“The habitability of the Moon has become a favorite and boring part of ufological folklore. For now, science is trying not to notice the problem at all. The reason for this is by no means scientific argumentation, but the social psychology of scientists: fear of appearing odious among colleagues, difficulties in funding pioneer research, the habit of looking at the Moon as a field of action of only elemental forces, etc.
It is unlikely that this approach contributes to the success of searches for extraterrestrial civilizations. Perhaps something important is being missed. Moreover, there is a lot of information about mysterious phenomena on the moon, both in the deep past and in the present. It's time to figure it all out. Humanity is preparing for the global exploration of the Moon. And what awaits us there?"
A. V. Arkhipov (Kharkiv astronomer, ufologist)
"Five people swore under oath that on June 18, 1178, they saw" the upper horn of the young moon split in two. " A flaming torch suddenly jumped out from the middle of this rift, spraying fire, hot coals and sparks in all directions over a long distance."
Gervasius of Canterbury. Chronicle
Since the invention of the telescope by Galileo Galilei, our night star has become the main object of astronomical observations. It took a lot of work for the greatest scientist to convince the "powerful of this world" to look through the telescope directed to the moon.
Cover of the magazine with a fantastic story about the Selenites, the inhabitants of the Moon (early 20th century)
Promotional video:
At the time, it was taken for granted that our natural satellite was inhabited by the Selenite civilization with its flora and fauna. Therefore, Galileo humorously wrote that the chief of the palace guards of the Duke of Sforza saw fortresses instead of circuses and rocks, and the cardinal saw magnificent cathedrals.
Over the past centuries, astronomers have become completely disillusioned with lunar life, but they have found many anomalies, which have been cataloged as "short-term lunar phenomena" (CLA). Here you can find “changes in appearance, color, clarity and brightness of relief details”, “flashes, appearance and disappearance of dark spots”, as well as all kinds of NCOs (Unidentified Space Objects) moving above the surface.
Similar anomalies were observed in 1715, when the Frenchman E. Louville and the Englishman E. Halley noticed strange flares during a lunar eclipse. Then, in 1738, German astronomers saw a "lightning" object, and in the fall of 1785, "sparks" flashed several times at the edge of the lunar disk.
Therefore, it is not surprising that in the summer of 1822, professor of astronomy at the University of Munich, Franz Paul von Gruythuisen (1774-1852), reported the discovery of the ruins of a "city" near the Schreter crater. This lunar formation resembled a fragment of a spider's web, including low, straight shafts, diverging at an angle of 45 degrees and connected by bridges. At the end of the network are the "ruins of the citadel".
"City of Gruytuisen". Early drawing and modern photography
According to various estimates, the total area of the “city of Gruytuisen” was about 15 hectares. Gruytuisen's contemporary V. Belshe wrote in his book On the Secrets of Nature:
“This discovery caused a great sensation. Even in purely literary works of the time, you can find descriptions of this network and stories of the excitement that this discovery caused in the minds of imagination. They thought that now traces of the lunar inhabitants were found and that they were either huge, extremely skillful fortifications, or gigantic, mathematically correct letters, through which the inhabitants of the moon wanted to attract our attention."
Lunar artifact of Gruytuisen
After Gruytuisen discovered his "lunar city", a heated debate arose between astronomers over the nature of this unusual surface formation. Almost immediately, the selenologists split into two groups. Most of them defended the naturalness of this lunar phenomenon, and the few followers of Gruytuisen - artificiality.
Almost two centuries have passed, but the discussion does not subside, including in our country. Aleksey Viktorovich Arkhipov, an enthusiast of "non-traditional selenology", took over from the founder of Russian ufology Felix Yurievich Siegel.
“But the most significant success in revealing the secrets of lunar life was achieved by the professor of astronomy at the University of Munich, F. P. von Gruytuisen. In the first quarter of the 19th century, he published a series of articles in which he announced the discovery of roads and fortresses on the moon. The two light stripes extending from the double Messier crater were, in his opinion, transport arteries; once he even discerned movement there. And his most famous find is the "city" discovered on July 12, 1822, located near the Schroeter crater (an interesting coincidence!).
The formation resembles a fragment of a spider web: low straight shafts, diverging at angles of 45 °, are connected in pairs by a symmetrical lattice of transverse shafts. At one end of the network is something that reminded the observer of a citadel. The "city" stretches for about 37 km, but it is noticeable only when the sun is very low (above the lunar horizon)."
A. V. Arkhipov from the book "In the footsteps of the Selenites".
Their opponents are very careful in their conclusions and rightly point to the great importance of the observation time. For example, within a day after the first quarter of the moon, you can actually distinguish something resembling cyclopean ruins between the craters of Eratosthenes and Schreter.
In this case, it is enough to wait a few days, and with a slightly changed angle of illumination, two radial straight shafts will become visible, extending from the unusual lava-flooded Schreter crater. Together with five other parallel lines, these ramparts extend from the hills and form the "city grid".
In the midst of a lunar day, when the Sun is at its maximum height above the horizon, a mysterious chain of pairwise light spots becomes noticeable, limiting a dark curved stripe on both sides. From the west and east of the "city" there are strange triangular "fields" covered with faint stripes.
Despite the unusual structure of the “city ruins” and its environs, professional selenologists are dominated by the point of view that these lunar relief formations are of natural origin. A similar pattern of the terrain could well have arisen during the movement and cooling of lunar lava flows among a complex multi-level relief.
Hilly obstacles could play a decisive role here, causing several lava waves diverging at an angle to each other. Almost the same pattern can be seen on the surface of a flowing liquid, for example, a stream.
The “City of Gruytuisen” is located on the outskirts of the “Znoya Bay”, from which a lava flow once flowed, judging by the location of the ridges of frozen waves. If we assume that the ridges of the “city” ramparts were formed as a result of the movement of lava flows, then the structure of the location of the ramparts, which seems to be geometrically correct, becomes generally understandable.
The heat of passion around the "lunar city" led to the creation of various volumetric laboratory models using wax and paraffin, simulating lava melt. On the exact model of the lunar surface, streams of wax and paraffin mixtures were "launched", and then the frozen relief was studied. Such modeling made it possible to understand how lava flowing around natural obstacles could form an unusual landscape of the "lunar city", including radial rays extending from the hill, and the bridges between them.
Of course, neither direct observations nor modeling could convince ufologists of the natural nature of the "ruins of the city of Gruytuisen". Perhaps the final point in this century-old history will be put by another lunar mission aimed at the area of an amazing phenomenon resembling the ruins of artificial structures.
Oleg Feigin, article from the book "The Secret War in Space"