Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm An Astronaut. I Know Why We Never Returned To The Moon | Scary Stories

Episode Date: November 8, 2023

The moon isn't empty...      Story from ChristianWallis Make sure to check out more of their work at u/ChristianWallis                          Original Post: Something in this cave is hunting me : r/nosleep  Original YouTube link: I'm An Astronaut. I Know Why We Never Returned To The Moon       For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Darren Curtis Music - YouTube  Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

People forget how much overlap NASA has with the military. I see all these talks about building habitats in Nevada to test how people cope with isolation during space travel. All I can do is laugh. They spend millions on PR stunts to show that every astronaut's life is a precious resource. It's all for show. I know what goes on behind the photo ops.

Do you know what a general's answer is one asked, can a single human endure months of isolation on a cramped moon base? I can personally say that the response is, let's find out. And that's what my mission boiled down to. When the time came, the base was dropped onto the far side of the moon. They made sure it was out of sight of anyone's space program. I was shipped out a few months later on what was supposedly an unmanned flight. They hid me in a secret compartment, the size of a broom closet. I had been chosen not because I was the most qualified, but because I had no family and no public profile. My job wasn't to be some cutting-edge super scientist.

I was more of a lab monkey to scrape specimens and put dust in jars. They had the habitat. They had the rockets. They even had upcoming missions that were going to pass. the moon. The only problem was finding someone expendable. And oh boy, was I expendable. The deal was, if it worked out, I'd get fast-tracked as a real-deal astronaut. Never mind the exams I'd failed ten times over. They told me they'd figured out. If not, well, they lost a habitat and a man who wasn't worth much to begin with. Of course, they had a lot of other grunts

they could have picked from, but I had a psychological assessment that listed me as extremely comfortable with isolation. And even now, I'll admit that that part of the experience didn't bother me. Neither the journey there nor the loneliness upon arrival did much to affect me. It was color, not company, that I miss the most. My life became gray scale and after a month began to bother me deeply. There was no sunrise in a permanent black sky. And with no atmosphere, the sun was a bleached golf ball in the sky. The habitat I lived in was a single room inflatable done in white. My uniform was a dull navy blue. The few possessions I had became important to me for unexpected reasons.

My favorite was a book with a bright red cover. After the A3 read, I pinned it to a corkboard like a poster. You'd think TV would help, but it just wasn't enough. I didn't want a little box that showed me images of images. I wanted the actual green of trees, the brown earth, and the blue ocean. By the end of the first month, I was so desperate for color that I started dissecting my food packets. HQ was worried, and it showed. I think they were worried that the isolation was affecting

me. It wasn't. I was fine, but I didn't protest too much. I just wanted to get out there and take a look. Now my first trip was meant to be a nearby crater. I was to take some samples from an ancient asteroid impact that may or may not have relevance to life on Earth. I didn't really care. I was in it for the walk, for the exploration. It was every bit as breathtaking as I'd hope. I saw a huge desert of silver. It was an ocean's worth of sandy glass. Its surface was only broken by craters, hills, and valleys. I felt like a child exploring my own backyard again.

I was easily impressed by the discovery of a funny-shaped rock or by a small ditch or tall hill. It took me an hour to cover what should have been 20 minutes back on Earth in that bulky suit. It might as well have been a hike up Everest. The real trouble was staying upright with each step. I'd had a lot of time in the habitat to get used to my movement in low gravity, but it didn't translate very well once in the suit. When I wanted to admire the scenery, I had to stop and take it in because I couldn't walk

in Marvel at the same time. It was because of all this standing around that I noticed the opening in the crater, something about the darkness in that one particular dip. It seemed different. I think some part of my brain could see something hidden in the dark, and it kept telling me to go closer. So I did. It wasn't really a crater.

It was more like a ditch, small compared to the other craggy impact sites, almost 10 meters in diameter, at most. And with a sharp descent that meant the floor was in permanent darkness, I think that's how all those satellite photos of the moon missed this strange formation. Well, that in the fact that it was tiny. It was a hole, maybe even a doorway. It was cut into the sloping surface of the ditch about two meters tall with a rounded top. It wasn't quite smooth enough to look artificial, but it wasn't rough enough to be written

off as a standard cave opening. It reminded me of old churches and crumbling Greek ruins. Unfortunately, it was only me who could see it. I couldn't transmit real-time video unless the orbiter was directly above me. I had to rely on audio with a minor delay. I knew this was going to be a difficult conversation, and I briefly looked up at the sky, hoping I might see the orbiter's lights winking overhead. At least that way I could send some photos.

Mission Control, this is Lieutenant Gans. Are you reading me? I spoke into the mic. Lieutenant Gans, this is Mission Control. We can read you. How's the moonwalk? H.Q. replied back. I think I found a door. Silence. When H.Q. came back, they made sure to say each word slowly.

Lieutenant Gans, I'm being advised you should return to the module. We are currently arranging for support staff. Yeah, I don't need a therapist. I said, angry about their double speak. They clearly thought I was nuts. Out of spite, I started climbing down the crater's edge. Look, I'm telling you, I'm looking at a doorway. I'm sending my coordinates now, and I'm letting you know I'm going in.

Lieutenant Gans, you are being instructed to return. They kept rambling. I wasn't in control of my suit's communication functions. Maybe if I'd behaved better during the first month or two, it would have been different, but it annoyed me, at least until I'd walked a few steps through the doorway. All of a sudden, the voices just cut off. I wasn't quite sure what to think of that. On the one hand, the silence was relief.

The other hand, well, I turned and looked back at the opening, and I saw the brightly lit crater's edge. It called me to the promises of safety and routine. But the darkness ahead, it called to me with an entirely different promise. Hadn't I wanted this? Hadn't I wanted adventure? I kept going, and the walls became more regular. They grew smoother and cleaner the deeper I went. It became harder and harder to pretend this was a natural formation.

Who'd made it? It came as a strange relief. When the tunnel ended, my heart pounding, I stepped out into a cavern, not much larger than a typical feeder. The crisp white walls reflected my light so much that there was enough to see. see all around me. And in the center of it all, I found something that defied belief. A pool. It almost looked Roman. Four ancient pillars stood in varying states of decay. One was perfectly preserved, while the others were only three quarters as high. As I walked closer, the ground turned into something like polished marble.

It looked like a rectangular Roman bath had been dug straight out of the ground, and the pool itself was filled with a bright red liquid. I couldn't have told you what it was then, nor could I say much more now. It was a thick fluid that didn't reflect any light. It was perfectly smooth and it looked almost like plastic. It made me think of dried candle wax, except for the constant ripples across its surface. But there was no wind here, not down there or anywhere else on that rock. As I look closer, I could see veins within the liquid, a network of barely visible lines that flashed

like lightning in a storm. It was deeper than I thought. Did something swim in those waters? I squinted, and I noticed a pale yellow membrane covered the entire thing like oil. It seemed slick, but dry. It was incredible and terrifying, maybe even a little disgusting. Maybe even a little interesting, too. Why was it here? Who made this? Had they carved the tunnel and the ancient pillars too? I ran a finger across the nearest column and was surprised to find it had the texture of wet sand. My finger left a slight dent in its surface, but it didn't collapse. What did that mean? Are they made of moon dust? Like, I sandcastle? Something about this place felt sinister the longer I stayed here. I began to walk backward

away from it all, and a bubble started forming on the pool surface. I backed away faster. I wanted to turn, but I couldn't bring myself to let it out of sight. The bubble only continued to inflate, growing just enough time to keep it visible as I backed away. My hand touched the entrance to the arch. I'd finally reached the edge, but my feet tripped on the uneven ground. In the suit, even the slightest tumble was nearly catastrophic. And I fell backwards. And as I went low, I lost sight of the red bubble.

It responded with a sudden and violent. shiver, something that looked like a giant tongue leapt over the pool's edge and slapped onto the sand. And fear took over. With a desperate struggle, I flipped myself over and I began to crawl, then half run and half stumble into an upright jog. I grabbed at the tunnel walls with my hands. I ignored every bump as my suit hit solid.

at the very least, HQ was back on the comms. I patted into the mic. You guys need to see this. The photos were hard to argue with. They tried. At first. The most popular theory was that they were photorealistic paintings I'd made using food as pigment, but spectral analysis disproved it. The photos from my insuit can camera were real. The pool and whatever lay inside it were real. They wanted samples. They wanted photos. They wanted readings. They wanted half the habitat's various instruments dragged out and put in the cavern. In short, they wanted me to suddenly develop and exercise skills They'd never taught me in a span of time no one could possibly hope to do it in.

Half a dozen scientists were making requests every few minutes, but I couldn't help but think they didn't really care about my place on all this. They didn't care about me even one little bit. There was never any acknowledgment of the sacrifices I'd made or the risks I'd taken, not even after I'd found an actual alien. So I made a calm and reasonable explanation of what missions I would be willing to accept. These boiled down to maybe taking some samples, and even then I had to be threatened with a court marshal.

I could collect some of the rocks, dust, maybe even some of the strange columns. But they wanted a piece of whatever was in that pool. I didn't tell H-Q this, but I hadn't slept since I saw that thing. I kept thinking, what would it look like outside the pool? What did it want? The threat of punishment is what finally made me suit up for another moonwalk. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad since I knew what to expect now. But it turns out I wouldn't even get to the cavern.

The first thing I saw when I stepped out was a trail of sticky red footprints. They stood in front of the Habitat's only exit. Two perfect impressions of bare human feet. And they weren't walking towards the habitat. They started right on my doorstep, and they headed away from me. they led, it wasn't in the direction of the cavern I'd already visited either. And I started following them. It was a long walk, longer than I should have been willing to go out on my own.

Whoever left those footprints didn't seem to have any trouble. If I had to guess, it almost looked like they'd been dancing. At last, the footsteps stopped at some strange ruins. It was another pool, only larger and more elaborate. There were dozens of columns and a roof. There were even carvings of vines, and on the edge of the pool was a red woman, no suit, only a plain robe made of the same red material as her flesh. Her legs were partially submerged, emerged in the same red fluid I'd found in that other pool. As I got closer, it became obvious that her body blended perfectly with a strange liquid.

She was made of the stuff. Once I was closer, she patted the ledge by her. She wanted me to sit, but it was far too close to that pool. I shook my bulky head. For a moment, I wondered what I must look like to her. A giant golden faceplate nervously saying no. With a playful smile, she reached over and touched the boot of my suit so quickly. I didn't even have time to react.

What a funny thing you are, she said. What are you? I stammered. A god. She smiled, and I believed her instantly. What do you want? I asked. To play.

She smiled again. Something about her expression was unnerving. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, but beneath that beauty lay something else. I couldn't quite explain it. She made me feel like an insect. What does that mean? I asked.

I want... She made a funny expression. Something almost playful. I want... To make a garden out of you. I stepped back and her arm stretched easily toward me. breaking any illusion that she was human. Behind her, the ruins collapsed without a sound.

They disintegrated completely in seconds, only leaving behind the pool itself. As she reached towards me, her hand split apart. Her liquid flesh slowly began to cover my visor. Stop, I cried. No, she replied as the light in the helmet faded. You are much more exciting than this prison. The electricity in your nervous system, the tension in your muscle fibers, the pattern of your bones.

Now that my exile is finally over, I want to make art out of you all. I fell backwards. She laughed, and I began to crawl away expecting her to follow, but she just stood still. With her hands on her hips, she kept laughing at my desperate attempts to get away. Panic made me clumsy. I took longer than I should have. And when I finally managed to roll onto my friend and get back on my feet, I turned to look behind me. She disappeared into nothingness.

Her, the ruins, and the pool. I don't remember much of the walk back. Only the constant feeling of the red woman watching me. But I do remember the moment when I finally returned to my habitat, and I found that the airlock was wide open. And I was hit with a sudden realization that I had, I hadn't heard anyone on my comms since I'd left. No one knows exactly what happened during my walk.

Not exactly. A lot of my in-suit functions failed right around the time she touched my boot. Images and sound recordings were wiped. For a few fleeting moments, she had access to my radio. No one really knows what she said to 18. When she did, the military had clamped down on security during my second moonwalk. They'd cleared out the comms rooms and reduced the staff to an absolute bare minimum. A colonel, two comms specialist and a senior scientist.

They were the only people present when the Red Woman spoke. By the time I got back to the habitat, they'd all killed themselves. the time. I didn't know any of this. I had my own problems back on the moon. Inside my habitat, I found red handprints all over the place. It was so thoroughly contaminated that I left my suit on as I made notes of what she'd touched. I had to assume this thing was made up of the fluid. Did that mean the traces of fluid left on my belongings? were still part of her, I wondered. My initial thought was to burn everything she'd touched.

But she'd touched so much that that wasn't even an option. I'd have nothing to eat, nothing to eat with, nowhere to sleep. Suddenly, it made a lot of sense why she'd lured me miles out into the middle of nowhere for our conversation. She wanted me far away. while she played with my stuff. Weirdly, I thought most of the prints would be on my equipment, but she'd shown a disturbing interest in personal items, like dirty clothes and unwashed dishes,

anything, I suppose, with an organic trace. For the first time in weeks, I wanted to hear from HQ. Of course, at the time, they had other things to worry about. like removing the bodies from the comm's rum. I tried to get through, but no one responded. I looked at my supplies, all of them covered in her dripping red prints, and I realized I wouldn't be able to eat any of it. And what about water?

A single drop of her could be in the tank. Would I even know? I gagged at the thought of having, any of that liquid in me. I sat on my bed, checked my air supply, and I went over my options. And then two things happened that took my mind off a slow and painful death on the moon. First, my radio came to live. I was informed that I was to begin the evacuation procedure immediately. I need to hike to the Lunar landing module, and from there, reinitiate the computer that could begin launch sequence. The orbiter wasn't quite in the right place for it, but I just

have to wait it out on the lander until the two modules aligned. It would take a few hours, but I wasn't going to complain. The second thing that happened was that as I listened to the instructions for my commanding officer. A steady dripping came from the nearest window. I looked up, and I saw the crimson woman standing right there, and she grinned at me, bearing red teeth made of flowing cherry red liquid. What are you waiting for? She mouthed while pointing upwards. Time to go. I refilled my air supplies. Stepping out into the vacuum once more, I paused and looked around, wondering if she was waiting for me somewhere. It was hard to understand exactly what she might do to me, or even what she wanted.

But I didn't feel like sticking around to find out. As soon as I could tell the coast was clear, I began to walk. And it was another tough hike. I was more experienced in the suit now, and that helped, but I was also exhausted and terrified. I was constantly scanning the horizon for the woman while on the move. After a while, I just gave up when I realized how badly it was slowing me down. Instead, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not much else. Still, I kept expecting her to make another appearance, or to hear her voice coming through my radio.

Anything that let me know what she was planning. Would this alien thing finally attack? Was that even what she was? She called herself a god. What would a god do with me? I wondered. Make a garden out of me? my own mind answered.

Despite those dark thoughts, I seemed to reach the lander without much incident. I nervously climbed inside. Surely she knew what I was doing. Was she going to try and stop me from escaping? But the process went without incident. The computer initiated, and after a lot of technical radio chatter,

the launcher blasted off from the moon surface using only a fraction of the thrust necessary to leave Earth. I looked back down at the moon surface, with utter relief. I carefully scan the rapidly shrinking landscape for some sign of glittering red shapes. Oh, you are so clever, she said. The words were spoken like a pleased mother, but they struck me with the violence of a thrown brick. With creeping dread, I turned back and faced her, and this time she was smaller. She was sitting like a tiny red fairy

on one of the many glowing computer screens. She was looking around and marveling at the Landers' interior. When he told me what he'd planned for this world, I really didn't expect it to come to this. I thought he might get a nervous system, maybe even a few organized insects. But, well, what can I say? He got it right. Jokes on him, though. He's not around anymore.

But I am. And I am. so excited to return to the world I was exiled from. I realized that a tiny piece of her must have hitched a ride on my suit. Oh, don't be silly, she said. You were contaminated the moment you took your suit off in that little bubble thing. Was it true? I wondered. Had I really carried her with me all this time?

As I sat still in despair, a streak of light came through the window. The lander had begun to orbit the near side of the moon, and in doing so, I finally got a good look at Earth. It'd been so long. Oh, so beautiful, she said. and to think I have all the time in the world to play with it. I'm back in my apartment now. The television was broadcasting some sort of press conference. Well, I just think at a time when millions of Americans are suffering from poverty.

The idea that the government would spend billions on sending men to the moon, Oh, it's just bizarre. How can we justify this kind of waste when there's so much more potential to be realized down here on earth? I turned the TV off, and I listened to silence for a few moments. Whoever that politician was, I wondered if he was contaminated, or if she just made a particularly convincing argument in the last few years. It'd become obvious to me how subtle her manipulations are, usually. All it took was a word here or there. Of course, that didn't mean she wasn't also spreading herself from person to person. Oh, he's not one of mine, she said.

A single red hand appearing on my shoulder then. Just a very sensible man. Why go playing around on the moon? Such a waste. I was put there as punishment for a reason. It was like taking a tour of a sewage tunnel. How long is this going to take? I asked.

It'd only been a few months since my return. And every single day, it felt like a decade spent in hell. I tried to turn my head to get a look at what was happening in my kitchen, but her hand pinned me firmly in place. She rarely even let me move anymore. It was a miracle she even let me keep the remote. Maybe it was for the best I couldn't see.

She had successfully lured dozens of people to my home, but I had never once heard any of them leave. Are you asking me what I intend to do to you or what I intend to do to your planet? Both. Oh, not long. Her slick hand caressed my cheek, and I suppressed a shiver. A couple of centuries at most.