There have been speculations about past or even current extraterrestrial activity on the Moon for many years. The so-called »moon blinks« or »lunar transient phenomena« mostly will originate in natural volcanic processes or meteorite impacts. However, there seems to be a connection between the frequency of these »blinks« and earthly space missions, namely the Apollo missions of 1968-1972 [1].

Beyond that, various authors have maintained to recognize monuments or other indications of extraterrestrial activity on images of the lunar probes or the manned missions to the Moon. Most of these structures seem to be truely natural, others are only products of wishful thinking. However, among them are also some examples [2,3] which should be considered more closely during future missions.

Recently (on an Apollo 16 image of the Lobachevsky crater), I discovered two mysterious objects which cannot be explained simply as a »trick of light and shadow«, natural hills or photo artifacts. The image in question can be found on the official NASA collection web site of the Apollo missions and can be viewed at

The image covers a part of the Lobachevsky crater. The crater has a diameter of roughly 100 kilometers (~ 60 miles) and is located on the lunar farside (at 12°n / 117° e). On the image a fraction of the rim, a fraction of the crater floor and the lunar highlands beyond Lobachevsky can be seen.

Approximately at the center of the image, right in the middle of the crater rim, a prominent and surprisingly clear triangular structure attracts attention. The object is erected high above the surface and throws a shadow to the right side (I do not know if this is east, since there is no orientation given). This excludes a simple »trick of light and shadow« just as a photo artifact. The object is real. Since the whole crater is of 60 miles in diameter you can roughly evaluate the size of the structure. It must be erected several hundred if not nearly thousand meters above the surface. Additionally, it seems to be flat in shape (unlike a classic pyramide) and very smooth.

Which possibilities of origin can be taken into account?

1. It is a giant natural boulder and part of the Lobachevsky crater rim. This is unlikely because all boulders of this dimension would be fractured, shattered and destroyed during the Lobachevsky impact. Nothing like this could have »survived«.
2. It is part of the small crater behind it. This is unlikely because this crater is too small to produce such giant impact boulders.
3. It is ejecta of an other impact crater far away. This is unlikely because according to its dimension it would have caused a further (secondary) crater as we know them from many examples on the Moon. Also, it would have totaly destroyed during the impact.
4. It is a volcanic dome-like knoll, already consolidated in the Moon's crust and later pressed up from the underground above the surface (we know some examples from terrestrial volcanology).
This is also unlikely because of the following reasons:
(1) we never found something similar on the Moon until now
(2) there are no additional indications of volcanic activity around the Lobachevsky crater area.
(3) it would be very unlikely that such activity would appear inside the crater rim, more likely on the crater floor (like in the Maria basins or big craters, e.g. Tsiolkowsky, also on the lunar farside)
(4) no volcanic activity would produce a triangular shaped flat object like this.

Other natural explanations do not exist - as far as I know. Admittedly, you can neither exclude an »exotic« natural origin nor that a natural explanation will be found some day. By now, I cannot imagine it.

So - what can »it« be? I do not maintain that we look onto a real ETA (extraterrestrial artifact) here, but I cannot dismiss this possibility. Additionally, only some miles to the south-east direction (if north is on top of the image) a further unusual object can be observed. It seems to be cylindrical and is conspicious because of its extraordinary white color and the »sharpness« of its shape. The probability that two unusual but natural objects are positioned so close together seems to be very low.

What we have to do is to analyse this image with all the possibilities we provide. If this will show us that there exists a real chance for ETAs and we still can exclude all »natural hypotheses« then it is very likely that we have first real evidence for an extraterrestrial artifact on the Moon. Everybody can imagine what this will mean for all of us.

Literature: [2] Arkhipov, A. (1997): Search for ruin-like patterns on the Moon. SELENOLOGY, 15/4, 18-20.
[3] Carlotto, M. (1997): On-Going investigation of lunar anomalies. http://www.psrw.com/~markc/Other/moon/moon/html#CT

The description given by NASA in the internet is misleading. Guyot is the big crater in the background (with the smaller crater left handed inside), northeast of Lobachevsky.

I have to announce that another researcher already had discovered, analysed and published the Lobashewsky mysteries :Steve Wingate. He published his results on his Lunarscan Homepage which you will find at:

Wingate does not think that the big triangular structure is real. In fact in the Clementine photos of Lobachevsky it does not appear. However, I think we should have a very close look at all these images before saying YES or NO.

On the other hand, Wingate found some additional interesting anomalies. So the question remains open...?

DR. JOHANNES FIEBAG To email DR. JOHANNES FIEBAG then send it to Articles and mark it Dr. Johannes Fiebag in the subject area.