An image of the moon’s surface has sparked theories of extraterrestrial life.
NASA‘s Lunar Orbiter 3 snapped the photo in 1967, as the agency prepared to send humans there for the first time.
Nearly six decades later, UFO researcher Scott Waring has claimed that it captured something far more extraordinary than the lunar landscape.
He believes an elongated feature in the image is an alien spacecraft hovering above the surface, stretching an astonishing 3.4 miles from end to end.
Waring arrived at that estimate by comparing the feature with Theophilus crater, using a crater diameter of 68 miles and judging the supposed craft to be one-twentieth as long.
For him, the photograph carries a chilling implication: that humanity was being watched before astronauts ever set foot on the moon.
‘This is 100% proof that aliens were watching humans before we ever stepped on the moon,’ he wrote on his website UFO Sightings Daily.
He even suggested that the enormous vessel would be considered a ‘small shuttle craft’ by its supposed occupants.
However, Waring provides no independent evidence that the feature is a spacecraft, and neither its claimed size nor its alleged extraterrestrial origin has been established.
NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 3 snapped the photo in 1967, as the agency prepared to send humans there for the first time
Nearly six decades later, UFO researcher Scott Waring has claimed that it captured something far more extraordinary than the lunar landscape
NASA has also maintained that it has no evidence of extraterrestrial life and has yet to find any signs of current or past life on Mars.
Waring, however, is sure that the mysterious object in the photo is an alien craft.
‘There is a long spacecraft hovering over the moon’s surface in a NASA photo from 1967,’ he wrote in his blog.
‘I took the measurement of the crater in the photo called Theophilus crater, which is 110km or 68 miles across by 4.4km or 2.7 miles deep, and can conclude that this UFO is 1/20 the length of the crater…equals 5.5km or 3.4 miles long UFO.
‘That’s huge to us humans, but to aliens, it’s considered a small shuttle craft.’
While the American space agency has dismissed aliens visiting the moon, the Trump Administration’s UFO files have revealed unexplainable phenomena during the Apollo moon missions.
On May 8, the US Department of War released hundreds of pages of documents, pictures and audio recordings allegedly providing evidence of extraterrestrial sightings dating back to the 1940s.
Included in what has been described as the first batch of UFO files expected to come from the Pentagon this year were the transcripts of the Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 moon missions.
He believes an elongated feature in the image is an alien spacecraft hovering above the surface, stretching an astonishing 3.4 miles from end to end
Those files and a collection of images taken by the astronauts on the moon revealed multiple encounters with strange objects that appear to fly around their lunar landers.
During the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, astronauts Gene Cernan, Jack Schmitt and Ron Evans reported seeing a bright object that rotated and flashed rhythmically out in space.
Cernan said: ‘I’m looking at what – what Jack was talking about; and it’s definitely not a particle that’s nearby because there is another one I can look at and get a three-dimensional comparison with.’
‘It is a bright object, and it’s obviously rotating because it’s flashing. It’s way out in the distance, as I say, because there are particles that are close by and it’s obviously not one of those,’ the astronaut described.
‘It’s apparently rotating in a very rhythmic fashion because the flashes come around almost – almost on time. And as we look back at the Earth, it’s up at about 11:00 about – oh, maybe 10 or 12 Earth diameters. I don’t know whether that does you any good, but there is something out there.’
During the lunar landing, which was the last time humans stepped on the moon’s surface, the crew of Apollo 17 also reported seeing multiple small objects moving near the spacecraft during their flight.
This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features a highlighted area of interest slightly to the right of the vertical axis of the frame, above the horizon, in which unidentified phenomena are visible
‘Now we’ve got a few very bright particles or fragments or something that go drifting by as we maneuver,’ Evans told the command center on Earth.
‘Roger. Understand,’ the center replied. ‘There’s a whole [bunch] of big ones on my window down there – just bright. It looks like the Fourth of July out of Ron’s window,’ Schmitt added.
Evans reported: ‘Yes. Now you can see some of them in shape. They’re very jagged, angular fragments that are tumbling.’
The astronauts revealed that right after they fired their thrusters to change direction, the crew began to see the bright particles and jagged, angular fragments drifting past the windows.
Jack says it looks like the ‘Fourth of July’ out Evans’ window, with big bright pieces tumbling slowly around the capsule.
The astronauts were also recorded describing the strange objects as pieces of something solid, not fluid, very bright, and mostly moving with the spacecraft but with occasional faster ones zipping by. Evans reported taking pictures of them.
This archival photograph depicts the lunar surface as viewed from the landing site of Apollo 12. This image features highlighted areas above the horizon in which unidentified phenomena are visible
Three years earlier, the Apollo 12 moon mission also reported strange sightings as they neared the lunar surface.
The Trump administration’s third batch of UFO files, released on June 12, included recorded NASA briefings after Apollo 16, which referred to an ‘alien starbase’ on the dark side of the moon.
The comments were not included in the official transcript from the 1972 mission.
Apollo 16 flew from April 16 to April 27, 1972, and saw astronauts John Young and Charles Duke become the first humans to explore the moon’s rugged highlands while Thomas ‘Ken’ Mattingly remained in lunar orbit.
Buried within the 55-minute discussion is a brief exchange about unusual gravity readings, laser measurements and unexplained anomalies detected on the moon’s far side.
The speakers focus on what one participant describes as a ‘great big hole’ near the Van de Graaff crater, a distinctive lunar formation known for unusual magnetic and geochemical characteristics.
‘On the backside of the moon around Fendi graph, that’s where we get our big hole,’ one speaker says.
The discussion then takes an unexpected turn.
‘It could be an alien star base or something. Anyway, the next slide shows the front side of the moon.’
The remark appears amid a broader technical discussion of lunar data and anomalies, although the context of the comment remains unclear from the audio alone.
