There’s something on the moon. And it doesn’t want to be found. We never should have gone to space. Not after what I’ve seen at NASA. Yeah, that NASA. I used to work for them during the height
of the space race. But I'm retired now. My bones are hurting and I wheeze more than
I breathe. But before I punch my ticket out of here,
I've got a story to tell. One that's been eating at me for decades. You see, we never really landed on the moon. We’ve always meant to though. It was the summer of '69, a
nd we were getting
ready for the launch. The whole world was buzzing about Apollo 11. So that whole part’s real. We had the rockets, the astronauts, and the
math all worked out. Me? I was just a young buck back then. I was fresh out of college with a shiny new
degree in engineering. And somehow, I landed a gig as a junior engineer
at NASA. And damn, was I living the dream. I was part of the team working on the communication
systems. We had to make sure Armstrong and Aldrin could
talk to us from
all the way up on the moon's surface. Life at NASA was kind of like being in college
again actually. But this time, we had something bigger to
worry about than a mid term test. A regular day started with grabbing a cup
of coffee that tasted like battery acid. Then, it was straight to checking last night's
data. Just to make sure nothing blew up or decided
to stop working. My desk was always a mess. I had papers everywhere full of scribbles
I made at 2 AM that I hoped would make sense in the morn
ing. The place was always humming. Folks would be in and out of the offices. Walking fast, talking faster. And we'd have these meetings that could go
on for days. It felt like planning a really complicated
road trip. Except the destination was the moon. And you couldn't just turn around if you forgot
something. Lunch was usually at our desks. Usually a sandwich in one hand, and a pen
in the other. Sometimes, we'd get so caught up in work we'd
forget to eat until someone looked up and saw it was
dark outside. But man, the thrill of it all. You'd be sitting there, tired as hell, and
suddenly, something clicks. And you're one step closer to getting a man
on the moon. With all the tech nowadays, that may not sound
impressive to kids these days. But back then, it was as close to magic as
you could get. That's what kept us going. Even when the coffee ran out. But one night, a few weeks before the scheduled
launch, we picked up something strange. I was testing the transponder we were supposed
to use to talk to the guys up in space. My eyes were glued to my notes but my head
was dreaming about a cold beer. And that’s when the signal came through. It wasn't like anything we'd ever heard before. It wasn't static. And it was too structured to be a glitch. It was a series of beeps and rings. Like morse code. And then we realized the signal was on a loop. That’s not something you find in nature. We all huddled around, listening to this…signal. The techs scrambled to find the source. Maybe
some wires got crossed. Or transmissions got mixed up. We looked all over to make sure it wasn’t
some sort of interference. Hell maybe it was the Russians messing with
us. Well we did eventually find out the source. The signal was coming from outer space. We don’t know how. But the data was right there before our eyes. It felt like the air dropped a few degrees
when we found out. The room was silent. Except for that beeping, playing through the
speakers. I remember looking over at my boss, a gu
y
named Carl. He was a man who'd seen it all. He was there right when the space race was
just kicking off. And he was white as a sheet. He stared at the speakers as if he’d just
seen a ghost. "Shut it off," he finally said, his voice
barely above a whisper. The days that followed were a blur of meetings,
rumors, and more coffee. The excitement had turned into a tension so
thick you could cut it with a knife. We were no longer talking about trajectories
and fuel calculations. No, all we talked ab
out now was that signal. When we first caught that signal, it was like
nothing we'd heard before. It wasn't just beeps and rings. This was a complex, tangled mess of sounds
that got under your skin. The sounds overlapped one another. There were layers to it, almost like a song. We thought it was a message, maybe even a
warning. We just couldn’t figure it out. But we can’t do the launch until we do. So that meant staying up all night with the
team. Nights turned into a blur. Most of us camped out
in the offices, hunched
over the equipment. Just endlessly replaying the signal to try
and crack it. Our eyes were glued to printouts, ears filled
with that eerie sound. Despite everything, we were excited at the
thought of actually communicating with something ‘out there’. That was part of the thrill. But the excitement turned to frustration real
quick. We tried everything. Running the signal through every piece of
analysis software we had, breaking it down, looking for patterns or repeats. An
ything that might give us a clue. But it was like trying to read a book with
pages missing. So, we called in the big guns. Some code breakers from the NSA. These folks were the best of the best. They were used to dealing with the kind of
secrets that could start or stop wars. If anyone could crack it, it was them. Or so we thought. They came in with their briefcases and serious
faces. They set themselves up in an unused lab and
got to work. Days passed, then weeks. We watched them, waiting for a
ny progress. But it never came. The looks on their faces went from determined
to puzzled to downright pissed. The long nights eventually took their toll. Tempers frayed, and those frantic meetings
turned into shouting matches. What does it mean? And why can't we figure it out? But no one had the answers. And with each failed attempt, the pressure
increased. We were supposed to be launching a mission
to the moon. But instead, we were stuck. With an operation like this, we have no room
for unknown
s. We can’t risk not knowing what this signal
meant. With every passing day, the launch date loomed
closer. I was practically living at the employee lounge
now. Eventually, that signal started messing with
us in ways we didn't expect. At first, it was just headaches. The kind that feel like a band tightening
around your skull. We could easily say that was from the late
nights. But then, things got weirder. People began reporting nightmares. The kind that made someone wake up screaming
in the mid
dle of the night. Again, the medics could say it was from the
stress. But these nightmares, they were the same for
everyone. Those who had em reported seeing strange,
towering structures on the moon. Twisted, pointy spires that were so tall they
almost blocked out the stars. And there were things moving around between
the towers. Huge lumbering shadows that rocked the ground
with every step. And underneath it all, was a humming sound. It blended with the beeping signal to form
a song that made y
ou sick. Then the paranoia kicked in next. You'd catch someone staring at the signal
playback, their eyes glazed over, muttering to themselves. Simple conversations turned into arguments. People report hearing the signal even when
they’ve gone home. So no one really questioned it when people
started bringing sleeping bags to work. Hallucinations were the last straw. An engineer came running into the canteen
one afternoon, white as a sheet. He kept yelling about seeing those towers
from his dream
s. He’d see them in the distance when he looked
out of a window. And he’d feel the ground shake as those
giant moon creatures moved closer and closer. The engineer had to be sedated after that. We tried to keep it all under wraps. To maintain a semblance of professionalism
you know? But the effects of that signal just kept getting
worse. We tried to focus on other work, but the beeping
had dug into our brains. It had spread among the departments. It was affecting people who weren’t even
involved
in decoding it. One of the junior techs started talking about
hearing a whispering sound. It came from the moon itself, he said. It was nonsense, of course. But when you looked into his eyes, you could
see he believed every word of it. The whispers told him about secrets buried
deep under the moon’s surface, secrets meant for him to find. Then there was the astrophysicist who’d
been with the project from the start. She claimed she could see the structures from
her dreams on the images we have o
f the moon. She’d get people to look at her telescope
and her printouts, insisting on it. We saw nothing, of course, but she was convinced. And then one of the math guys started freaking
out. He went around saying he was turning into
moon dust. He was staring at his hands one day, when
he suddenly screamed. He said his skin was cracking open. Little bits of him were turning to dust every
time he moved. He was crumbling apart, he said. He could feel himself blowing away. It didn’t make any sense
to us, but the
fear in his eyes was clear. He flinched if you even tried to touch him. Watching him, you could almost believe what
he was saying was true. But it was the incident with Carl that made
us all stop and realize just how bad things had gotten. Carl was a practical guy who never bought
into any of the moon madness. Until one day, he started screaming in the
middle of the control room. Screaming and pointing at an empty corner. He was saying he could see one of those moon
entities right
there, reaching out for him. In his panic, Carl backed away so fast he
tripped over a cable. He went crashing into a bank of equipment
and hit his head on a desk. He had to get stitches and that was the wake-up
call we all needed. This wasn’t just stress or exhaustion. The signal was doing something to us, something
real and physical. So, NASA went into full damage control mode. They started rounding up anyone who was talking
too much about the signal or acting weird. They were to be given "spe
cial attention"
in a quarantine zone. They sectioned off an unused wing on the campus
to house em. But it wasn't long before more folks claimed
they were turning into moon dust. The quarantine zone filled up quick. To keep the lid on all this, federal agents
showed up. You could spot them a mile away with their
stiff suits and stiffer faces. They walked around like they owned the place. They were there to make sure no one outside
these walls got wind of what was happening. Suddenly, we had actor
s smiling at cameras
for press conferences pretending to be NASA scientists, talking about how great the mission
prep was going. And me? They slapped more work on my desk and told
me not to leave. But then, I started noticing it too - moon
dust. Or at least, my brain told me it was moon
dust. I had no way to actually check. But I saw a fine chalky sand collecting in
the corners of my office, on my papers, even on my keyboard. Every speck of it glimmered like it held a
diamond. But I clamped down
every instinct to tell
someone about it. The last thing I wanted was to end up quarantined
or worse. So, I kept quiet. I pretended I didn't see the dust, and that
I wasn’t seeing them form into those towers from my dreams. I had to keep working, had to crack that signal. It was the only thing left that made any sort
of sense. With everything going sideways, NASA was still
hell-bent on keeping the show on the road. The group of us still poking at that signal
had shrunk down to just a handful. Th
e rest of the crew was all hands on deck
for the launch. The astronauts were kept in the dark about
the whole mess. They weren’t allowed to really talk to any
of us anymore. The higher ups were worried they could get
infected by this moon madness. But as the launch date grew closer, things
got even weirder. We were gearing up for what should've been
a routine systems check. It’s something we'd done a hundred times
before. Only this time, nothing went right. It started small. Machines freezing, r
eadings not making sense. We rebooted, double-checked the codes, and
ran diagnostics. The usual drill. But then, the main control machines just lost
its mind. Instead of the standard readouts, we got strange
symbols nobody recognized. We tried to bypass the affected systems. But it was like the signal – or whatever
the hell it was – had jumped from our heads into the machines. Commands were ignored, or worse, turned into
gibberish. And then the telemetry data from the test
module went haywire. O
ne second it showed the module on the launch
pad, stable as you please. The next, it was registering it as if it was
already in lunar orbit. Impossible readings. The final straw came when the launch sequence
itself initiated. All on its own. Alarms blared, lights flashed. We scrambled, hammering at keyboards and yanking
cords. The sequence was stopped, thank the stars,
but the damage was done. There was no way to explain it away. No amount of rebooting and recalibrating could
scrub away the fact
that our systems were compromised. We had to delay the launch. Officially, we blamed it on a technical glitch. But between us, we knew the truth. That signal wasn't just a sound in our ears
or in our dreams anymore. It was here, actively messing with the launch. And those symbols... they weren't just random. They were trying to tell us something. The failure wasn't just a setback; it was
a warning. And deep down, I think we all knew it. But admitting that meant facing the reality
of what we wer
e dealing with. And that was a step nobody at NASA was ready
to take. Uncle Sam poured too much money and press
into this to back out now. But despite the whole mess with the failed
systems check, I felt like I hit the jackpot. Those symbols that popped up on the screens? I figured they might just be the key to cracking
the signal. So, I grabbed the printouts and plastered
them all over my office. Most nights, I went over those symbols over
and over again. I tried to match them with anything—anc
ient
languages, astronomical charts, you name it. But as the nights dragged on, my grip on what
was real and what wasn’t started to slip. More than once, I’d glance over my shoulder,
half-expecting to see my office coated in moon dust. It was getting to me, making me question what
would crack first - the code or my sanity. And then one night, I had the dream. Calling it vivid doesn't do it justice. It was more real than anything I'd ever experienced. I was standing on the dark side of the moon.
But this wasn’t the moon like any photo
or textbook described it. The ground shimmered with a dull glow that
cast eerie shadows all around me. The sky was filled with stars so dense and
bright, it felt like I could reach out and stir them with my hand. But it wasn't peaceful or awe-inspiring. It was suffocating. There was a silence so heavy, it pressed against
my ears. My head started to ache the more I tried to
listen for something, anything. It was a quiet so complete it screamed. And those st
ructures. They towered over the landscape. They were made of materials that looked like
a mix between metal and sand. The surfaces were so dark that it seemed to
absorb the light. Their shapes were all wrong. The angles made my head hurt if I looked too
long. It was as if they were designed to only be
seen from the corner of your eye, not stared at directly. The most unsettling part? The moon dust. It wasn't just on the ground. It swirled around these structures, sticking
to my hands and my face
. I tried to wipe it away. But it clung to me, trying to make me part
of the moon. In my dream, I kept walking. Each step kicked up clouds of that strange
glittery dust. I walked until I came across a canyon. But this wasn't any ordinary canyon. It stretched far and wide, deeper than anything
I'd ever seen. Its edges shimmered under the starlight. The sides were jagged, like giant teeth ready
to snap shut. And it felt warm. A strange heat radiated from it as if it led
straight down to the core o
f the moon itself. Standing at its edge, I felt an overwhelming
sense of calm.The darkness was calling to me, promising me answers if I only stepped
forward. My feet moved on their own, leading me right
to the edge. And that's when I heard it—a voice, echoing
up from the canyon's depths. It wasn't loud, but it filled the silence
around me. It resonated deep in my chest. "You do not belong here," it said, calm and
impossibly sad. "Who are you?" I asked. "I am what you call the moon," the voice re
plied,
"but I am not just rock and dust. I am alive, in a way you cannot understand." "Why are you telling me this?" I found myself asking, drawn to the voice. "Your kind seeks to walk upon my surface,
to claim me as a conquest. The signal was a warning. You are not welcome here, not because I wish
to harm you. But because you are not ready." "Not ready for what?" The question slipped out before I could think. "For the truth that lies beyond your planet. There are things in this universe older a
nd
bigger than your minds can hold. You reach out with hands covered in blood
and call it exploration." I felt defensive. I wanted to argue, but the voice continued. "I do not blame you, Jim Marshall. You are driven by curiosity, a trait I admire. But listen to my warning. Some doors are closed for a reason. Do not open them." "What are you protecting us from?" I needed to know. "From the darkness that even light cannot
escape. From the past that should not be remembered. Your journey should be
forward, not backward
into the shadows. There are other beings on Earth that you must
not take to the stars" The voice faded, leaving me standing at the
canyon's edge. The warmth from the canyon felt comforting
now. Like a gentle reminder of the conversation
I'd just had. The dream felt more real than any waking moment
I'd ever experienced. And when I finally woke up, the memory of
it clung to me. I sat in my office, the early sun across my
desk. I knew now what must be done. The mission had to
be stopped. The moon had spoken, and I couldn't ignore
it. Waking up from that dream felt like climbing
out of one reality into another. There, on my desk was a report. It was in my own handwriting, but I couldn’t
remember when I’d made it. It was a translation of the signal, based
on the symbols I’ve collected. The logic was laid out so clearly, I wondered
how I could have missed it for so long. It was all there, in plain text. The message from the moon telling us to stay
away. I grabbed the re
port and made my way to the
top brass at NASA. I had to tell them. Show them what I'd found, what I'd "written." Somehow, I just knew that there was a meeting
that day. I knew which conference room they would be,
and that no one would stop me from getting there. I burst into the room to find the project
heads talking in hushed voices. "We can't go," I blurted out, holding up the
report. "We have to cancel the mission." They looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I tried to explain, to make them see
reason. But before I could get far, the room filled
with the sound of the signal. Phones, computers, every electronic device
started blaring it out, louder and more piercing than ever. Dust, like the moon dust from my dream, started
to gather in the corners of the room. And it wasn't just settling like regular dust. It swirled and thickened in corners as if
it had a life of its own. As if it wanted to bury us in it. People clutched their ears in pain, as the
sound overwhelmed us. Everyone start
ed to panic. They were holding their heads, trying to block
out the noise, but it was no use. The sound was everywhere. It was inside us, grinding against our skulls. Then, as if the sound flipped a switch, people
began to drop. It was like watching dominos fall. One after the other. People would clutch their heads, cry out,
and then just... collapse. Some tried to brace themselves on tables or
against walls. But down they went, slumping onto the floor
in heaps. And then they’d start to bleed. I
t started as a small nosebleed here and there. But it got worse quickly. The blood would start gushing out of ears
and noses. The contrast was shocking. That bright red against the harsh lights of
the room. Panic turned into terror. The air was now thick with dust and filled
with the iron scent of blood. It was chaos, pure and simple. And at the heart of it all was that ungodly
noise. Pushing us to the brink. "Please," I begged, my voice barely rising
over the noise, "you have to listen to me. T
he moon... it's warning us. We can't go there." For a moment, everything seemed to stand still. The officials stared at me. The report in my hand was now stained with
drops of my own blood running from my nose. The realization of what was happening finally
seemed to break through their skepticism. I see NASA’s chief executive officer nod
his head. As soon as he did, the room fell silent. The signal was gone. The decision that followed was made in silence. It was a mutual, unspoken agreement that
the
launch could not proceed. After that meeting, it was clear we couldn't
go forward. NASA had to pull the plug, but they couldn't
tell the world the real reason why. They said it was "technical difficulties,"
which wasn't entirely a lie, considering everything was breaking down around us. Walking out of that room felt like stepping
into a disaster movie. The control center which was usually buzzing
with activity was silent except for the occasional groan or whimper. People were scattered all
over the floor. Some of them were unconscious. Others were trying to stop the flow of blood
from their noses with whatever they could find. It was a mess, a real bad one. I noticed the computers next. Screens were black, not even a flicker or
cursor blinking back. I tried flipping a few switches, pressing
some power buttons, but nothing. Dead as doornails, all of them. And the wires, Jesus, the wires. They had melted into the floor. Even fusing with the tiles in places. You could see where some
had sparked and left
scorch marks. The communication equipment weren’t any
better. The radios, the satellite links, anything
that could send a signal out or bring one in, was fried. Handsets were hot to the touch and the films
were melted through. And then there was the dust. It was like a thin blanket had settled over
everything. It gave the whole place an eerie, abandoned
look. It coated the desks, the equipment, even the
chairs. Every step I took kicked up little clouds
of it, floating in the
air before settling back down. Everything that would have made the moon landing
possible was either broken, bleeding, or buried under a layer of dust. It felt like we were cut off from the rest
of the world. Left to deal with the aftermath of something
we still didn't fully understand. But now we all knew what had to be done next. The cover-up, man, it was something out of
a sci-fi flick. They roped in everyone who knew anything about
space and movie magic. We had these big sets that looked jus
t like
the moon's surface. All dusty and cratered. Scientists like me got pulled in to advise
on how to make it look legit. They ran calculations on how the astronauts
should move in low gravity. The astronauts were in on it too. They were forever sworn to secrecy. They were told to act out their parts, bouncing
around on wires to fake that moon gravity. It was all filmed, then broadcasted as if
it was happening live from the moon. They even planted a flag in the fake moon
dust. And me? I was ri
ght there in the thick of it. I was suggesting tweaks to make it all look
more convincing. Sometimes, I'd wake up from more of those
dreams where I was walking on the moon. The voice from the canyon would whisper these
little details. Like how to get the shadows just right or
make the flag flutter without wind. I couldn't tell if those dreams were the moon
actually speaking to me or if I was losing my grip. But every suggestion from those dreams made
the fake landing seem more real. And as the w
orld was celebrating our “one
giant leap”, I was in my office, dreaming about the moon. After everything that happened, I couldn't
stay at NASA any longer. Faking the biggest achievement of human space
exploration didn't sit right with me, even though we didn’t really have a choice. I walked away, but I kept in touch with a
few folks from the old team. They told me that some of the quarantined
staff got better, like nothing ever happened.The lucky ones came out of it with total memory
loss. They
couldn’t remember anything that happened
in the weeks leading up to the ‘launch’. The official story was that there was a meningitis
outbreak in the compound. NASA blamed it on some weird mold in the air
vents. Over the years, I'd catch wind of new plans
to communicate with what’s out there or to finally get boots on the moon for real
this time. But like clockwork, something would always
go wrong. Equipment failure, communication breakdowns,
you name it. I also know that other countries with sp
ace
programs had their sights set on the moon too. And sure, some of them would say that they’ve
sent people up there. But I know that it was all faked too. No one could make it work, and deep down,
I knew why. That signal wasn't just for us, it was for
everyone. Humanity is not welcome beyond Earth.
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