Who Built the Moon?

by Knight, Christopher

  One of the greatest problems for SETI, or indeed anyone trying to pick up a message from space, is knowing exactly what to expect. It is certain that any species sending such a message will be in advance of us technologically because if the message received comes from deep space it must have taken thousands or even millions of years to reach us. The culture that sent it might, by the time it is received, have disappeared, advanced even further or simply become bored with the whole notion. All we can do is to take an educated guess and suppose that for any species there will be commonality in terms of the irrefutable laws of physics.

  We may receive a logically repeating mathematical sequence such as pi or a list of prime numbers, it is simply impossible to know. There are sceptics around who suggest that the whole process of looking for such a message is destined to fail, if only because other intelligent species out in space may be so different to us that there would be no points of contact recognizable on both sides. In other words, they may be trying to contact us right now and we simply cannot understand the message.

  By the summer of 2004 we were already beginning to reach our own conclusions about how an intelligent species from elsewhere might have already contacted us – humanity simply had not recognized the fact yet. Serendipity being what it is, an article appeared in the August 2004 edition of New Scientist. It was written by Paul Davies, a scientist at The Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University, Sydney. We found it pleasing that a respected scientist was publicly discussing the idea that an alien culture may have put a message intended for us in place many millions of years ago: a message, that Professor Davies also likens to the plot of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  Whilst congratulating SETI for its efforts to track down incoming messages from space, Paul Davies makes the suggestion that to try and contact humanity by way of radio signals might prove to be fairly unreliable for any alien species far away. He points out that the problem of ‘timing’ might make radio contact difficult, if not impossible. No matter how many such intelligent societies there might be, the chance of them transmitting during the short time slot during which we have been listening is very remote. Is it not possible, Davies asks, whether such a culture, probably immeasurably older than our own, may have conceived of a much more reliable way to let us know of its existence?

  Might it not have opted for a method of communication that was not dependent upon transmitting signals for many millions of years in the hope that we, or someone like us, had just evolved the ability to decipher messages in the form of radio waves? Would it not be more likely that our intergalactic cousins would have chosen something much more timeless?

  This suggestion, when we read it near the start of Davies’ article, made us sit upright and pay attention because we were already asking ourselves the same question. Davies goes on to suggest that, rather than radio messages, a far more reliable way for any alien species to contact us would be to leave artefacts in the vicinity of planets likely to spawn intelligent life that, given sufficient advancement on the part of such a developing species, it could not fail to recognize.

  Then we came across yet more heavyweight scientists with similar, highly logical, thought.

  Professor Christopher Rose of Rutgers University in New Jersey and Gregory Wright, a physicist with Antiope Associates also in New Jersey, have stated that the transmission of a radio signal by an extraterrestrial civilization, that would probably have to be detected 10,000 light years away, does not make sense. They suggest that it would be far more efficient to send us some kind of physical message inscribed on physical matter – a kind of ‘message in a bottle’. And, they believe, such a message could already be waiting for us in our own backyard.24

  Rose observed that: ‘If energy is what you care about, it’s tremendously more efficient to toss a rock.’ Once radio signals pass us by they are gone for ever, so aliens would have to beam signals continuously as we have only had radio for a miniscule fraction of our existence as an advanced species.

  We had to ask ourselves, what if that physical object was the Moon and the information is there for us to see – once we understand the vocabulary?

  If the Moon does hold a message, it would be exactly what Paul Davies called a ‘set and forget’ technique that would survive for millions or even billions of years. Any conventional sort of physical structure, no matter how impressive, would eventually crumble under geological forces, especially on a very active planet such as our own. It turns out that the possibilities for a ‘letter from the stars’ that can survive eons are actually very limited indeed. In the end such a ‘physical’ message needs to be either extremely large or extremely small – and as we were to discover, perhaps both.

  We had already uncovered a wealth of published academic material that points to the Moon being the single most important factor in the development and nurturing of complex life forms on the planet Earth. Quite simply, if the Earth is thought of as an incubator for life – the Moon is the carefully programmed machine that monitors and stabilizes the process. A real life-support system.

  This may be a wonderful coincidence of epic proportions, or it could be yet another miracle to ignore as an inevitable consequence of the ‘Anthropic Principle’.

  Whether or not the suggestion put forward by Davies has any merit, it was the second time in a month during which perfectly respectable and serious scientists had published articles dealing honestly with the possibility that we are not alone in the Universe and that other species may be trying, or might have tried in the past, to contact us. Whilst we are delighted with the open-minded attitude that seems to be developing with regard to this subject it is our profound belief that the message, for which SETI, Paul Davies and Rose and Wright are seeking, is right in front of our eyes. It has been there as long as humanity has existed and what it has to tell us is breathtaking in its implications.

  A Potential Message?

  At this point we asked ourselves what would a message look like that had been planted on Earth or in its immediate environs and which was intended to survive for a huge period of time. Firstly, we reasoned, it would have to be recognizable, so it could be clearly interpreted as a message before its contents could be deciphered. Secondly, it would need to be either extremely large or else very small in order to survive the destructive power of Earth’s geology and weather systems.

  In Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the technique used by the unknown aliens was to have a major anomaly that could only be detected by a technically competent species. By placing objects with huge mass under the surface of the Moon the aliens knew they would be easy to spot in a place where there was little else to distract. But in that story the purpose of the gravitational anomalies was not to communicate with the new species – it was to send a message back to the aliens that the local creatures had reached a specific level of intelligence.

  So, an anomaly of this sort might be enough to alert an unknown species, such as our own, that there is a message waiting. The next step would be for those planting the message to ensure that the target species understood that it was addressed to them.

  It has long been agreed that numbers are the best way to communicate with intelligent creatures from another world. Hieroglyphs or any kind of marks are unlikely to be understood without any point of reference, just as there was no way to understand ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs until the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799. This inscribed artefact from the second century BC gave the same text in both Greek and hieroglyphs; thereby providing the key to understanding a lost language.

  If numbers are used in such a message they need to have a discernable pattern, however they are communicated, so that they stand out against the background ‘noise’ of number values that surround us everywhere. Even then, it is extremely challenging to think of numbers that are certain to be spotted once they are planted in our own environment. The safest method would be to use ratios that stand out, because ratios are not dependent on units of measu
rement or any chosen base (e.g. base ten in everyday usage or base two [binary] as used in computing).

  But it occurred to us that we were examining this process backwards, because we started out by being alerted to major anomalies specifically related to the Moon. Not only does it appear very unlikely that the Moon could have occurred naturally in thefirst place, it also turns out that it has been the incubation machine that so perfectly nurtured life.

  We now needed to go back to our starting position and look at the numbers that had fallen out of the Earth–Moon–Sun relationship in terms of ratios and to those measurements that stood out so well when we applied Megalithic units to them.

  The first and most obviously strange thing about the Moon is how it appears to be the same size as the Sun when viewed from Earth. It is 400 times smaller and 400 times closer to the Earth than the Sun. Assuming for a moment that this might be the first part of a calling card from an unknown source rather than just a bizarre coincidence, we have to note three factors:

  It is designed to be meaningful only to intelligent creatures living on the Earth’s surface.

  It is designed to be noticed at this specific point in time, give or take a million years or so each way, because the Moon only behaves in the way it does at this time.

  It appears to be addressed to a species with ten fingers, because the ratio relationship of that between the Moon and the Sun is such a round number when expressed in base ten (e.g. in base eight the ratio would be one to 620).

  Now we will speculate that the ratio of the Moon and the Sun just might be pointing to a deliberately created message. In order to do so, we must suspend all preconceptions of what seems sensible and consider instead what under normal circumstances might be judged unthinkable.

  We will therefore temporarily accept that points 1, 2 and 3 above are valid and that someone or something is trying to direct the attention of Earthlings, sporting ten digits and living during this particular point in time, to look at the Moon as a potential message.

  So, here we go!

  Chapter Nine

  The Potential Message

  In the beginning there was neither existence nor non-existence; there was no atmosphere, no sky, and no realm beyond the sky. What power was there? Where was that power? Who was that power?

  Rig Veda 10:129.1-7 (circa 4000 BC)

  At this point we had decided that we could not continue to gather further facts without having some plan in place. The way forward seemed to be to develop a hypothesis so that we could see how the component parts of the puzzle may fit together. We agreed to suspend all negative comments for a time, so that we did not miss a point by rejecting something that challenged our preconceptions. Only when we had a complete model for our hypothesis, would we critically appraise it and compare it to other possible explanations.

  So, we are now entering the modelling world by temporarily accepting the following three concepts as real:

  The Moon was engineered by an unknown agency circa 4.6 billion years ago, to act as an incubator to promote intelligent life on Earth.

  The unknown agency knew that humanoids would be the result of the evolutionary chain.

  That unknown agency wanted the resulting humanoids to know what had been done and they left a message indicated by the dynamics of the Moon.

  We were well aware that there were some issues with these assumptions, which, if we forced ourselves to reconcile them simultaneously, would inhibit lateral thinking. One such problem was the issue of motivation: Why would any agency want a grand plan that spanned a period that was equal to around fifty per cent of the age of the Universe at that astronomically distant time? This would be long-range planning beyond all comprehension. Even then, how did such an agency know that the resulting life form would have ten digits? We would try and deal with these issues but it might be necessary to tackle them at a later stage.

  Another problem that had to be put to one side for the moment, was the issue of how Stone-Age builders came to be using units of measurement that are the key to decoding the message. These issues, amongst others, will have to be dealt with in due course, but now we will review the basis of the message.

  At the root of our hypothesis is the idea that the very dimensions and movements of the Moon are designed to alert us to the fact that this is not a natural body. We therefore need to go back to the beginning of the solar system itself.

  No one knows for sure how the solar system came into existence but, despite all of the ideas about the Moon being made from the Earth, everyone agrees that the Sun, Earth and the Moon were all formed around 4.6 billion years ago. It is thought that the Earth and the Moon were formed very soon after the Sun became a star.

  Theories come and theories go, but it is likely that it all began when a vast cloud of dust and gas in an empty region of our galaxy became compressed by starlight and gravitational forces, thereby causing an accumulation process. Otto Schmidt first put the theory of ‘accretion’ forward in 1944 and as more and more evidence has become available, competitor theories have withered away.

  In some way, that astronomers do not yet understand, the Sun was formed and produced light and heat much as it does today. The cloud of dust and gas that was wheeling around the new star, kept on cooling and shrinking and whirling faster and faster before separating into rings. Each of these rings also kept on cooling and shrinking and is thought to have gradually gathered together into a sphere of fiery gas, in the case of the terrestrial planets, before cooling so much that the main part of it became liquid and, eventually, solid.

  Until quite recently there were two principle theories to explain the Moon’s existence. One was that it was an object that had formed elsewhere and was somehow taken into Earth’s orbit; and the other was a theory called ‘co-accretion’ or the ‘double planet’ hypothesis. This second theory supposed that the Earth and the Moon simply grew together as twins, born out of the primordial swarm of small ‘planetesimals’. However, when lunar rocks were brought back to Earth it was realized that the Moon has no substantial metallic iron core and that its rocks have oxygen isotopic ratios that are identical to the Earth’s.

  The theory that the Moon had originated elsewhere died instantly because it was obvious that the rocks had formed in exactly the same region of the solar system as those of the Earth. But the worrying point was that the only alternative theory was as effectively debunked as the ‘capture’ hypothesis. The ‘co-accretion’ could not be correct because the type and proportion of materials should be pretty much the same for both bodies if they were twin planets.

  Suddenly there was no theory of the Moon’s origin in existence. Scientists tell us that nature abhors a vacuum – but scientists abhor a vacuum even more. Something had to be found to explain the inexplicable.

  It took some years, but in 1984 an idea that seemed to explain the facts was put forward. The original Big Whack theory was an attempt to explain how the Moon could be made of selected Earth materials. For reasons already covered, it is a theory that simply does not work and we are still in a position where there is no watertight explanation for the Moon being where it is.

  So let us return to what is generally held to be true about the early solar system. The process of making the Earth was not especially quick, as Stein B Jacobsen, a professor of geochemistry at Harvard University says: ‘Within 100,000 years of the formation of the Sun, the first embryos of the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars had formed… Some grew more rapidly than others, and within ten million years, about sixty-five per cent of Earth had formed.’ 25

  Let us now consider a theory of the Earth–Moon system that does work. The thrust is that it is the result of intelligent design. We do not know who or what this hypothetical intelligence was, so we will designate it UCA (Unknown Creative Agency) for the time being.

  In the Beginning

  The young star was shining out, and the clouds of matter that had recently circled around it in a series of rings had begun the process of ac
creting into spheres at differing ranges from the star. One of these proto-planets was some 150,000 kilometres distant from the mother star and the UCA realized that it had the potential to produce intelligence.

  The UCA may believe that the Universe is destined to die, maybe by becoming a smooth and static soup of incredibly thinly dispersed matter, just a tiny fraction above absolute zero. A nothingness that would essentially be the end of everything – even time.

  The goal of the UCA was to seed life wherever possible, to create intelligent beings that could flourish and go out and seed more life themselves. In this way the very fabric of the Universe would be turned into self-aware matter that would slowly halt and reverse the mindless spiral into entropy and eternal chaos. They had a model to use for this location – one that would produce a specific type of intelligent creature, based on carbon and enabled by liquid water.

  But it would take several billion years for the tumbling sphere to stabilize and go through a process of evolution of life forms that would result in a species with the intelligence and, more importantly, the imagination to understand their role of striking out into the cosmos to shape and form swirling stardust – and then give it the spark of life.

  It was important that when this fledgling planet spawned its thinking and technologically able offspring, the creatures would understand exactly what had happened to bring them into existence, so that they could eventually repeat the process themselves. In this way, a self-aware Universe would continue to replicate itself across the massive span of space and time.