Hi Anthony: A photo showing you at the NASA Ames Research Center has set off fireworks at the Aliens and UFOs forum at Above Top Secret (ATS). A thread titled "Alien Moon Base in a Photo on the Desk of NASA Ames Research Center!" (www.abovetopsecret.com...)has grown to 4 pages, and growing, and they are all speculating because no one has offered a prosaic explanation, yet. And that's why I'm writing to you, so that you can settle the question if you so desire.

The thread activity is centered on the photo that your left arm is resting on. A sharp-eyed member of ATS or, perhaps, Richard Hoagland, has zoomed in on the photo where a rectangular or square area is visible. Of course, members of the above forum smell a lunar alien base. Others have posited that a secret photo, such as this one would be considered if it, indeed, showed a lunar alien structure then it wouldn't be featured on a photo shoot.

The area/craters have been identified so we can skip the whereabouts, and the same area has been found on other photos except the area showing the rectangle/square is in shadow in the other photos so we can't see what is in the shadow.

We will appreciate it if you could provide an answer to this "mystery". You can reply to me and I will post your answer on the thread with or without your name. I include the photos of you at Ames and a closeup of the alleged anomaly shown in the photo that your arm rests on and as an attachments. I have magnified the section of the photo in question 400%.

BTW, a couple of members have shown admiration for your wristwatch so if you could include its brand also, it will make them happy and there might be a run on sales! :-)

From: Colaprete, Anthony (ARC-SST)
To: me
Date: 3/16/2012 12:23:11 AM
Subject: RE: Please solve a mystery

Hi Edward,

Sorry for the slow reply, I have been in a workshop the last couple days and am way behind on email.

First off, the image isn’t staged! It was taken during the final descent of the Centaur stage to the moon. Kim and I (and another person behind us) are in the Science Operations Center (SOC) for LCROSS. What Kim and I are looking at are displays of our instrument data (cameras, spectrometers, etc….several of the camera feeds we streamed real-time to the web during the mission). The image of interest is a simulation of the moon’s surface generated from a digital elevation model and illumination models. It was made prior to the impact of the Centaur with the same lighting conditions as those at the day/time of impact. We knew where we wanted to impact (based on our expectation of the most likely location of hydrogen/water), but there was some uncertainty as to exactly where we would actually impact. We had a number of observatories on the ground (for example in Hawaii) trying to look for the impact plume (most didn’t see it, but some did) and we wanted to be able to tell the observatories if they needed to adjust their pointing based on the actual impact location. To do this we placed a grid on the image and provided the same grid to the observatories (in the perspective they would see it from on the ground). At the time of impact flash or plume detection in our cameras I was to identify the grid point and call it out to the person behind me (the person behind me was in direct communication with all the ground observatories, coordinating that part of the observation)…sort of like calling out a letter/number in bingo. The image with grid and the one corresponding to the view as seen from Hawaii on that night is attached to this email.

So, no it is not a base, but rather just a reference grid, and that watch has since broken, so I wouldn’t recommend it. I hope this helps.

Tony