America's moon bomb plans

News has just emerged of a top secret plan developed by the US Air Force to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon at the height of the cold war.

Speaking to the British newspaper The Observer, Dr Leonard Reiffel, now 73, finally revealed details of the project he fronted in the late Fifties at the military-backed Armour Research Foundation.

Almost unbelievably, it was undertaken as a public relations project! The USAF wanted a mushroom cloud so big that it would be clearly visible from Earth. The US was, at that time, running second in the space race. The famous scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan was hired by Reiffel to work on the top-secret Project A119 entitled 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights'. His job was to mathematically model the expansion of an exploding cloud of dust in space near the moon–in other words to work out what it would take for the explosion to be seen with naked eye. The bomb would have been at least as large as that used on Hiroshima and could have been delivered to an accuracy of two miles by an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Top-secret the project may have been, but it did not escape the notice of the intelligences communicating through our Master at that time. The warning came, on August 16th 1958, from Mars Sector 6–'Tread Carefully Ye Men'.

According to our agents, the United States of America intend–quite shortly–to launch a rocket towards Luna. This is to be followed soon afterwards by an attempt which will be made by Russia. In neither case has our sanction been sought.

We forgive you this–for you are children. But I would remind you, Sirs, that when you place a vehicle in that position you call free-fall [i.e. outside the gravitational field of Earth], responsibility towards all life and towards the Cosmic Whole, is increased three million times.

To ignore this warning will not alter the fact! You have been told!

If you try at any time to bombard the Moon with an explosive weapon you must reap the inevitable–listen to that, Terra!–inevitable consequences.

The United States of America profess belief in the existence–and even Deity–of Jesus.

... If you go into space you must behave yourselves. If you do not do so, divine justice is liable to strike like lightning.

... I would advise you before you attempt to throw an atomic missile at your Moon, to think well upon the teachings of the master you say you follow. He stated that 'He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword'.

Throw a bomb into the serene face of Luna, Terra, and you will die! In the selfsame way Karma will extract balance. This is the Law, whether you like it or not! Whether you believe it or not!

For ignorance in this respect can no longer be your glib excuse.

FOR–I HAVE SPOKEN!

This transmission was an emergency transmission to the space scientists of Terra.

This warning was reiterated in December 1958 by Mars Sector Six in the transmission The Council's Decision. On 13th September 1959 Russia tried to allow a rocket to impact on the Moon. According to Mars Sector 8 twelve days later the rocket was destroyed a short distance from the lunar surface, though debris fell on the surface. 'The result of this attempted bombardment of the Moon, by Karmic Law, must be earthquakes throughout Terra', he said–a prophecy later proved true.

Reiffel produced eight reports between May 1958 and January 1959 on the feasibility of the plan. 'Fortunately', he says, '...a one or two horse race to detonate a nuclear explosion never occurred...thankfully the thinking changed. I am horrified that such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered.'

Mars Sector 6 made clear that sending his transmission into the mental realms of Earth meant that he had spoken to all space scientists just as plainly as if they had physically heard him–if not even more plainly. And just as his great message You Are Responsible had given dramatic impetus to the anti-nuclear movement, so this too seems to have been heeded, and the scheme shelved.

The eight reports were destroyed in 1987.