Lies & Secrets

It was a proud moment for Astronaut Dustin Cadwell, as he stood on the gray lunar surface in his gleaming-white spacesuit.  Tears of joy streamed down his handsome clean-shaven face inside of his space helmet�" his childhood dreams of walking on the moon had finally come to fruition, though under mysterious circumstances.  Dustin lifted up his left foot to observe the horizontal lines that were pressed into the powdery-soft moon dust by the sole of his space boot, almost as if he needed further proof that he was actually on the moon.  It all seemed surreal.  If he wasn’t wearing a bulky spacesuit he would have pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.  

“Houston, Apollo 19” Dustin radioed, receiving a prompt and clear response from Mission Control, “Go ahead with your traffic, Apollo 19.”  “Houston, we’ve located Apollo 18’s tracks.  Following them to see if we can locate the astronauts” Dustin nervously advised, unsure of what horrors they might discover about the missing spacemen.  NASA told them that Brandon and Andrew didn’t return from the moon for reasons unknown, but they purposely withheld the mysterious details of their disappearance.  “Roger that Apollo 19.  Godspeed Mike and Dustin.” Houston replied, after a short pause.  Dustin also paused for a moment, reflecting back on the series of life events that brought him to his lunar achievement. 

Unlike most of his classmates back in high school, who were involved in sports and dreamed of becoming professional athletes, Dustin was fascinated by astrophysics and aspired to become an astronaut.  He wanted to be the first kid from his rustic-little town to bring home a moon rock!  Posters of spacemen, planets and martians decorated his room, while the other boys had posters of athletes on their walls.  He was brilliant but slender and uncoordinated, so he often got bullied at school.  Unfortunately for Dustin, the bullying didn’t end there.

Dustin’s alcoholic father, Barrett Cadwell, was an incredible athlete and he was the MVP of practically every sports team during his childhood.  He even went to college on a full-ride scholarship because of his athletic prowess, though he never graduated with a degree.  Dustin’s dad was less intelligent than a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal; all brawn but no brains, and he completely lacked a growth-mindset.  Fortunately, Dustin inherited his brilliance from his mother’s side of the family.  

Barrett made no effort to hide his disappointment concerning Dustin’s lack of athleticism.  In fact, he often made fun of his Dustin in the presence of others�" especially when he drank.  “Hell, his sister can throw a ball better than he can” he would say, or “While other boys are throwing footballs, Dustin is playing with rockets.”  “Must have made a mistake at the hospital when he was born” he would shout, soliciting boisterous laughter from Barrett’s friends, as they sat around drinking by the fire in the backyard.  And any time Dustin talked about becoming an astronaut, his dad would crush his dreams by telling him that his ambitions were “unrealistic.”    

There were many nights that Dustin cried himself to sleep because of his father’s cruel jokes and comments.  He could handle the bullying at school, but he couldn’t bear not having the love and validation of his father.  Fortunately for Dustin, his straight-A’s and scientific brilliance soon earned him a full-scholarship to a university far away from his feeble-minded father.  

While studying astrophysics, Dustin was introduced to Mike Swanson�" a goofy but brilliant aeronautical engineering student.  Mike was also a phenomenal musician and was a prodigy at anything involving acoustics.  Dustin often joked with him and told him that he needed to be a sonar-technician on a Navy submarine, but neither of them would ever serve in the military.  

Mike, who would later receive the nickname “Swan” from a shortened version of his last name, also aspired to become an astronaut and the two quickly became best friends.  When people saw them together it was usually assumed the two college students were brothers because they were both thin, average-height white males with similar facial features.  Albeit, they weren't related, Mike was the kind of friend that Dustin wanted his whole life and they became close, a lot like actual brothers.  It was refreshing for him to have a friend like Mike and, as fate would have it, they would both travel into space together.  

On July 21, 1969 Dustin and Mike watched in awe as the first Apollo astronauts walked on the lunar surface in their white moonsuits.  The black and white TV at the student center, one of the only televisions on campus, was small but the moon landing was monumental.  At the time, most of their classmates were more concerned about the war in Vietnam and were worried about being drafted.  Dustin and Mike were definitely worried about being drafted for the war, but NASA’s historic achievement galvanized their resolve to become astronauts and together they both applied to NASA promptly after graduation.  Their dreams of walking on the moon suddenly seemed like it was within their reach!

Although Mike and Dustin got accepted into astronaut training and became Apollo astronauts, the manned voyages to the moon abruptly ended in 1972 with Apollo 17, allegedly due to budget cuts.  This, of course, was a cover-up. Unbeknownst to the American public, geologic samples extracted by astronauts on the moon revealed the presence of valuable elements, including gold and uranium.  Further adding to the mystery of the elements was the discovery of a lunar cave, near where the uranium was discovered.  There were no known hydraulic forces on the moon, no known forces of erosion, so what produced the cave?  And how deep did it go and what minerals could be inside? 

The American government didn’t want the Russians to suspect that they discovered uranium on the moon, so they announced that they were terminating the Apollo program due to cost.  This cover-up lie from the government was willingly accepted and believed by the public.  Due to NASA’s seemingly opulent and superfluous Apollo budget, the once-celebrated voyages to the moon became wildly unpopular.  There was even a poem authored about the program called “Whitey On The Moon” which spoke against NASA’s lavish spending while there were people living in poverty.  So when the government announced that they were terminating the Apollo program, nobody questioned it.

However, on a cold night in the winter of 1973, NASA secretly launched Apollo 18 to the moon to extract additional mineral samples in and around the lunar cave.  The objective of the secret voyage was to verify the presence of uranium on the moon for weapons manufacturing, and to discover what forces created the cave.  Unfortunately, NASA didn’t know they were sending the Apollo 18 astronauts to their doom and the only surviving crew member was the astronaut that stayed in the command module.  Desperate for answers about what happened to Brandon and Andrew of Apollo 18, NASA began searching through astronaut candidates for an Apollo 19 crew in hopes of locating the missing spacemen.

Based on the horrifying radio transmission received by Andrew and Brandon, NASA suspected that aliens killed the unfortunate astronauts.  Although that theory was far too outlandish for some of the more conservative scientists working at NASA, there was no denying the final frantic-words of the missing spacemen.  Thus, keeping Apollo 19 secret from the public was of the highest priority; everything about the mission was classified.  But NASA wasn't the only agency keeping secrets.  A clandestine three-letter agency was surreptitiously monitoring NASA’s secret lunar tragedy and had a hidden agenda�" they intended to use Apollo 19 as bait in a twisted experiment to learn about the extraterrestrials, their exact location and their capabilities.  Mysterious agents in black suits began arriving in Cape Canaveral, Florida to “assist” with Apollo 19’s voyage.  

The agency also declared total authority concerning the investigation of Apollo 18, and the agents arrogantly confiscated all files, audio recordings and photographs from the Apollo 18 tragedy.  After all of the evidence was collected, they regrouped in a NASA conference room and analyzed all of the materials with laser-like focus.  Anyone without top-secret clearance was not permitted in or near the room.

All NASA employees involved with Apollo 18 were forced, by the imperious agents, to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements.  Anyone who refused to sign the NDA’s were threatened into compliance or had their reputations permanently tarnished by fictitious but damaging allegations.  The government effectively ensured that nobody would believe them, even if they told the truth about what happened on the moon.  When those tactics didn’t work, “training accidents” began to occur.  Three astronauts who knew about Apollo 18 were doing a plugs-out test of a spacecraft when it suddenly exploded, a day after they all refused to sign NDA’s.  Coincidence? 

NASA knew that the secrecy of Apollo 19 depended largely on the astronauts they selected for the mission.  It was probable that the defenseless crew wouldn’t return if they encountered the same lifeform that killed Andrew and Brandon.  Thus, mission planners filtered out astronauts who had families and zeroed in on younger candidates who didn’t.  After weeding out a dozen or so astronauts, Mike and Dustin were selected for the mission, but they weren’t provided with the exact details concerning Brandon and Andrew.  All they were told was that mission control lost contact with the two astronauts during a geologic survey on the moon and that they never returned.  Their official mission was to locate the missing spacemen and bring them home; NASA didn't tell them that the astronauts were presumed dead or that they encountered a hostile non-human species on the moon.

Completely oblivious to the exact details surrounding Apollo 18’s disappearance, Dustin and Mike were blissfully elated that they would be walking on the moon together.  Their childhood dreams had come true, and the fact that it was a classified rescue mission made it even more exciting!  Immediately after being selected for Apollo 19, Mike and Dustin were sent to the Craters Of The Moon Training Facility in Idaho to train for their lunar EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity).  Although Idaho is quite some distance from where they would launch from in the flatlands of Cape Canaveral, the terrain at the facility mirrored the rough geologic features of the moon.  It was the perfect location to safely but realistically train Apollo astronauts.  

While the two spacemen were in lunar EVA training, Jim Nance, the director of the Apollo program, selected Astronaut Kaylee Collins to be the spacecraft pilot for the secret mission to the moon.  Kaylee was a beautiful and wildly-talented spacecraft pilot; she would remain in orbit around the moon in the command module while Mike and Dustin descended down to the lunar surface to search for the missing crew.  Unfortunately, because of her gorgeous-blonde looks and prissy mannerisms, Kaylee spent her whole life being underestimated but her brilliance was well recognized and celebrated at NASA.

Mike and Dustin were wearing training suits, similar to the actual spacesuits that they would wear on the moon, when Kaylee walked up to them in her light-blue NASA flight suit.  Her pretty blonde hair floated in the Idaho breeze as the director of the Apollo program introduced her to them.  Dustin was instantly shocked by her beauty and was mesmerized by her gorgeous ocean-blue eyes.  Drawn to her hypnotic beauty like a moth to a flame, he practically didn’t hear a word of what the director was saying.  With her slender yet curvy 5’ 6” frame, she was the most stunning spacecraft pilot-astronaut he had ever seen.  But Dustin was a gentleman and a professional; he kept his attraction to Kaylee between him and God.  Just being in her presence was privilege enough�" for now.

Over the next several weeks they would spend every second of their time together preparing for the mission; they even slept inside of a simulated spacecraft for a few nights.  Since time was of the essence, Apollo 19 only had weeks to prepare instead of months.  All three of them had already honed their individual astronaut skills to perfection, but now it was time to become united as Apollo 19.

During their training, the government continued to keep the three young astronauts in the dark about what happened to Apollo 18, and about the reason why the public wasn’t privy to their voyage to the moon.  Kaylee, Dustin and Mike were perplexed by NASA’s furtiveness, but their excitement of being involved in a secret rescue mission in space overpowered their foreboding thoughts.  

Two weeks prior to launch, the Apollo 19 astronauts were training in a simulator of the command module when they were abruptly pulled out of training and escorted into a nearby conference room by agents in black.  The bewildered crew was then greeted by a formidable female agent who was also clad in black.  “Welcome astronauts, please have a seat” she said.  Mike, Dustin and Kaylee were instantly intimidated by the tall woman’s domineering presence and they didn’t hesitate to follow her instructions.  Her impressively-muscular physique was visible through her black attire and her bulging biceps stretched her sleeves as though they were about to bust through the fabric.  The way she moved and conducted herself made it obvious that she had military training.  

As she brushed her black hair back with her fingers, Dustin noticed she had cauliflower ears just like his dad did.  Barrett had cauliflower ears from  many years of wrestling, so Dustin knew immediately that the woman probably had extensive grappling experience.  

“My name is Agent X” she advised with a stern voice.  Mike started to giggle at the agent’s name, which sounded like something out of a comic book to him.  A cartoonish image of the freakishly-fit female agent instantly popped up in his brain as he laughed in amusement.  However, he was quickly silenced by her angry stare that sliced right through him like a laser.  Kaylee and Dustin looked down at the conference table, feeling a bit uncomfortable.  “I work for an intelligence agency within the US government and I’m here to remind you that this recovery mission is classified” she continued, after Mike’s brief interruption.  “Recovery mission?” Dustin skittishly asked.  “Yes, obviously the Apollo 18 astronauts are presumed dead” the agent coldly stated as she handed out NDAs for the astronauts to sign.  Her cold-callous words penetrated deep into Dustin’s warm heart like a serrated knife.  Up until now they had been told it was a “rescue mission.”  It was a deeply somber and sobering feeling, officially recognizing that their objective was one of recovery instead of rescue.  

“Why was Apollo 18 kept secret from the public?” Kaylee curiously asked as she signed the documents with her perfectly French-manicured fingers, “Why wasn’t it announced to the public that American astronauts were going back to the moon after Apollo 17?”  The stout female agent wasn’t amused by Kaylee’s curiosity.  “That’s also classified” she replied with a stoic expression on her face,  “All you need to know about Apollo 18 is their last known location on the moon, which will be transmitted to you after launch.”  The unspoken consensus of the three skittish astronauts was that Agent X not to be tested and they decided to leave quietly after signing the NDAs, exited the conference room with many unanswered questions.