Keep Out!: Top Secret Places Governments Don't Want You to Know About

Thus far, all of the top secret locations discussed within the pages of this book can be found right here on Earth — as you would expect! But what about the very controversial issue of super-classified, off-planet facilities? Is it really feasible that our very own Moon, for example, is a secret haven for one or more highly advanced fortified bases of the U.S. government and/or military? Or, incredibly, might it be home to alien installations, the existence of which the official world is determined to keep buried at all costs, for fear of public panic and hysteria? Presently available data and testimony suggests the astonishing answer may very well be the affirmative — to both scenarios.

Hidden Moon Bases

In 1965, Karl Wolfe, an employee of the U.S. Air Force, was assigned to a project at Virginia’s Langley Air Force Base that was linked to NASA’s lunar-orbiter project. On one particularly memorable occasion, while speaking with a fellow airman, Wolfe was told that NASA had discovered something truly astounding while studying photographs of the Moon: a huge installation of unknown origins on the surface of the far side of the Moon. The photographs, Wolfe was informed, displayed clearly delineated buildings and structures that, collectively, were suggestive of a gigantic facility built by forces disturbingly unknown.

Wolfe, quickly realizing he had just been given details of a matter that certainly had major implications for national security, rapidly brought the conversation to a close, even though, by his own admission, it amazed and fascinated him. Many people have concluded that Karl Wolfe’s revelations are a very strong indication that aliens have secretly claimed our Moon as their own, and have begun the first, covert steps toward the colonization of our nearest heavenly neighbor via the construction of a secret base. Outrageous? Certainly! Impossible? Perhaps not. There is, however, a far more down-to-earth explanation for the existence of the strange space-city about which Karl Wolfe was informed.

It so transpires that as far back as the late 1950s the U.S. Army had a secret plan to build an outpost on the Moon: an impressively sized, permanently manned base that would demonstrate decisive military superiority over the former Soviet Union. And guess what: the Army’s goal was to have the initial stages of the program in place by 1965—the very same year that Karl Wolfe was told that NASA had uncovered evidence of some form of intelligently designed installation on the far side of the Moon.

Even though the Army’s operation — code-named Project Horizon—was reportedly canceled due to a lack of (a) adequate technology and (b) sufficient funding to achieve such a task nearly half a century ago, there are those who believe the project may not have been aborted at all, but secretly continued in stealth. In that case, the military may have a super-secret space program about which NASA knows very little, or possibly even nothing at all. Is such a scenario just too incredible to be true? Maybe it isn’t.

On March 20, 1959, Lieutenant General Arthur G. Trudeau, Chief of Research and Development with the U.S. Army, signed off on an extensive document that proposed the establishment (at a cost of approximately $6 billion) of an outpost on the Moon, constructed and controlled by the Army. Thus was born Project Horizon. In the opening pages of the several-hundred-page report, titled “Project Horizon: A U.S. Army Study for the Establishment of a Lunar Military Outpost,” Trudeau wrote, “There is a requirement for a manned military outpost on the Moon. The lunar outpost is required to develop and protect potential United States interests on the Moon; to develop techniques in Moon-based surveillance of the earth and space, in communications relay, and in operations on the surface of the Moon; to serve as a base for exploration of the Moon, for further exploration into space and for military operations on the Moon if required; and to support scientific investigations on the Moon.”[42]

The plan was manifestly ambitious, and it soon became even more so: Wernher von Braun — at the time, the head of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency — appointed Heinz-Hermann Koelle, a brilliant aeronautical engineer, to oversee the project. It was then that plans began in earnest. The Project Horizon documentation notes that, initially at least, any such installation would have to be relatively small, housing 10 to 20 people at any given time. Nevertheless, the authors of the report stressed the importance of constructing the base in a fashion that would allow for it to be constantly expanded upon in size and scope, and eventually even allowing for a considerable presence to eventually be maintained on a permanent basis. It was clearly recognized that such a base would have allowed the United States to massively increase its scientific knowledge of the Moon and the new and expanding domain of space, but it was without doubt the military potential of the Moon that was deemed so important to America’s long-term goals.

Clearly realizing it was practically inevitable that space would one day become militarized, the Project Horizon team speculated that the Army’s emergency communications systems would greatly benefit from having a relay station on the Moon, in the event of some form of national emergency — such as an atomic attack by the Soviet Union — that might take out ground communication systems on Earth. As a result, plans were formulated — in a worst-case scenario — to vigorously defend the base with nuclear weapons against Communist attack.

Staff even anticipated the startling scenario of Russian soldiers — in full cosmonaut gear — reaching the secret Moon base and doing battle with U.S. Army personnel, as part of a concerted effort to either destroy the facility or capture it and place it under Soviet control. In a section of the report titled “Degree of Urgency,” it was made abundantly clear that one of the main aims of Project Horizon was to reach the Moon and establish an outpost before the Soviets did.

Army personnel outlined the extensive and rigorous training procedures that Army astronauts would need to follow when faced with living on the Moon for weeks or even months at any given time, as well as the means by which oxygen and water could be extracted from the Moon’s natural environment, to ensure the base could be maintained and inhabited at all times. Demonstrating the amount of thought the Project Horizon team had given to this aspect of the ground-breaking venture, reference was made to the possibility that the Moon might very well be rich in minerals and other materials that could successfully be mined and made commercially available.

Any such fantastic, clandestine operation would require a massive amount of planning, forward-thinking, and dedication to the task at hand. The program’s staff envisaged that the materials required in the construction of the lunar colony could be shuttled, piece by piece, to the Moon via huge, multi-stage rockets (and possibly even in conjunction with the use of huge orbiting space stations).

As for the base itself, it might very well have been advantageous, the report reveals, to carefully remodel a natural cavern on the Moon and into an environment suitable for the sustainment of the initial team. Such a program of construction, it was estimated, could begin by 1965 and would likely involve a two-person team flying to a specific location on the Moon where materials would have already been deposited via previously dispatched cargo craft. Chiefly, the facility would be constructed out of interlocking metal tanks, 20 feet in length and 10 feet in diameter, the first of which constituting the living quarters of the initial construction team. Astonishingly, those working on Project Horizon estimated that the base — albeit in small, rudimentary form — could be up and running within as little as two weeks after the arrival of the cargo and the crews.

It might be useful, opined those who prepared the Project Horizon documentation, to have the interconnecting cylinders buried underground. This would help protect the personnel form such potential hazards as meteorite strikes, lethal radiation, and extremes of temperature. Then, when this below-ground installation was of a sufficient scale and in full working order to allow for a permanent presence to be successfully maintained, it could be dramatically expanded in size and scope to include significant surface facilities.

More and more additions would be made to the initial constructions: landing-pads for shuttle-craft were envisaged, and launch sites for both manned and unmanned missions to some of the nearby planets were deemed possible. Eventually, what had begun as a compact military outpost resembling those at the North and South Pole might conceivably mutate into a huge strategic facility acting as a major hub for both scientific studies and military operations deemed vital to the national security and technological advancement of the United States.

Whereas the U.S. Army of 1959 was secretly sure it could have a permanently manned installation ready to go at some point between 1965 and 1966, history has shown that it took pretty much all of NASA’s time and expertise to even land a small team of men on the Moon by 1969. At the time, a Moon base was not in the cards for NASA. Some might suggest the military was being somewhat over-ambitious in its plans. For example, history has shown that, officially at least, Project Horizon was ultimately shelved as a result of budgetary concerns and the limitations of current technologies. Unofficially, some believe, Project Horizon — and perhaps further, far more ambitious programs — secretly continued, and ultimately led to the construction of large Top Secret installations on the Moon, not unlike that described by Karl Wolfe.

NASA and Gary McKinnon

Certain of NASA’s publicly acknowledged programs have been the subject of intense secrecy: Between 1982 and 1992 the space agency’s Space Shuttle fleet launched 11 classified payloads — spy satellites, in other words — for the U.S. intelligence community, particularly so for the super-secret National Reconnaissance Office. This we know. But far more notable is the strange saga of a certain Gary McKinnon. A product of the 1960s, and a man with a profound fascination for UFOs, McKinnon currently lives in London, England, under the dark shadow of extradition to the United States on charges of committing what one U.S. prosecutor has asserted was without doubt the largest computer hack of the United States’s official infrastructure ever. The prosecution also alleges that McKinnon caused major damage to a whole host of NASA computers in the process, as a result of his obsession with UFOs.

I have written about McKinnon’s antics at length in some of my other books, but what is especially relevant to this chapter is that McKinnon said he found files referencing something termed Non-Terrestrial Officers. This has led some commentators to speculate that it may be a reference to a secret team of American astronauts who are a part of an equally secret space program.

Richard Dolan

Another individual who has commented positively on issues relative to secret bases on the Moon and the theory that the U.S. government operates a clandestine space program is the respected author and historian Richard Dolan, who says, “Over the years I have encountered no shortage of quiet, serious-minded people who tell me of their knowledge that there is such a covert program. Are there bases on the far side of the Moon? I do not know for sure, but I cannot rule it out.”[43]

Spy Satellites

And then there were the illuminating, albeit cryptic remarks of U.S. Senators Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden in December 2004. During a somewhat heated debate on the issue of the 2005 Intelligence Authorization Bill, they commented on their knowledge of the United States’s covert space operations; a classified program that Rockefeller described as being massively costly. He also noted, intriguingly, that attempts to kill the project (at least twice by the Senate) were always officially overruled. Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists, suggested that the senators were talking, in couched terms, about a highly secret spy-satellite project.

The Men Who Stare at the Moon

We now come to the fascinating and undeniably unique saga of a man named Ingo Swann, who, in the 1970s, worked on the U.S. government’s remote viewing program, which addressed the possibility of harnessing psychic powers and extrasensory perception (ESP) to spy on the former Soviet Union. Swann proved to be a highly skilled remote viewer, and his talents were employed on a number of espionage operations focusing on overseas targets that might have proven hostile to the United States. As a result, Swann came into contact with a variety of shadowy figures in the world of intelligence-gathering, including a truly Machiavellian character known, very mysteriously, only by the name of Mr. Axelrod.

It was in February 1975 that Swann was contacted out of the blue by a man he described as a highly placed figure in Washington, D.C., who guardedly advised Swann that he, Swann, would soon be receiving a telephone call from Mr. Axelrod. Swann’s source quietly advised him that although he could not offer much of a meaningful explanation at that time, Swann should be keenly aware that the call would concern a matter of great urgency and importance. A somewhat concerned Swann waited. And waited…and waited.

Finally, around four weeks later, a call arrived, and Swann was asked to make a cloak-and-dagger rendezvous, mere hours later, at the Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian (a location we have seen linked with the mystery and controversy surrounding the reputed remains of Noah’s Ark). Swann unhesitatingly agreed, and quickly — albeit with a degree of concern and trepidation — made his careful way to the meeting place, where he was greeted by a man whom Swann said looked like a Marine.

Basic formalities were exchanged, but Swann was hardly clear on what was afoot. He was driven by car to a second location, where a helicopter was waiting to take him to a destination unknown. Such was the security and secrecy surrounding the journey that Swann was blindfolded for the approximately 30-minute flight. On landing, Swann was taken to an elevator that descended for a significant period of time — perhaps into the bowels of some secret, underground installation, Swann thought. When the blindfold was finally removed, Swann was introduced to the enigmatic Mr. Axelrod, who admitted that it was not his real name, but one that served the particular purposes of their meeting.

Axelrod got straight to the point, asking Swann a great deal of questions about the nature of remote viewing. He also made it clear that he wished to make use of Swann’s skills — on what was clearly a secret operation — for a significant sum of money. It truly was one of those offers that one cannot refuse. And Swann, most assuredly, did not refuse it.

Axelrod asked Swann, pointedly, what he knew about our Moon. Now, finally, the purpose of the strange meeting was becoming much clearer: Someone within officialdom was secretly looking to have the Moon remote-viewed. This is precisely what Swann went ahead and did. By his own admission, he was utterly floored by what he found: During an initial targeting, his mind focused in on sensational imagery that looked to be a huge tower, similar in size to the Secretariat Building at the United Nations, but one that soared upwards from the Moon’s surface. This was no human-made structure, Swann was told; it was the work of nothing less than mysterious extraterrestrials.

In follow-up remote-viewing sessions, Swann was able to perceive on the surface of the Moon a wealth of domed structures, advanced machinery, additional tall towers, large cross-like structures, curious tubular constructions across the landscape, and even evidence of what looked like extensive mining operations. Someone, or something, had secretly constructed a fully functioning Moon-base.

Swann was also able to focus his mind on what appeared to be a group of people — who appeared very human — housed in some sort of enclosure on the Moon, who were busily burrowing into the side of a cliff. The odd thing was that they were all completely naked. At that point Axelrod very quickly terminated the experiment, amid disturbing allusions to the possibility that the Moon-based entities were possibly aware that they were being spied upon via astral travel. It was even implied that Swann’s actions might place him in grave danger, if the beings decided to turn the tables and pay him a deadly visit. (Fortunately for Swann, they did not.)

Axelrod also inquired of Swann whether he knew of a man named George Leonard. Swann replied that he was not familiar with the name. So who was George Leonard? During the same time frame that the shadowy Mr. Axelrod was employing Swann to seek out the mysteries of the Moon, Leonard, an author, was hard at work on a manuscript titled Somebody Else is on the Moon. Leonard’s manuscript was published in 1977, and focused on the very matter about which Axelrod was so deeply troubled: unusual, intelligently designed structures, or installations, on the Moon. The odd meetings between Swann and Axelrod — on the nature of what was afoot on the Moon — continued until 1977, after which they came to an abrupt end, with Swann left scratching his head.

Had Swann really psychically accessed a fantastically advanced base on the Moon that had been constructed by space-faring extraterrestrials? Or does the fact that Swann saw beings that looked like people — albeit naked ones! — working at the base mean that this secret installation had very terrestrial origins, which Axelrod was trying to learn more about because he was left out of the highly classified loop? If the former scenario is correct, then Swann’s discoveries are profound in the extreme. If the latter theory has merit, however, it might very well be argued that the U.S. Army’s secret 1960s operation to build a base on the Moon (under the auspices of Project Horizon) was not quite as cancelled as the military wished us to believe.