Monday, March 21, 2011

Fear the moon, Hollywood tells us

Last Saturday's "super moon" had stargazers agape and caused widespread speculation that the moon's unusually close proximity to Earth might wreak havoc on our planet by precipitating destructive geological and tidal activty.

Of course, humanity's fascination with the mysteries of our celestial neighbour is as old as humanity itself, so it was only natural that as we strode into the age of mechanical reproduction the moon assumed the leading role in cinema's very first science fiction film. Georges Méliès' 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon depicted a group of astronomers journeying to the moon only to find it populated by hostile insectoid aliens known as "Selenites."

The moon has been subject to the silver screen treatment many times since Méliès' pioneering cinematic lunar excursion, but, for obvious scientific reasons, few films besides Méliès' have ever connected the moon with the idea of extraterrestrial life. Over the next 18 months, however, no less than three films will do just that: Apollo 18 (April 2011), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (July 2011), and Dark Moon (Sept. 2012), and it is notable that all three of these films will be tapping directly into real-life debates among UFO researchers surrounding the idea of a 'black ops' space programme.

Is there more to NASA - and to our moon - than meets the eye? Hollywood certainly thinks it's a cool concept, but will its upcoming movies along these lines serve to open minds to the not entirely far-fetched idea of a secret space programme, or to push the notion further into the realms of public fantasy as an implausible cinematic fiction?

For information relating to alleged moon anomalies and secret NASA activities, see the testimonies of Disclosure Project witnesses Donna Hare and Karl Wolf, as well as that of the now legally imperilled computer "hacker" Gary McKinnon.

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