NASA secretly scrubbed signs of an 'alien presence' from historic Apollo photographs of the Moon, a whistleblower physicist has claimed in an interview.
Physicist Maaneli 'Max' Derakhshani, who studies alleged anomalies on the lunar and Martian surface, told the American Alchemy podcast that multiple Apollo missions in the 1960s and 1970s captured unexplained objects that were later edited out.
He alleged that the doctored images helped conceal what some astronauts privately interpreted as evidence of a non‑human intelligence near the Moon.
According to Derakhshani, several of NASA's most famous astronauts also spoke of telepathic warnings from extraterrestrials not to return.
NASA has long denied any such alien presence, and there is currently no independently verified proof that the claims are true.
Physicist Says Apollo Photos Were 'Cleaned' of Alien Presence
Derakhshani's central charge is simple enough. He says original Apollo photographs stored in NASA‑linked archives show objects that are mysteriously absent from later, widely circulated versions of the same frames, and that this amounts to airbrushing an alien presence out of history.
In one case, he pointed to an Apollo 14 photograph of astronaut Edgar Mitchell standing on the lunar surface. A scan held by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, an archive that he said NASA has managed since the 1970s, shows Mitchell casting a long shadow across regolith and a pitch‑black lunar sky.
'You zoom in everywhere, it's completely black,' he told host Jesse Michels.
However, in a separate copy of the same frame hosted in a 'March to the moon' collection managed by Johnson Space Centre and Arizona State University, Derakhshani said a distinct blue orb appears in the sky above Mitchell. In his telling, it is 'very clearly' visible and has no obvious prosaic explanation such as lens flare or film damage.
That kind of discrepancy is the backbone of his argument. Not proof of aliens, he stressed, but in his view, a pattern that is awkward to write off as simple cataloguing glitches or dust on an old scanner.
Blue Lights, 'Insectoid' Objects and a NASA Probe
The most striking example, at least visually, comes from Apollo 17, the final Moon landing mission in 1972. Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt took a series of photographs from the surface that have been pored over for decades by space buffs and sceptics alike.
According to Derakhshani, one famous frame shows three solid blue lights in the black sky above a lunar hill. When the image is brightened, he said, the region between the lights also brightens, hinting that they may be attached to a single larger object rather than being isolated specks of noise.
NASA's own description of that image, released as part of a batch of declassified UFO‑related materials in May, noted that a 'special investigation' had been opened after experts suggested the lights could belong to a sizeable physical object in space.
No public conclusion was announced, and NASA and the Pentagon both maintain that no proof of alien craft has ever been found.
Derakhshani claims other Apollo 17 frames contain pale metallic streaks against the darkness, which, when heavily zoomed and brightened, look to him like insect‑shaped objects with faint trails that resemble engine exhausts.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and other sceptics argue that the oddities are nothing more than cosmic rays striking the film or the detector, a routine nuisance in space imaging.
Derakhshani pushed back, calling the odds of repeated, solid round lights showing up in that way 'statistically very improbable.'
Whistleblower Pilot and Destroyed Apollo Negatives
The physicist's case is not limited to pixels. He links the alleged image editing to a broader narrative of internal secrecy at NASA, much of it resting on the word of former insiders whose stories are impossible to fully verify.
One of them is Ken Johnston Sr, described by Derakhshani as a pilot who trained Apollo astronauts and served as a backup astronaut during the programme.
On the podcast, he recounted Johnston's claim that he had been ordered to destroy a batch of early‑generation Apollo photographic negatives because they contained 'anomalies' that were 'not supposed to be there.'
Rather than comply, Johnston allegedly kept some of the negatives and later uploaded copies online, presenting them as evidence of a cover‑up.
NASA has been asked for comment on the latest accusations regarding image tampering and alleged instructions to destroy material. At the time of writing, there is no public response addressing Derakhshani or Johnston by name.
Officially, the agency's line on UAP mirrors that of the Pentagon, emphasising the need for better data and bluntly stating that no confirmed extraterrestrial technology has been recovered.
Telepathic 'Warnings' and Astronaut Lore
Michels and Derakhshani revisited long‑circulated tales that Neil Armstrong, the first human on the Moon, confided to acquaintances in Washington DC that 'we were told not to come back to the moon.'
Eugene Cernan, who commanded Apollo 17, is said to have told a friend, Japanese curator Josen Takano, that he received a kind of telepathic message during the mission: 'We don't really want you here.'
American Alchemy also revisited Edgar Mitchell's stories of attempting telepathic experiments during Apollo 14, and separate claims that aliens 'followed' their rocket. The conversation soon drifted to Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin, whose comments over the years about an unexplained object seen en route to the Moon have been dissected into oblivion.
Derakhshani argued that Aldrin's changing account suggests he 'knows more than he can say publicly.'
Aldrin himself was far more blunt in a 2014 Reddit Q&A, writing: 'It was not an alien. Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence.'
Alien Presence Claims Meet Artemis Reality
Derakhshani has pushed his theory further in a separate interview, arguing that NASA is actively blurring 'technosignatures' on the Moon, structures he claimed could be up to 30 metres high and 100 metres long.
He has put the probability that artificial constructions exist on the lunar surface at 'more than 50%' and suggested that the agency is wary of returning because of what it might find there.
Artemis III is expected to fly astronauts around the Moon in 2027, with Artemis IV pencilled in for a landing in 2028, the first since Apollo. If there is anything artificial sitting quietly on the rim of a crater, those missions will have front‑row seats.
The latest round of allegations lands just as NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. That half‑century gap has fuelled a cottage industry of conspiracy theories about why the US walked away from the Moon after only a handful of landings.
In recent years, promises of transparency on UFOs and so‑called UAPs from Washington have only added more noise. Declassified Pentagon documents, splashy disclosure speeches and old presidential hints about 'what's really out there' have made fertile ground for stories that mix hard science with, frankly, pretty wild speculation.
