The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has sent back some amazing photos of the moon’s surface – among them, a shot of the various moon landing sites. Here’s a pretty impressive one of the Apollo 14 lander:
As you can probably see, the resolution is not fantastic, so people around the Internet are having a fun time picking the images apart, claiming that there’s a coverup, that the images are photoshopped, and so on. I doubt that much will come of these pictures; people who think the landing was faked are going to find some way to discount the images, and those who don’t will point to them as evidence for their own position.
What should be very interesting is the shots of the rest of the moon – UFO-based conspiracy theories have often incorporated moonbases (occupied either by native aliens, aliens from elsewhere, or Nazis), and NASA’s upcoming moon-bombing mission has some UFO buffs crying foul:
The planned October 9, 2009 bombing of the moon by a NASA orbiter that will bomb the moon with a 2-ton kinetic weapon to create a 5 mile wide deep crater as an alleged water-seeking and lunar colonization experiment, is contrary to space law prohibiting environmental modification of celestial bodies. The NASA moon bombing, a component of the LCROSS mission, may also trigger conflict with known extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon as reported on the moon in witnessed statements by U.S. astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and in witnessed statements to NSA (National Security Agency) photos and documents regarding an extraterrestrial base on the dark side of the moon.
I musta taken that wrong left turn at Albuquerque.
So what should we expect to see in the wake of the LRO images’ release? If the shot of Bigfoot on Mars is any indication, the lunar surface should be a fruitful source of pareidolia – the apparent recognition of images in noise, like the Face on Mars or the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich. People who are expecting to see aliens will spend hours poring over these maps, and so are going to see all kinds of weird and wonderful things.
I suspect it’ll be an echo of all the stuff that’s supposedly lurking about on Mars – we can expect to hear about canals, pyramids, roads, towers, and who knows what else. I will update with whatever falls out of this situation!
