Moon Rocks

Author : Gray Blix

Addressing a darkened convocation of world leaders, with images projected behind him, Dr. Spitz began, “To summarize events over the last seven months, a meteor-like object exploded about 6 kilometers above China’s Wenchang Launch Center, flattening it and leaving a zone of destruction encompassing nearly 2,000 square kilometers. Tracked by telescopes and satellites as it approached our planet, it was not a military weapon originating on Earth.”

“What about the Moon . . . the lines?”

The chairperson said, “Please hold your questions until the end of the presentation.”

Dr. Spitz continued. “Wenchang was roughly equal to Tunguska in 1908, and since we expect an event of that magnitude every hundred years or so, we were not immediately suspicious. But the appearance that night of a nearly 300km gash in Mare Serenitatis, visible to anyone with good eyesight or cheap binoculars . . . well, some thought the two events might be related. And then, exactly a month later, when a second object exploded over Spaceport America, in New Mexico, and a second gash appeared in Mare Serenitatis . . . identical circumstances . . . with the exception that the second line on the Moon was across the previous one, forming a plus sign.”

“Or a cross.”

“Please,” the chairperson pleaded.

“Yes, many found religious significance in the explosions and the ‘cross.’ We all saw press reports of the thousands who occupied a so-called ‘tribulation’ tent city in New Mexico. Actually, it was one of those, a former geology student, who found a possible fragment of the object. NASA confirmed the sheer-fractured and partially melted rock as likely part of a larger, perhaps 30-40m, object, but NASA did not disclose the origin of the rock. I can tell you today that it was a Moon rock.”

After a gasp from the audience and much cross-talk, Dr. Spitz continued, “If it came from the Moon it was either ejected by a previous impact only to later fall to the Earth, or given the coincidence of two explosions destroying spaceports, we suspected it was launched from the Moon toward a target on Earth by . . . by an unknown power.”

More gasps and cross-talk, and a question, skipping ahead of the summary and in a sarcastic tone, “Did the FIVE subsequent explosions confirm your suspicions?”

Not a word from the chairperson.

“Yes. All seven explosions targeted spaceports. More fragments were found, analyzed, and identified as Moon rocks. And experts in language and mathematics have studied the seven markings in Mare Serenitatis,” tracing the projected image with a laser pointer “the cross with two diagonals and lines across the top and two sides, and their consensus is . . .”

A cell phone brayed a musical ringtone and its owner fumbled with it.

“Well?” said the exasperated chairperson.

“By destroying seven of the world’s most advanced spaceports, the ones that can launch craft beyond satellite orbits to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and beyond, they have set us back by several years. We think they are telling us to cancel those projects altogether, to confine our species to Earth.”

“And if we don’t?”

“We think the arrangement of the seven markings will be finished off with a line across the bottom, creating a square, with eight segments within. Eight lines and eight segments. We think it is a representation of their numeral system, an octal system, and that they have been counting off. The last line, the one that would finish the count, could finish us. If they have the technology to cross space and toss Moon rocks at us, then they probably have the technology to scale up and throw a mountain top at us. Or maybe the whole Moon.”