GREEN CHEESE AND BALONEY - HOAGLAND

Internet UFO Group Media Archive

From:dbennett@mnsinc.com (Don Bennett)
Title:GREEN CHEESE AND BALONEY - HOAGLAND
Source: Washington Post
Date:March 22, 1996


HEADLINE: Green Cheese and Baloney

'Scientists' Say There's More on the Moon Than Meets the Eye.

Newspaper: The Washington Post, Page B-1

22 March 1996

by Richard Leiby

Washington Post Staff Writer

As news conferences go, this one was irresistible: Scientists to reveal

"ancient artificial structures on moon." "Suppressed evidence" includes

photos of Apolly astronauts walking amid "apparent lunar ruins." Be there at

9 a.m., National Press Club, for the story of the century.

Reporters from about 50 worldwide media organizations came to see proof of

aliens. They scrutinized grainy blowups of old NASA photos and slides of

impossibly fuzzy objects -- including a blob that the assembled research team

called "the castle." To be more precise: "an extraordinary, highly geometric,

glittering glass object hanging more than nine miles above the surface of the

mood," in the words of Richard Hoagland, the New Jersey author and noted

pseudo-scientist who called the conference.

Hoagland, 50, is, basically, a kook. He's famous for popularizing the

sighting of an alleged "human face" in the terrain of Mars, and he more

recently claimed that the Bosnian peace talks were held in Dayton, Ohio, so

world leaders could view alien bodies housed in an Air Force hangar there.

But yesterday, the collective media didn't snort with laughter and walk

out. Instead, journalists politely asked how these astounding lunar

discoveries could have been covered up, and how long ago the ancient

structures were built, and why the aliens chose the moon to build on. Later,

reports from CNN and the Associated Press, among others, called Apolly 12

astronaut Alan Bean to ask whether he'd ever stood on the moon near a

"massive tier of glass-like ruins," as alleged in one Hoagland handout.

Meanwhile, people who'd read about the news conference on the Internet

phoned newsrooms around the country, including The Washington Post,

wondering how much about the alien civilization had been revealed in the

"suppressed" NASA photos. Derek Jett, an ad agency director in Memphis,

called to make sure The Post was covering the story, saying, "You wonder

whether the guy's a hoax, but in the back of your mind you know the

government covers up some things."

Perhaps this attitude isn't surprising, given the popularity of shows such

as "The X-Files" and "Alien Autopsy," which flood the culture with fantastic

notions of evil government bureaucrats harboring incredible secrets. People

can't help hoping that aliens built castles on the moon, because the truth

is too boring. We went to the moon. Found a bunch of rocks. End of story.

"I wish we had seen something like what he's describing," Bean said

yesterday from Houston. "It would have been the most wonderful discovery in

the history of humankind -- and I can't imagine anyone, in my wildest dreams,

not wanting to share that."

Hoagland, a science writer who served as a CBS News consultant during the

Apolly missions, labeled his latest effort the Enterprise Mission, borrowing

some credibility from "Star Trek." ("To boldly go where maybe someone has

gone before," he said.) His researchers include, for the most part, fans of

his book "The Monuments of Mars" -- whose findings NASA researchers and

others, including Carl Sagan, have shown to be specious. ("There is a

capacity for self-delusion," Sagan began explaining yesterday in his

trademark cadence.)

One of Hoagland's investigators is Ken Johnston, an engineer who did

contract work for NASA and examined photographs at the Lunar Receiving Lab

in Houston. Johnston told Reporters he believes that aliens once used the

moon as an observation post to watch civilization evolve on Earth. He claims

he was ordered to destroy negatives at the Johnson Space Center -- but

managed to save a set for posterity. (Evidently, the Conspiracy didn't quite

do its job.)

"We're ready to tell the nation and the world," Johnston announced, "and

let the evidence speak for itself."

NASA scientists pointed out that the photos -- some made by lunar orbiters,

others shot by astronauts -- have been in the public domain for decades, and,

interestingly, no one else has discovered any alien-built crystalline palaces.

Hoagland said a "source" at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt

leaked him a pristine negative from the Apolly 10 mission showed 1-1/2 mile

high "shard" protruding from the surface. "I cannot explain a feature like

that on the face of the moon," Said Ronald Nicks, a geologist on Hoagland's

team.

"I see absolutely nothing like the so-called shard," said Paul Lowman, a

Goddard geologist and expert in orbital photography, after examining the

frame cited at the news conference. "He's seeing some sort of a [photo]

processing defect."

Lowman added: "Hoagland and people like him don't seem to realize that

NASA has been looking for extraterrestrial life for 35 years. ... We are

the last agency on Earth that would hide such a thing -- we'd all like to be

the one on our way to Stockholm to get the Nobel Prize."

Tomorrow's news conference: Experts discuss archival footage revealing

Jackie Gleason's face in the full moon.