The Secret Museum on the Moon
Drawings by six famous artists, Andy Warhol among them, may be on the Moon, stuck to the leg of a lander. NASA has never confirmed it.
What was reported
The Moon Museum is a ceramic tile, about the size of a postage stamp, carrying tiny drawings by six artists, including Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. The sculptor Forrest Myers organised it in 1969, after failing to get NASA's permission to send it.
He says an engineer at the company building the lunar lander agreed to hide it on one of the landing legs of Apollo 12's lander. Two days before launch, Myers received a telegram: 'YOUR ON. A.O.K. ALL SYSTEMS GO.'
Explanations offered
There's no official record, and no photograph shows the tile on the Moon. Several copies exist on Earth. If it's there, it's under the lower stage of the lander, which stayed behind on the Moon.
- When
- November 1969
- Where
- Ocean of Storms, the Moon (Apollo 12 landing site)
- Witnesses
- An engineer who said he did it, and a telegram
- Status
- Unconfirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.