The Spaceship Moon Theory, also known as the Vasin-Shcherbakov Theory, is a theory that claims the Earth's moon may actually be an alien spacecraft. The theory was put forth by two members of the then Soviet Academy of Sciences, Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, in a July 1970 article entitled "Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence?".[1]
Vasin and Shcherbakov's thesis was that the Moon is a hollowed-out planetoid created by unknown beings with technology far superior to any on Earth. Huge machines would have been used to melt rock and form large cavities within the Moon, with the resulting molten lava spewing out onto the Moon's surface. The Moon would therefore consist of a hull-like inner shell and an outer shell made from metallic rocky slag. For reasons unknown, the "Spaceship Moon" was then placed into orbit around the Earth. [1]
In 1975, Don Wilson published "Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon" in which he compiled what he considered supporting facts for this theory.[2]
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Suniti Karunatillake of Cornell University suggests that there are at least two ways to determine the distribution of mass within a body. One involves moment of inertia parameters, the other involves seismic observations. In the case of the former, Karunatillake points out that, "[O]ne such parameter, the normalized polar moment of inertia, is 0.393+/-0.001, which is very close to that for a solid object with radially constant density (0.4; for comparison, Earth's value is 0.33). As for the latter, he notes that the moon is the only planetary body besides Earth on which extensive seismic observations have been made. These observations have constrained the thickness of the moon's crust, mantle and core, suggesting it could not be hollow.[3] Karen Masters of University of Portsmouth similarly suggests that, based on the behavior of objects interacting with the gravitational field of the moon, we can determine the mass of the moon. Given the observable size of the moon, we can then calculate the density, which strongly rejects the notion that the moon could be hollow.[4]
In the series by Science fiction author David Weber, Heirs of Empire, the moon is in fact a giant space ship arriving 50,000 years ago. The population of Earth are the descendants of the crew of the ship, who abandoned it after it was damaged in a mutiny. In these books the moons are artificial constructs which are given a rocky outer coating as a form of camouflage. The three books in the series are Mutineers Moon, The Armageddon Inheritance and Heirs of Empire.