There is Something in the Void

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash?

Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home in auto policies.

Try it at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Potential savings will vary.

Not available in all states.

Story 1.

We never went back.

It has been nearly 50 years since the last human being set foot upon upon the lunar surface.

Were budget constraints really the driving force behind this decision, or was it something far more sinister?

If the accounts of certain whistleblowers are to be believed, then it might just be that there is something on the moon.

Running a business comes with a lot of what-ifs, but luckily, there's a simple answer to them: Shopify.

It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, including Thrive Cosmetics and Momofuku, and it'll help you with everything you need.

From website design and marketing to boosting sales and expanding operations, Shopify can get the job done and make your dream a reality.

Turn those what-ifs into

sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash special offer.

$1 million, free to play.

You just need to survive.

It's the Fanatics NFL survivor pool.

Pick one team to win each week.

Get it right, move on.

Get it wrong, you're out.

The last fans standing, take home a guaranteed $1 million cash prize.

And for every player who joins, we add a dollar to the pot.

Up to $10 million.

The Fnatics NFL Survivor Pool.

Play free on the Fanatics app.

App access open to all.

Must be 21 plus and joined by 9-8 to play.

No purchase necessary.

U.S.

only, voidwear prohibited.

Subjects complete terms cfanatics.com slash gamerules.

History tells us that between 1969 and 1972, American astronauts completed a total of six successful landings on the surface of the Moon.

The last of these missions, Apollo 17, concluded on the 19th of December 1972, when Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmidt, and Ronald Evans were recovered from the Pacific Ocean by the crew of the USS Ticonderoga.

But despite a further three Apollo missions having been planned to follow on from this, no other manned expedition from any nation has since taken place.

The official justification behind this sudden reversal in NASA's lunar exploration program was a shift in both the financial and political landscapes.

At the height of the Cold War, America's victory in the space race, being the first major power to achieve a successful manned landing, provided Richard Nixon with the prestige and propaganda he needed over his Soviet rivals.

But the overall costs of the programme had rocketed from an initial estimate of 7 billion to well over 20, and this huge expenditure proved difficult to maintain.

The technology available at the time only allowed for a period of mere hours on the Moon's surface on each occasion, and with no natural resources or significant scientific material forthcoming from the first few trips, NASA found it impossible to secure the funding needed to carry out what remained of their program.

With the landmark victory now achieved by the Western powers, Russia's passion for space exploration also cooled, and as subsequent missile treaties limited any further advancement in the field, dreams of a lunar colony were slowly relegated to the pages of science fiction.

In the decades that followed, An intermittent stream of probes and robotic landers from nations such as India, China and the USA have all been dispatched to different regions of our nearest heavenly body.

The majority of these have ultimately ended up crashing into the lunar surface, either due to technical failure or after fulfilling their purpose.

And yet despite all of these expeditions, we know little more about the Moon than we did at the start of the 1970s.

Throughout the years that have passed since the sudden conclusion of the Apollo programme, There have been several reports that the crews involved encountered more than just rock and and dust.

Stories of strange tracks observed on the ground near landing zones, mysterious objects seen floating in the sky, and imposing alien structures glimpsed way off in the distance have all emerged.

In some cases, these claims are supported by poor quality and grainy photographs.

In others, Audio files that have either been erased or edited are offered up as evidence of a conspiracy.

Throughout all these stories, there is, however, a common thread.

The moon may already be home to existing residents, inhabitants who do not appreciate unwanted intrusions.

In 2015, an article began to circulate on Reddit, purporting to be from a British psychologist who had viewed confidential reports divulging that further moon landings had taken place since Apollo 17 and detailing exactly what had happened to them.

And whilst there are many aspects of this alleged testimony that are either impossible to verify or comfortably easy to debunk, there are elements of it, which commentators claim add credence to similar tales surrounding NASA's official landings.

The anonymous source claimed that the astronauts of Apollo 17 had not travelled far from their landing site when they came across the shattered remains of another landing craft.

In addition to the severely damaged vehicle itself were the bodies of a number of cosmonauts, all of which appeared to be Soviet in origin.

But it was not the unexpected appearance of this debris field that most shocked the astronauts, more that all of the wounds and damage inflicted upon the victims seemed to have been caused by a physical assault of some kind, rather than any form of decompression or collision impact.

The hull of the Russian spacecraft had been repeatedly torn and punctured by an unknown source, with the glass faceplates on the helmets of the dead cosmonauts all smashed in an identical fashion.

The American crew had immediately returned to their lander and requested permission to lift off again, only to be told that they had to remain on the ground for several more hours due to technical issues.

During this time, they sent increasingly panicked radio transmissions, claiming they could see shadowy figures moving around on the hills outside, gradually making their way closer to the module.

This psychologist detailed that there was a joint British and Russian mission to return to the crash site in 1989, and that he had been asked to assist with debriefing the crew of this expedition when it returned home.

The Russian lander successfully arrived in the vicinity of Apollo 17's landing zone in December of 1990, only for the crew to be attacked by unknown entities.

This attack was watched in disbelief by their controllers at the Okotsk launch site.

before all contact with them was lost.

Is the surface of of the moon littered with the remains of previous landings, the existence of which has been covered up by the nations who secretly dispatched them there?

There is evidence that Russia has yet to disclose the full extent of their endeavours in this direction.

Personnel records of cosmonauts involved in the program were allegedly altered to hide the deaths of pilots involved in failed missions.

and amateur radio enthusiasts claim to have monitored desperate transmissions from dying cosmonauts whose craft malfunctioned in orbit.

Whilst orbiting the moon during May of 1969, Apollo 10 crew members Gene Cernan and John Jung reported that they could hear strange noises emanating from the surface below.

This phenomenon consisted of an eerie whistling sound, which the two men described as outer space music.

Their controllers were at a loss to explain what the astronauts were hearing.

and it is only in later years that the incident has been attributed to feedback generated between VHF transmitters situated in different parts of their spacecraft.

Another strange tale surfaced after the conclusion of the Apollo 15 mission in July of 1971.

Transcripts of radio transmissions which took place whilst crew members David Scott and James Irwin were outside their lander reveal that they stumbled across what appeared to be vehicle tracks at the base of Mount Hadley.

They describe these impressions as linear, running from east to west, and totally uniform in nature.

And yet, one of the most defining features of Apollo 15 is that it was the first expedition to be equipped with an experimental lunar rover.

It is, however, the claims that the crew of the iconic Apollo 11 mission reported multiple sightings of unidentified spacecraft and structures on the moon that have most captured the imagination of conspiracy theorists.

The first of these encounters was reported only three days into their mission, when Commander Neil Armstrong requested clarification of where the third stage of the mission's Saturn V rocket was in relation to the main vessel.

After a three-minute delay, he was informed that the Jettison rocket housing should have been situated 6,000 miles behind the lunar module, which was still travelling away from Earth and towards the Moon.

Armstrong's subsequent reply to this information would create a ripple of confusion and uncertainty amongst the mission controllers.

He had been notified by colleague Buzz Aldrin that something was travelling on a parallel course alongside their ship.

Armstrong described the object as metallic, shaped like a cylinder, with what appeared to be a light source emanating from one end.

After he had lost sight of the mysterious object, he had again asked NASA for clarification.

and was informed it was possibly a loose piece of metal panelling, which may have been blown clear of the main booster.

An even more disturbing radio conversation is believed to have taken place between Armstrong and the Houston Control Center in the immediate aftermath of his arrival on the moon.

During a two-minute period, where transmissions between the mission and its controllers had apparently failed, it is alleged that Armstrong had continued to transmit on a secondary radio channel.

designed to monitor the health and welfare of the astronauts.

Although not heard by the general public, it is claimed that transcripts from this channel show that Armstrong reported he could see metallic objects at the edge of a nearby crater.

He described buildings that led down under the moon's surface, and what appeared to be metallic vehicles parked up in lines outside these constructs.

Although he supposedly took many pictures with his chest-mounted camera, these images have never been published.

As he was ordered to withdraw to the lander, He was then asked if he had managed to deploy the scientific equipment he had been tasked with.

He replied that he had, but was concerned that the occupants of the craft he had seen were observing him and would easily remove the items he had just positioned.

In the years since the Apollo 11 mission, a number of witnesses have come forward claiming that when they had challenged Armstrong on the sighting in private, he had freely admitted it to them.

on the grounds that they did not record the conversation.

He is alleged to have expressed great apprehension and fear about the craft he encountered, believing that they were trying to actively warn humans away from any further exploration of the moon.

The deaths of two prominent ufologists in October of 2018 have recently generated a great deal of speculation within the media.

Although apparently unrelated, both men were former members of the United States military.

and had risen to prominence on the basis of allegations they had made regarding NASA and how it had concealed evidence of extraterrestrial life on the surface of the Moon.

Bob Dean had served as a sergeant major in the US Army and had spent the majority of the 1960s stationed at various military facilities on the European mainland.

During this time, he claimed that NASA had secretly destroyed up to 40 rolls of film which had been shot by the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission.

So underhand were the tactics allegedly deployed by the space agency, Dean often joked that the acronym secretly stood for, never a straight answer.

In addition to this claim, Dean also stated that during his time in the Army, he had read a top-secret dossier which evaluated the potential threat to humanity by extraterrestrial invaders.

This document contained photographs of a number of downed alien spacecraft.

and the findings from the autopsies which had later taken place on their pilots.

Within a week of Dean's death at his home in Tucson on October the 11th, authorities in Lansing, New York were called to the scene of a fatal traffic accident.

A 74-year-old cyclist named Carl Wolfe had been crushed to death when he had been hit by a tractor.

Not only was Wolfe a former U.S.

Air Force sergeant, but he was also a whistleblower who claimed to have seen terrifying evidence proving there were indeed aliens on the moon.

In 1965, Wolfe had been stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, specialising as an electronics technician.

His primary duty was the evaluation and repair of various photographic systems which had been deployed by the Air Force during the Vietnam conflict, but one day he found himself temporarily reassigned to NASA's Lunar Orbiter Project.

Wolf described how he reported to a nondescript hangar on the far side of the base, which was largely occupied by scientists and translators dressed in civilian clothing.

He was led to a room where he met another airman, who explained that NASA was having issues producing photographs from the most recent lunar mission, as one of their developing machines was malfunctioning.

Having worked with his colleague to locate and rectify the fault, Wolf was amazed to see a series of images from what appeared to be the lunar landscape, complete with a whole city of mysterious alien structures.

He described having seen towers, domes and mushroom-shaped buildings, all allegedly situated on the dark side of the moon.

The NCO had been stunned by what he had witnessed and had fully expected that he would be hearing about the discovery on the evening news.

But as weeks turned into months, He eventually realised that the government had no intention of revealing the existence of the alien city to the world.

In 2001, along with 20 other former servicemen and intelligence officials, he finally went public with his story.

Certainly, many photographs sent back by probes in orbit around the Moon show some interesting anomalies, with lights appearing in craters and the apparent depiction of unnatural structures, some of which are several miles high.

There are also those who assert that the moon may not even be a natural satellite at all, at least not in the most conventional sense.

Some commentators believe that the surface of the Moon is merely an external shell for something far more sinister, such as a space station or gigantic alien spacecraft.

The claim is similar to that of the Hollow Earth theory, whose supporters believe that there is a vast network of tunnels and caverns under the Earth's surface, which humanity is unaware of.

As evidence of their claims, Hollow Moon theorists point to data produced by seismometers which were left on the moon's surface by each of the Apollo missions.

Between 1972 and 1977, these instruments recorded a series of geological movements underneath the lunar landscape, all of which varied in scale and intensity.

During the Apollo 12 mission, The decision was made to deliberately crash the ascent stage of the crew's lunar module back onto the surface.

In the aftermath of this, monitoring stations back on Earth recorded a strange reverberation that continued for an hour.

Apparently, the moon rang like a bell.

For subscribers of the hollow moon theory, this is evidence of vibrations echoing around huge spaces, buried beneath the thin layer of rock and dust we see.

As we sift through the various stories that have emerged from the Apollo program,

it is ostensible that there may well have been events and occurrences on the Moon's surface which defy conventional explanation.

In some of these cases, NASA has provided varying degrees of justification.

In others, either by action or inaction, they have allowed evidence which might have assisted in divining the truth to be destroyed.

In reality, the physical and mental stress produced during the lunar missions may be a factor and could have affected the psychology of those involved.

In the large number of reported incidents, the experiences of the astronauts can easily be attributed to optical illusions and the unforeseen failure of the equipment and material they were utilizing.

And yet, the public imagination continues to be captured by stories of sinister lunar residents.

Perhaps there is indeed some truth behind the rumours, and in the decades to come, we will discover that that we do indeed have celestial neighbors we were previously unaware of.

And if that is the case, we can only hope they do not object to sharing this little corner of the galaxy with the human race.

Running a business means I wear lots of hats.

Luckily, Luckily, when it's time to put on my hiring hat, I can count on LinkedIn to make it easy.

I can post a job for free or pay to promote it and get three times more qualified candidates.

Imagine finding your next great hire in 24 hours.

86% of small businesses do.

With LinkedIn, I can also easily share my job with my network.

No other job site lets me do that.

Post your free job at linkedin.com slash achieve.

That's linkedin.com slash achieve.

Terms and conditions apply.

Tires matter.

They're the only part of your vehicle that touches the road.

Tread confidently with new tires from Tire Rack.

Whether you're looking for expert recommendations or know exactly what you want, Tire Rack makes it easy.

Fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, convenient installation options, and the best selection of hand-cooked tires.

Go to tire rack.com to see their hand-cooked test results, tire ratings, and reviews.

And be sure to check out all the special offers.

TireRack.com, the way tire buying should be.

Story 2.

The strange fate of Phobos 2

For centuries, humanity has been obsessed with the notion of intelligent beings residing upon the seemingly lifeless surface of Mars.

Towards the end of the 1980s, There is evidence that Russia may have been the nation to come closest to proving the existence of such beings.

We examine the strange fate of Phobos 2.

The mood in the control room was upbeat as the technicians continued to monitor the signals being beamed back through the depths of space by the probe.

It had been a tense six-month wait for the craft to finally arrive at its destination, overshadowed by the mysterious failure of the first satellite which had been launched ahead of it.

But this time, the journey had been completed with relatively few setbacks.

Of the three computers controlling the probe, one had unfortunately suffered a software failure, but this malfunction had not prevented the device from completing its primary scan of the surface of Phobos.

before starting to transmit images back to Earth.

Thus far, the mission was proving to be amongst the most successful that the Soviet Space Agency had launched, and there was nothing to suggest that the controllers would not be able to progress to the next stage, which involved the deployment of two landers on the surface of the desolate moon it was now orbiting.

Standing at an elevated position above the control room, the senior technician watched on with pride as the scientists and other technicians studied an image on the monitors below him.

This was the 36th picture from the probe to be received so far, a veritable treasure trove of data which would take months to analyze and dissect.

There was a sudden and unexpected commotion from the far side of the room.

Amidst the raised voices, the controller heard someone shout that something unexpected had been identified on the satellite's sensors.

A large, unidentified mass had materialized in a higher orbit and was now slowly descending towards the probe.

Realizing that there was insufficient time to try and program the satellite to move in order to avoid any possible collision, the controller shouted across to the technician responsible for the device's camera and asked him to take a photograph.

It would still take several minutes for this command to travel through space and reach the small craft.

but hopefully this was sufficient time in order to shed some light on the mystery should the worst happen.

For the next few minutes, all eyes in the control room remained fixed upon the data being received by the probe's sensors, until another technician shouted that all contact had been lost.

The hours which were spent trying to re-establish communications with the satellite soon progressed into days.

No signals were either being received by or transmitted from the device.

It was clear that something must have collided with and completely destroyed it.

As he later prepared himself to brief the oversight committee, which had asked him for an update on the situation, the controller stared down at the final photograph which the probe had taken.

The image depicted a huge elliptical shadow being cast down onto the surface of Phobos beneath the orbiting satellite.

He would later admit under questioning that he had no idea what might have caused such an anomaly, and that if it was not an anomaly, then he had no idea what it was.

He had defended his calculations regarding the size the unknown object would have to have been to cast such an enormous shadow.

He would also concede that the shape of the object did seem to depict what the Americans referred to as a flying saucer, before walking out of the briefing room, leaving the committee members sitting behind him in stunned silence.

The initial discovery of the Martian moons occurred in August of 1877, when observers at the United States Naval Observatory detected two bodies in orbit around the red planet.

In time, they would name the pair Phobos and Deimos, after the twin sons of Ares, the Greek god of war.

For his own part, Phobos was the god of fear and panic.

and this choice of name would later prove chillingly appropriate.

Decades of close observation would go on to reveal that Phobos was the closest celestial body to a parent planet in the solar system,

closer than any other satellite which had then been discovered.

Such proximity had resulted in an extremely rapid orbit, taking the Martian moon a mere eight hours to travel around the entire circumference of its host.

It was also noted that Phobos was amongst the least reflective of all satellites.

It would not be until images of the twin Martian moons were first transmitted back to Earth by the American Mariner 7 probe in 1969 that the reason for such darkness became clear.

Phobos and Deimos were both ancient masses of shattered and crumpled rock debris, which had been compacted together in orbit around Mars.

The prevailing theory surrounding the pair's formation was that in its distant past, Mars was subject to a devastating collision with another object, potentially a protoplanet.

This apocalyptic cataclysm propelled millions of tons of rock and dust up into the atmosphere, some of which collided together to create the two moons.

With NASA showing little interest in the origins or makeup of Phobos and Deimos, it was Russia who became the first nation to announce a planned mission to explore them.

During the summer of 1988, the Soviets announced that two probes had been launched, with the intention of photographing photographing and collecting samples from the surface of Phobos.

But a third of the way into the six-month journey, contact was unexpectedly lost with one of the two probes.

In August of 1988, operators discovered that the missing craft's thrusters had been mistakenly deactivated by a hidden software glitch, causing its solar panels to lose line of sight with the sun, and in turn suffer a catastrophic power failure.

The second probe, however, successfully arrived at Phobos on the 29th of January 1989 and immediately began to capture images of the mysterious moon below.

For two months, it dutifully transmitted a steady stream of data to its coordinators back on Earth, ahead of a planned final descent to the surface, in order to deposit two landers.

But inexplicably, On the afternoon of the 28th of March, a large mass was detected, seeming to be closing in on the probe.

With insufficient time available to program the device's thrusters in order to avoid a collision, the decision was instead made to hurriedly try and capture a photograph of the approaching object.

Shortly after this, all contact with the probe was lost.

Technicians spent several days trying to re-establish control of the satellite.

before concluding it must have been destroyed, as it was neither receiving nor returning any of their signals.

The most disturbing development of the affair, though, would come with the receipt of the final photo to be taken by the Phobos-2 probe, immediately prior to its inexplicable destruction.

The black and white image it had transmitted depicted a huge elliptical shadow being projected down onto the moon's surface below where the satellite had been in orbit.

When asked if this picture could potentially be the result of a software glitch or some form of instrumentation failure, the mission technicians replied that this was impossible.

The image had been taken using two separate cameras, one of which had possessed an infrared filter.

The timings of the image also matched up with the last sensor data, which had been received immediately prior to the collision.

Even more troubling were the calculations made by scientists regarding the possible size of the oval object which was responsible responsible for this shadow.

Using the established points of reference for the probe's camera, they informed the authorities that this unknown mass must have measured at least a terrifying 20 kilometers in diameter.

As those responsible for the creation of the mission struggled to come to terms with this information, there was further unexpected news.

Enhancement of one of the existing images sent by the probe had seemingly revealed a structure rising up out of the rocky surface, in the vicinity of the enormous Stickney crater.

Calculations revealed that this massive structure must have been somewhere in the region of 90 meters tall and 85 meters in width.

It appeared to be shooting up directly out of the ground, pointing menacingly at the orbiting probe.

its smooth and shiny surface in stark contrast to the cratered and shattered landscape it had emerged from.

The Russian authorities found themselves with troubling questions, which now needed to be answered.

Who or what had destroyed their probe?

And was this an accidental incident or a quite deliberate and aggressive act?

And was their craft's destruction a direct result of the mysterious structure it had seemingly discovered and documented?

Despite a determined effort to prevent the true details behind the loss of the probe leaking out to the media, it was not long before the stories surrounding what had taken place began to emerge.

Several articles published in both the Russian and international press, including leaked photos of both the descending shadow and the monolith, resulted in no small amount of speculation.

The most widespread claim was that the Phobos 2 probe had been destroyed by a giant alien mothership, descending from above, towards the surface surface of Phobos.

Given this alleged vessel's huge diameter, there was speculation that the supposed collision may have been accidental, as the vast craft may have simply been unaware of the probe's presence beneath it.

Some authors instead alleged that the alien vessel had quite deliberately destroyed the probe due to the fact it had detected the monolith.

which was only part of a larger alien settlement situated on or beneath the surface of the Martian moon.

Others claim that the monolith shown in the image may have been some form of ancient device or weapon and it had been the structure itself which had obliterated the passing satellite, somehow shooting it out of the sky.

Much has been made by astronomers regarding the possibility that Phobos is potentially somewhat hollow in nature.

with huge voids lying between the various rocks and boulders which combine to make up its larger structure, held together by only a thin surface crust.

Similar assertions have been put forward in relation to our own moon, and that civilizations may indeed have resided beneath the surface of these celestial objects, largely hidden away from the probes we have dispatched.

It is only rarely that purported evidence of their existence has ever been captured.

Is it possible that the arrival of the probe in orbit over Phobos, where it unexpectedly captured evidence of an alien civilization, may have been the reason for its destruction.

Given the tensions generated by the decades-long Cold War which had been raging, it is unsurprising that the finger of blame was also inevitably pointed towards the US government.

Like the Russians, had they secretly been conducting covert spaceflights, and already sent their own craft with destructive capabilities to the Red Planet.

The two images captured by the probe do prove troublesome to explain away with any conviction.

It is clear from the accompanying data, which was received alongside them, that they are not the result of any kind of technical issue, and that they were genuinely captured by the probe's cameras.

But those who seek to debunk the concept of a secret alien base being hidden away on Phobos point to the disappointing track record of the Soviet space program.

Two further Martian probes of an identical design, which were later launched by the Russian Space Agency in 1996 and 2011, both failed to successfully reach the Red Planet.

In 1989, at the time of Phobos 2's arrival, of the three computers which were on board the probe, one had failed completely and the second was also malfunctioning.

It is entirely possible that the device could indeed have been lost as a result of an internal malfunction, and that no actual collision ever took place.

In terms of the monolith, it is widely believed that this structure is little more than a naturally occurring feature, much like other alleged constructions depicted on the surface of Mars itself.

The famed Martian face and other alleged structures such as pyramids and space stations, which have been observed on the Martian landscape, have since proven to be nothing more than striking rock features, which have gone on to disappear through weathering and erosion.

Scientists maintain that like these examples, the Phobos monolith is merely a tall rock that happens to be sticking up and out of the ground, likely deposited there during the cataclysmic event that first created the moon.

A combination of shadow and the angle at which the image was taken at the point it was captured have combined together to add mystery to an object, which may otherwise be completely natural.

And yet, alleged sightings of alien structures on the surface of our own moon and as a result of further Martian exploration continue to surface online.

And with each passing year, these images seem to become progressively difficult for the scientific community to explain away.

Advances in the imaging technology installed on exploratory probes and the decision to make them accessible to the general public via the internet have revealed new mysteries.

High-definition imaging shows inexplicable colour variations, which seem to prove more than ever that there are odd features on the surface of our neighbouring planets, which simply cannot be naturally occurring.

Will it continue to be possible to dismiss these images as simple and coincidental rock formations or some form of optical illusion?

Or are we inevitably heading for a time and event where undeniable proof of alien civilization is unexpectedly published online, right before our eyes?

Only time will tell.

Bed time stories.