brought the Moon into existence.
They supposedly did so by stealing an egg
from a giant sky dragon, hollowing out the center,
the yolk of the egg, and then rolling the resultant planet
across the sky to become the Moon.
And the reason that the Zulus say the Moon was put there
was to keep an eye on human beings.
WHITEHEAD: The Zulu legend is really interesting.
We first heard about it from a Zulu shaman
named Credo Mutwa, and he talked about the fact
that the Moon was towed in to our orbit.
And when it did so, it caused all kinds of floods
and cataclysms, and it changed the axis of the planet.
And you can't help but wonder,
could the Moon be an artificial satellite?
Could the Moon have come from somewhere else
and is now used as an observational base
for extraterrestrial beings?
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Zulu legend is true,
as ancient astronaut theorists suggest?
Was our Moon towed into place in the remote past?
Perhaps further clues can be found
by examining the scientific evidence suggesting
that the Moon is, in fact, hollow.
NARRATOR: The surface of the Moon is scarred
with tens of thousands of impact craters of various sizes.
Scientists suggest this is due to the fact
that there has never been an atmosphere on the Moon
to help protect it from bombardment by space debris.
There are no natural erosive forces,
like wind or flowing water, to affect its surface.
And there is little geologic activity
to conceal damage done throughout the Moon's history.
DAVIES: When you study the distribution of craters,
you find the surface is totally saturated,
that is, that there are craters within craters within craters,
right down to the smallest scale of size.
BARA: One of the things that's really interesting
about lunar craters is that, even though some of them
are very large and some of them are very small,
they all seem to have the same depth,
and that really shouldn't happen on a planetary body.
There should be variation in depth.
So why are the Moon's craters so uniform?
It's really, really unusual and it's really not explainable
in terms of conventional or established geophysics.
Some of the craters on the Moon are nowhere near similar
to what they should look like.
In fact, they are incredibly wide craters,
and wherever the impact point is, they're convex,
which means there's still the bulge of the Moon,
so this doesn't make any sense.
It's likely that there is something
under the lunar surface, which is very resilient
and which is preventing craters going any deeper than they do.
This could only really be either much harder rock,
which it can't be because of the mass of the Moon,
or alternatively a metal sphere of some kind
which is preventing more damage.
NARRATOR: Does the uniform depth of the craters on the Moon
suggest some sort of metallic barrier
underneath moon rock and dust?
But if so,
why wouldn't mainstream scientists acknowledge this?
Ancient astronaut theorists suggest that by doing so,
they might also have to acknowledge
that the Moon may be hollow.
MAN: Yankee Clipper, Houston.
NARRATOR: November 20, 1969.
(indistinct radio communications)
During their ascent back to the command module,
Commander Charles Conrad Jr.
and lunar module pilot Alan Bean
release the Apollo 12 launch vehicle
and crash it back to the Moon.
MAN: Apollo 12, Houston, the LM is on its way down.
Roger.
NARRATOR: Upon impact,
something very unexpected happened.
The Moon was said to have seismically reverberated
like a bell for more than an hour.
CUNNINGHAM: With Apollo 12, people refer to a crash.
It wasn't really a crash.
It was a aimed deorbit of the rocket
used to lift off the, uh, lunar module.
And the crew separated the launch vehicle
and crashed it back into the ground
right close to where they'd had a seismograph
that they had installed down there.
Well, it vibrated, so it was kind of an early clue
as to how solid was the surface of the Moon.
HENRY: What was amazing about this is that suddenly
the Moon began to ring like a bell
and did so for nearly an hour.
Dr. Werner von Braun, who was then the head of NASA,
decided that for Apollo 13 they were going to
intentionally crash a heavier portion of the rocket
into the lunar surface.
-(sustained gong) -And when they did this,
the Moon rang like a gong this time for over three hours
into a depth of over 20 miles.
BUTLER: This was not expected and it still puzzles
a lot of scientists today.
The inference is that the Moon must be hollow
because the Moon is made predominantly on the surface
of a kind of rock called basalt.
Although it's a very lightweight rock,
it also absorbs impact extremely well.
And so if the whole of the Moon was made of that kind of rock,
you wouldn't expect it to reverberate
when a large impact took place.
The reason that this is played down
is because the idea of the Moon being hollow
just contradicts what we know about physics.
NARRATOR: In his 1966 book,
Intelligent Life in the Universe,
renowned scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan
defined modern scholarship regarding the composition
of celestial bodies throughout the cosmos.
TSOUKALOS: Carl Sagan suggested that a natural satellite
cannot be a hollow object.
This is very odd because why would the Moon be vibrating
unless it's a hollow object?
That would suggest it's artificial.
NICK REDFERN: Significant portions of the Moon
may have been hollowed out.
If that is the case, the chances are
that was not achieved naturally.
That would have to have been achieved artificially.
This brings up the important question,
who would've had the ability, the skills,
and the technology to do that?
Certainly not us.
That would only have to be the work of extraterrestrials
and no one else.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Moon is not only hollow,
but also an artificial structure?
And if so, could it be an extraterrestrial creation?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes and as evidence,
they point to research indicating
the Moon is actually...
a spaceship.
NARRATOR: Moscow, Russia.
July 1970.
After years of studying findings from various Moon missions,
two government scientists,
Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov,
publish an article in Sputnik magazine
revealing their shocking conclusion
about the nature of the Moon.
Their theory is that the Moon is likely a creation
of alien intelligence that was brought to Earth
in the remote past.
BUTLER: Two Russian physicists, Vasin and Shcherbakov,
came up with the idea that
the Moon must be an artificial object.
They based their ideas on, first of all,
the fact that it appeared that the Moon was hollow.
Since no hollow planet could exist
according to the known laws of physics,
that would mean that the Moon had to be an artificial,
an engineered object.
WILCOCK: This article was quite groundbreaking.
In fact, what they did is to fundamentally redefine
scholarship around what we think the Moon is.
NARRATOR: Based on the maximum depth of the Moon craters,
Vasin and Shcherbakov proposed
that the surface was only 2½ miles thick.
NASA scientists had determined that this moondust
primarily consisted of chromium, titanium and zirconium.
In their publication, Vasin and Shcherbakov noted,
"If a material had to be devised to protect
"a giant artificial satellite from the unfavorable effects
"of temperature from cosmic radiation
"and meteorite bombardment,
"the experts would probably have hit
on precisely these elements."
TSOUKALOS: Now they themselves proposed
that this suggestion is outlandish.
However, only through their calculations
and all the mathematics,
they determined that their theory is correct.
We're talking people in academia who may perhaps
lose their position at the universities.
I don't think anybody would publish a paper like this
unless they were 100% convinced that their findings are true.
The entire object may be of artificial origin.
And if that is the case, my question is:
who built the Moon, who placed it here, and how long ago?
And so these Russian scientists,
their theory is that the Moon is a spaceship.
It's got engines within.
But that on the outside, they've coated it
with this moon-looking substance.
Now, it's a farfetched idea, but it makes a lot of sense
in that you might want to shroud or cloak this craft
and make it look like a, uh, very natural object.
NARRATOR: Since the publication
of the Vasin and Shcherbakov article,
other researchers have come out in support of their theory.
WILCOCK: In 1975, Don Wilson wrote
Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon.
In 1976, George Leonard wrote Somebody Else Is on the Moon,
and these books further explored a variety of anomalies.
Now, they note some very bizarre things.
For example, the mineral and metallic composition
of the material on the Moon is not like anything
that we see on Earth, and the apparent age of the Moon
seems to be greater than the actual age of our solar system.
So they believe that the Moon was actually brought here
from somewhere else.
BARA: Lots of people have talked about the idea
that the Moon itself is actually a spacecraft,
that it was piloted here and put in this particular orbit.
There's no question that there's evidence that the Moon
could be a modified natural object.
TSOUKALOS: There are ancient stories that speak of a time
when the Moon was not up in the sky
and there are descriptions that say that the Moon
was artificially pulled into place.
So if we have two modern Russian scientists who have suggested
that perhaps the Moon was pulled into place,
and that is a corroboration of ancient mythologies,
that's when I listen.
CHILDRESS: So the whole idea that our Moon
is some gigantic hollow spaceship
that's been put into a special orbit around our planet,
and contains cities and structures
that are inside and outside of the Moon
is to me a very reasonable assertion.
And in fact it would seem to be that our Moon
is some kind of gigantic artificial spaceship
that is here to monitor our planet.
NOORY: Would I discount the fact that the Moon
is a foreign object, a spaceship, a Death Star?
I don't think you can rule that out.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that the Moon
is actually a spacecraft?
And might it have allowed extraterrestrials
to discreetly monitor our planet?
But if so, might these beings still be there today?
NARRATOR: November 1966.
Three years before the Apollo astronauts made it to the Moon,
the Orbiter 2 spacecraft situates itself in lunar orbit.
It was designed to capture high-resolution images
of the surface to assist with the selection of landing sites
for the Apollo missions.
One image in particular catches the eye of researchers,
as it shows what appear to be the shadows
of several pointed spires.
WILCOCK: On November 20, 1966,
the Lunar Orbiter 2, NASA's probe,
photographs this area on the Moon
that was actually in the Sea of Tranquility,
only 300 kilometers away from where Apollo 11
ended up landing.
And, what's so bizarre is that this area
has undeniable architecture that looks like what you would see
from obelisks.
There's eight different spires.
And scientists calculated that the largest of these spires
would be an obelisk that is 15 stories tall.
These do appear to be just like an Egyptian-style obelisk.
But, what the heck are they doing on the Moon?
TSOUKALOS: Of the multiple anomalies on the Moon,
I think the spires are some of the most fascinating ones
because astronomers have calculated
that these spires are very tall
for them to be exclusively natural occurrences.
BARA: They have to be artificial,
simply from the fact that the Moon has been bombarded
in kind of an incessant meteoric rain
for 4.5 billion years.
There is no way that anything bigger than a basketball
can be standing straight up on the lunar surface.
(indistinct radio communications)
BUTLER: The inference is that NASA would have known this
and that one of the reasons that they sent their mission there
was so that the astronauts of the Apollo mission
could gain more information about these
artificial structures on the Moon.
(indistinct radio communications)
ASTRONAUT: CAPCOMM, we're a go for undocking.
CAPCOMM: Roger, Eagle, undock.
BARA: On Apollo 11, when the astronauts were descending
to the lunar surface,
they got this very strange computer alarm.
MISSION CONTROL: The 1202 alarm.
-CAPCOMM 1: 1202. -CAPCOMM 2: 1202 alarm.
BARA: The famous 1202 computer alarm.
(stammers) Basically, nobody knew what it was.
What it came out to, um, was that the computer itself
was overwhelmed with information because Buzz Aldrin,
the lunar module pilot,
had turned on the radars on the lunar lander.
It had two radars-- it had a side looking radar
and it had a docking radar.
So, in other words, you had one that pointed down
and one that pointed to the side.
Now, if there's nothing on the surface of the Moon,
if there are no artificial structures,
if there are no spires sticking ten, 20 stories up into the sky,
why would you turn on the side radar?
There's no reason to, but Aldrin did it.
And, I think it's because he knew and NASA knew
that there was some danger of running into these things.
NARRATOR: Is it possible that NASA actually has knowledge
of structures on the Moon?
In 1960, NASA officials commissioned a report
from the Brookings Institute to weigh the implications
of the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life.
Due to the findings of the report,
researchers believe it was determined
before the Moon missions to keep any extraterrestrial findings
hidden from the public
for fear of social unrest.
Since the time of the very first Apollo Moon missions,
researchers have pored over NASA and Russian photos
of the Moon looking for structures.
And they found some unusual things.
You would think, in fact, that if extraterrestrials
are on the Moon or were, that they would have built
all kinds of structures.
And we're able to see some of these,
even though NASA scientists
don't acknowledge them as genuine.
NARRATOR: But perhaps as intriguing
as the various structures seen on the surface of the Moon
are the numerous reports of lights
and other unexplainable activity.
Intermittent reflections emanating from the lunar surface
have been observed for more than a century,
including by famed astronomer Francis Bailey
in 1835.
And the phenomenon was also reported by the Apollo 11 crew.
BUZZ ALDRIN: The windows are all dark.
And that's when I began seeing a flash and a streak
and another flash.
Flicker flashes we called them. Kept seeing them.
And I said, "You guys see anything unusual?
You see any flashes?"
Neil said, "Yeah, I saw about 100 of them."
"How about you, Mike?"
"Nah, I didn't see a thing."
Any deep analysis by the crew as to what the hell it was?
No. (chuckles)
'Cause we were, we were on our way home.
Let's, let's let somebody else worry about that.
WILCOCK: These things were actually disclosed by NASA
in their own transient lunar anomalies catalog
showing lights moving around, showing puffs of smoke,
showing things that should not be there on the Moon's surface,
all of which suggests that there is, in fact, a very thriving
extraterrestrial community living on the Moon today.
NARRATOR: Might there not only be structures
on the lunar surface but also unidentified activity?
Activity that might point to current extraterrestrial
occupation of the Moon?
Ancient astronaut theorists say yes
and suggest that further evidence may be found
on the dark side of the Moon.
NARRATOR: The Moon is the most visible celestial body
in the night sky.
But we only ever see one side
as it is in synchronous rotation with Earth,
meaning it takes just as long to rotate around its own axis
as it does to complete its orbit around our planet.
Therefore, we can only observe one side,
and up to 41% of the Moon's surface is never seen.
The Moon is in what we call synchronous rotation
with the Earth.
That is that the effect of the gravity of the Earth
and the Moon means that the Moon only shows us one side,
its one face, the face that we're all familiar with.
PAUL DAVIES: The reason for this is because when two objects
get close enough to each other, they do become
so-called phase-locked in that manner.
It means it presents the same face to the Earth
the whole time.
BRANDENBURG: Because of the tidal locking
of the Moon's rotation, it presents the same face.
And of course this leads to speculation
because this creates a perfect place
to create large installations on the Moon
that are not directly observable from Earth.
Hypothetically, the far side of the Moon,
it's an excellent place to put up bases.
And that has been a fixture of a lot of science fiction.
SALLA: There have been whistle-blowers that say that
they've been taken to a base,
which is called Lunar Operations Command,
on the far side of the Moon and that this base
is part of a network of bases on the far side of the Moon
that are run by various secret space programs
and extraterrestrial civilizations.
The Apollo missions have taken surveillance photographs
of the Moon's surface and some of the photographs
have shown what appear to be structures.
NARRATOR: Could it be that there are active bases
on the far side of the Moon?
Not only secret military bases,
but extraterrestrial bases as well?
And if so, what would happen if the full truth about the Moon
was finally revealed to the general public?
CHILDRESS: Ultimately when the truth of the origin of the Moon
and what is going on in the Moon,
and-and structures on the Moon,
and perhaps even occupation of the Moon is revealed to humans
on Earth, it will be a shattering of our reality.
And we'll be able to look up in the sky
and see what is an extraterrestrial object
in orbit around our planet.
And we'll know it for what it is.
HENRY: There's not a single scientifically valid reason
not to think that it's an extraterrestrial spacecraft
brought here by extraterrestrial beings
in order to assist humankind.
For some, that's a terrifying thought.
NARRATOR: Did the Apollo astronauts encounter
more on the surface of the Moon than was publicly revealed?
Might there have been evidence of colonization,
or even that the Moon itself is an artificial object?
And could this be why we stopped going back?
Perhaps the upcoming Moon missions,
the first in over four decades,
will finally reveal the full truth
about this mysterious celestial body
and also about our extraterrestrial past.
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