No evidence of human remains dubbed 'Mona Lisa' found on the moon
No evidence of human remains dubbed 'Mona Lisa' found on the moon
(Reuters) - Human remains have never been found on the moon, NASA’s chief historian told Reuters, but users online are sharing a video that is allegedly proof a sarcophagus named Mona Lisa was discovered during a moon mission. The video appears to originate from a fictional story about an Apollo 20 mission, which never happened according to NASA, created by a French author.
Examples of social media users sharing a video with the text “Black Mona Lisa Wit Locs (sic) Found on the backside of the moon” can be seen (here), (here) and (here).
The video alleges that a female with her skin preserved and intact was found in a spacecraft on the moon during a 1976 mission. It claims the woman, who was the pilot of the alleged spacecraft, is believed to be anywhere between one million to one billion years old.
The same Mona Lisa figure appears in the background of a book by French author Thierry Speth titled, “Apollo 20, the Unknown Mission” (here). The book’s contents match the narrative presented in the videos shared on social media, including the character names and theme of a starship on the “dark side of the moon” containing an extraterrestrial during the alleged Apollo 20 mission.
However, the real Apollo 20 mission scheduled to fly to the moon was canceled in 1970 due to tightened federal budgets, along with the Apollo 18 and Apollo 19 missions, according to NASA (here), (here).
Brian Odom, NASA’s chief historian, also confirmed the cancellation of the Apollo 20 mission and told Reuters that no figure, sarcophagus or “anything of the sort has been found on the moon” during any NASA mission. He added that there is “no evidence to substantiate” the claim that a figure named Mona Lisa was found on the moon.
Speth apparently created the Apollo 20 mission and its findings as a hoax, as in page 5 of the book, he wrote, “This story is a fiction. Some public names appear, but any resemblance with people or situations having existed or occurred is purely accidental” (here).
Speth runs a Facebook group for the book and its About section also says “Apollo 20 is a fiction story written partially in 2006. It intended to be a collaborative movie” (here). He also shared filmstrips of the Mona Lisa to that group that match the footage in the viral video (here).
In one post (here), Speth shared a link to an interview he did about Apollo 20 (here). In the interview, Speth says he is the creator of the hoax and uploaded a series of videos on April Fool’s Day in 2007 and acknowledges that he was able to fool people into thinking the contents were true. He says he intended to make the movie seem as believable as possible by combining real footage from NASA with fabricated images and clips to create an “illusion” that the Apollo 20 mission happened.
Speth did not respond to a Reuters request for comment via Facebook messenger.
Some websites blogs, and forums have debunked the Apollo 20 hoax in further depth by explaining how the images and clips shown in the videos are replicated or inspired by true events and compare audio, video and imagery from the video (here), (here) and (here).
VERDICT
False. There is no evidence that human remains were found on the moon, a NASA spokesperson told Reuters, and the footage appears to originate from a fictional story about an Apollo 20 mission.
