I'll see you on the dark side of the moon

When I first started writing here at Skeptophilia, back in October of 2010, one of the first people to show up in a post was one Richard C. Hoagland.

Hoagland is well known in woo-woo circles, especially anything having to do with aliens and conspiracies.  He apparently thinks that The X Files was a series of historical documentaries, and his idea of "evidence" is apparently "whatever stuff NASA comes up with that I don't understand."  Back in 2010 what brought him to my attention was his commentary on a mysterious hexagonal pattern that showed up on Saturn (it turned out to be patterns of turbulence that were replicable in the laboratory), and that Hoagland said was the result of "the same phenomenon that causes crop circles."

So it amused me no end to run across his name again, this time in an article in Inquisitr that claims that we finally have a smoking gun with regards to (what else?) aliens.  Not on Saturn, but closer to home, right up there on the Moon.  We have all of the features of an evil NASA coverup (and/or an episode of The X Files); a fired NASA database manager, allegations that Neil Armstrong himself had seen alien bases on the Moon, and a film clip of something moving in one of the craters on the far side.

[image courtesy of photographer Luc Viatour and the Wikimedia Commons]

Now, I'm as excited about the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life as the next science nerd, but watching this film clip (which you should also do -- it's only a minute long) left me singularly unimpressed.  The narrator, however, waxes rhapsodic; he says "it may go down in the history books as one of the clearest indications that there is current -- mind you, current -- activity [on the Moon]."

Myself, I thought it looked like a video processing glitch.  All you see is a highly magnified, and thus blurry/pixillated, blob in the middle of the darkly-shadowed crater.   But the aliens and UFOs crowd don't seem to mind this; in fact, the worse the evidence, the grainier the data, the more they can write upon it whatever explanation they want.  Too much detail, and people will see that it's not what they're claiming it is.

So, grayish smudge = highly advanced alien base, apparently.  Over at Inquisitr, they certainly sound like that was enough for them:

Since then, more conspiracy theorists have investigated activity on the moon and many have found what looks to be alien cities.  The most recent coverage showing “something” emerging from a crater on the moon is surely making headlines...  Do you think this is proof that aliens exist and are living on the moon?  It certainly looks like something “living” is making itself known to the world.

I especially like the use of quotation marks around the word "living," given the fact that quotation marks are often used to indicate doubt.  It brings to mind a local restaurant that had the following dubious recommendation in an advertisement:

You'll "never forget" the meals you have here at Upstate New York's "Favorite" Family Restaurant!  

Which would be enough to discourage me.  I've had a few meals before that I've *air quotes* never forgotten, and it certainly hasn't made me want to repeat the experience.

But I digress.

So yes, Hoagland et al. are at it again, this time claiming that NASA has discovered alien life, and instead of doing what space science research agencies do (i.e. research interesting stuff), they've chosen to cover it all up.  Because that's how you get funding -- make sure that if you make cool discoveries, nobody ever finds out about it.

It's kind of discouraging, honestly, that I'm still fighting the same lunatics that I started out fighting six years ago.  You'd think that at least they could come up with a few new tropes.  I mean, the crop circles on Saturn thing at least was one I hadn't seen before.  The fact that we've returned to alien bases on the Moon just seems to indicate that the woo-woos aren't trying all that hard any more.

To the Moon, Alice!

Coming hard on the heels of yesterday's post about the claim that NASA has discovered a "lost day," thus confirming the Old Testament, today we'll look at the claim over at the site Earth We Are One that NASA has detonated a nuclear bomb on the Moon.

My second question, upon reading this, was, "What is up there on the Moon that is worth bombing to smithereens?"  (My first question was, "What the fuck?", which is rhetorical in any case.)  And the answer (to the second question) is:

Aliens.

Of course.

As the writer explains it to us:

According to a set of images and alleged reports, there are alien structures on the surface of the moon, and NASA launched a 2-ton kinetic weapon to destroy them, despite international laws clearly prohibiting it.

Yes.  Article 12, clause 154 of the International Code of Law reads, "Under no circumstances is it legal to use thermonuclear weapons to bomb the shit out of aliens on the Moon."

Then we hear about NASA's LCROSS mission, which stands for "Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite," although according to the Earth We Are One folks, it is clearly nowhere near as innocuous as the name makes it sound.   NASA tells us that LCROSS's goal was to see if there is water ice in a permanently shadowed crater near the Moon's south pole, and its mechanism was crude but effective; the spent upper stage of the satellite ("Centaur") was deliberately aimed on a crash course with the crater.  The idea was that the orbiter would observe the dust plume ejected by the impact, and analyze it for the presence of water.

Which it found, by the way.

But then, NASA made the mistake of publicizing the fact that when Centaur hit the crater, it "released the kinetic energy impact of detonating approximately 2 tons of TNT (8.6 gigajoules)."  Which is, I have to admit, a crapload of energy.  When the conspiracy nuts read this, they ignored everything but "RELEASED ENERGY IMPACT DETONATING," which of course led them to believe that NASA was shooting nuclear weapons at the Moon.

The writer goes on to explain:

According to many ufologists,-and alleged images which show ‘alien’ structures on the surface of the moon- NASAs LCROSS mission had a more militaristic objective rather than scientific.  Many believe that the 2-ton weapon that was detonated on the Moon’s South Pole was aimed at an Alien Base located there.

Righty-o.  A "militaristic objective."  Because NASA can't be telling the truth, obviously.  They never tell the truth.

This “bombed” moon base might perhaps explain why we haven’t been there in recent years, why would we avoid the Moon so much?  We know that it is a place filled with minerals, it has water (and they really needed to bomb it to find out?) and it would make a perfect outpost for anyone who wants to continue the exploration of our solar system and it would also help us get to Mars and beyond.

No, the reason we haven't been to the Moon -- much less, "Mars and beyond" -- is because the nimrods in Congress have cut NASA's budget to the point that it's a wonder they can afford toilet paper.  Hell, we can't even see fit to provide funding for NASA to study the climate, and that's a little more pressing problem at the moment than alien bases on the Moon.

But of course, no claim like this would be complete without a picture:

Nowhere in the article does it say that this is an "artist's conception," so the unwary reader -- which I suspect are the majority of the readers of Earth We Are One -- might think this is a real photograph.  But if it were, you'd think some of us here on Earth would have noticed it happening, don't you think?

On the other hand, those NASA folks are a wily bunch.  I wouldn't put it past them to point away from the Moon and shout "Look over there!" really loudly at the exact moment the nuclear bomb went off.  That's how sneaky they are.

Anyhow.  I think we can be pretty confident that LCROSS is exactly what NASA tells us it is -- a device for analyzing the composition of the Moon's surface.  There is no evidence of aliens on the Moon, which would make it kind of silly for NASA to waste their money sending bombs to kill them.  So I think we need to spend our time on more critical issues, such as how we have ended up with a presidential frontrunner who apparently doesn't know the difference between 9/11 and 7/11.