I spent the early hours of Moon Shot day traveling the plains outside Nairobi watching and photographing the animals of Kenya before joining the witch doctor that important night. Photo Edit International.
Where were you when men landed on the moon? I was in the jungle with a witchdoctor and a telescope… Ron Laytner in the Dallas Times Herald, 1969
By Ron Laytner Copyright 2009 Edit International NAIROBI, KENYA – When the American astronauts went to the moon they landed on it’s roof. That’s why hey saw no life. The moon people live in great cities beneath the Lunar surface. So believes a Kenya Witch doctor and his many tribal followers. even attending a film shown by the United States Information Service of an Apollo moon landing.
by the United States Information Service of an Apollo moon landing
The witch doctor, 46-year-old Njenga Mungai, has been following the American and the Russian space shots with great interest even attending a film shown .
Mungai, dressed in his full tribal witchdoctor regalia spent nearly an hour gazing at the moon, blowing on a native horn and scribbling on the dusty ground .
At the film, Mungai met an Irish amateur astronomer, Philip Wagner, who agreed to let the witch doctor look at the moon through his telescope on the night the entire world was celebrating.
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The village tribe members were extremely interested in all the attention being placed on the moon. They had long discussions with members of other villages. Photo by Ron Laytner
At first the witch doctor, who had never seen a telescope before, insisted on holding the eyepiece in the center of his forehead, but after Wagner, a civil engineer, showed Mungai a view of the moon, through the telescope’s lens, the Kikuyu tribesman was fascinated . He explained that the craters of the moon are great holes caused by explosions during years of warfare and that the people of the tribes of the moon had gone underground for safety many years ago. Mungai prophesized that on succeeding explorations astronauts would come in contact with the tribes of the moon.
The witch doctor is not the only Kenyan interested in space. In the village of Karatina, about 160 miles north of Nairobi, a bicycle repairman, 33-year-old Morris Gachanba is building a space ship for a journey to the moon. Gachamba gained some fame building “Kenya One” an airplane he was reported to have flown for two miles 100 feet above the ground. His second plane was to have flown in honor of Independence Day, December 8th, 1968, but he has given up on airplanes and has now switched over to making space ships. “They are easier,” he says.
Witch doctors are dying out in Africa as enlightened governments press for education and reform. But, as one American said in Kenya, “You can’t laugh at the witch doctor, you never know. He might be right.”
By Ron Laytner Copyright 2009 Edit International
The End-
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The African witch doctor said the moon was hollow, that the astronauts had landed on its roof. Over time many scientists have reached the same conclusion that the moon is hollow. Photo Edit International
Two pieces of evidence support the theory of a hollow Moon: 1. Seismometer recordings from Apollo XII mission in November 1969. After seismometers were set up on the Moon's surface by the astronauts of Apollo XII, astronauts heading back to Earth discarded the ascent stage of the lunar module, dropping it on the Moon's surface. The craft smashed and the shock waves the seismometers picked up lasted up to an hour. 2. The relatively low average density of the Moon, which is only about 60% of the average density of the Earth.
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Outside the jungle area on the nearby plains life went on as usual even though the whole world was paying deep attention to the Apollo 11 moon shot. A giraff came close to the village. Photo by Ron Laytner
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