Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA, Enlarged and Revised Edition [Paperback]

Richard C. Hoagland (Author), Mike Bara (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009

The New York Times bestseller about the strange history of NASA and its cover-ups regarding its origins and extraterrestrial architecture found on the moon and Mars is even more interesting in its new edition.

Authors Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara include a new chapter about the discoveries made by ex-Nazi scientist and NASA stalwart Wernher von Braun regarding what he termed "alternate gravitational solutions," or the rewriting of Newtonian physics into hyperdimensional spheres.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hoagland served as a Curator of Astronomy & Space Science at the Springfield Museum of Science, located at The Quadrangle in Springfield, Massachusetts, and as a science adviser to Walter Cronkite and CBS News during the Apollo program. Mike Bara is a Consulting Engineer for Boeing. His scientific fluency and credibility adds further reinforcement to Richard Hoagland's controversial work. Bara has appeared on Coast to Coast with George Noory.

Product Details

• Paperback: 680 pages
• Publisher: Feral House; Rev Exp edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932595481
• ISBN-13: 978-1932595482
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #48,300 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Reference
  • #32 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Astronomy & Space Science > Aeronautics & Astronautics
  • #36 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Astronomy & Space Science > Astrophysics & Space Science

More About the Author

Mike Bara is a New York Times Bestselling author, screenwriter and lecturer. He began his writing career after spending more than 25 years as a "Card carrying member of the Military-Industrial complex" where he worked for a wide variety of aerospace companies as an engineering consultant and designer. Mike's first book, "Dark Mission-The Secret History of NASA" (co-authored with the venerable Richard C. Hoagland) was a New York Times bestseller in 2007. In October 2010, Mike returns with "The Choice," a new book from New Page Books which he describes as "the unified field theory of physics and metaphysics."

Mike has already begun work on his next book, "Tails of the Heart," a collaboration with pet intuitive Denise Zak, in which they will raise the veil on the spiritual relationship between people and their pets, and reveal the crucial role pets play in our lives and in shaping our destinies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good example of subjective validation - confirmation bias, June 19, 2011

By 

Reb Johnson (Collingswood, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA, Enlarged and Revised Edition (Paperback)

This is an interesting book, a good read, but if you read Hoagland's book with a critical mind, which is better than reading it with a biased, gullible, or overly suggestible mind, when you come to the section on his lunar dome hypothesis, which is roughly thirty percent into the book, you should begin to shake your head.

Hoagland is convinced there are literally billions of "watch crystal" pieces of glass suspended over the moon on an ancient rebar structure, the remains of artificial domes that were inhabited by ancient intelligent beings. He has "validated and confirmed" for himself this hypothesis from tiny shards of visual evidence he finds scattered here and there in lunar images, such as AS17-134-20426 (Google "Project Apollo Image Gallery" and go the the Hasselbad magazine for Apollo 17). That image, for instance, shows a streak of light in the sky above the astronaut. For Hoagland, it's proof positive of his hypothesis, complete with exclamation points!

As you read Hoagland's chronological account of how he came up with this lunar dome hypothesis and how he gradually confirmed it for himself, you will get a good picture of how a confirmation bias operates in a person. You have a belief - it doesn't matter where you got the belief - it's a belief that you want so badly to be confirmed that you begin to "see" selectively. Therefore everything you "see," confirms your belief. Evidence that doesn't confirm your belief, you just don't "see." You buffer it out before it even come's into consideration. Hoagland's lunar dome hypothesis and his subjective validation of that belief is such a clear example of confirmation bias, that, for me, it puts everything he has written under a towering dome of doubt and suspicion. It's a pity, really. One can't logically conclude that he is in error, factually, about every conclusion he reaches just because he is hopelessly biased, but the problem is that his conclusions cannot be trusted. The way he "proves" his lunar dome hypothesis combined with his total, inflexible certainty in its existence, puts his credibility starkly in issue. Anyone with a critical mind who is interested in the possibility of ancient, intelligent activity elsewhere in our solar system, can't reasonably rely on what Hoagland offers.

The tendency to affirm what one believes is a tendency that most of us have. You have to be really vigilant to avoid it, particularly when there is an emotional stake in the conclusion you want to reach - passion. It means challenging yourself at every turn, looking with just as much passion at all the evidence that contradicts your hypothesis. That isn't easy to do, particularly if you have a passionate belief that you want desperately to confirm. If you don't exercise real care and vigilance, you will only end up crystallizing a belief structure in yourself. We do it all the time.

I don't feel Hoagland has enough of the "scientist" in himself. He has more than enough of the "crusader" and more than enough of the "whistle-blower" and he has more than enough passion and energy. Those are all fine qualities but they need to be mediated by the "scientist."

I don't get the feeling that Hoagland is a fraud in the sense that he is deliberately capitalizing on gullible people's interest in extraterrestrial life. I think it's that he's operating under the influence of a confirmation bias and isn't aware of it. That's the way the confirmation bias always works. It governs your thinking only to the extent you are unaware of it's influence. A bias ceases to have power over you when you become sufficiently aware of it.

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I've read EVER, December 29, 2009

By 

Jess (California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA, Enlarged and Revised Edition (Paperback)

The history of NASA was mind blowing in this book. I read the previous edition, but I'm going to re-buy this version to reread the new information. I gave this book out to 4 different people for Christmas. To think our government put Nazis in charge of starting NASA and how even L. Ron Hubbard is connected to the history of the program. Even more interesting is how given NASA is funded by our taxpayers in this country, it's interesting to learn from this book that NASA is not classified as a public explorations of science program but in fact, an agency of defense, therefore allowing the agency to cover up whatever they want, and classify "top secret" photographs from space and videos without us ever knowing what the hell we are funding. And as a huge researcher constantly watching, reading, studying the topic of UFOS, at first I was skeptical of some of the information in this book. But I started reading other books with official gov't reports photocopied in them, and with the recent interviews given by Buzz Aldrin finally revealing there is a "monolith" on the moon and Neil Armstrong finally breaking his non-interview silence this year as well, and based on a comment he made for the 25th anniversary of the moon landing, telling new generations "to uncover the protective layers of the truth" and referencing that there are many discoveries awaiting. I now throw my skepticism in the trash and support 95% of the evidence/information in this book.

25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic confirmation of ET Lunar landscape!, November 12, 2009

By 

Dalton Bagby "Dalton Bagby" (Chandler, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA, Enlarged and Revised Edition (Paperback)

Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA, is one of the most astonishing and enlightening books I have ever read, and a great follow up to the earlier edition. Tremendously important for everyone! The ET lunar architecture depicted in the photos are astonishing! Thank you Hoagland and Bara for putting your "hand in the box" where others are too afraid to go. This book definitely calls into question the official versions of space exploration, given to us by force feeding from governments and academia. This book literally rewrites our relationship in the cosmos. A new science and NASA politics, tells us that for the last 50 years, space has been owned by government and not the people-few are allowed to participate. Hoagland and Bara are like science detectives wading through obstacles and explaining the science and what it means to us. In reading your book twice, I feel as I was really there as you tell the story. Thank you for allowing me to participate in this adventure!