A S T R O N A U T    S I G H T I N G S

UFO's on the Moon

Apollo 11
In 1979 Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems confirmed that Armstrong had indeed reported seeing two UFOs on the rim of a crater. "The encounter was common knowledge in NASA," he revealed, "but nobody has talked about it until now."

NASA: Whats there? Mission Control calling Apollo 11...

Apollo: These "Babies" are huge, Sir! Enormous! OH MY GOD! You wouldn't believe it! I'm telling you there are other spacecraft out there, Lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They're on the Moon watching us!

> Apollo 11 and UFO's - from UFO B.B.S.
> Apollo 11 and the UFO's by Low Lawhon, About.com

SKEPTICAL VIEW

The Apollo-11 UFO Incidents
by James Oberg, Excerpt from "UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries"
"A reader of this report will come to a conclusion altogether different from that espoused by Wilson, Harder, Barr y, Gris, Berlitz, and others. A well-publicized collection of cranks, crackpots, con men and well meaning innocents have created a facade of 'UFO encounters' and a counterfeit claim of 'NASA coverup' concerning UFOs allegedly seen on the Apollo 11 moon expedition ten years ago. For some, the rewards are probably psychological, for others, publicity; for those portions of the news media which have eagerly offered them a forum, the juicy rewards have been financial in nature. Explanations and exposes (such as in the Fall and Winter 1977 Search magazine, the February, 1977 Space World, the 1978 issues of the Skeptical Inquirer, and official NASA news releases) are ignored or misrepresented -- and here indeed is the real coverup conspiracy, if one can be said to exist. The reputation of the space program and of the astronauts has suffered, the public has been confused and misled, and the money rolls in. Where, I often wonder, are the courageous investigative journalists who will rip the lid off of this UFO scam?"
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Shuttle Mission STS-48
One of the most spectacular video footages of a UFO encounter was taken by cameras on board the Discovery space shuttle on 15 September, 1991. The video sequence was picked up live by a number of amateurs who were directly monitoring the transmissions. The material has been shown in news broadcasts and circulated amongst UFO researchers worldwide. The video shows several small bright objects manoeuvering on screen, apparently interacting with one another in a complex fashion.

> A Commentary on the STS-48 Video by Thomas. E. Carey (1993)
> Shuttle mission STS-48 by Graham Stewart
> A chronology of events by the Houston UFO Network
> Digital Video Analysis of Anomalous Space Objects by Mark Carlotto

SKEPTICAL VIEW

Proof of Prosaic Nature of STS-48 Zig-Zag Dots
by James Oberg
The attached two charts provide convincing proof that the famous zig-zag dots of the STS-48 shuttle flight (September 1991) are exactly what space experts inside and outside NASA have always said they were: routine nearby small sunlit debris hit by the expanding exhaust of a shuttle steering rocket triggered randomly by the computer autopilot which was steering the spaceship. More elaborate and exotic "explanations" rely on misinterpretations of the images and on a deliberate omission of relevant data such as shown here (these two charts have never been published by proponents of extraordinary scenarios -- they apparently never asked NASA for them).
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Response to NASA's James Oberg's analysis of STS-48 video
by Michael Bara, Lunar Anomalies Homepage
Several years ago, NASA employee James Oberg apparently wrote via E-mail an extensive rebuttal of Richard C. Hoagland's analysis of the STS-48 video. This rebuttal has made the rounds of various web sites and newsgroups, and has been used as an example of the supposedly "faulty" nature of Hoagland's research. As near as I can tell, this rebuttal has gone completely unchallenged. After a quick perusal of Oberg's letter, I felt it was drastically flawed on several points. The following is my response to Oberg's rebuttal.
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Phobos
Phobos 2 Soviet Mission and the Mars moon Phobos
Phobos 2 was a Soviet probe sent to examine the Martian moon Phobos ( The USSR was interested in the possibility of using Phobos as a staging post for a manned exploration of Mars ). What makes it interesting to ufologists is that among the images it sent back before it malfunctioned was one (allegedly the last one) which appeared to show a large object near Phobos. Analysis of this picture and of a picture showing what seems to be the shadow of the "UFO" on Mars, indicate an object about 20km long. The implication to ufologists is that this "space station" could have been involved with the probes untimely demise.

> Phobos 2 Soviet mission to Mars and Phobos

Phobos is artificial structure says Soviet Colonel (CSETI)
According to retired Soviet Air Force Colonel Marina Popovich, Phobos, one of the two Martian moons, is an artificial structure.  In a meeting with CSETI's International Director, Dr. Steven Greer, she told him that her sources also advised that it is hollow.
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The Phobos Mysteries Home Page
Mars has two tiny moons, named Phobos, meaning fear, and Deimos, meaning panic.  There are several topics of interest related to Phobos:  In Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift talked about Phobos & Deimos 150 years before their actual discovery.  Its orbit is speeding up, leading scientists to believe that it is lighter than its size dictates, it might be hollow.  The Russian Phobos 1 mission failed.  The Russian Phobos 2 mission failed too, an 'object that should not have been there' appears on the last photo.
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SKEPTICAL VIEW

The Strange Case of Fobos-2
by Jim Oberg
This past decade has not been kind to Earth's Mars probes. There was NASA's expensive Mars Observer blowing up in 1993 as it warmed its rocket engines up to slow into orbit. And we've just seen both of NASA's 1999 missions fail.  But the most bizarre loss of a Mars probe is unarguably the case of Phobos-2 (or Fobos-2, in the Russian spelling). It "disappeared" in March 1989, under very unusual circumstances that still mystify and excite many people.  Recent developments in the Russian space program have opened new insights into that failure. 
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Astronaut "UFO" Sightings
by Jim Oberg
From THE SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, Journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Volume III, No.1, Fall 1978
"The glamour and drama of manned space flights has been transferred to the UFO field via a highly publicized group of "UFO sightings" and photographs allegedly made by American and Russian space-pilots. Hardly a UFO book or movie fails to mention that "astronauts have seen UFOs too.  Careful examination of each and every one of these stories (and they total more than 20 or 30) can produce quite reasonable explanations, in terms of visual phenomena associated with space flights. On a visit to the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston in July 1976, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, of the Center for UFO Studies, concluded that none of the authentic cases (as opposed to the majority of reports, which are fictitious) really had anything to do with the "real UFO phenomenon."
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