CONSPIRACY: Apollo 20

Officially, NASA's Apollo program ended in 1972 with Apollo 17. But in 2007, a leaked video showed the Apollo missions may have continued in secret after all. And their mission wasn't just to put more people on the lunar surface – it was to study ancient alien ruins they had found on the far side of the moon.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Do you remember the very first conspiracy theory you ever heard? Because I do. It was about the moon landing. That the whole thing was made up, faked in a Hollywood studio in an effort to win the space race. To be honest, though, it's not one I've ever really bought into. Because I sort of think the opposite is true. I think we've maybe been to the moon more times than NASA's actually let on. The US government claims that they stopped sending people to the moon in 1972 after Apollo 17 because of money and what ultimately seemed like a lack of interest. But unofficially, that might not be the case.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  After hours of rabbit holes, I stumbled upon a new sort of moon conspiracy. One that says NASA didn't end with Apollo 17. It actually went all the way up to Apollo 20. And it consisted of a little bit more than just sticking a flag in the moon dust and staking out territory.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Allegedly, Apollo 20 discovered something really juicy up there. Evidence of an advanced alien civilization equipped with video footage and everything.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is So Supernatural.

• 1:41Yvette Gentile?

  Welcome back, y'all. I'm Yvette Gentile.

• 1:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  And I'm Rasha Pecoraro. And today's topic is literally going to take us out of this world. Yvette and I have always been fascinated by all things outer space and especially the moon. We even just watched the 2024 film Fly Me to the Moon and it made me believe the landing of Apollo 11 could have actually been staged for all of the world to see. Or it could have actually been real. Either way, it's a fascinating movie and it makes you rethink everything you think you know about the moon landing.

• 2:15Yvette Gentile?

  It just leaves your mind wondering back and forth, did it happen? Did it not happen? There are such brilliant human beings out there that work for NASA that I absolutely believe that it did happen. But then, there's that other side, right? The what if? And part of what really fueled these theories on a major scale happened in 2007, when a video surfaced online that made people question everything they thought they knew about moon landings. It suggested that there were more Apollo missions than the US government had let on, and that Apollo astronauts had found proof of alien life on the moon.

• 2:59Rasha Pecoraro?

  While some skeptics said it was a hoax, others thought the video was part of an elaborate scheme carried out by the US government. One that top-ranking officials found so serious, they recently addressed it in front of Congress.

• 3:21Speaker 03

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• 3:55Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, Rasha, I can't believe I've never asked you this before, but would you go to space if you could?

• 4:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  Hundred percent yes, absolutely.

• 4:04Yvette Gentile?

  Damn, that was a quick answer. I was not expecting that.

• 4:10Rasha Pecoraro?

  What about you? Would you?

• 4:12Yvette Gentile?

  You know, probably not now. I mean, when I think about it, I'm a total island girl, so you know that I'd rather be at the beach in the sunshine by the water. So for me to go to the moon, I would have to really build up my courage, and I would have to meet all the crew who would be taking me up there to know that I was secure and safe. But I have to say, I've always been super curious about the dark side of the moon. Because remember, we only ever see one side of the moon since it's tightly locked to our planet.

• 4:50Rasha Pecoraro?

  I've always been so curious about this too. It's fascinating that we know so little about the far side of the moon, especially with how many times we've been up there.

• 5:00Yvette Gentile?

  I felt the same exact way until I did the research for this episode. Turns out NASA and the US government may actually know a lot more about the moon than they've let on. Let's just start from the top. In 1961, the Kennedy administration launched the Apollo project. Pun intended. It ran until 1972 and included 15 missions, six of which were moon landings.

• 5:29Rasha Pecoraro?

  NASA's main goal on paper was to send man to the moon to study its formation, learn about the history of our solar system, and better understand our place within it.

• 5:40Yvette Gentile?

  But in reality, it was just as much about beating other global powers and getting to it first, mainly the Soviets, in what was known as the Great Space Race.

• 5:51Rasha Pecoraro?

  And who doesn't like a little healthy competition? But at the same time, NASA began another sub-project called the Lunar Orbiter Program as sort of a recon mission. And in 1963, NASA sent one of these unmanned lunar orbiters to circle the moon, to uncover where Apollo astronauts could safely land and really understand what's up there before we send people. The orbiter did its job. It got a bunch of high-res photos of the near side of the moon and scouted out some good places to land, but it also snapped some shots of the far side of the moon. Only, the images weren't as clear, which suggested transmissions and communication

• 6:34Rasha Pecoraro?

  on the far side of the moon would be pretty poor, AKA, not the best place to send Apollo astronauts on future trips.

• 6:43Yvette Gentile?

  Now, the first Apollo mission in 1967 was supposed to be manned, but unfortunately, it ended in tragedy when a ground test killed the crew. After canceling Apollo 2 and 3, the next few missions, Apollo 4 through 6, were unmanned tests.

• 7:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  However, Apollo 7, which took off in 1968, was manned. After orbiting the Earth for 10 days, the mission proved America could safely send man into space, and now, maybe even step foot onto the moon's surface.

• 7:18Yvette Gentile?

  And that day came when Apollo 11 took off in 1969. On July 16th, the now historic trio, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin, changed the course of history forever when they landed safely on the moon. It also meant that the US had finally beaten the Soviet Union in the Great Space Race. Apollo 12 through 16 were also successful, with the exception of 13 unfortunately. That one took off in 1970, and it was nearly fatal. An oxygen tank exploded, and the crew had to make an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean.

• 8:00Yvette Gentile?

  Still, the Apollo project carried on, but over time, the public started to lose interest. The general vibe was that going to the moon was kind of old news, which meant NASA couldn't get as much funding for their projects.

• 8:15Rasha Pecoraro?

  They continued until 1972, when Apollo 17 took flight. This one didn't generate as much buzz as 11 or 13, but it was pretty cool. It was the first mission to have a geologist as part of the crew, and they spent more time on the moon than anyone had before. But, no one's been back to the moon since. Officially, the Apollo program came to an end in 1972, which was kind of a shame because Apollo 18 through 20 would have looked a lot like 17, except they would have had the technology to travel even further and collect even more interesting data.

• 8:53Yvette Gentile?

  But what many people don't know is, while the US officially ended the Apollo program, they did drop a remix three years later in 1975. That's when the US teamed up with an old nemesis, the Soviet Union, for a joint mission to space. Even though the two countries were basically mortal enemies, they knew that forming this kind of partnership meant safer and more advanced space travel for everyone.

• 9:20Yvette Gentile?

  It was called the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. American astronauts flew into space on an Apollo spaceship, and there they docked to the Russian spacecraft known as the Soyuz. The goal wasn't to land on the moon, though. It was to practice what would happen in the event a rescue was needed. Basically, a roadside assistance, but in space. And it was a huge success.

• 9:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  At the same time, though, some people thought this partnership between the US and the Soviets seemed a little fishy. Conspiracy theorists started to wonder, why would these rival nations in the midst of a Cold War be putting their differences aside for a hypothetical rescue situation? What if it was a cover-up or something? What if the stakes were a lot higher and they just didn't want the rest of the world to know? And what if the Apollo missions weren't over after all?

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• 10:51Yvette Gentile?

  In 2007, a YouTube user named RetiredAFB posted a video to his channel, one that flipped the story of the famous Apollo program completely on its head. There was no narration or voiceover, but there was a ton of found footage and some captions to explain what was being shown. A top-secret mission to space. As the video started to generate buzz over the next few days, RetiredAFB shared even more details in the comments. Basically, the caption said that this all started back in 1971, a year before the Apollo project officially ended

• 11:33Yvette Gentile?

  and four years before the Apollo Soyuz joint mission. That's when the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which is basically their version of NASA, contacted President Nixon. Allegedly, they wanted to team up on a mission, but this one would be different than all the rest because they wanted to bring astronauts to the far side of the moon. And it wasn't just for the heck of it. The Soviets said they had images of something spectacular they wanted to check out: a crashed spaceship and ancient alien ruins on the far side of the moon. According to RetiredAFB, the ruins were 1.5 billion years old,

• 12:14Yvette Gentile?

  and the Soviets wanted to know if what they were seeing in the photographs was accurate. Only, the Soviets didn't have the technology to visit the site yet, but the US did.

• 12:27Yvette Gentile?

  Retired AFB said, "Once the American government saw the photos, they were sold on the mission." And that's what kicked off the top-secret joint mission known as Apollo 20. A crew of at least three, two Americans and one Soviet, would venture to the dark side of the moon and investigate what the Soviets had captured on film. Now, I don't know why the story skips over Apollo 18 and 19. Maybe Retired AFB thought those missions took off as well? Maybe they were canceled? Anywho, that's not as important. But Retired AFB did explain how the Apollo Soyuz mission fit into the equation. Basically, they said it was nothing more than a distraction.

• 13:11Yvette Gentile?

  Since Apollo 20 took off around the same time, they were able to hide the mission behind the publicity of the Apollo Soyuz rescue tests.

• 13:20Rasha Pecoraro?

  Retired AFB even had names and dates of people on the Apollo 20 mission. They said, "In 1976, American astronauts William Rutledge and Leona Snyder joined Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov onboard the ship." Now, Leonov's name made sense to some people because he was an officially-known cosmonaut and he actually commanded the Soviet crew during the Apollo Soyuz mission. But Rutledge and Snyder? Well, their identities were more of a mystery, but we'll dive into that more later.

• 13:55Yvette Gentile?

  For now, let's talk about the actual footage in the video Retired AFB posted. The original video is basically impossible to find nowadays. Everything we know comes from screenshots and short clips that other people have posted. But if you were to look at the footage, here's what you'd see. Everything is in full color, although I will say some of it's pretty grainy. The video opens with a shot from inside an Apollo spacecraft while it's in-flight, headed towards the moon. The camera focuses on an orange porthole that looks out into space.

• 14:35Yvette Gentile?

  Then it cuts to a shot of the control panel. The camera pans over all kinds of dials and buttons. To a non-astronaut like me, it looks pretty darn real. Afterwards, the camera pans up to show two things taped to the console above the control panel. One is a combination of the American and the Soviet flags. It's no bigger than a postcard. The other is a mission patch, you know, like the kind you iron onto a jacket. It says Apollo 20 and actually has the names Rutledge, Snyder, and Leonov. After that, the camera cuts into another shot. It seems to be looking out of the porthole.

• 15:17Yvette Gentile?

  You can clearly see the surface of the moon as the Apollo 20 spacecraft comes in for a landing. At first, you see craters from a bird's eye view, but then the camera cuts to an image of what looks like a jetliner sticking out of the ground below. It's long, gray, and has lines and grooves carved all over it. Apparently, this is the alien spaceship the Soviets were looking for.

• 15:45Yvette Gentile?

  But then the video cuts again suddenly, this time to the inside of what appears to be the alien spaceship. Then the camera points at something completely jaw-dropping. It's the body of a female alien.

• 16:02Yvette Gentile?

  Retired AFB assumes she died in the crash and says the crew was amazed that her body was perfectly preserved. The alien looks remarkably human. The main difference is that her facial features are really big. Her skin and hair are brown, and her entire body is covered in a shiny substance. Retired AFB said it was a protective layer this alien race was known to wear during space travel. But there are also four metal tubes connecting the alien's eyes to her mouth. There's not a lot of explanation for this, but most people seem to think the tubes were there to help her breathe on the moon's surface.

• 16:43Rasha Pecoraro?

  When the video cuts again, you see the female alien back in the Apollo spacecraft. Presumably, the plan is to bring her back to Earth with them.

• 16:53Yvette Gentile?

  Unsurprisingly, people freaked out when the Apollo 20 video was first released.

• 16:58Rasha Pecoraro?

  I have to say, it is pretty convincing.

• 17:01Yvette Gentile?

  And some thought it was the ultimate proof that humans had made contact with an alien life form, even if that alien wasn't actually alive. People even started calling the body "Alien Mona Lisa" because of how she looked in the footage.

• 17:19Yvette Gentile?

  But there were several lingering questions, like, who was retired AFB? How did they get this footage? And how did they know so much about the Apollo 20 mission?

• 17:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  It wouldn't take long to find out because only days after posting that video, retired AFB took to the comments again, this time to reveal their identity once and for all. And it was a pretty shocking twist to the story. This wasn't just some conspiracy theorist. He claimed to be one of the Apollo 20 crew members, William Rutledge himself. Remember when the video was first posted? Retired AFB named the three Apollo 20 crew members: Alexei Leonov, Leona Snyder, and William Rutledge. Well, we know Leonov was one of the Apollo Soyuz cosmonauts, so we can confirm he's a real guy. But we couldn't find any records of a NASA astronaut by the name of Leona Snyder.

• 18:17Yvette Gentile?

  Or William Rutledge. We did, however, find something that made us think: maybe there was someone at NASA by that name. Every year NASA gives out the William Rutledge Lifetime Achievement Award for cost analysis. It's spelt the same way, and it does directly connect someone with that name to NASA. But to be honest, we couldn't find much else about the man the award was named after.

• 18:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  Like us, a lot of people were looking to get to the bottom of this Apollo 20 conspiracy. There were several Freedom of Information Act requests filed by civilians, mostly wondering if the whole thing was true or not. And for good reason. Because after retired AFB claimed to be William Rutledge, a whirlwind of countertheories ensued.

• 19:03Yvette Gentile?

  Bloggers tore the Apollo 20 footage apart. They wanted to prove that the video was a hoax, so they used side-by-side screenshots to show that the Apollo spacecraft in the video was the exact same one used in the Apollo 17 mission. At face value, that's not anything earth-shattering. Because depending on a mission's technological needs, Apollo spacecrafts were used more than once.

• 19:32Rasha Pecoraro?

  But the thing is, Apollo 17 is on display at the Space Center in Houston. And if you look closely at the porthole shown in the Apollo 20 video, you can tell, based on the position of the handle, it's actually wide open, not suitable for floating around in space. Bloggers made similar points about the control panel and the console, which also appeared to be from Apollo 17. As for the mission patch with the crew's names on it, bloggers had an explanation for that, too: Photoshop. Plus, Alexei Leonov was alive until 2019, and he never claimed to take part in Apollo 20. So once these accounts circulated, it seemed like most people were convinced.

• 20:16Rasha Pecoraro?

  The video had to be a hoax. Especially when a French artist named Thierry Speth came forward and sort of doubled down on those claims.

• 20:26Yvette Gentile?

  Thierry admitted that he made the video as a fictional sci-fi film and posted it on YouTube. Turns out, Thierry attended the Art School of the Metz in northeastern France in the 80s. Eventually, he got a job with Boeing making 3D video simulations of airplane crashes. So a video project like this was probably right up his alley. He claimed he used existing NASA photographs of the moon and added the images of alien structures. The base, the spacecraft, I mean, all of it. He even said he created the alien Mona Lisa out of wax, sort of like a Madame Tussaud sculpture.

• 21:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  Theory did an interview in 2017 that was posted on YouTube. It looks like he's in his home studio and he's explaining how he made everything. As he speaks, he's actually holding alien Mona Lisa's head. And it looks exactly like what's shown in the Apollo 20 video. As another part of his project, Theory wrote a sci-fi novel that told the same story the supposed Rutledge gave when the video was first posted. So if people weren't convinced the whole thing was a hoax before, they probably did now.

• 21:39Yvette Gentile?

  And with all that coming to light, you'd think, okay, we can put this topic to bed, right? Like, clearly, this was just one big prank. Nothing to see here. Except, the story doesn't end there. Because after Theory's bet came forward, a journalist made claims that flipped the story on its head again.

• 22:02Yvette Gentile?

  His name was Luca Scantamborlo.

• 22:05Rasha Pecoraro?

  It's hard to trace exactly how Luca entered the chat, because if you search for old comments and message boards now, you run into a bunch of removed webpages. But we did find that even before that video, Luca had his suspicions about the US government. In one interview, he said it was part of the government's legacy and culture to hide the truth about extraterrestrial life from people. Luca dug around for years, particularly regarding the Apollo 20 video. Finally, he formed a theory. He agreed that the Apollo 20 footage was fake, but he thought there really was an Apollo 20 mission.

• 22:46Yvette Gentile?

  We're not clear on all the details of Luca's theory, but we know he thought the photos of the alien base and spacecraft on the far side of the moon, the things that supposedly sparked the Apollo 20 mission, were all real. He was convinced the government had proved something was going on up there. And Luca believed theory may have been hired by the US government to create the Apollo 20 video, post it online, and say it was a hoax. Basically, the goal was to bait and then discredit UFO believers while hiding the truth. Luca went public with this theory, and people in the UFO community ate it up.

• 23:29Yvette Gentile?

  But others started asking one pressing question: Why would the government make a fake video about an Apollo 20 mission if they were trying to hide a real Apollo 20 mission?

• 23:42Rasha Pecoraro?

  It's an excellent question, and Luca was armed and ready with an answer. He referenced a study that was conducted for NASA in the 1960s. It looked at how the discovery of intelligent alien life might change human values, beliefs, and social structures. And according to Luca, it found there was a good chance an all-out panic would ensue if anyone found out aliens existed. Luca believed that the US government's main goal was to prevent this social disorder: hide the truth so you can go to your kid's soccer games on Saturday in peace sort of a thing.

• 24:19Yvette Gentile?

  So we're talking about a good old-fashioned disinformation campaign.

• 24:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  You know it.

• 24:25Yvette Gentile?

  And while some of you who've been following us for a while may know what that is, some of you may not, so it's worth a recap. A government disinformation campaign is when officials spread false information about a topic in order to cover up real information about it. And sometimes they plant false stories and fake evidence, things that muddy the waters so the public can't tell fact from fiction.

• 24:50Rasha Pecoraro?

  And this is what Luca Scantamburlo thought the US government was doing with the Apollo 20 video. He wasn't just pulling this out of nowhere. About 10 years before the Apollo 20 video surfaced, there was another alien video that caught the public by storm. But this one didn't show up online, it aired on national TV.

• 25:12Yvette Gentile?

  One evening in 1995, millions of people across America were unwinding in front of their TVs when something unbelievable appeared on a Fox News special broadcast. It was the footage of an autopsy. The video was fuzzy, but there was no denying it. Doctors weren't operating on a human being. They were examining an alien. For about an hour, viewers witnessed the autopsy in extreme detail. At one point, doctors even removed the alien's intestines. But what really shocked people was that, according to the narrator, this alien's body

• 25:57Yvette Gentile?

  was uncovered from the Roswell crash. Apparently, the US government kept it in 1947, and this footage was taken shortly after. However, just like the Apollo 20 video a decade later, people were quick to debunk the alien autopsy. Then, some filmmakers came forward and they said that they were behind it. They admitted that the alien was fake, and the whole thing was a work of fiction. And just like Luca felt with Apollo 20, many thought the government was behind the whole thing. They believed officials hired filmmakers to make the alien autopsy video, knowing people

• 26:42Yvette Gentile?

  would debunk it. Then, if anything like Roswell ever happened again, it would be harder for people to believe claims about aliens. It's possible that the alien autopsy video influenced Luca's theory on Apollo 20, because the storylines are practically identical. There's footage showing alien life or technology drops. Some people are shook, while other people debunk it. And eventually, someone comes forward to claim they were behind the film. And as a result, people think the government was behind it.

• 27:19Rasha Pecoraro?

  The storylines are very similar, but in a way it makes sense. Because theories about government disinformation campaigns don't stop with these two incidents. Around the same time the Apollo 20 video was posted, a military official came forward to say, "People like Luca Scantamburlo were actually on to something."

• 27:44Speaker 03

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• 28:17Rasha Pecoraro?

  A few years after the Apollo 20 video was released, a journalist named Luca Scantamburlo proposed a theory. He claimed the US government had created the video as part of a highly sophisticated disinformation campaign, all because they didn't want the public to know what they had really found on the far side of the moon. Luca's claims might seem totally outlandish to some people, but the thing is, he wasn't the only one speaking out about this very topic. Someone with direct access to top-secret intel was making similar claims, and it all started in 1965.

• 29:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  That's the year an Air Force sergeant named Carl Wolf was assigned to the Lunar Orbiter Program, that sub-project that did recon for Apollo. While Carl joined the team at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, he worked as a repairman, mainly for the high-tech equipment that processed the orbiter's photographs. One day, he was told that a piece of specialty equipment needed fixing. Then, someone brought him into a lab he'd never been to before. Once inside, he noticed that scientists from all around the world were working on the project. He thought this was really odd, since the lunar orbiter was an American program. So he asked another airman about it. The airman then escorted Carl into a darkroom.

• 29:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  He showed him a series of photographs that had been recently captured by the lunar orbiter. The photo showed an alien base on the far side of the moon. He said the discovery was why NASA had secretly brought in so many scientists. Carl was stunned. He could clearly make out towers and domes in the photographs, and they definitely weren't natural lunar formations. But Carl kept what he saw that day a secret. For months, he expected the photos to break headlines. Then months turned into years. Eventually, Carl realized the US government never planned to share the discovery with the public. So he decided to spill the beans himself.

• 30:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  But he waited until the time was just right.

• 30:30Yvette Gentile?

  Fast forward to 1993. A former doctor named Stephen Greer funded something called "The Disclosure Project." Stephen's goal was to find out what the US government knew about aliens. In 2001, he hosted an event in Washington DC where UFO witnesses came together to share their experiences. Carl Wolf heard about it and he reached out. Next thing you know, he's attending the event.

• 31:01Rasha Pecoraro?

  There, Carl spoke about the photos he saw at Langley. Afterward, a video recording of Carl's speech went viral. The video launched him into ufology fame. He retired from the Air Force and focused on alien and UFO intel for about a decade. During that time, the Apollo 20 video dropped. We don't know if Carl ever commented on the story, but his claims definitely aligned with Lucas Cantiborlo's theory about a government disinformation campaign.

• 31:33Rasha Pecoraro?

  But then, in 2018, just as Carl was getting his story out on a wider scale, he was suddenly killed. Carl was out riding his bike when he was hit by a tractor trailer. But here's why many people think his death wasn't an accident. There was an investigation into his death, but no charges were ever brought against the driver, and police never released the driver's name.

• 31:59Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, so it's not unheard of for authorities to keep that kind of stuff confidential. But in this case, the mystery surrounding Carl's death caused a stir in the UFO community. Carl's claims and Luca's theory had already caused a lot of mistrust in the government. People thought the government had silenced Carl to stop him from sharing what he knew, specifically about alien bases on the moon.

• 32:26Rasha Pecoraro?

  If that's true, the government was in for a rude awakening. Because Carl wasn't the only one who knew about those photographs showing unnatural structures on the moon. According to the documentary "Aliens on the Moon: The Truth", even some civilians have stumbled upon photos of the moon's far side. For a man named Vito Sacchetti, it all started in 1976. That year, a book came out titled "Somebody Else Is on the Moon". The piece argued, surprise, surprise, that Apollo astronauts had been on the far side of the moon and encountered aliens there. And it is said NASA had photos to prove it. Vito wasn't a government or military official. He was a civilian.

• 33:11Rasha Pecoraro?

  But reading that book made him angry. Why was his government keeping secrets about aliens from the public? Vito lived in Houston at the time where NASA's Space Flight Center was located. So he showed up one day and demanded to see the photos. NASA employees refused him access at first, but he didn't give up. After multiple trips, NASA finally gave in. That day, Vito was escorted into a room with dozens of photographs laid out on a table. They all apparently showed the moon's far side. And while it doesn't seem like Vito saw images of actual aliens, he did see what he called machinery and tank tracks.

• 33:53Rasha Pecoraro?

  But you have to wonder, was this another disinformation campaign? Was the government just trying to shut Vito up with a few fake photographs? I mean, it doesn't seem reasonable that they would just say, "Sure, civilian, come take a look at our secrets."

• 34:09Yvette Gentile?

  Thousand percent, and this next story definitely convinces me there's something suspicious going on at NASA. In the early 2000s, a woman named Donna Hare was working as a contractor for NASA. She said she learned that NASA was intentionally editing out photographic evidence of alien technology on the far side of the moon. In fact, Donna said it was an open secret at NASA, something that people talked about when they were off the clock, but never when they were on the job.

• 34:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  Even Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell agrees there's alien life on the far side of the moon. He said that he saw photos showing a tall cylinder on top of a circular base and something that looked like a satellite dish. Based on these photos, Mitchell believed aliens had set up satellite technology on the far side of the moon to spy on Earth. He thinks the cylinder could actually be some sort of alien habitat where they've lived for long periods of time. Here's the thing, though. Most of the photos in the documentary are grainy and black and white. To me, they just sort of look like the moon. Rocks, craters, and bridges, not exactly bases or alien habitats.

• 35:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  On the other hand, I know these are just the photos NASA has released. They tend to keep most of their lunar photos classified.

• 35:37Yvette Gentile?

  That's the thing. For all we know, they have close-ups of this stuff that are a lot clearer than we're seeing in any documentary.

• 35:45Rasha Pecoraro?

  Totally. But I wonder if that will change soon. Because the discussion on alien life on and off the moon is really starting to amp up in a way that's pretty game changing. In 2023, US Congress held a historic hearing to talk about what they've rebranded as UAP, Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon. The new name is an attempt to remove the stigma that's been clouding the UFO discussion practically since Roswell. The point of this hearing was to pull back the curtain on what the government knows about UAP. There's hours of witness testimony from the hearing. And while they don't specifically mention the far side of the moon,

• 36:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  they do talk a lot about alien encounters here on Earth.

• 36:33Yvette Gentile?

  A former member of the Pentagon's UFO Task Force actually said that the government is in possession of extraterrestrial spacecraft, and that he knows exactly where these spacecraft are hidden.

• 36:48Rasha Pecoraro?

  And during that same hearing, a former Air Force intelligence officer claimed the government has recovered, quote, "non-human biologics from UAP crash sites, AKA alien bodies."

• 37:01Yvette Gentile?

  Then, in November 2024, Congress held another hearing. This time, a former meteorologist for the Navy spoke, and he warned that UAPs pose a safety risk for Navy pilots. He also claimed, and here's the real kicker, that some government officials have carried out disinformation campaigns to discredit UAP whistleblowers. Y'all, I mean, this is huge. Because it basically opens the door to say videos like Apollo 20 might not be a hoax, but could actually serve a purpose for the government. And while he didn't go into a lot of detail about what these disinformation campaigns look like,

• 37:45Yvette Gentile?

  he referenced an hours-long meeting that took place a few months before the hearing. He said that during this meeting, senior staffers tried to brainwash him into questioning the validity of his reports.

• 38:00Rasha Pecoraro?

  I think it's a huge deal that former military leaders are finally starting to come forward. I just wish the specifics of these hearings weren't so vague.

• 38:10Yvette Gentile?

  Unfortunately, I think they will continue to be vague until we start having more open discussions about the UAP phenomenon as a whole. Now, could there be alien bases on the far side of the moon? If y'all ask me, the answer is absolutely yes. But you know what, Russia? I think it's gonna be a while until we hear about it in a congressional hearing.

• 38:31Rasha Pecoraro?

  Sadly, I agree. There's still a lot of headway to make, and right now, creating a safe space for pilots and civilians to report UAPs is their primary focus. Removing the stigma also means more transparency when it comes to the government's research on UAPs. And hopefully, it also means an end to these disinformation campaigns that are clearly keeping people from coming forward with important information.

• 39:01Yvette Gentile?

  Okay, Russia. I'm curious, what is the main thing that you'd want to find out from one of these hearings?

• 39:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  Well, since we watched "Fly Me to the Moon," my favorite line from that is when Scarlett Johansson's character asks Woody Harrelson, "Are there aliens out there?" And he says, "What, Yvette?"

• 39:21Yvette Gentile?

  "They walk among us."

• 39:23Rasha Pecoraro?

  So that's what I want to know.

• 39:25Yvette Gentile?

  Yeah, 100%, 100%.

• 39:28Rasha Pecoraro?

  I'm also dying to know if William Rutledge was a real astronaut.

• 39:33Yvette Gentile?

  Leona Snyder, too. But who knows? With the way things are going, maybe we'll even get to hear from them firsthand. If they really do exist.

• 39:44Rasha Pecoraro?

  At the end of the day, I think we just want what most Americans want, right? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of more transparency from our government.

• 39:54Yvette Gentile?

  And maybe a free trip to the moon.

• 40:08Rasha Pecoraro?

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original, produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and our website, so supernatural podcast.com. Join Yvette and me next Friday for an all-new episode. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

• 40:32Speaker 05

  I've been having a hard time trying to explain what Midnight Burger is. How about I let them give it a shot?

• 40:38Speaker 04

  Your podcast is amazing.

• 40:40Speaker 06

  It's such an amazing show altogether. You guys have actively ruined all of their audio dramas for me. You can't get people to understand the humaning that happens in this damn show. Keep doing what you're doing because it's awesome. You might not think it, but you are far more important than you realize. Thank you.

• 40:55Speaker 05

  At the nexus of all things, there is a diner. Look for Midnight Burger on your favorite podcasting app, or just go to reopenat6.com.