Black Hole

On the Lunar Appearance

Egon Spuehnraes, PD, ASc

While you're out UFO-spotting one night, take a close look at the Moon as she wends her way through the realms of our alien friends. One thing that you'll probably notice is that the Moon is significantly larger when she's near the horizon than when she's at the zenith.

Orthodox science, in its inimitable and time-honoured fashion, explains this phenomenon away in terms of psychological effects, carefully dodging any threat to its religious beliefs.

Holistic observation, however, has generated a number of theories in an attempt to provide a genuine explanation.

Ancient peoples naturally believed that the Moon was, in fact, simply closer when on the horizon, and most cultures have legends to explain why this is so. As is usually the case, there is a good deal of truth and wisdom to be found in these legends, though naturally their explanations are not framed in the stilted prose so beloved of those hiding their nescience behind a cloak of academic verbiage.

The first important scientific hypothesis simply restated this ancient knowledge in a more formal fashion, quantifying the magnitude of the difference in distance and offering an explanation in the context of the then-current Newtonian paradigm.

As is obvious, the Moon when appearing on the horizon is attracted by all the mass of the Earth between you and the horizon whereas when it's overhead there is no extra mass between it and you. Thus there are fewer lines of gravitational force impinging upon it, and the Moon recedes, drawing closer again to the Earth as it approaches the horizon once more. It was estimated that this effect would mean that the Moon was over 40% closer when on the horizon.

The advent of more accurate measurement techniques meant that later scientists were able to establish that the magnitude of this effect had been overestimated, the variation in distance being only some ten to fifteen percent. Einstein's Theory of Relativity indicated that a more important factor was the effect of gravity on light rays rather than on the Moon itself. Light falling from a Moon directly overhead tends to accelerate downwards, while light from the Moon on the horizon is bent by gravity, but receives no significant speed benefit. The faster moving overhead light causes the image to appear contracted in all directions, just as if you were looking through the wrong end of a telescope, and the bending of horizon-originated light gives a slight magnificatory effect.

It rapidly became clear that although this mechanism accounted for most of the difference in size there must be some other factor involved. The budding science of metaphysiology eventually provided the last piece of the jigsaw, revealing another subtle effect that seems so obvious in hindsight -- when one tilts one's head back to view the Moon overhead, gravity distorts the lens of the eye, significantly reducing its magnification. This may easily be demostrated by viewing the overhead Moon reflected in a mirror so that your head doesn't need to move. The difference, at roughly five percent, is readily visible to the naked eye.

Clearly the cause of lunar size differences is now well explained in terms of basic and well-accepted principles. It is long past time that those who cling to outdated doctrines should set aside professional jealousy and accept that sometimes open-minded thinkers can be right.

Egon Spuehnraes is a paraphysicist, working in some of those specialised little areas that no one can ever remember the name of.

Egon Spuehnraes is a paraphysicist, working in some of those specialised little areas that no one can ever remember the name of.