August 4, 2016, updated Feb 27, 2021

Fran Ridge:
In a paper concerning the search for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence on the moon, ASU's Paul Davies mentioned several avenues of research. One of those things we should check are collapsed lava tubes  or "skylights". In our routine live and recorded scanning of the moon with the Lunascan Project we encountered many things other than the fantastic views of huge craters with central peaks that always steal the show. At just the right lighting angles, always interesting are the rilles and wrinkle ridges, some with rare impact craters interrupting their meandering courses. These rilles are really exposed subsurface lava tubes that meteorite impacts have occasionally opened up. These are extremely interesting features. Could an exposed lava tube explain or have anything to do with the potential anomalies discovered in Paracelsus C?

Paul Davies:
"A good place to look for alien trash is inside one of the lava tubes located in the lunar maria. So far, three large skylights have been discovered by the LRO, each about 100 m across, which might lead down into a subsurface network, and several lunar pits point to a subsurface labyrinth. Lava tubes have been proposed as an ideal location to establish a human base, as they would provide protection from radiation and meteorites; perhaps aliens would come to the same conclusion. Furthermore, the same factors that make lava tubes attractive as a habitat imply that any artifacts left behind would endure almost indefinitely, undamaged and unburied. The downside is that there is no way to really investigate this possibility from orbit, so any confirmation or refutation will require a new robotic or human mission to the surface."

Which is why we contacted the European Space Agency in the summer of 2020 about using their new lander to check out Paracelsus C. ESA was requesting some mission plans and had over 300 of them to go over. But with all the potential PR value of a mysterious and interesting mission to the backside, even an unmanned one, neither NASA nor ESA has taken this on. However, I must say that ESA at least looked at our proposal, many of their scientists did so. Mark Carlotto, Ananda Sirisena, and I at least tried to get ESA involved. But it isn't over. I have found someone who is excited about this find, whether it is artificial or natural, just as exciting as the rest of us. But that part is in-progress and we'll be talking about that later.



This pit in the Moon's Marius Hills is big enough to fit the White House completely inside. Sinuous rilles like Rima Marius are high priority targets for future human lunar exploration in part because they expose deeply buried mare units, meaning that human exploration of locations like Rima Marius will provide important new scientific insights into the duration and evolution of lunar volcanism.

Earlier, Paul Davies mentioned only three "skylights" were found, but his paper was written in the early stages of the LRO imaging program. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has now imaged over 200 pits (as of 2016!!!!) that show the signature of being skylights into subsurface voids or caverns, ranging in diameter from about 16 feet (5 meters) to more than 2,950 feet (900 m), although some of these are likely to be post-flow features rather than volcanic skylights.

  
LRO/LROC-NAC Observations at point (testing Map Projected NACs)

To request another location, enter lat,lon in decimal and press submit.

lat: lon:

Preview at (lat, lon) = (8.335, 33.222)	Image
	M126710873R
	M137332905R
	M155016845R
	M188021351R
	M190380271R
	M1113950638R
	M1133982603L
	M1136335326R
	M1151645297L

If you had any doubt about the possibility of "skylights" on the moon when you read Dr. Paul Davies paper mentioning three they had discovered on LROC images, then I'm sure you became more interested when it was found that there were over 200 such (or similar) features later documented. If that wasn't enough, then this image should be very compelling. The holes on the rilles are not random meteorite impacts.






I hope to update this report with other images of suspected "skylights" and interesting comments and/or criticisms, related web sites, etc. The question raised, but not yet answered, is could a skylight termination or the end segment of a subsurface lava tube account for the anomalies at Paracelsus C? And are there any signs of a lava tube anywhere near that crater on the Far Side of the moon? My opinion is that surfaced lava tubes, if in existence, should not overlap, should be the same size where they break, and should run in the same direction. The formations in Paracelsus C don't follow those rules.