It is a little known fact that when the Apollo astronauts returned from the moon, they brought back evidence of a previously unknown lunar expedition. This evidence consisted of several cardboard canisters containing lunar breccia, and, more significantly, a document written by the early explorers that prophecied the future arrival of the NASA astronauts themselves.
Many commentators were put in mind of the Aztec, who long prophecied the coming of Cortez and the Spaniards, not least because the early explorers viewed the coming astronauts as cosmic deities. Most saw the document as a forgery: the notion of the astronauts as neocolonialist conquistadors seemed an obvious ploy to discredit NASA.
Now the document is long forgotten, relegated to mere lunar trivia, like Edgar Mitchell’s attempt to perform telepathy from space or Charles Duke’s moon rover dream. Whether authentic or not, the spirit of the prophecy is hard to deny – if any man is to be transformed into a god, what better candidate is there than one who has ascended into the celestial sphere and stood alone on a distant world?
