NASA Apollo Photo Archive Shows Altered Images, Physicist and Former Agency Consultant Allege

A theoretical physicist specializing in quantum foundations and lunar anomalies has identified what he describes as deliberate alterations to NASA’s publicly archived Apollo mission photographs — including two versions of the same Apollo 14 image in which an unidentified blue orb visible in one version has been removed in the other. The researcher, Maaneli “Max” Derakhshani, a Utrecht University PhD candidate whose work spans stochastic mechanics and anomalous phenomena, says the discrepancy is not an isolated case but part of a recurring pattern across multiple Apollo missions that warrants serious scientific scrutiny.

Derakhshani’s findings are bolstered by testimony from Ken Johnston Sr., a former NASA contractor, pilot, and photo lab supervisor who has long maintained that he was directed to destroy early-generation photographic negatives from the Apollo program that depicted objects and anomalies not accounted for in official mission records. Johnston’s account, which he has given publicly on multiple occasions over the years, has largely been dismissed or ignored by mainstream science journalism — yet it has never been credibly refuted on evidentiary grounds.

The Apollo 14 photograph in question reportedly shows astronaut Edgar Mitchell on the lunar surface, with a clearly visible blue spherical object in the sky in one archival version. In a second version of the same image held within NASA’s own repository, the object is absent. Derakhshani has not claimed to know definitively what the object is — and that intellectual honesty is precisely what distinguishes his approach from fringe speculation. His argument is methodological: the existence of two divergent versions of an official government photograph demands an explanation, and no credible institutional explanation has been forthcoming.

This is not the first time questions have been raised about the integrity of NASA’s photographic archives. For decades, anomaly researchers and independent analysts have pointed to inconsistencies in images returned from the Moon, Mars, and low-Earth orbit. What has changed is the caliber of individuals now willing to put their professional credibility on the line to discuss these discrepancies openly. Derakhshani’s academic background — which includes affiliations with institutions such as Stony Brook University and work adjacent to Brookhaven National Laboratory — lends a different weight to these claims than has historically been available to researchers operating outside institutional frameworks.

The Apollo 17 mission also features in Derakhshani’s analysis. That mission’s photographic and film record includes what witnesses and researchers have described as anomalous blue lights and at least one unidentified metallic object captured in imagery. Astronaut Gene Cernan and Edgar Mitchell, both veterans of Apollo missions, have spoken in various contexts about unexplained experiences and their belief that UAP phenomena are real and deserve serious investigation. Mitchell, before his death in 2016, was among the most outspoken former NASA astronauts on the subject, and his testimony has never been adequately addressed by the agency he served.

The broader context for these allegations is the 1960 Brookings Institution report commissioned by NASA itself, which explicitly raised the question of how humanity — and its institutions — might respond to the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The report advised caution about how such information would be disseminated to the public. Critics have long argued that this document effectively provided a philosophical and bureaucratic framework for controlled disclosure — or indefinite non-disclosure. Whether or not one accepts that interpretation, the report’s existence demonstrates that NASA was thinking about these questions at the highest institutional levels from the very beginning of the space program.

The photographic alteration question also intersects with the wider debate over government transparency in the UAP domain. Following years of Congressional pressure, the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has been tasked with consolidating UAP-related data — yet critics, including legislators on both sides of the aisle, have argued that AARO has been hampered by restricted access to legacy programs and classified holdings. Former intelligence officials have testified under oath that non-human intelligence has been recovered and that legacy aerospace programs exist which operate outside normal Congressional oversight. In that environment, allegations of altered Apollo photographs shift from the realm of conspiracy theory toward the realm of documented institutional behavior.

Separately, Derakhshani’s work touches on the Compton-Belkovich thorium anomaly on the lunar surface — a localized heat signature that has puzzled planetary scientists — as well as the documented correlation between UAP sighting clusters and nuclear facilities on Earth, a pattern first rigorously examined by researcher Robert Hastings and subsequently explored by multiple credentialed investigators. These data points do not prove extraterrestrial involvement, but they are genuine scientific anomalies that deserve the same level of institutional attention given to any other unexplained natural phenomenon.

Gary McKinnon, the Scottish systems administrator who gained unauthorized access to U.S. military and NASA computers in the early 2000s, has separately claimed he encountered references to off-world officers and non-terrestrial materiel within those systems — claims he has never retracted. McKinnon was never tried on the merits of what he found; the legal proceedings against him focused entirely on the unauthorized access itself. The contents of what he allegedly viewed remain officially unaddressed.

What Derakhshani represents is something the UAP research community has long needed: a credentialed theoretical physicist willing to engage with anomalous data sets using rigorous methodology rather than advocacy. His willingness to examine the Apollo photographic record with the same analytical discipline applied to quantum stochastic systems is a model for how frontier science ought to approach evidence that does not fit the established narrative. The question his findings raise is not whether anomalies exist in the record — the archival discrepancies appear to be documentable — but why they exist and who authorized the alterations.

NASA has not issued a public statement addressing the specific Apollo 14 photographic discrepancy described in Derakhshani’s research. Above Black Media has submitted a request for comment and will update this article upon response.

If two versions of an official government photograph exist — one showing an unidentified object and one without it — and no agency has offered a