LET ESA DO IT?
By Fran Ridge, Coordinator of the Lunascan Project

For the first time in more than three decades, research scientists have
received grant money from NASA to search for intelligent life in outer space.


Exhibit A

Research scientists have received grant money from NASA to search for intelligent life in outer space. Specifically, the grant will provide funding for a project to search for signs of life via "technosignatures." "Technosignatures relate to 'signatures' of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than, what we possess," said Avi Loeb, a professor of science at Harvard and one of the grant recipients. - (USA TODAY, June 20th, 2020

In the "unpumped image" above, one would get the impression the land has been "worked".  It has the appearance of a 1200' wide and shallow dusty bowl filled with light debris.  Almost dead center are two objects that look like the "hub" of activity. Almost everyone wants to call them "towers". And excavations radiating out from that "habitat" appear to be a good indication of man's presence. Some fresh "digs" can be seen to the south and SE of the structures. But this isn't anywhere on the Earth! This unredacted NASA image shows objects actually on the moon.and was taken by Apollo astronauts! Not only that, it is on the BACK side of the moon!  And in this airless world a quarter of a million miles away, the structures and immediately surrounding regolith are untouched from any weathering or geologic changes, even meteorite impacts. What we see is very old. I would guess thousands of years old, but I'm not a lunar geologist. But you haven't seen anything, yet.

It has been four years this month since our discovery of what may be ancient artifacts on the back side of the moon.  In 1962, Carl Sagan spoke on the possibility of discovering alien artifacts on the moon stating that "forthcoming photographic reconnaissance of the moon from space vehicles - particularly of the back - (we) might bear these possibilities in mind." And even before LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) started barnstorming the moon in in 2010, ASU scientist Dr. Paul Davies actually wrote several papers on such a proposal. "Alien technology might also manifest itself in minings or quarrying activity, or even construction work." One of his papers mentioned "geo-engineering structures". He continues: "If aliens used lunar material as a resource, they may have carried out mining or quarrying activities, or even have built large structures that could still be detected from photographic surveys. The main difficulty in identifying the scars of major geo-engineering work would be to distinguish them from naturally occurring features. A round open-cast mine, for example, may after some millions of years come to resemble an impact crater or collapsed lava tube at first sight, and only a careful analysis of the topography might reveal signs of artificiality. Excavations with more distinctive topography (spirals, rectangles, etc.) would be more conspicuous. Because we have no idea of the motives, capabilities or agenda of a very advanced alien technological community, we cannot guess what form of surface modification might ensue from an alien presence, even a fleeting one, on the moon. It therefore pays to be as broad as possible when seeking signs of past geo-engineering activity."

 As coordinator of the Lunascan Project for over 25 years I had seen a lot of pictures of strange things on the moon. One of the first projects our team tackled in 1996 was the "towers" that drew attention in the 70's known as the "Blair Cuspids".  We couldn't explain them until LRO took closeups about ten years ago.  I brought Dr. Mark Carlotto onboard, and we were able to prove that they were small boulders on high inclines casting long shadows. But this discovery, was different. The first lower resolution image looked like another set of "towers". Our colleague, SPSR's Ananda Sirisena had sent the image to me in June of 2014. It was subsequently identified as being from the Apollo 15 mission of July, 1971. I knew that LRO had taken high res closeups in 2010 so I did some checking. Getting the coords from AS15P-8868 I took a closer look  I was about to write it off, but with the coordinates did a little searching among the LRO images and found a long narrow strip, M118769870L. I scrolled down about half way, and it was right there. And when I pumped it up by left-clicking I almost fell out of my swivel chair!





Exhibit B
Upper object: 15 m tall, 40 m long (130'); Lower object: 10 m tall, 60m long (200')
My first thought, the very first thought, was that I might be looking at jettisoned rocket boosters. But all the big boosters are discarded near the Earth long before TLI (trans lunar injection). Maybe ancient rocket boosters? Notice how the lunar regolith appears to be ramped up against the bottom object (can't see the north side due to shadow), and also the smaller "ramped" area on the smaller upper structure. It looked like a couple of Quonset huts. The shadows provided the clues to an astonishing discovery.

Mark Carlotto was one of the first consulted. "Not towers, I agree. But they are interesting features. Great that you found them at LRO." Mike Swords popped the obvious question regarding this discovery: "So, just how big are the structures?" The first big lead in the analysis came from Brad Sparks: "Measuring with my ruler, the longest object image is about 2.3% of the 2500 m width or about 60 meters (200 ft) long. The smaller one is 2/3 of the longer one, or about 40 meters (130 ft) long.....The longer object is casting less of a shadow, about 30 m long so it would be about 10 m high."

This is not any kind of a discarded launch vehicle, rocket stage, fuel tank, that had landed on the Far Side. There is not the slightest indication of an impact, no ejecta, etc., except the normal ancient craters near the objects. The internet images of crashed or discarded space hardware all show bright splatter patterns.

One must remember, this is not a retouched internet copy. This is an authentic, unredacted image, right from LRO, handled, processed and catalogued by the contracted Arizona State University team under the guidance of Dr. Paul Davies. Mike Swords, still interested in the size of the objects, commented further.: "The small size makes these interesting. Had they been miles long I'd have pretty much lost interest. The littlest thing {the 'right angle' between the two larger shadow-throwing things} intrigues me, as it could be that looking at it you'd see an artificial-looking angular "wall" rising to a sharp point ... maybe....Be nice to get other Sun angles."

In 1996 David Williams of NSSDC (National Space Science data Center) had helped us in our re-discovery and confirmation of the Blair Cuspids with his finding a second Lunar Orbiter image overlapping ours. So in 2016 I had to run this report by him first before contacting anyone else in NASA. His reply arrived on July 6th: "It certainly is an interesting looking feature.  I would guess that NASA is more focused on two types of areas for future rover exploration.  Those would be areas that show signs of possible near-surface water ice, such as the deep craters near the poles, and those that show evidence of deep penetration by impacts, such as the South Pole Aitken Basin, where they would want to study deep crustal and possibly mantle material. At least that’s my best understanding of the types of things they are concentrating on right now."

So a few months after our discovery of these strange objects in Paracelsus C, Ananda and I located three more LROC frames with varying lighting conditions. Before it was over we had found an additional six Apollo images. My first "discovery report" (*) in webpage form was submitted to friend and colleague, John Keller, the Deputy Project Scientist for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Project via email on 8 July, 2016. Keller had liked my Lagrange orbit RIPTILA proposal (which is similar to Gateway) and even liked it better than the Deep Space Climate Observatory. Later I sent a copy of the report to LRO's Paul Davies. Not a word came from either one of them. Ananda, Mark and I, all members of SPSR, released our official paper in November, and Mark, using all our images was able to create some surprisingly awesome computer generated "flyovers" (**).  For some strange reason, the following January, LRO took a fifth look at the anomalies. and substituted a very unflattering image to replace the public view shown on the ActReact QuickMap. Up until then we could guide anyone to the exact spot from deep space to dead overhead, in stunning detail. Now that image is gone.

On 25 January 2019, Dr. Paul Davies was interviewed on the Space Show (#3258) and was asked what he thought about the anomalies in Paracelsus C. He denied knowledge of them but said he would look into it. To date, NOTHING has come of this. With funding of NASA tight I would have thought that they would have taken advantage of this to get support for a manned or unmanned mission. If we had been told that the structures were nothing more than surfaced lava tubes or "skylights", that alone should have been enough. City-sized lava tubes would provide shelter or aid lunar colonization for astronauts on the moon. But our report fell on deaf ears. My NASA contacts dropped off the map.

Later in the year I briefed Chris Mellon ("tic tac" UAP fame). Mellon served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. For over a dozen years, Chris worked on national security issues on Capitol Hill, including many years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he ultimately served as the Minority Staff Director. He is the team’s government liaison, using his access and relationships with high-level officials to prompt the government to take action on what he believes is a serious threat to national security. He said he had some NASA contacts. So far NOBODY has responded.

Recently, colleague Rick Sterling commented: "The European Space Agency (ESA) is requesting proposals from organizations for scientific research that can be conducted on the lunar surface by its upcoming European Large Logistics Lander (EL3).  I strongly suggest that the SPSR send in a proposal that the ESA Moon Lander thoroughly investigate the Paracelsus C anomalies."

Four years ago, this month, we discovered something almost everyone agrees is technically interesting. We're not suggesting UFOs had a base on the moon, although there is no logical reason why they wouldn't. We are suggesting, for the Carl Sagan's and Paul Davies' of the world, that they are on-record saying we should look for such things.

** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL5McOJT2Gk
* https://www.lunascan.com/submittals/sirisena/wall/M118769870L.htm

On June 20th, 2020, USA TODAY announced that scientists were searching for signs of alien civilizations.  NASA has awarded grant money totally $287,000 for just this purpose, the first time this has happened in more than 30 years. More interested in science and truth, than money, my team wishes that someone, NASA or ESA would investigate Paracelsus C, either with a manned mission or an unmanned robotic mission.

In early July we submitted our proposal to ESA and it was accepted as being in the evaluation stage. Within weeks well over 200 ESA people had looked at our proposal.

Fran Ridge
Coordinator,
The Lunascan Project
(812) 490-0094
skyking42@gmx.com