You’ve probably seen the grainy, flickering footage. It usually pops up late at night on TikTok or in a dusty corner of a conspiracy subreddit. A camera pans over the lunar surface, settling on a desiccated, strangely preserved body—a woman found on the moon. Honestly, it looks creepy. It looks like something out of a Ridley Scott nightmare. But before you start questioning every physics textbook you’ve ever owned, we need to talk about where this actually came from.
The "Mona Lisa" of the moon isn’t a secret NASA cover-up. It’s a piece of art. Specifically, it’s a brilliant, if slightly deceptive, bit of storytelling from a French artist named Thierry Speth.
People want to believe. We're wired for it. When the "Apollo 20" story first hit the internet around 2007, it spread like wildfire because it tapped into that deep-seated suspicion that the government is hiding the good stuff. The narrative was simple: a secret joint Soviet-American mission headed to the far side of the moon in 1976 and found a crashed, cigar-shaped ship. Inside? A female extraterrestrial.
The Legend of Apollo 20 and the Lunar EBE
The internet is a wild place. Back in the mid-2000s, a user named "retiredafb" started uploading videos to YouTube. He claimed to be William Rutledge, a former Bell Labs employee and astronaut on a mission that technically never happened. According to this story, Apollo 17 wasn't the end. NASA kept going in secret.
This supposed mission, Apollo 20, supposedly landed near the Delporte-Izsak region. They found an ancient ship. They went inside. And there she was. The "woman found on the moon" was dubbed Mona Lisa by the crew because of her peaceful expression. The video shows her with strange devices attached to her face and skin that looks more like wax than biological tissue.
It’s convincing if you don’t look too close. The lighting is moody. The camera shake feels "authentic." But let’s be real for a second. The physics of keeping a secret of that magnitude—involving hundreds of people, launch technicians, and international cooperation during the Cold War—is basically impossible.
Where the Footage Actually Came From
The truth is actually pretty cool, just not "aliens are real" cool. Thierry Speth eventually came forward. He's an artist. He created the "Mona Lisa" entity using physical models and clever film editing. He even posted photos of the process on his website years ago, though the internet has a funny way of ignoring the debunking in favor of the mystery.
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If you look at the "spaceship" in the Apollo 20 photos, it’s actually a real lunar feature. It’s an oddly shaped ridge in the Guyot crater. Under certain lighting, it looks like a craft. Under high-resolution imaging from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), it looks like... well, dirt and rocks. It’s a classic case of pareidolia. That’s the same psychological phenomenon that makes us see faces in burnt toast or a "Man in the Moon."
Why does this specific hoax keep coming back?
Because it’s a good story.
It mixes real NASA imagery with just enough "secret" lore to feel plausible to someone who wants to find a crack in the official narrative. The 1970s were a weird time for space exploration. The budget was getting cut, the public was losing interest, and the idea that we just "stopped" going to the moon feels wrong to a lot of people. Hoaxes like this fill that void.
The Science of Lunar Preservation
Let's play "what if" for a minute. If a woman found on the moon were actually a reality, what would she look like?
The moon is a harsh place. There’s no atmosphere. No protection from solar radiation. Extreme temperature swings from 250°F in the sun to -208°F in the shade.
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- Desiccation: Without an atmosphere, liquids evaporate instantly. A body wouldn't rot in the traditional sense because there are no bacteria to eat it. It would mummify.
- Radiation Damage: Constant bombardment by cosmic rays and solar flares would eventually break down DNA and cellular structures, literally turning a body into dust over millions of years.
- Micrometeorites: The moon is constantly peppered by tiny dust particles traveling at thousands of miles per hour. Over eons, these would "sandblast" anything on the surface.
The "Mona Lisa" in the video looks too perfect. She looks fleshy. Even a mummified body on the moon would be subject to the violent environment of space. The idea that she’d be sitting there with a peaceful smile after thousands of years is a romantic notion, but it’s not how science works.
Why We Get Fooled by "Found" Footage
We live in a world of deepfakes and AI-generated imagery, but the Apollo 20 hoax was "analog" fake. It used physical props. That gives it a weight that digital CGI often lacks.
When you see a grainy video, your brain fills in the gaps. You want it to be real because the alternative—that we’re alone on a big, empty rock—is a bit lonely.
Experts in forensic video analysis have pointed out dozens of flaws in the Rutledge videos. The "control panels" in the ship look like they were made from parts of an old 1970s calculator. The labels are in English, which is odd for a "billions of years old" alien craft. Also, the camera movements don't match the physics of 1/6th gravity. In low gravity, things move differently. Dust behaves differently. In the Apollo 20 footage, everything feels "heavy," like it was filmed in a basement in France. Because it was.
The Real Women on the Moon
If we want to talk about a woman found on the moon, we should probably look at the future rather than fake pasts. NASA’s Artemis program is literally built around this goal. Artemis—the twin sister of Apollo—is the name of the mission that will put the first woman on the lunar surface.
This isn't a secret. It’s happening in plain sight.
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We have real heroes like Christina Koch, Jessica Meir, and Anne McClain who have spent hundreds of days in space. They aren't mummified aliens in a crashed ship; they’re scientists and pilots preparing to do what was once thought impossible.
Spotting a Lunar Hoax: A Practical Checklist
Next time you see a "leaked" video of a woman found on the moon, run it through these filters. You'll save yourself a lot of rabbit-hole time.
- Check the Source: Does the video come from a reputable space agency or a random YouTube channel with "Truth" in the name?
- Look at the Gravity: Does the movement look bouncy and slow, or does it look like someone walking through a studio?
- Check the Metadata: If there are high-res "stills," do they match the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) maps? The LRO has mapped the entire moon down to the meter. If there’s a miles-long ship there, we can see it on public websites like Quickmap.
- Identify the "Visual Noise": Hoaxes often use heavy film grain and "glitches" to hide the seams of the props. Real NASA footage is remarkably clear, even the old stuff.
The Practical Reality of Lunar Exploration
If you’re genuinely interested in lunar mysteries, stick to the real stuff. The South Pole of the moon has craters that have never seen sunlight. They contain water ice. That’s a bigger "find" than a fake alien because water means we can stay there. It means we can make fuel. It means the moon becomes a stepping stone to Mars.
The "woman found on the moon" story is a fascinating piece of internet folklore. It's a testament to human creativity and our desire to believe that the universe is more crowded than it seems. But as we move into 2026, the real stories are coming from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and NASA.
Stop looking for the mummies. Start looking for the footprints.
Next Steps for the Curious:
- Explore the Moon Yourself: Use the LROC Quickmap to zoom in on the Guyot crater. Look for the "ship." You'll see it's just a natural ridge.
- Follow Artemis: Keep tabs on the Artemis II and III mission updates on the official NASA website to see the actual progress of returning humans to the moon.
- Research Thierry Speth: If you enjoy the artistry of the hoax, look up Speth's work. Understanding how he built the props is actually a great lesson in practical movie effects.