“…it seems possible that the Earth has been visited by various Galactic civilizations many times…It is not out of the question that artifacts of these visits still exist…or even that some kind of base is maintained within the solar system to provide continuity for successive expeditions…forthcoming high-resolution photographic reconnaissance of the moon from space vehicles—particularly, of the back side,—might bear these possibilities in mind…”¹⁾See chapter 33 of the 1966 book, Intelligent Life in the Universe .—Carl Sagan writing 36 months before the above picture was taken. [emphasis mine.] 

“Please be informed, there is a Santa Claus…”—Words of Jim Lovell, crew member of Apollo 8, the first humans in recorded history to see Earthrise from the lunar limb after passing from the “back side” of the moon.²⁾For Jim Lovell’s explanation of this quotation, see here.

***

As explained in our previous installments of this series, Dr. Sagan predicted the discovery of potential extra-terrestrial lunar artifacts. Given his having published an amazing picture of a potential “glass” dome in Cosmos, and also given the interesting suggestive way he mentions the enigmatic features of Mars years after his statements in the book Intelligent Life in the Universe, we now realize that Richard Hoagland was probably incorrect when he said in The Monuments of Mars “…no one, not even Sagan, believed the pyramid-shaped objects detected on those Mariner frames were real pyramids”³⁾See page 9 of The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever, 4^th edition; 1996Sagan not only suspected something, he most likely really did think they might be artificially engineered pyramids. As mentioned in the article entitled “Mission to Mars: The NASA/Touchstone Version of “The Monuments of Mars” written by Hoagland and Mike Bara, it becomes clear that:

“Sagan had a long and highly personal relationship with Cydonia and its researchers: among other things, over the years this involved several private briefings from Hoagland himself and various members of his research team, including one where Carl personally implored Hoagland to “keep up the good work.”

Seems like Dr. Sagan evidently maintained his philosophy of “encouraging new ideas”—albeit in private.

The 1980’s and 90’s struggle to get NASA to take new pictures of the Cydonia area and the strange public reluctance of Sagan, as evidenced in Dr. Stan McDaniel’s “McDaniel Report”, is already a road well worn and thoroughly gone over. The acronym “A.O.C.” or “Artificiality of Cydonia” hypothesis, was used extensively by Dr. McDaniel in his writings. Its an acronym that invokes a controversy which obviously continues as see the recent book “The Cydonia Controversy” by Dr. Mark Carlotto.

There is, however, another phase to all this artificiality hypothesis business: an “A.O.M” or “Artificiality of the Moon” hypothesis. The interesting lunar phase to all of this Sagan anomalistic bewilderment is what we have been focusing on in the present series. Notwithstanding all of the carefully placed Martian speculation of Dr. Sagan’s, both in Cosmos and Intelligent Life in the Universe, (as see the last couple of installments of the series) very little has been said relating to Sagan’s interest in predicting and actually finding those predicted lunar artifacts he was talking about back in the 1960’s at the dawn of the Apollo Program. As also detailed in our previous installments, this “interest” was tantamount to a scientific prediction that the Apollo astronauts (and even the unmanned probes that preceded the Apollo missions) could find something “extraordinary” on the Moon. Having predicted what they would find, once they found that “something”, the Brookings recommendation of “withholding” of that evidence was apparently the operative contingency followed. It is the reality we live in today.

However, as mentioned in previous installments, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the “Brookings” recommendations, Dr. Sagan decided to tacitly present (first in 1977 during his Royal Institution Christmas Lecture #1—ah yes Santa Claus exists) and publish (in Cosmos in 1980) perhaps the most astonishing evidence for his prediction of extra-terrestrial lunar “artifacts”—to use Sagan’s specific word. This same word “artifacts” was used by the Brookings report when describing what otherwise might be called the “ruins” of advanced civilizations in our solar system. Perhaps, as we speculated previously, Dr. Sagan’s prediction might have been a possible component of a carefully laid plan of disclosure. (See part 3 and part 4 for the details and the apparent contradictions involved.) However, if it was part of a disclosure plan, Dr. Sagan’s public demeanor on the subject was almost completely negative. Notice, I said “almost”. He did, even as late as his book The Demon Haunted World, maintain his possibility of “being wrong”. Also see here.

In any event, it seems that there are others out there—especially on YouTube, that are interested in obfuscating evidence, by manufacturing spurious artifacts, ostensibly on the other worlds of our solar system, which contributes to an general overall disinformation campaign that warps an audiences perception on what is real and what is not. That is a subject we will examine at a later time.

However, some of the evidence for Dr. Sagan’s prediction of lunar artifacts is “extraordinary”. By examining some of the evidence that Dr. Sagan tacitly presented to us, we begin to realize that he probably deserves a posthumous credit for being the first truly “exo-archeaologist”. A title from a discipline that is sometimes referred to as xenoarchaeology.⁴⁾Currently, the credit for the esteemed title of “first exo-archaeologist” has been given to Vicky Walsh. Her academic work “The case for exo-archaeology”, which concerns the academic oriented discipline of extra-terrestrial artifact study, can be found in the book, Digging Holes in Popular Culture: Archaeology and Science Fiction, Bournemouth University School of Conservation Sciences Occasional Paper 7; Oxbow Books, 2002Although the speculations of ancient inhabitants and their ruins runs far back, even perhaps to Lucian of Samosata’s True history, Dr. Sagan, as a member of the scientific community, and working with the Apollo astronauts, made a specific and public prediction, had it tested, and published the results without any commentary whatsoever other than hints such as intelligent life manifests in the “geometric regularity” of its constructions. The problem however, was that all of this process was being conducted under the withholding contingency of the Brookings recommendation. National security trumped science. This is why I think Dr. Sagan could not stay completely silent on that matter. He realized all the stakes involved. He was “no dummy”. By publishing on page 84 of Cosmos, the stunning Apollo 12 image which bears the frame number AS12-47-6890, he effectively “opted out”from the total silence in-crowd.⁵⁾The story of how I discovered the lunar dome published in Dr. Sagan’s Cosmos is detailed in part 4.

Frame AS12-47-6890 is part of a sequence of frames that can be used in attempting to establish the veracity of both Dr. Sagan’s and Richard C. Hoagland’s predicted lunar artifacts model. Other frames from other missions of the area in question will also be examined as we proceed, specifically frame sequences from Apollo 14, such as AS14–66-9227, which Dr. Sagan published as a strange and backwards version in his book Pale Blue Dot, as if to underscore what he was doing to tacitly prove his prediction of lunar artifacts by the publication of the Apollo 12 image in Cosmos. (The backwards aspect of the image is possibly the publishers error.)

As mentioned in part 4, I discovered the dome in Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and then reported it to Hoagland back in February of 1995 and discussed it with Dr. Bruce Cornett on the Paranet UFO Continuum radio program on March 5^th 1995. This was during the opening months of the lunar research phase of Hoagland’s extra-terrestrial artifact inquiry. Over the years I have mentioned the “Sagan Dome” in other venues, specifically the very first discussion forum of the Enterprise Mission in 1996 and also, back in 2003, I authored a thread about it as “BONES” at the now extinct, Go-To-Talk version, of the Enterprise Mission conference.

It should be mentioned at this point, that frame AS12-47-6890 was discussed by Steve Troy at a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in early 2003 (8 years after I initially discovered it published in Cosmos). I did not attend this February 21^st-23^rd 2003 conference at Albuquerque so I do not know all the details of what was discussed there. I emailed Mr. Troy in 2003 (shortly after the Albuquerque presentation) and discussed with him some my observations through short back and forth emails between the two of us. Mr. Troy also at that time thanked me for sending him additional frame numbers that I thought might help with a corroborative analysis of the crater area in question.   We will re-visit some of those images I sent him as we proceed in this article series.⁶⁾ Frame AS12-47-6890 is also discussed by Bret Colin Sheppard in Ken’s Moon: The “Smoking Gun” that Reveals the “Dark Mission” of NASA by R. Ken Johnston Sr.; GUMROAD.COM edition; 2015, pages 253-255. Mr. Sheppard incorrectly attributes the Apollo 12 image to Apollo 14 on page 253 where he mentioned “the giant light bulb” which is what I have called the “Sunglint”. It is a “TLP”. See part 8 for more on that. [UPDATE 5-1-17]: See also the book “Flyover Tsiolkovsky Crater” page 74 et. seq. authored and published by Bret Colin Sheppard in 2017. Here the author gives the correct frame number and suggests that what I called the “Sunglint” is a baloon. I do not share that assessment.

I was able to establish the area imaged on the moon in frame AS12-47-6890 a couple of weeks after I initially discovered the “Sagan Dome” from examining an Panoramic Camera frame image which was published on pages 32-33 in the NASA special publication Apollo Over the Moon: A View from Orbit. (I had access to an original copy of this book at that time.)The frame number for this was AS17-3153 (P). I also examined an Apollo 16 mapping camera image  from page 32 of Apollo Over the Moon: A View from Orbit.(AS16-3021). In 1995, I highlighted in red and bordered with yellow the crater Pasteur in the book itself. This is a scan from the original printed book version I had. Pasteur crater is near the lower edge which I highlighted in red and bordered with a yellow square in 1995:

From all this it was easy to determine that frame AS12-47-6890 was from the area around the crater Pasteur.

Before we move to the Internet versions of the image occurring in Cosmos, I think it useful if we start with an examination of the main features which occur in AS12-47-6890 by using a scan from the actual printed image of page 84 of Dr. Sagans Cosmos and use that version as the basis for those main features.

Although it is clear that Sagan’s version of frame AS12-47-6890 bears a nearly identical resemblance to internet versions of the same frame, it becomes apparent that there are distinct differences. This seems to be a problem with Apollo Hasselblad imagery. A problem which Richard Hoagland discusses in his Moon/Mars Connection video, and pages 443-474 of his The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever, 4th Edition, 1996. ⁷⁾For a similar, and perhaps very low generation of this frame which actually has the “Diamond” feature, see Ken’s Moon: The “Smoking Gun” that Reveals the “Dark Mission” of NASA by R. Ken Johnston Sr.; GUMROAD.COM edition; 2015, page 255.

Note: Although the following scans are from the paper on a printed page and are not from an original negative or a hi-resolution digital version provided by a project Apollo online archive, the features discussed are not down at pixel resolution and are not dismissed by mere printing error or anomaly. However, these scans are not good for smaller scale feature examination. The scans are provided only for reference and in showing the more obvious anomalies that appear on the version of AS12-47-6890 which was specifically published on page 84 of Cosmos in 1980.

Upon first taking a closer look of the picture itself, two main things catch your eye. The first and obvious feature from both the internet version and Cosmos versions of frame AS12-47-6890 is the brilliant specular reflection of the sun in the lower right. I call it “The Sunglint”. ⁸⁾[UPDATE 5-1-17]: See also the book “Flyover Tsiolkovsky Crater” page 74 et. seq. authored and published by Bret Colin Sheppard in 2017. Mr. Sheppard suggests this might be a balloon but it is, in fact, a sun reflection. Notice to the left of it a subtle and delicate filament transparency. This appears to be part of a tower or crystalline structure of which a section is actually causing the “Sunglint” to occur:

The other strange and obvious feature is the odd diamond looking object to the far right. The “Diamond” object does not appear on any available digitized images on the internet of the particular frame number for this picture. It occurs only in the “Sagan” version published in Cosmos. ⁹⁾Research for other versions of this “Diamond” feature is ongoing. For a similar and perhaps very low generation of this frame, which actually has the “Diamond” feature and other related objects above it , see Ken’s Moon: The “Smoking Gun” that Reveals the “Dark Mission” of NASA by R. Ken Johnston Sr.; GUMROAD.COM edition; 2015, page 255.

In addition to these features, there are many secondary features worth examining of which the next two are only a small sample:

“Hexagonal Refractions 1”:

and…

“Hexagonal Refractions 2”:

Now that we have established some features, we can look at those closer, along with additional secondary features, in our next installment.

Continue to part 6

Back to part 4