Book Review: The Apollo Prophecies Travel Back to the Future

Rumor has it that the surviving members of the only twelve humans to have walked on the moon call themselves the Order of Ancient Astronauts. Much has been written of these voyagers of yore, but if the Order of Ancient Astronauts should ever gather together like knights of the Round Table for a reverie, it is fairly certain that they would favor a new publication about their exploits titled The Apollo Prophecies.

Published by a non-profit organization called the Aperture Foundation located in New York which is dedicated to the advancement of photography in all its manifestations, The Apollo Prophecies is one of the most creative works produced to date about the moon exploration program. It consists of a slipcased package containing a dual sided, 19-foot long duotone photographic panorama which unfolds into a richly visual fantasy of a time bending moon expedition, together with a 16-page booklet telling a saga-like tale of moon dwelling civilizations predating and predicting the arrival of Apollo.

The photographic panorama is segmented into 60 panels and it can be paged through like a book or unfolded accordion style for a flowing mural effect. Free of text, we see a rocket launch a stylized space capsule to the moon. The pair of 20^th century astronauts aboard land on the moon surface, unpack the lunar rover and embark upon the tasks of observation and rock collecting. They soon encounter a friendly civilization of Edwardian era explorers wearing rubber boots and fur coats, in addition to helpful space-suited monkeys and elephants, living on the moon. The truly ancient astronauts welcome their modern counterparts and are generous in helping the Apollo spacemen prepare their craft for the return voyage to Earth. Children will love the whimsy of these images and anyone with an appreciation of space as a frontier will admire the extravagance of the publication's production. It is a wild ride.