With the technical proficiency and the bit of luck they were blessed with, James Lovell Jr, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise put Apollo 13 into the history books of space exploration not only as one of the most prodigious demonstrations of precision piloting expertise, but of innovation, spirit, and will to survive. It was a testament to the ingenuity and technical skills of both NASA Mission Control and the astronauts.

During post-mission debriefings and after they had recovered from their ordeal, hindsight kicked in. They realized that there had been portents of failure concerning this, the seventh Apollo mission that had occurred even before launch. One concerned the original command module pilot, Ken Mattingly’s immunity to German measles. Another involved the ground testing of a poorly insulated helium tank in the LM’s descent stage before launch. Still another was the critical oxygen tank that had been damaged when it was removed for modification prior to launch. As Lovell said, "It was the accumulation of human errors and technical anomalies that doomed Apollo 13." It was labeled a ‘successful failure.’ But had it all really failed?

The hardcopy Apollo 13 index of jpegs that I got from Houston, I had to really dig to get, but it was accessible. When I received and inspected the photo index, catalog, and footprint photomap package from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, it seemed rather average upon initial inspection. The Apollo 13 photography was unlike photography from other Apollo missions that had thus far yielded many magazines and reels of stunning orbital scenes. There were only several magazines of Hasselblad frames, one of which had any decent far side shots at all. There were four magazines of 16mm sequence photography, which only covered the interiors of the command and lunar modules, the damaged service module, along with distant shots of the earth and moon and the astronauts themselves. The index stated specifically that the photo support provided would be, "incomplete for analytical purposes and was about the best that could be obtained under the conditions which the photographs were taken." Cameras used were modified Hasselblad EL’s flown with 80 and 250mm lenses and intervals and times of the photography were hand recorded by the crew and were not tied into on-board data systems.

This data began to take on an air of mystery when examining each photo next to one another. Frames 8603 through 8628 were labeled "unplottable." The only statistics given for these frames were that they were taken with the 250mm lens and that they were of generally ‘poor quality’ and "very faint and not discernable." This was a blatant contradiction to what was seen in the catalog. Some were dark and a few were black, but most all of the thumbnail pictures were extremely well resolved.

While examining the ‘unplottables’ I came upon frames 8608 and 8609 from magazine 60 that had been taken in sequence. On these 2 catalog pictures near the horizons of both frames, there was an astonishing glowing reflection rising vertically from the lunar surface that was unlike anything that I had seen before on any Apollo photograph. I ordered three sets of negatives: B&W and color versions from NSSDC, Greenbelt, MD, and color versions from Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), Houston. All the sets yielded valuable information regarding the transparency and position of the reflection as well as the terrain around it. I was to discover that this reflection remained in the same position on the lunar surface even though the configuration of it changed slightly from frame to frame due to spacecraft orbital motion.

These two frames were nestled snugly in the middle of the so-called ‘unplottable’ frames. The nearest frame of the series to have statistics in the index was 8629 taken at 7.5S and 137.5E. Tsiolkovsky was photographed two frames later on 8631 looking south from a distance, so I guessed that 8608-09 was taken north of this crater. Interestingly, the ‘unplottables’ were not referenced or shown on the official AS13 footprint map. The mystery deepened.

I contacted Richard to confer with him about the reflections. Our real detective work then began. Richard was amazed by the nature of these reflections and the obvious TLP (transient lunar phenomena) nature of them. Not only did we want to deduce the angle of trajectory and find the so-called "unplottable location" of this reflection but we also wanted to find corroborative lunar photography that would further verify its existence.

These two photographs proved to be a classic case of an example of what is involved with the words, "doing the homework", as it took a day or two of searching to find locations and information --- data that led us to other areas surrounding them that would eventually reveal that this area was a veritable "goldmine" of glass artifacts. From the start, we knew that frames 8608-09 related to TLP phenomena and just about cinched the 'reflection off glass' model we’d studied for years. As mentioned, the characteristics of the reflection -- the SAME geometry within it on both frames-- shifted slightly as seen on close-ups, but the location of this specular reflection stayed the same in both frames that were taken in sequence as Apollo 13 swung around the far side. In other words, as the spacecraft moved in orbit, the "specular reflection" point moved with it. So the TLP ("the Cube") shifted, but its base-location remained the same in both frames. If the reflection had been a result of ambient light from the camera, it would have shifted location.

On Richard’s enhancements of the ‘Cube’, we could see the blue signature of glass that that was a dead giveaway for "scattered light"- - the blue having a ‘range’ - - the molecular scattering centering in the glass being about the same size as blue light.

We suspected, of course, that they knew they were ‘hiding’ it by putting it in the catalog in plain sight. Researchers would look in the catalog and SEE "unplottable," and would then just write it off as not being worth pursuing and call it an ambient reflection not really looking carefully to see that the thing didn't MOVE from it's place from frame to frame! After all, "everyone knows that Apollo 13 didn't land on the Moon, so the photography must be boring."  Such thinking may have discouraged pursuit of this remarkably anomalous data.

By superimposing 8608 and 09, the direction of the trajectory was deduced to be about a 75-degree angle to the equator. The spacecraft had traveled across the far side at an angle different than its projected path. The sun angle around the cube-reflection judging from the photograph was between 5 to 7 degrees. I retrieved my copy of the Apollo 13, "Lunar Orbit Scientific Visual Observation Graphics" (prepared under the direction of the DOD by ACIC (USAF) for NASA) and an important page popped into view. It is of a strip of the farside highlands, 165 to 130 degrees E, and 5 degrees S.  Originally, the AS13 crew’s assignments were to record descriptions of this east to west strip of far-side lunar terrain from orbit with emphasis on the general appearance of this strip as compared to the nearside highlands, studying the variety and flow of scarps and blocks. At high sun angles they were also supposed to note the characteristics of asymmetric ray patterns around craters.

In hopes of finding a starting point for the locations of the Cube on 8608-9, I plotted numerical coordinates on the map. This east-west strip falls roughly south of Mendeleev crater down to a line that goes through Chaplygin crater (one of the most anomalous craters on the far side), through Dellinger crater, and east.  I don't know whether they had time to pay particular attention to their 'graphics assignments' when they photographed the ‘Cube’ region due to their life and death predicament. The detective work continued.

Again, we suspected they were NORTH of Tsiolkovskiy crater and most of the frames on the AS13 footprint map north of Tsiolkovskiy from 5 degrees to 20 degrees looking south were obliques.  Most ALL of the others on the footprint map were verticals except for a few taken looking east from Mendeleev. (There was no photographic "grouping" or concentrations of areas of frames on the map.)

Frames 8625 and 26 show Tsiolkovskiy in the distance, not ON the horizon, but the farground, but coordinates weren’t listed. But Tsiolkovskiy looked to be due south in these 2 frames. Frame 8629 (23 frames after 8608 and 09, the ‘Cube’ frames,) was taken at 7.5 degrees lat.-- 137.5S long. The spacecraft could have covered a lot of distance between taking 8608-9 and 8629. There was no mention in the catalog of this or of altitude, just Sun angles.

One data point that helped in estimating the general trajectory/location of the spacecraft (and eventually, the location of the ‘Cube’) was to look at the sequence of photographs in the catalog that were taken of Tsiolkovskiy crater, the largest crater on the far side. There were quite a few taken north of it.

We figured that if you were looking toward the Moon from the far side, the trajectory would have arced down from right to left from the dark northeast quadrant (beyond the terminator) and crossed the equator where the "footprints" were listed. Also, from looking at the AS13 photo footprint map, their orbit looks like it was north, northeast to west, south –west.

I somehow had a hunch that somewhere within this AS13 Observation Graphics strip was where our ‘Cube’ photos had been taken. I backtracked back and forth along a path about 75 degrees to the lunar equator, northeast from those nested frames that were listed on the map.  The configuration of "craters" on frames 8608 and 8609 was fairly distinctive and somehow made it easier to search for location, but it was still eluding us. I wasn’t looking at the names of the craters at that point in time, but rather initial optical similarities between craters seen on maps and those seen in the two key photographs. The location search continued.

The distance from a spacecraft to an object on the curved horizon (of Earth, Moon or ANY planet) depends ONLY on the altitude of the vehicle above the surface. That's why we had to know the closest approach distance of Apollo 13 to the lunar surface as it whipped around in its "hairpin turn" back to earth.  Lovell tells us in "Lost Moon" that it was " 139 miles" (we believe, because of NASA's standard, that this refers to "nautical miles"). The distance to the ‘Cube’ was calculated to be 525 statute miles from the spacecraft window to the ‘Cube’. This was important in determining the scale of these phenomena.  Distance information can also be determined by taking the "degree scale" of the 250mm lens used (12.5 degrees per side of the Hasselblad frame) and convolving that into a distance calculation. There is also the geometric, optical angle to consider: the only time these colors will "leap out" is close to sunrise or sunset.  Otherwise, the sun is making too small an angle overhead with the glass, so there is little or NO differential refraction. From estimates the scale of the ‘Cube’ was a few tens of miles high.

I decided to go to the Lunar Orbiter database for answers, and retrieved a map I had that was used in charting the USGS Map 1218A of the far-side.

Keeping in mind the general trajectory of Apollo 13, I worked my way across the regions on this LO (Lunar Orbiter) mosaic map and compared areas for the medium and hi-resolution pictures that were taken for each region. I then took each region and looked at their photographs in my Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon (SP-206), trying to identify certain craters on the photographs that were seen in frames 8608-9. This took awhile, but I narrowed the region down to LO1- 115M. Low and behold, when I looked at high-resolution frame115 H2, (plate 621 in the LO Atlas), there was a signature crater that I saw in the foreground of frame 8608 - - a medium size crater with two interior craters that looked very similar to one another. It was quickly identified as Viliev.

From this point, further identification of the area in and around the ‘Cube’ went fairly quickly and the puzzle pieces fit into place. I began to prepare a photographic footprint map that showed the angles of both 8608 and 8609. The Apollo 13 astronauts undoubtedly saw this TLP. The frames were snapped within seconds of one another during their only far-side orbit. Why couldn’t NASA have taken the time figure out what we had discovered with a day or so of detective work? Why did they label the frames around and including these two, "unplottable?" Is it that that they didn’t want anyone to pursue it, making it as difficult as they could to find out where 8608 and 09 were taken?

NASA knew the general track of the spacecraft otherwise they wouldn't have been able to plot the AS13 map they did. So, either they looked for the locations of these 2 photos and genuinely had a problem finding it without a lot of time to continue the search (which is unlikely) --OR--there is something there that might be bigger than even we, at this point in time, realize. Of course all of this raises ‘red flags’ and continuing questions about NASA’s integrity and their knowledge about lunar areas like the Cube as well as many other anomalies researched on this site that have not been formally and publicly revealed to the NASA rank and file, scientists, and the now aging Apollo-era American citizens who paid for the Apollo missions!

The Cube is almost in the middle of the farside. It is obvious that the images are anomalously evidential. My thinking was that there might be other ‘unplottable’ frames in the index would yield even more about the area of the Cube. I was right. I found several.

In Part 2 of Houston, We Have Another Problem, other Apollo 13 frames that reveal more regions of glass near the Cube will be revealed. One thing we know for sure: a proverbial 'can-of-worms' was opened with the discovery of Apollo 13 frames 8608 and 8609.

© 2003, Steve Troy

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