Truth Sieve

The Apollo 13 Moon mission, launched April 11, 1970, was to be the third landing of Americans on the Moon.  The mission, however, was a “successful failure” due to an in-flight electrical short and explosion that crippled the ship and put the lives of James A. Lovell, John L. “Jack” Swigert, and Fred W. Haise in jeopardy.

The Apollo missions were carefully coordinated to prevent astronauts or the new television media from inadvertently observing alien activity on and around Earth.  However, just a few hours after Apollo 13 began its lunar transfer it was determined that an alien spacecraft was on the surface near the proposed landing site of Fra Mauro highlands.  The risk of disclosure was determined to be too great.  An encrypted signal was layered onto normal communications with the crew that would activate a small, deliberate defect in the construction of the service module to cause an explosion to damage the craft.  The intent was to focus the attention of NASA, the crew, the media, and the public on the “problem” with the spaceship.

The fact that the system was activated on the service module after the spacecraft was well into its lunar transfer was convenient.  There would be no evidence because the service module would not be returned to Earth.  The Apollo 1 disaster taught NASA a substantial amount about documentation of the spacecraft so that they could affect good guidance to the crew so they could return to Earth alive.  It also taught others, those aware of aliens and the need to keep that knowledge secret, to be more skilled in creating the tools that would allow a coverup to be created at a moment’s notice.

The story of what is perceived to be one of America’s finest moments in space flight has been immortalized in the film Apollo 13.  The film serves to ingrain into the public conscious the cover-story of the “accident,” the “heroism” of the crew, and the skill and teamwork of NASA such that there is little questioning of what actually happened.