'Apollo 18' Teaser Poster Released

The film website Ainitcool has published the teaser poster for the upcoming film "Apollo 18," which is based on the premise that there was at least one secret Apollo mission to the Moon that found-something-on the lunar surface.

The poster is a picture of the famous Moon boot footprint in the lunar soil next to another footprint that is of that something else. The caption reads: "There's a Reason we've Never Gone Back to the Moon."

Of course, President Obama famously said in his April 15 speech at the Kennedy Space Center that we've not been back to the Moon and are not going back because Buzz Aldrin has already been there.

"Apollo 18," which is one of a number of lunar expedition movies in the works, will be based on a "found footage" format, meaning that the film will largely consist of footage allegedly shot by the Apollo 18 astronauts. The film site Screenrant elaborates:

"A quintessential Cold War story, Apollo 18 casts light on the covert and undocumented lunar mission that officially 'never happened.' Bekmambetov, hired by Russia to shoot a documentary about the Russian space station, recently came across footage in its space archives that bolsters the idea that an Apollo 18 mission did, in fact, take place, and reveals startling evidence of extraterrestrial life forms. This actual footage will be part of Apollo 18, a paranormal thriller that will interpolate fact and fiction."

How the Russians got a hold of film footage shot by a clandestine Apollo mission to the Moon would be a story in and of itself.

While a story in which a secret Apollo mission found aliens and then horrible things happened has all the potential for good, cheesy fun, one suspects that the film might spark a new round of conspiracy theories. Just as there are conspiracy theories that Americans never went to the Moon, there will be (if not already are) conspiracy theories that Americans never stopped going to the Moon.

The fact that we stopped going to the Moon will rank as one of the most horrendous public policy blunders in American history, robbing a generation of lunar exploration and eventual lunar settlement that would have made the latter-third of the 20th century far more interesting and uplifting than it turned out to be in real life.

Aliens on the Moon? It would seem that would be a reason to keep going to the Moon, not stop.

Sources: Poster For APOLLO 18 Shows Off A Spooky Lunar Footprint!, Aintitcool, November 23rd, 2010

Hollywood Prepares to Voyage to the Moon, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, November 7th, 2010

Creepy Apollo 18 Poster, Screenrant, November 18th, 2010