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May 19, 1969

Memorandum Submitted to H. H. Hess, Chairman, Space Board, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C., Concerning the Forthcoming Landings on the Moon the First of Which is Scheduled for the Summer of this Year.

The Moon was repeatedly heated and its entire surface melted less than 35 and 27 centuries ago. At the times the Moon’s surface was molten in near approaches with other celestial bodies, it was enveloped in powerful magnetic Fields; if the surface cooled down below the Curie point before the magnetic fields were weakened and removed, then it is to expect that lavas on the moon (most of its rock is lava) still possess a high magnetic remanence.

Of the lunar ringforming formations a larger number resulted from bubbling activity; but some of the craters (especially with rays extending) resulted from interplanetary electrical discharges. Near such craters a strong, decidedly harmful, radioactivity must still linger and magnetic anomaly could exist. Large meteorites caused a third group of craters. Rocks removed by astronauts should be marked as to their position in relation to cardinal points and not pulverized.

In the mid-second millennium before the present era, Earth was drenched in hydrocarbons of exogenous origin. The Moon may well have hydrocarbons in the form of dried naphtha, bituminous rocks, asphalt, or waxes.

“River beds” on the surface of the Moon resulted not from water streams but from local flows of lava after the crust cooled off to a semi-viscous consistency, following the last in the series of paroxysms (27 centuries ago).

(Signed) Immanuel Velikovsky