Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

This is one of those books that I have been looking forward to reading ever since I found out about it. Out of my list of over 100 books to read, Dark Mission was considered a MUST BUY. As soon as I received the book, I went home so I could find out what NASA was truly hiding.

I became fascinated right away when Richard Hoagland showed the first pictures of supposed ruins on Mars. It appeared as if there had been a city that previously inhabited the area. Unfortunately, after finishing the book and looking back, these pictures and just a few others would be the only ones out of all of them where I could see what Hoagland was trying to explain. Too many times throughout this book I found myself analyzing the pictures and trying to find what Hoagland was explaining. When I read each chapter and looked at the images associated with it, I felt like Hoagland was there with me pointing at the image saying, "Look! It's right there in front of our eyes!" Which then I reply by saying, "Hoagland, I think that it's just a glare from the camera or your mind trying to categorize the environment as artificially made." I am not a person that is skeptical about there being structures on different planets not made by us, but I need better evidence than what was represented here. After reading more than half of this 616 page book, I was convinced that Dark Mission was an attempt for Hoagland to clear his name from previous cases or arguments where he had been declared a liar or loony. I would of done the same thing, but I find that Hoagland tries to do this with every single argument in the book and it becomes old very quickly.

The parts of the book that caught my attention the most had almost nothing to do with the "secret history" of NASA like the second chapter which dealt with hyper dimensional physics and angular momentum. "The amount of energy a given object radiates is dictated by the force exerted on it through hyper space, and that this hyper spatial energy is measurable in our 3D world as angular momentum. The more total system angular momentum a planet possesses, the more anomalous energy it is capable of generating." The small section dealing with the assassination of John F. Kennedy was also very informative. I have never been interested or believed in the conspiracy over JFK's assassination, but after reading this book, I am convinced that JFK was a president that served the common person more than he served the government and the people working behind it. Even though I was not alive yet to hear him speak, reading and listening to his words now shows me that he had a certain respectable truth about him. A certain kind of honesty that is so hard to find in our presidents today. JFK tried to change so many things in the machine and unfortunately, it caused him to experience a young death.

There is no denying that Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara are on to something when dealing with the fact that NASA is hiding information. After reading this book, you will find yourself questioning NASA's tactics and overall portrayal of information more and more. There may not be any absolute concrete evidence that NASA is lying, but it seems as if certain information is being held back from us for unknown reasons. I would of enjoyed this book a lot more if it was 300 pages instead of 616 pages because I feel that so much information was brought up again and again. Honestly, when I reached the halfway point through this book, all I wanted to do was chuck it through a thick window because it seemed like the same thing over and over. Fortunately I have finished the book and can now do what I please with it. I guess its overall purpose now is to serve as a coaster for all my drinks and frankly, I don't give a crap if the book is ruined by all the dripping condensation.

It took the authors four years to compile this book, and their efforts to obtain actual data from NASA was truly amazing. The authors are not afraid to take sides and call things as they see them, painstakingly providing information to back up their positions.

If you want to hide something, put it in plain site. Basically, this is NASA's approach to covering up everything from artificial structures to possible life forms: take the pictures and change the color, scale, angles, corrupting and/or distorting the images until no one can determine the true landscape. Plan A was just to cook up some ridiculous lies to run by all the media who were too stupid to ask any relevant questions. Plan B was feigning incompetence or equipment failure.

Before I bought this book, one question I had hoped would be answered was how NASA could keep all the astronauts, the only eyewitnesses, from giving away the company secrets. As part of a defense/intelligence controlled entity, I'm sure there would be the usual death threats, but still... one terminal illness would change the game. Well, good news. I got the answer.

The unanswered question is: How much does NASA really know and how long have they known it? Unfortunately, NASA is just another governmental organization that makes decisions based strictly on politics.

DARK MISSION is a very interesting (and frustrating) book. In my opinion, it is full of b.s. crap. But there might be a reason why there's so much crap in it. Maybe it is to allow the skeptics some leeway to gradually accept whatever "truth" is out there. I rate this book FIVE STARS because I honestly feel it should be read. Yes, there's a lot of stuff that is just nonsense, but it also details some EXTREMELY INTERESTING issues that CANNOT BE EXPLAINED by "convention" rationale.

People who have read this book (believers or skeptics) will laugh at my following parody of the authors' descriptions of (speculative) lunar/martian ruins: In numerous places in the book, you will be reading something being described as "3D glass-like honeycombed artificial structures that have a cell-like tetrahedral formation that CANNOT be natural formations" and so you eagerly flip to the reference photos and see... photos of a bunch of rocks. You squint your eyes and zoom in and out on your computer (if reading the Kindle versions) but see nothing like what the author describes. So you move onto the next "explosive" photo and it's pretty much the same experience. In fact, for some of these photos, what I see is just either lens flare or some oily film that was on the camera lens. OK so I am no photographic expert. But really, you probably will come to the same conclusion.

Having said the above, whatever remains in the book is COMPELLING. The authors do an EXCELLENT job posing various LOGICAL questions that you can ponder, and there are no REASONABLE explanations (justifications) for some of the seemingly irrational things that NASA has done. So, based on these issues, I do recommend this book be read. Certainly, the astronauts themselves have (of late) come out to talk about this stuff (and there is no reason for them to put their reputations at risk for even giving credence to UFO/alien phenomenon if it is pure bunk). Hoagland and Bara even mention the John Glenn appearance on Fraser, which is completely inexplicable unless you take on the right paradigm to understand it.

I would not even write this review except that I feel "some people" are "allowing" this kind of "expose" to gradually come about, and yet it is done in a highly frustrating manner. Perhaps it is a kind of filter (and I don't mean any offense) because only the highly intelligent and insightful will be able to sift through the array of confusing and conflicting facts, to ultimately discern the nuggets of truth.

By the way, this book is not to be taken in ISOLATION. One needs to be aware of the numerous OTHER vectors of evidence from revised anthropology, archeology, megaliths, etc. to derive the COMMON DENOMINATOR, and Dark Mission fits into this framework.

For those unwilling to delve into this subject (because it's "obviously nonsense") are only shunning their opportunity to gain insight into the greatest discovery of humankind.

Von Daniken said that if you're not paying attention now you will get "the shock of the ages" when all is revealed.

I will start this review by clearly stating that I went into reading this book with an open mind thinking that perhaps I might be able to take something away from it, anything that might possibly be interesting to talk about with others... That being said, I would now like to clearly state that I am embarrassed for ever having given this book a chance and for even reading past the first 75 pages. Throughout reading this I constantly found myself asking why any noteworthy publishing company would have allowed this garbage to somehow slip through the cracks because it was just that rediculous. It seemed that each time I turned the page I became more and more frustrated because of how insultingly ignorant Hoagland portrayed himself through his investigation of these "altered photographs" which he claims that NASA had tampered with. This author knows absolutely nothing about the geology of the Moon or Mars and you can tell this when he states that the face on Mars proves that alien life had existed there. If he knew anything about Mars, natural land formations, or even basic lighting then he would know that these NASA photos of the "face on Mars" were merely the result of a shading illusion caused by the sun's location at the time of the photographing. It is when a person makes such blind claims to support his thesis, only to prove he is a complete moron, that he should just simply be ignored. But no, I couldn't just stop there because he did the same thing with the photographs taken of the lunar surface by NASA. He claims that there are crystal structures on the moon that suggest alien life, he claims that NASA altered photos so that nobody would know about it, he claims that a picture of a random rock on the moon proves the existence of automatons (which he so boldy makes a comparison to C3PO from Star Wars), he claims that the moon has a breathable atmosphere... At this point I couldn't comprehend how this book became so popular despite its lack of common sense in regard to scientific facts. It should be fairly well known that the mass of a planetary body is what gives a planet the ability to maintain an atmosphere, oxygen being confined to earth because its average temperature and mass are not strong enough to escape gravity. If one takes into consideration how much smaller the moon is in comparison to earth then it should be blatantly obvious that oxygen could not possibly be confined to the moon without almost immediate dissipation. Hoagland may be able to claim that there's some sort of government conspiracy regarding NASA and alien life that has been kept secret but it only takes basic logic to realize he's just full of crap. If NASA were even capable of all the things he claims they are then it still doesn't answer why nobody has ever said anything about it. I'll clarify that: by nobody I of course mean any other developed country that has the ability to see these things for themselves. If NASA is covering all of this up then why hasn't China or Russia said anything? Has everybody forgotten that America is not the only country that has the technological ability to send probes to the moon? In 2007 China sent Chang'e-1 to orbit the moon and it came back with a complete image map of the surface and I don't think anybody saw these crystal cities Hoagland claims are there. Long story short my point is that this book should just be ignored and especially taken from the science department of Barnes and Noble and moved to fiction because I can find a more accurate history of NASA on "Bob The Builder". This book is simply the end result of a man trying to make reality more interesting than it actually is and anybody who takes it seriously is clearly just another moron who can't find satisifaction in their everyday life.

Holy Cow!, that is a good piece of information about historical developements, and quite a lot of embarrasment for NASA as well. Well done, Mr Hoagland & co., I take my hat. You got balls.

A couple of things to mention:

First I recommend everybody to have a look to Mr Jose Escamilla film "Moon rising", there you can check out many things exposed in this book about numerous amazing "artificialities" withering the vine on lunar surface.

Second I can hardly understand Hoagland on stubbornly saying our moon is out of atmosphere, several evidences laid out in his book compell to guess the oppsite: Thin yellowish halo surrounding lunar outlines, three alien figures shot standing and watching Apollo 11 landing at naked face, etc. I think it's more outrageous finding giant glassy domes everywhere, don't get me wrong I'm convinced many domes are there, but not to the extent to justify all those phenomena like those dawn or dusk hazy aurae. Besides his own findings my best proof to believe of lunar atmosphere is: stare the Moon on half crescent, the half shadow area is not totally black-dark and out of texture, some dim lighting and features are still visible.
Isn't it about difussed light only explainable meanby gasseous medium covering the surface?

Please think about it and also listen about it from Mr John Lear's explanation on Project Camelot's files.
My best regards-

Hey, "I want to believe", but this book doesn't make it any easier.

On the plus side, this book provides some interesting history with regards to the "marketing" aspects of the space program. In retrospect, I suppose it's naive to believe that NASA and the other space agencies simply discover and take pictures...and then merely publish the findings without injecting any spin for political gain. That alone is worth considering and the book has value in providing several interesting cases.

On the negative side, the book spends considerable time using the "freemasonry" associations as supporting evidence of the dark politics. This is an old and tired concept. Look, it's true that freemasonry has been around for a long time, and it appears to be true that many movers and shakers in world history belonged to the fraternity...but it should also be considered that most masons just lead a normal working/family life. In other words, with so many members in a club that values science and organization, it's not exactly surprising to find some of the members involved in important matters.

Another negative aspect of the book revolves around grainy photos that supposedly "prove" there is intelligent life on mars. Unfortunately (and hypocritically) some of the grainy photos were even "artistically" enhanced to help drive home the message. I call this hypocrisy because the author rightfully criticizes NASA for taking their own artistic liberties too far.

In any event, none of the photos or associated text prove anything to me. Four sided mound of dirt? So what? I've seen mountains (here on earth) that have a striking resemblance to a pyramid. Were these mountains carved by the ancients? Maybe. But most believe that glaciers simply plowed on through and coincidentally made a few sharp edges along the way. It happens. Do your own experiment: smash enough rocks and eventually you'll find more than a few chunks look fairly symmetrical .

What about the photo showing the "face" on mars? Just another grainy photo that takes advantage of a shadow effect. Again, take walk through nature and you'll find similar "faces" all over the place if you look hard enough. It's a fun observation, but that's about it.

In summary, read the book for the "backstage" view of history, but don't count on it as proof of aliens.

I'll give this to Richard Hoagland, he's smart enough to get suckers to buy his stuff, me included. Fortunately, he didn't get enough people on this unholy train. As his 'co-writer' complains in the introduction to this 'revised' edition, the poor sales of this book are obviously the result of a conspiracy to silence these 'landmark' findings!

No, the poor sales are the result of a tired, worn-out, fumbling and bumbling writing style and a completely hair-brained thesis.

I bought this book hoping it might be a fun ride through Mars conspiracy theories. But it's not even close to being fun. No less than half the book is taken up with complaints by Hoagland that no one is interviewing him on TV.

Perhaps hoping to get a wider audience for his book, Hoagland loads it up with more ridiculous conspiracies than you can count - thereby diluting anything he could say. JFK murder? Bring it on. Nazis on the moon? Bring it on! Dan Brown-like Mason theories? Bring it on! And how about this one: NASA purposely leaked the Moon Landing Hoax to cover up 'transparent alien glass towers on the moon.' Really? Wow.

And Hoagland further hurts whatever his case is (what is his case?) by his insistent use of Star Trek lingo. "The Enterprise Mission" "Is there No Truth in Beauty?" "Data's Head." Dear Richard, Star Trek is a fictional story. It's not real.I know, I know, it's hard to give it up. Didn't Shatner say it best? "You're taking a little job I had and turning it into a colossal wast of time. Move out of your parents basement and grow the hell up!"

Hoagland readily admits he manipulates the photos to 'bring out the hidden details.' He spends hundreds of pages berating specific people for no reason, says NASA purposely blew up a billion dollar satellite just to piss him off and, when NASA actually does photograph the thing on Mars, clearly showing it is a bunch of rocks, he says "hey, it's collapsed" or "one half is the face of man and the other is the shape of a lion!" Brilliant science Richard. What do you see in the clouds.

Nothing to see hear people, just a sad, raving mad man. Or a really smart guy who gets people to buy his books. He's made a living on this conspiracy stuff. A nice living. Peddle nonsense and make a buck. I like it.