Nazi Moonbase

by Graeme Davis

  The Weaponry Division had to solve three main problems before the Mjölnir phase of the protocol could begin. First, all weapons, along with any ammunition, had to be fabricated largely from resources that were available on the Moon, and be capable of operating in lunar conditions. This meant that they could not rely on conventional propellants like cordite or gunpowder.

  Second, the projectiles themselves had to be large enough to survive entry into the Earth’s atmosphere without burning up completely. This meant they had to be at least 33 feet in diameter, or about the size of a house. In all of history, no artillery piece had ever been designed with a caliber over 914mm, less than one-tenth the required diameter.

  Finally, several targeting problems had to be overcome. Any Moon-to-Earth weapon would have to be mounted in a fixed emplacement because of its size, using the relative motion of the Earth and Moon to come to bear on a target. Since a projectile would take more than a day to reach the Earth, firing required complex calculations. Even then, the shot could be deflected by the atmosphere, striking off-target, burning up at high altitude, or even bouncing back out into space.

  The V-9 Rail Gun

  The Allies had put paid to the V-3 emplacements in France before they could become effective, but in 1945 the design represented Germany’s best hope for developing super-long-range artillery. A larger version of the gun was built between 1949 and 1950 to fire non-explosive lunar rocks of about 440 pounds. Its size was dictated by the limitations of using explosive charges in lunar conditions and the projectiles usually broke up in the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere.

  However, from 1949 to 1954 a handful of them traced a line across Russia and Western Europe, although none hit a settlement of any size. The relative motion of the Earth and the Moon, and in particular the Earth’s rotation, made targeting a complex process, especially in the east–west dimension. These difficulties are evident from the fact that out of seven impacts along a corridor measuring less than 100 miles from north to south, none fell within 200 miles of a capital city or any other significant target.

  Dissatisfied with the results of the first weapon, Kammler ordered a complete redesign. The new weapon, designated V-9, employed the same long-barreled, fixed design but was a rail gun, using electromagnetic energy from the Glocke to fire rocks as large as a two-story house, that were better able to survive entry into Earth’s atmosphere. At the same time targeting calculations were improved to take better account of the deflection caused by impact on the upper atmosphere.

  The V-9 performed better than the V-8, but not by much. Between 1965 and 1992 a handful of “meteors” fell within 20–40 miles of London and New York, causing minor damage.

  Some commentators have claimed that the spectacular Chelyabinsk event of 2013 was a test firing of an improved V-9. The meteor – if that is what it was – has been estimated as being about 66 feet in diameter and weighing more than 13,000 tons when it struck the outer atmosphere. While both Russian and US intelligence sources publicly state that it was a natural event, there are rumors that it was really the first shot fired by an enlarged version of the V-9 gun, which has been tentatively designated V-10.

  However, the fact that it struck some 1,500 miles east of Moscow and even further from any other large Russian city is thought to indicate that targeting problems have yet to be fully overcome. Nazi Germany had not developed any significant level of computer science by 1945, and analysts believe that the Walhalla base is still reliant on analog technology for long-range targeting calculations.

  THE V-3 GUN

  While the Vergeltungswaffen (Vengeance Weapons) program is best known for the V-1 cruise missile and the V-2 ballistic missile, it produced plans for weapons of many other types. Among the few actually built was the V-3 “supergun,” a 150mm cannon intended to bombard London from sites in occupied France.

  The V-3 consisted of a long, fixed barrel set on a ramp or hillside. Multiple side-chambers were arranged along the length of the barrel, containing secondary charges (or, later, rocket boosters) which increased the speed of the projectile as it passed by. The smoothbore weapon fired a fin-stabilized 150mm shell with a range of around 100 miles.

  Two V-3 sites in the Pas-de-Calais region were knocked out by Allied bombers before they could fire a shot; two other sites bombarded Luxembourg from December 1944 to February 1945 before being overrun by advancing Allied troops.

  The V-3 cannon was prevented from bombarding London as Kammler had planned, but a larger version was built at the base to launch projectiles at the Earth. (Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-147-30A)

  The Oberth Sonnengewehr

  In 1929, the German physicist Hermann Oberth developed the idea of constructing a 330-foot wide concave mirror in Earth orbit. The curvature of the mirror would allow it to focus the sun’s rays on a single point on the Earth’s surface, creating enough localized heat to burn a city. Initially it was dismissed as science fiction, but Kammler took up Oberth’s idea and set up a secret research facility at the village of Hillersleben in Saxony to develop the Sonnengewehr, or “Sun Gun.”

  Although no effective results had been achieved by the end of the war, captured German scientists claimed that the weapon was only five to ten years from completion. One major hurdle was the project’s reliance on the unfinished A-12 rocket to lift the components into orbit: it has been estimated that several hundred A-12 missions would have been needed to complete the mirror and its control mechanism. The July 23, 1945 issue of Life magazine carried an illustrated article on the mirror, including many details of its proposed construction.

  Kammler initially developed the Sonnengewehr in parallel with the V-8 and V-9 guns, but after their disappointing performance the mirror project took on a higher priority. Instead of being constructed in space, the Sonnengewehr would occupy a crater, using the relative movement of Earth and Moon as a crude aiming mechanism just as the guns had done. Building on the lunar surface simplified construction considerably, and Kammler knew it would take the Allies much longer to reach the lunar surface than to achieve Earth orbit, giving the weapon a longer operational life.

  The Sonnengewehr has a significant advantage over projectile weapons such as the V-9 because its beam of concentrated light can reach the Earth in under two seconds, compared to almost three days for a V-9 projectile. This simplifies targeting significantly, allowing a shot to be aimed using open sights without the need for complex calculations. However, it requires a precise alignment between Sun, Moon, and Earth, making its effective firing windows both narrow and infrequent.

  The GSK

  In 2009, surveillance images showed a very large turreted emplacement under construction near the northwestern rim of the Aristarchus crater. Detailed analysis of enhanced images led to the conclusion that the mount was designed to hold a very large, single-barrel weapon which could cover the whole of the Earth.

  At first, it was thought that the weapon would be an improved V-9 rail gun – perhaps even the V-10 that had long been predicted – but further study concluded that such a weapon would be too large for a turret mount to be practical, even in the Moon’s lower gravity. Instead, it seemed that the Black Sun was building a long-range energy-beam weapon capable of reaching the Earth.

  Such a weapon – dubbed “GSK” (Grosse Kraftstrahlkanone) after the smaller weapons used for base defense – would not have the Sonnengewehr’s restricted firing windows or the V-9’s complex targeting calculations. Powered by a Glocke buried deep under its emplacement, it could be brought to bear on any city-sized target on Earth using an optical telescope, and fired at will.

  Although details of the recent American drone campaign against Walhalla are highly classified, it seems likely that the threat of the GSK – a true Nazi “death ray” every bit as deadly as its comic-book precursors – led directly to the development of the MQ-14 Lunar Hawk drone and its deployment against Walhalla. If the GSK were ever to become operational, it would turn the Moon into a literal “death star” and al
low the Order of the Black Sun to dictate terms to every nation on Earth – or to complete Nazi vengeance against Germany’s former enemies and return to rule the world.

  While inspired by the V-3 supergun, the V-9 rail gun was substantially different in operation as well as size. Redesigned for lunar conditions, it used electromagnetic propulsion rather than explosive charges to hurl building-sized rocks at the Earth. Its performance proved disappointing, however: most of its projectiles either burned up in Earth’s atmosphere or missed their targets due to computational errors.

  Nuclear Weapons

  Nazi Germany lagged behind the Allies – and particularly the United States – in the development of nuclear weapons. When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, nuclear physics was one of several branches of research that were vilified as “Jewish science.” Einstein, who was visiting America at the time, did not return to Germany, and many other physicists and mathematicians left the country over the following years. After the invasion of Poland, many of those who remained were drafted into the army. It was not until 1942 that Germany truly began to take nuclear weapons development seriously.

  SS E-IV removed as much nuclear research as it could from the experimental site at Haigerloch on the edge of the Black Forest, leaving behind one experimental nuclear pile and a handful of scientists who were captured by American forces. It had been planned to develop a nuclear warhead for the V-2, and for the planned A9/A10 “America Rocket,” but when Kammler activated the Bifrost Protocol, the warheads were far in the future and the rockets themselves had been lost when von Braun escaped into American hands with many of his key scientists.

  The Black Sun has made many attempts to capture an American or Russian nuclear warhead for study. As early as December 1948, UFO activity was reported over American bases that housed nuclear weapons, and this pattern has continued to the present day. While no warheads have been confirmed as missing, it is regarded as an open secret that multiple covert missions have been launched from the Walhalla base with the object of recovering American or Russian nuclear materials and research. So far, there has been no attempt to launch nuclear weapons at Earth from the Moon, but most analysts are unwilling to discount the possibility that the base does have such weapons.

  The Oberth Sonnengewehr was not constructed in orbit as originally planned, but a larger version, constructed on the Moon, was tested during the late 1940s. (Artwork Hauke Kock)

  Spaceship Development

  Reports and images of UFO sightings since 1947 show that Black Sun engineers have developed three distinct generations of saucer craft from the Haunebu design.

  The first generation, in service roughly from 1947 to 1955, had an angular profile with a vertical-sided central command structure and three or four hemispherical blisters on the underside. UFOlogists refer to this design as the “Adamski” type after George Adamski, who published photographs and accounts of contact with “Nordic aliens” in the early 1950s.

  From the later 1950s to the mid-1970s, this saucer design evolved into a more streamlined shape, presumably to improve in-atmosphere performance. The central structure became more spherical, and the saucer profile became smoother overall. Bell-shaped at first, the saucers developed a symmetrical profile as the saucer element was moved up to the midline of the cabin.

  Since the later 1980s, a third generation of spacecraft has been sighted with increasing frequency. No longer a saucer shape, these “black triangles” have been seen across Europe and North America. At first, military authorities dismissed reports as sightings of the then-secret B-2 stealth bomber, which was not shown to the public until 1988; however, most black triangles were much larger and capable of hovering and other flight maneuvers that a B-2 could not replicate.

  This type now seems to be the most common ship coming from the Walhalla base. It has been estimated that a typical craft, approximately 330 feet long, could accommodate up to 5,000 assault troops and their equipment. So far, the black triangle missions have been non-aggressive, apparently scouting locations or testing Earth’s responses, but some experts believe that American actions on the Moon have prompted the Order of the Black Sun to abandon the Mjölnir bombardment phase of the Bifrost Protocol and initiate preparations for the planned Gungnir invasion.

  A shot of the moon as from the Apollo 13 Lunar Module. (NASA)

  The Hunt for the Moonbase

  “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space.”

  President John F. Kennedy, May 25, 1961

  By the time President Kennedy gave his famous speech committing the United States to a Moon landing, both the US and the Soviet Union had been engaged in secret efforts to reach the Moon for over a decade. Although Cold War rivalry was certainly a factor in the so-called “Moon Race,” it was not the only one: by now both powers knew that the Walhalla base existed, and that it both posed a threat and offered a treasure trove of advanced technology to whichever of the two superpowers could reach it first.

  Early Satellites

  Although both superpowers had captured enough documents and parts to give them a fragmentary picture of Nazi saucer research, neither one had enough information to replicate it. Initial experiments at Area 51 had led to a worldwide UFO scare in the late 1940s, but had not yielded a viable craft. Soviet engineers, meanwhile, had been unable to develop a craft capable of leaving the ground.

  Both powers recognized the necessity of developing a space-flight capacity quickly. Each knew its rival was using captured German scientists to develop the dreaded V-2 into an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, which would enable it to project its power across the globe. By 1947, each power also knew that the most dangerous Nazi technology had been removed from Earth to somewhere in space, where it posed a continuing threat despite the fall of Nazi Germany. For the time being, rocket technology was the only avenue by which either superpower could pursue the goals of space travel and global nuclear domination.

  At first, it was thought the Nazis were building a space station in Earth orbit. Plans for the Oberth Sonnengewehr had been recovered by Allied intelligence, and captured German scientists had boasted that the project had been only five years from completion by war’s end. A massive survey of Earth’s immediate surroundings ensued, involving optical and radio telescopes and culminating in early orbital missions from the Sputnik and Pioneer satellite programs to the manned Vostok and Project Mercury orbital missions, but nothing was found.

  John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. Cold War rivalries were stoked by the determination of both superpowers to capture and gain the secrets of Nazi superscience. (Keystone Pictures USA / Alamy Stock Photo)

  Project A119

  Project A119 was begun in 1958 by the US Air Force. Its plan was to detonate a nuclear warhead on the Moon “for scientific purposes,” as well as to boost morale in the face of the Soviet Union’s early lead in the space race. According to recently declassified documents, however, this was a thin cover story for the destruction of the Nazi base in order to keep its secrets out of Soviet hands if they should reach the Moon first.

  The project was canceled in January 1959, however, after calculations revealed that the largest warhead the United States could then place on the Moon was 1.7 kilotons, about 10 percent of the yield of the Hiroshima bomb. Given the margin of error in targeting a nuclear weapon over such a distance, it became obvious that such a small explosion did not guarantee the destruction of the base, even if its presence in the Aristarchus crater could be confirmed.

  Project Moon-Blink

  Project Moon-Blink was a collaborative lunar survey launched by NASA in 1964, after it became apparent that the rumored Nazi space base was not orbiting the Earth. Its aim was to study so-called Transient Lunar Phenome
na (TLPs) which had been reported with increasing frequency over the previous 15 years. From 1949 onward, flares of light, often blue or purple in color, had been reported from the Aristarchus crater in the northwest part of the Moon’s near side.

  Project Moon-Blink took thousands of images of Aristarchus and the surrounding area, along with the Alphonsus crater on the southeastern side of the Mare Imbrium where other phenomena had been reported. Although the images were not clear enough to distinguish structures, the project did conclude, in a secret memo to President Lyndon Johnson, that Aristarchus required further investigation.

  The US Lunar Orbiter program provided the first high-quality reconnaissance photographs of the base. The images themselves are still classified. (NASA)

  Lunar Probes

  In 1959 the Soviet Luna 2 probe missed the Aristarchus crater and landed on the other side of the Mare Imbrium. Other Luna missions placed orbiters around the Moon, equipped with cameras to search for signs of human activity.

  Meanwhile, the US Ranger program had yielded a few images of the lunar surface before its probes crashed, but none showed anything that looked like a moonbase. The Ranger program was not an unqualified success. Ranger 1 and Ranger 2 failed to launch; Ranger 3 to Ranger 5 all failed in flight, with two missing the Moon completely; and Ranger 6 suffered a camera failure that may have been due to a hit from a Röntgenkanone or similar weapon. Improved shielding on the last three Ranger probes allowed them to transmit detailed images back to Earth, but their usefulness was limited by the fact that they were designed to crash into the lunar surface.