William B Stoecker

The glass domes of the moon

August 21, 2011 |  22 comments
Image Credit: Mars Institute A number of writers, myself included, have detailed the circumstantial…but extensive…evidence of past civilizations on our Moon and on Mars, and probably elsewhere in our Solar System. Given that the Moon seems never to have had much of an atmosphere, its inhabitants presumably came from elsewhere, and the simplest and most likely explanation is that all the mysterious structures on the Moon and on Mars were built by the same space-faring race, and that they likely originated on Mars, or, quite possibly, here on Earth in the remote past. And, just because many of the structures appear to be ruins, we shouldn’t assume that the builders have all died or departed. They may very well still be there; after all, we have numerous ruined structures here on Earth, and we’re still here. In fact, at least some UFOs may originate from Mars and from our Moon.

No one has been more outspoken regarding the evidence for civilizations in our own Solar System than Richard Hoagland. In books like The Monuments of Mars and Dark Mission, he has made his case for this and also proposed an alternative theory of physics. He is not the primary architect of this theory, but he is its chief popularizer.

In Dark Mission he suggests that the ancient builders seem to have constructed enormous domes covering and enclosing vast areas of the Lunar surface, probably as habitats for themselves. There would have been air and water inside, and perhaps gardens or farms, perhaps an entire eco system. He describes a very artificial-looking structure known as the “Shard” in the Sinus Medii region of the Moon, near the crater Flammarion, a mile and a half tall structure which looks transparent or translucent, which he suggests may be a remnant of a dome, now largely destroyed by eons of meteor bombardment. Near the Shard is the “Tower/Cube,” a cubical structure over a mile across, atop a tower some seven miles tall; this structure also appears to be transparent or translucent, and Hoagland suggests that both it and the Shard are remnants of a larger dome. He points out that Surveyor Six photographed what looks like atmospheric refraction near the Lunar horizon, which he interprets as sunlight shining through the remnants of yet another dome. Apollo Ten photographed what looked like a huge city on the Moon, in the Ukert region, composed of rectilinear structures (such structures are also found in several locations on Mars and on Mars’ moon, Phobos). The Lunar city appears to be blurred and distorted, as though seen through glass. Hoagland describes the “Castle,” a huge structure somehow suspended about nine miles above the Lunar surface between the Triesnecker Crater and the Hygenus Rille, and believes that he can barely make out a cable holding it up (presumably anchored to some structures not clearly visible). Hoagland mentions other apparent domes, or the remnants of domes, across the Mare Crisium area, and the Russian Zond Three photograph of a twenty mile high tower in Oceanus Procellarum. He points out that Apollo Twelve astronaut Alan Bean said that space seen from the Lunar surface was black, but shiny…as if (Hoagland suggests) he was looking through glass. Also, Earth photographed near the Lunar horizon looked distorted, as though seen through refracting glass. Hoagland includes many of the photographs in his book, and, whether you agree or disagree with his dome hypothesis, the evidence is compelling that something very, very strange is present on our Moon.

At first glance, towers seven miles tall might seem impossible, or domes twenty or thirty miles or more across. But, if we wanted to spend the money, we could build skyscrapers up to two miles high here on Earth with pretty much our present technology. On the Moon, with no wind and with just over one sixth Earth’s gravity, a seven mile tower would be no problem. As for the domes, Hoagland never claimed that they would be vast, unsupported shells. Here on Earth we have made domes with no internal support up to 275 meters across; much larger ones could be made in the Moon’s low gravity, and, given that there is practically no atmosphere on the Moon, they would also be supported by the pressure of the air inside. With internal supports they could, of course, be vastly larger. But there are other problems with Hoagland’s hypothesis. The Moon is tide locked to the Earth so that it rotates on its axis in just about twenty eight days, the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. That is why only one side of the Moon can ever be seen from Earth. This means that in most places on the Moon, there is daylight for about two weeks, followed by an equally long night. During the day there is dangerous thermal buildup…Lunar rocks get hotter during the day than the boiling point of water is on Earth, up to about 123 degrees centigrade, and at night temperatures are far, far below zero, as low as 181 degrees centigrade below, and even colder (233 below) in the South Polar Basin. In addition, during the two week night most plants in the dome would die from lack of sunlight. And on the Moon there is a very real risk of meteor strikes; with practically no atmosphere even small micrometeorites can reach the surface and do damage. In addition, Solar flares periodically hit the Lunar surface with deadly radiation. So, if we really wanted to establish a Lunar colony, where would we build it, and how?

Near the poles, we have discovered evidence of substantial amounts of water, perhaps in the form of permafrost within the Lunar soil, and there is increasing evidence that there may be substantial amounts of water all over the Moon, below the surface. In a polar location the Sun would be very low in the sky but would be visible almost all the time, save during Lunar eclipses, providing a source of energy and allowing plants to grow under a glass dome. A domed structure could be built in a crater, shielded from direct sunlight and from the deadly solar flares, and mirrors erected high on or above the crater rim could be adjusted to provide, say, twelve hours of light alternating with twelve hours of darkness. Or, rather than a glass dome, we might build structures with thick roofs to ward off all but the largest meteorites, and windows on the sides where fewer meteorites would impact, to let the sunlight in.

But all of this does not necessarily mean that Hoagland’s domes are impossible. The glass might be treated with coatings to block some of the ultraviolet and much of the infrared, reducing thermal buildup but letting in the wavelengths necessary for human vision and plant photosynthesis. Even some of the visible light could be blocked with tinting or mirrored panes, especially near the top of the dome and on the west side. Or, theoretically, shutters of some sort might allow light in for only twelve hours at a time. Solar flares can be seen from the Earth or Moon within about eight minutes, but the deadly charged particles don’t get here for several hours, so people and livestock could simply go underground when an alarm was sounded. Whether the plants and any insect pollinators would be damaged severely or destroyed is an unanswered question. Even if plants could survive such an onslaught, that still leaves the problem of the two week night. Clearly, artificial lighting would be required, which requires a power source. Nuclear energy or something more exotic would do it, or solar power if the colonists had an effective means of storing the energy during the long day for use in the long night. Of course, if they had some effective energy source it is only natural to ask why build exposed surface domes at all? Why not move everything underground and use artificial lighting all the time?

In fact, it is possible that they are there now…beneath the surfaces of our Moon and Mars. Precisely circular openings have been photographed on the surface of Mars, looking like skylights or doors in a roof, and similar structures have now been photographed on the Moon as well. If reinforced, large chambers could be excavated, especially on the Moon with its low gravity, and contain air and water, artificial lighting, and gardens or farms. On Earth, volcanic heat and rock pressure limit the depth of any reasonably safe and habitable excavations, but the Moon has low gravity and less internal heat, so large rooms could be excavated at least as far down as six to eight miles. If the entire crust was honeycombed, the pressure of overlying rock layers would be reduced, and even greater depths would be practical.

Of course, all of this is mere speculation. Hoagland may be dead wrong about his immense domes, and there may be no one living inside the Moon or Mars. But the evidence that someone was there in the past is very convincing, and UFOs have been reported by Apollo astronauts near the Moon. Our own Solar System is looking ever more mysterious and exciting.[!gad]A number of writers, myself included, have detailed the circumstantial…but extensive…evidence of past civilizations on our Moon and on Mars, and probably elsewhere in our Solar System. Given that the Moon seems never to have had much of an atmosphere, its inhabitants presumably came from elsewhere, and the simplest and most likely explanation is that all the mysterious structures on the Moon and on Mars were built by the same space-faring race, and that they likely originated on Mars, or, quite possibly, here on Earth in the remote past. And, just because many of the structures appear to be ruins, we shouldn’t assume that the builders have all died or departed. They may very well still be there; after all, we have numerous ruined structures here on Earth, and we’re still here. In fact, at least some UFOs may originate from Mars and from our Moon.

No one has been more outspoken regarding the evidence for civilizations in our own Solar System than Richard Hoagland. In books like The Monuments of Mars and Dark Mission, he has made his case for this and also proposed an alternative theory of physics. He is not the primary architect of this theory, but he is its chief popularizer.

In Dark Mission he suggests that the ancient builders seem to have constructed enormous domes covering and enclosing vast areas of the Lunar surface, probably as habitats for themselves. There would have been air and water inside, and perhaps gardens or farms, perhaps an entire eco system. He describes a very artificial-looking structure known as the “Shard” in the Sinus Medii region of the Moon, near the crater Flammarion, a mile and a half tall structure which looks transparent or translucent, which he suggests may be a remnant of a dome, now largely destroyed by eons of meteor bombardment. Near the Shard is the “Tower/Cube,” a cubical structure over a mile across, atop a tower some seven miles tall; this structure also appears to be transparent or translucent, and Hoagland suggests that both it and the Shard are remnants of a larger dome. He points out that Surveyor Six photographed what looks like atmospheric refraction near the Lunar horizon, which he interprets as sunlight shining through the remnants of yet another dome. Apollo Ten photographed what looked like a huge city on the Moon, in the Ukert region, composed of rectilinear structures (such structures are also found in several locations on Mars and on Mars’ moon, Phobos). The Lunar city appears to be blurred and distorted, as though seen through glass. Hoagland describes the “Castle,” a huge structure somehow suspended about nine miles above the Lunar surface between the Triesnecker Crater and the Hygenus Rille, and believes that he can barely make out a cable holding it up (presumably anchored to some structures not clearly visible). Hoagland mentions other apparent domes, or the remnants of domes, across the Mare Crisium area, and the Russian Zond Three photograph of a twenty mile high tower in Oceanus Procellarum. He points out that Apollo Twelve astronaut Alan Bean said that space seen from the Lunar surface was black, but shiny…as if (Hoagland suggests) he was looking through glass. Also, Earth photographed near the Lunar horizon looked distorted, as though seen through refracting glass. Hoagland includes many of the photographs in his book, and, whether you agree or disagree with his dome hypothesis, the evidence is compelling that something very, very strange is present on our Moon.

At first glance, towers seven miles tall might seem impossible, or domes twenty or thirty miles or more across. But, if we wanted to spend the money, we could build skyscrapers up to two miles high here on Earth with pretty much our present technology. On the Moon, with no wind and with just over one sixth Earth’s gravity, a seven mile tower would be no problem. As for the domes, Hoagland never claimed that they would be vast, unsupported shells. Here on Earth we have made domes with no internal support up to 275 meters across; much larger ones could be made in the Moon’s low gravity, and, given that there is practically no atmosphere on the Moon, they would also be supported by the pressure of the air inside. With internal supports they could, of course, be vastly larger. But there are other problems with Hoagland’s hypothesis. The Moon is tide locked to the Earth so that it rotates on its axis in just about twenty eight days, the same time it takes to orbit the Earth. That is why only one side of the Moon can ever be seen from Earth. This means that in most places on the Moon, there is daylight for about two weeks, followed by an equally long night. During the day there is dangerous thermal buildup…Lunar rocks get hotter during the day than the boiling point of water is on Earth, up to about 123 degrees centigrade, and at night temperatures are far, far below zero, as low as 181 degrees centigrade below, and even colder (233 below) in the South Polar Basin. In addition, during the two week night most plants in the dome would die from lack of sunlight. And on the Moon there is a very real risk of meteor strikes; with practically no atmosphere even small micrometeorites can reach the surface and do damage. In addition, Solar flares periodically hit the Lunar surface with deadly radiation. So, if we really wanted to establish a Lunar colony, where would we build it, and how?

Near the poles, we have discovered evidence of substantial amounts of water, perhaps in the form of permafrost within the Lunar soil, and there is increasing evidence that there may be substantial amounts of water all over the Moon, below the surface. In a polar location the Sun would be very low in the sky but would be visible almost all the time, save during Lunar eclipses, providing a source of energy and allowing plants to grow under a glass dome. A domed structure could be built in a crater, shielded from direct sunlight and from the deadly solar flares, and mirrors erected high on or above the crater rim could be adjusted to provide, say, twelve hours of light alternating with twelve hours of darkness. Or, rather than a glass dome, we might build structures with thick roofs to ward off all but the largest meteorites, and windows on the sides where fewer meteorites would impact, to let the sunlight in.

But all of this does not necessarily mean that Hoagland’s domes are impossible. The glass might be treated with coatings to block some of the ultraviolet and much of the infrared, reducing thermal buildup but letting in the wavelengths necessary for human vision and plant photosynthesis. Even some of the visible light could be blocked with tinting or mirrored panes, especially near the top of the dome and on the west side. Or, theoretically, shutters of some sort might allow light in for only twelve hours at a time. Solar flares can be seen from the Earth or Moon within about eight minutes, but the deadly charged particles don’t get here for several hours, so people and livestock could simply go underground when an alarm was sounded. Whether the plants and any insect pollinators would be damaged severely or destroyed is an unanswered question. Even if plants could survive such an onslaught, that still leaves the problem of the two week night. Clearly, artificial lighting would be required, which requires a power source. Nuclear energy or something more exotic would do it, or solar power if the colonists had an effective means of storing the energy during the long day for use in the long night. Of course, if they had some effective energy source it is only natural to ask why build exposed surface domes at all? Why not move everything underground and use artificial lighting all the time?

In fact, it is possible that they are there now…beneath the surfaces of our Moon and Mars. Precisely circular openings have been photographed on the surface of Mars, looking like skylights or doors in a roof, and similar structures have now been photographed on the Moon as well. If reinforced, large chambers could be excavated, especially on the Moon with its low gravity, and contain air and water, artificial lighting, and gardens or farms. On Earth, volcanic heat and rock pressure limit the depth of any reasonably safe and habitable excavations, but the Moon has low gravity and less internal heat, so large rooms could be excavated at least as far down as six to eight miles. If the entire crust was honeycombed, the pressure of overlying rock layers would be reduced, and even greater depths would be practical.

Of course, all of this is mere speculation. Hoagland may be dead wrong about his immense domes, and there may be no one living inside the Moon or Mars. But the evidence that someone was there in the past is very convincing, and UFOs have been reported by Apollo astronauts near the Moon. Our own Solar System is looking ever more mysterious and exciting. Comments (22)

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