SCP-4220

Link to article: SCP-4220.

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+ WARNING: THE FOLLOWING FILE IS LEVEL 4/4220 CLASSIFIED
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+++ ANY ATTEMPT TO ACCESS THIS FILE WITHOUT LEVEL 4/4220 AUTHORIZATION WILL BE LOGGED AND WILL LEAD TO IMMEDIATE DISCIPLINARY ACTION.
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[[/=]]
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[[table style="border: none; width: 100%;"]]
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[[cell]]
[[size 125%]]**Item #:** SCP-4220[[/size]]
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[[cell style="text-align: right;"]]
[[size 125%]]###990000|**Level 4/4220**##[[/size]]
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[[row]]
[[cell]]
[[size 125%]]**Object Class:** Euclid[[/size]]
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[[cell style="text-align: right;"]]
[[size 125%]]###990000|**Classified**##[[/size]]
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----
[[include component:image-block name=moon.jpg|align=center|width=100%|caption=SCP-4220 (circa 1991).]]
----
**Special Containment Procedures:** Foundation personnel are to liaise with UNOOSA[[footnote]]United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.[[/footnote]] and other government, corporate, and academic agencies pursuing the observation, exploration, and excavation of SCP-4220. Under Protocol EYES WIDE SHUT, the following provisions are to be met:

* International laws restricting commercial mining, exploration, and colonization of SCP-4220's surface are to be expanded and strictly enforced.
* Seismological studies of SCP-4220's interior are to be suppressed or falsified; studies of lunar lava tubes are to be prevented to whatever extent is feasible.
* Non-Foundation missions to SCP-4220 are to be strictly limited to the collection of regolith samples. Foundation personnel are to work with relevant entities to prevent excavations beyond a depth of ten meters or access to SCP-4220-2.
* All missions that may feasibly pass over the far side of SCP-4220 are to be monitored by Foundation assets. Data regarding SCP-4220-2 (including but not limited to: Photography, radiometric analysis, and thermal imagery) is to be suppressed or falsified. All human-piloted missions are to be redirected to avoid any risk of contact with SCP-4220-2.
* The scientific consensus regarding SCP-4220's internal composition is to be maintained and supported. 

All information regarding SCP-4220's interior is to remain classified until further notice. The borehole to SCP-4220-1 has been collapsed. Access is strictly prohibited.

**Description:** SCP-4220 refers to the Earth's Moon. Current scientific consensus holds that the Moon is the second-densest satellite in the solar system, featuring a distinct crust, mantle, and core. This is inaccurate: a Foundation-funded research mission to the lunar surface conducted in 19██ determined that the Moon is hollow. Despite this, SCP-4220 exerts a gravitational force significantly more powerful than its estimated mass should permit.

The lunar regolith has an average depth of approximately six kilometers; it is supported from below by an internal structure of unknown origin. This structure is composed of concrete, basalt, and iron arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Interior access is possible via a man-made borehole one meter in diameter and approximately fifty meters in depth located in the South Pole-Aitken basin (the deepest known impact crater on the lunar surface). At the bottom of this shaft is a hatch with a bolted metal placard bearing the words, "[[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3790 |DEPARTMENT OF ABNORMALITIES]]]".

The hatch provides access to a mechanical airlock, below which is a sublunar complex designated as SCP-4220-1: a semi-industrial silo built entirely out of beryllium copper. It is approximately half a kilometer in diameter and half a kilometer deep, and consists of one hundred floors (separated by a spiral staircase in the center of the silo). Each floor contains several continuous rows of cubicles, arranged in a spiral pattern extending out from the staircase. The staircase wraps around a large pneumatic tube (one meter in diameter) that extends down from the top floor's ceiling.

Each cubicle contains a desk with a mechanical brass typewriter; pneumatic tubing replaces the typewriter's ribbon. These tubes connect at the ceiling to form spiral patterns which converge and connect to the pipe at the central staircase. A pair of mechanical brass hands are mounted to each typewriter via additional pneumatic tubes, and brass shoes are located on the ground at the foot of each desk. The hands type continually, only pausing when two sets of shoes move away from their cubicles and switch places. Some of the typewriters on each floor are damaged or nonfunctional -- their corresponding hands and shoes remain immobile.

The silo's width tapers off sharply at the bottom of the staircase, which terminates at a circular balcony surrounding the central pipe. The pipe continues down a shaft approximately one meter in diameter with an unknown depth, which has been sealed with a mixture of lunar regolith and cement. A mechanical dial is affixed to the pipe at the balcony level, labeled "CONTAMINATION". Since containment of SCP-4220-1 began, the dial has increased from 75 to 85 (to a possible maximum of 100). The type of unit this dial is measuring remains unknown. 

SCP-4220-2 is the far side of the Moon.

[REDACTED - LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE REQUIRED]

**Addendum 4220.1: Historical Summary**

By 1960, both the Americans and Soviets recognized that knowledge of SCP-4220 posed a threat to normalcy for their respective cultures. However, the nature of the Space Race meant that neither side could stop their programs to land a man on the Moon without incurring significant sociocultural and political losses. Publicly, both countries competed with non-anomalous technology to achieve this goal. 

But privately, American and Russian scientists engaged in a secondary clandestine Space Race -- one driven by anomalous assets and paratechnology. This race was conducted to reach the Moon in secret, discover its true nature, and determine whether or not it could be weaponized.

It is likely that the Soviet Union's program inadvertently brought SCP-4220-2's component parts together, and the American program inadvertently provided the materials to catalyze its formation.

**Addendum 4220.2: Helios**

Upon learning of Russia's Luna program from Soviet defectors, then-President John F. Kennedy -- who had previously resisted the use of anomalies in the Space Race -- reluctantly authorized the black project codenamed Helios[[footnote]]Confirmed by personnel involved with [[[scp-3780|Operation Thunderbolt]]].[[/footnote]]. The goal of the Helios program was to determine the nature of the artificial structures on the Moon and take control of them before the Soviet Union. Due to Russia's lead in the Space Race, Kennedy allowed the Pentagram[[footnote]][[[scp-2350|The occult branch of the Department of Defense]]]. [[/footnote]] to take control of the project under the direction of the late John Whiteside "Jack" Parsons[[footnote]]An American rocket engineer, chemist, and Thelemite occultist who worked as a consultant for the US government's para-rocketry program for several years after his death in 1952.[[/footnote]].

----
[[include component:image-block name=clipping.png|align=center|width=100%|caption=Inner Circle: Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons, and L. Ron Hubbard, left to right (GOC archival files; circa 1947) ]]
----

Project Helios culminated in the construction and launch of the nuclear pulse rocket //Helios 1// on 19██. It successfully reached SCP-4220 within several hours of launch, then crash-landed on the lunar surface (killing all on-board personnel and stranding Parsons). On account of Parsons' refusal to share insights on several critical elements of the rocket's design, the Pentagram was unable to replicate the work on //Helios 1// or recover the rocket until the //Apollo// missions (18 - 20). These missions failed to recover //Helios 1//'s nosecone.

During the construction of Lunar Area-100, Foundation personnel uncovered the graves of //Helios 1//'s crew and its nosecone (which was found to be haunted by Parsons). The nosecone was delivered to Site-42, where a seance was conducted by Mobile Task Force Lambda-10 ("Wake Up Dead") to anchor Parsons to a member of D-Class. Dr. Russell Delvon interviewed Parsons through D-15636.

**NOTE:** These interviews comprise the Foundation's knowledge of Project Helios; this knowledge cannot be verified due to the Pentagram's refusal to confirm or deny Parsons' account.

**About Parsons**
> 
> **Delvon:** Mister Parsons, thank you for joining our seance. To begin with, would you be willing to share the details on why you were on the Moon?
> 
> **Parsons:** Please, call me Jack. Or, Belarion Armillus al Dajjal - Antichrist, come to fulfill the law of the Beast 666 - but Jack is fine too. Anyways! The suits were up there for exactly the reasons you'd expect: Reds - //in space!// Spreading their godless communism. But even they weren't the first to reach the Moon - they'd found some bizarre man-made silos down at the South Pole crater. All abandoned. And of course, that couldn't stand. So the Pentagram had me build them a rocket to get to the Moon lickety-split: //Helios 1//.
> 
> **Delvon:** Okay, um, Jack. Thank you. Now - 
> 
> **Parsons:** I couldn't give less of a damn about their 'God-given right' to 'spread democracy' to the lunar surface. Back in the forties, you see, me and my //ex//-friend Ron[[footnote]]This is likely a reference to L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.[[/footnote]] performed a series of //esoteric sexual rituals// we called the Babalon Workings.  We produced an elemental spirit and tried to conceive a child with her. It half worked -- we were never able to conceive, and the bitch ran off with Ron. But then, after I started consulting for the Pentagram on //Helios 1//, it hit me: what if she was just some broad? Allie[[footnote]]This is likely a reference to Aleister Crowley, a renowned Thelemite occultist who ostensibly died of tuberculosis in 1947.[[/footnote]] even called the being we were trying to conceive the 'Moonchild'. What if the //real// spirit was summoned on the moon? I had to go!
> 
> **Delvon:** //[writing hurriedly]// Wait, hold on - hold on - uh, you went along with the project because you thought you summoned a ... a sex spirit on the Moon?
> 
> **Parsons:** I wouldn't say "went along"… now, "stowed away", that's more accurate. The Pentagram wouldn't let their chief engineer board the rocket -- what if it blew up? Luckily, I was able to contact Crowley by possessing his latest fling. He helped me modify the Pentagram's binders on me. And so, at Crowley's bidding, I haunted the nosecone of //Helios 1// on its maiden voyage! Which worked perfectly... until it crashed on the lunar surface. But that's rocket science for you! Mistakes happen. It's how we learn from them that matters.

**About Helios 1**
> 
> **Delvon:** Can you tell us anything about the design of Helios 1? How it was designed, how it was propelled, et cetera?
> 
> **Parsons:** //Helios 1// is a theonuclear pulse engine rocket - theonuclear, we coined that in fifty-nine as well, there's a patent on the name - based on the Teller-Ulam design that generates repeated theonuclear pulses for propulsion. Some of my finest work, really. //Helios// used theonuclear and orgone[[footnote]]An esoteric energy strongly linked with sexual thaumaturgy.[[/footnote]] energy - the orgone powered the ship's systems, compressed the souls, and recharged them for further detonation! I'm really quite proud of it - I implemented a special bi-channeling system into the frame of the rocket and designed the geometry in such a way as to harness special sexual magicks. I can draw it for you if you'd like.
> 
> //Parsons is provided with a piece of paper and pen, and proceeds to draw a diagram of Helios 1.//
> 
> **Delvon:** Isn't that a - that's a penis.
> 
> **Parsons:** No, actually, it's //Helios 1//! I'm glad you caught onto the design, though - it's the culmination of years of research into occult architecture and orgone channeling. You see, the rocket's geometry works to funnel orgone energy from the tip, down the shaft, to the base. The theonuclear fuel is stored in the tanks here @@[@@//pointing to the circles at the base of the diagram//@@]@@, which is siphoned into the base and compressed by the orgone. It then detonates against the pusher plate here @@[@@//pointing to the middle of the main shaft on the diagram//@@]@@, which propels the rocket upwards. Excess orgone is funneled into the insulating walls of the fuel tanks, which draws the fuel back into the chamber for recapture and recycling. It's totally emission free, 100% clean energy - well, in the energy sense, ahem. Worked like a charm!
> 
> **Delvon:** Right, until it crashed on the lunar surface. Do you have any idea what might have caused that? Sabotage, perhaps?
> 
> **Parsons:** Oh yes, very unfortunate. I didn't want to install traditional retrorockets on the thing, you see? Too much negative energy, slowing down and softening. Instead, the rocket was designed to channel orgone energy to reverse the polarity of the thrusters - but the crew just could not get enough of a rhythm going to ensure proper sexual flow!
> 
> **Delvon:** //[writing]// Wait, how would 'sexual flow' affect the thr -
> 
> **Parsons:** So instead of turning around and slowing to a halt on the lunar surface, we crashed. Explosive decompression - they weren't wearing space suits. Damn things would've done a number on the sexual kundalini flow through their chakras!

**About Theonuclear Power**
> 
> **Parsons:** Can you tell me something? What do you think the most glorious trait of the human soul is?
> 
> **Delvon:** Mmm... I don't know. Our spirit?
> 
> **Parsons:** Everything! Our indomitable will! Our thirst for knowledge! Our perseverance - our courage - our ability to push ourselves - to push ourselves to the limit, and conquer all of God's creation! Our insatiable curiosity, insatiable //lust//... the most glorious trait of the human soul is that it never stops. Also, the fact that it can be extracted as an isoenergetic superfluid which can be harnessed as a source of perpetual energy.
> 
> **Delvon:** Could - could you repeat that last part? I don't think I heard you right.
> 
> **Parsons:** Your soul is actually an indefinite source of kinetic, electrical, and thermal energy. The issue is that its energy is limitless, but its actual power output... minimal. But we got past that. We figured out how to make it undergo radiation-free nuclear fission, with the bonus that once the soul detonates, it resettles into a non-detonated superfluid. As I said, perseverance! And as I also said, whilst engaged in //sexual congress// with one Missus Alexis Santana in the back of an Oldsmobile in fifty-nine, that perseverance makes it the perfect fuel source for a nuclear pulse engine. Really, there was only one thing wrong with it.
> 
> **Delvon:** Wait - sexual congress aside, weren't you dead by then? Sorry - uh, more importantly, what was wrong with - 
> 
> **Parsons:** //I// was, but Miss Santana was not. But back to the matter at hand: the only problem is that you need a //lot// of souls. Fresh ones too, you can't just go to any old graveyard and dig up some bodies. Souls don't stick around bodies that long - at least, not ones that died happy.

**On Acquiring Souls:**
> **Parsons:** We were somewhere on the edge of New Echota when the drugs began to take hold.
> 
> **Delvon:** New Echota... Georgia? Where the Trail of Tears starts. What does that have to do with... 
> 
> **Parsons:** Doctor Delvon, I sense a worldly spirit in you. If you were looking for spirits with unfinished business in these United States, spirits who died in pain or seek revenge for their families, who would you look for?
> 
> **Delvon:** ...Native Americans.
> 
> **Parsons:** Bingo! All that pent-up rage and hatred makes for a hell of a turbocharge. Me and some of the boys from the lab went on a road trip in fifty-nine, all across the southern US. We were ghost-hunting, following the Trail of Tears across the country - and I daresay it was the time of my after-life! Stopping off in small town Americana, smoking enough weed to fill a garden, flirting with the local ladies, bringing them to the closest cemetery and doing quite a bit of desecrating if you catch my drift, then vacuuming up the spirits that emerged. It was a blast and a half!
> 
> **Delvon:** Mister Parsons - Jack, I must say that I find these actions rather reprehensible.
> 
> **Parsons:** What, shagging in a boneyard? Don't worry, as a spirit myself, I say it's fine. If you mean the systematic targeted exploitation of the Cherokee even past death... what the hell do you want me to say? 
> 
> //Parsons stands up and puts his hands on the seance table.//
> 
> **Parsons:** Anything to stop the 'relentless march of Communism', the upper brass said. I said, surely there must be a better way, we can just kill a few million mice or something, haven't these people suffered enough? But you know the military. What the military wants, the military gets. I figured I might as well enjoy myself, okay? You think I could even fight them? I'm as much a victim as the Cherokees!
> 
> **Delvon:** I apologize, Jack. I didn't mean to insinuate you were to blame. How did you, ahem, 'vacuum up' the spirits?
> 
> **Parsons:** Trade secret. The //geas// those bastards put on me got stale, but it's still kicking in bits and places. I can tell you that it did //not// involve a vacuum, but it did involve orgone. Why do you think I mentioned the shagging? Crowley and I figured out all kinds of wonderful things you could do with the stuff, like creating a moon goddess or extracting human souls from underground, and when the Pentagram dug me up, well... they have ways of making you talk.

**About Being Stranded**
> **Delvon:** Can you tell us anything about your time on the Moon between the crash of //Helios 1// and being found by us? 
> 
> **Parsons:** At first I was rather miffed - all my work foiled because the crew couldn't maintain their libido! But I coped. The orgone was draining from the wreckage faster than I would have expected, to be honest, but I had lived a rich and full afterlife. Really, boredom was the enemy. Spent some time writing plays and acting them out with the crew. I went mad for... a decade? Two? You lose track of time when your brain flies the cuckoo's nest - but then got bored and went sane again. 
> 
> **Delvon:** So you abandoned the original mission.
> 
> **Parsons:** I take offense at that - I picked it up again after I went sane! Would you believe that after all that time I was still anchored to the nosecone? Sometimes I amaze myself. So I went hunting - and I did, in fact, rediscover the structures that we had gone looking for originally, at the South Pole-Aitken basin.
> 
> //Parsons stops talking and stares into the distance. Dr. Delvon attempts to regain his attention unsuccessfully for a minute.//
> 
> **Delvon:** Jack? Are you alright?
> 
> **Parsons:** I went down there. 
> 
> **Delvon:** Down where?
> 
> **Parsons:** I know why I appeared to you.
> 
> //Parsons grabs Dr. Delvon by the shoulders.//
> 
> **Parsons:** It was a tomb. There is a man down there - a being, a spectre, a shade, I don't know - there is a //thing// down there, and it has been rent into many little pieces, and each of those pieces is locked in a cage. But I saw those pieces - and //they saw me//.
> 
> //The security detail steps forward and shoots Parsons with tranquilizer darts. Despite being anchored to D-15, the darts have a delayed effect on Parsons.//
> 
> **Parsons:** I don't know what happened - it forced its way up or maybe the Moon Goddess rejected it. But it was never meant to be seen. We weren't the first men on the Moon - but we should have been the //last//.
> 
> //At this point, the tranquilizer takes effect. Parsons falls unconscious. The seance is terminated.//

**Addendum 4220.3: Luna**

In contrast to the separate space program established by the United States, the Soviet Union simply extended their existing Luna program with paratechnology, enlisting the help of [REDACTED - LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE REQUIRED]. This enabled them to conduct multiple manned missions into SCP-4220-1; however, the Luna program was abruptly shut down without official explanation, most likely to enact containment of SCP-4220-1.

The following correspondence was recovered from the home of Professor Damian Kravchuk, a colleague of Professor Christov Alexeyev. Professor Alexeyev was Project Lead of the Luna programme (part of the Soviet space program) from 1958 to 1965. All documents are translated from their original Russian. 

> It is unfortunate, but the loss of little //Mechta//[[footnote]]Likely a reference to Luna 1, an unmanned spacecraft launched by Russia in January of 1959. It reportedly missed the moon as a consequence of an incorrect calculation regarding the duration of its upper stage burn.[[/footnote]] is merely a setback, I assure you. What I am about to tell you is known by only a few men other than myself. I trust you understand the gravity of these proceedings.
> 
> While the Americans are hypnotized by their own little 'Rasputin'[[footnote]]This may be a reference to Jack Parsons.[[/footnote]], we have put our trust into a more practical approach. The greatest challenge manned space travel poses has always been the safe return of the occupant. System after system is dedicated to his protection and health, and each of these systems increases the complexity of the mission by an order of magnitude.
> 
> But what if his health was of no concern at all? 
@@ @@

> Cpt. Dorofeyev[[footnote]]Captain Victor Dorofeyev was an officer of the KGB, a liason for GRU Division "P" (Psychotronics), and Lead Supervisor of [[[scp-2664|Project Redline]]].[[/footnote]] has provided us with our first controller. He refers to her as only 'Eighty-Two'. She is an obese girl of fourteen; her speech is slurred, her smell unpleasant, and her head devoid of hair. 
> 
> The subject is a convict due for execution. We injected him with a lethal dose of propofol. Though I took every step feasible to ensure his comfort, the proceedings still left many of us sick to our stomachs. Lukyan has confessed privately that he feels like a charlatan; like an ancient haruspex, slitting the bellies of muskoxen and pretending to read futures in their steaming entrails. But I have assured him that there is nothing imaginary about our 'magic'.
> 
> Twenty minutes after death, the corpse sat up. We examined it; no pulse, no respiration. It was cool to the touch. Eighty-Two successfully made it walk and interact with numerous objects in the room, though it moved like a drunkard. 
> 
> Regardless of its state, the corpse becomes non-viable several hours after death. This is unfortunate; it reduces our functional window considerably. The antennae array must therefore be inserted surgically with great care. A powerful paralytic will ensure they expend very little oxygen and do not disrupt the craft in transit. Impact on the lunar surface -- followed by depressurization -- handles the rest.
> 
> Cpt. Dorofeyev delivered the subject yesterday. I loaded it into //Mechta//'s sister[[footnote]]This is likely a reference to Luna 2, an unmanned spacecraft launched by Russia in September of 1959. It was the first man-made object to officially reach the moon.[[/footnote]] myself, but not before weighing him again. He was nearly a pound lighter than before. My hands are smudged with chalk; we spent the night revising calculations to account for the reduction in mass.
> 
> It will be a Russian who takes the first step across the moon's surface. History will not care whether he was alive or dead. 
@@ @@


> We have found the structure. But nothing about it makes sense.
> 
> It's an office building. An office building //inside// the moon, Damian.
> 
> The interior is pressurized; within, brass hands are mounted to brass desks, tapping at brass typewriters. Brass shoes stomp about with no men inside them. All of it fed by brass pipes, centered around a winding brass staircase.
> 
> We have sent multiple drones into the structure, but we keep losing our window before we can explore any farther. We must either send a live man in -- simply infeasible -- or find a method to make the corpses last longer.
@@ @@

> My facility is now filled with strange men I do not recognize, asking me questions I cannot answer. The ministry has brought an 'esoteric specialist' to assist us -- a disgusting, loathsome man who stinks of garlic and speaks broken Russian. Cpt. Dorofeyev has vouched for his expertise. He has demonstrated his ability to enter a state of suspended animation via the use of mantras, self-hypnosis, and a foul-smelling poultice of his own concoction. I verified the cessation of all life-functions myself; several hours later, he sat up -- alive and well.
> 
> He has offered to teach us his methods in exchange for a favor. He only asks that we send him to the Moon. 
> 
> He believes someone is waiting for him, there. 
@@ @@

> When the mystic is not teaching us how to defy death, he is conducting bizarre and inane 'rituals' to fulfill whatever sexual gratification occurs to him.
> 
> But his methods have produced results: Eighty-Two puppeted one of our suspended subjects for over fifteen hours before //she// had to sever the connection. The subject was revived, and found in relatively good health (though distressed over the antennae). We plan more tests to ensure no more complications, but I anticipate we will be launching by the end of the month.
@@ @@

> Our first suspended subject successfully entered the structure and made it to the bottom of the stairwell. There, we discovered a large shaft fed by the brass pipes that sinks deeper into the Moon. There is a meter on the largest pipe. An English word is printed on it; it translates to 'CONTAMINATION'. It was set to twenty-five. None of us know what this means.
> 
> While piloting the subject, Eighty-Two reported the meter rose to thirty. Dorofeyev informed us that we are to continue exploring the structure. Hopefully, we will find some clues as to its purpose.
> 
> Eighty-Two seems fearful of the shaft descending downward. Before she severed the connection, she complained of a foul odor coming from it. 
@@ @@

> Dorofeyev has assigned me to watch the mystic's disgusting rituals. He suspects the man is hiding more secrets from us. The madman smirks at me while he works.
> 
> Yesterday, he drew a chalk outline of a woman upon the floor, then desecrated it. When he was finished, he claimed to have opened a channel to his goddess — Babalon. An hour later, Eighty-Two reconnected to the drone and found that the CONTAMINATION dial was now at fifty. Several of the pipes had burst, destroying the typewriters they were mounted to. A black smoke fills the silo. It makes the skin of the drone congeal into tar.
> 
> I want to call it a coincidence, but I know better.
@@ @@

> The pipes have sealed themselves, somehow -- as if they had never burst at all. The smoke is gone. The CONTAMINATION dial remains at sixty-five, and the silo buzzes with activity. The typewriters rattle like Kalashnikovs — brass fingers clacking across the keys in a blur. The shoes move so fast that the drone has tripped over them several times.
> 
> Eighty-Two is terrified. We had to coerce her into continuing into the silo. Even so, she moved so slowly that the drone collapsed before we could reach the bottom.
> 
> Through all of this, the mystic continues his despicable rituals. When he is not defiling the floor, he sits cross-legged in a hexagram, crowing and gloating in English to a man who is not there. Dorofeyev will not tell me what he is saying.
@@ @@

> After two more drones, we finally made it into the shaft. Eighty-Two steered a great brute down there -- I cannot tell you how long he slid down the pipe. By the time he reached the bottom, nearly all his muscle and skin had sloughed away. 
> 
> The Moon is full of giant glass chambers, each shaped like a perfect dodecahedron, each suspended within a metal lattice that criss-crosses into the yawning darkness. No one can determine how far it extends.
> 
> Each chamber is connected to four others by means of bronze-colored metal hatches in the corners of each room. The pipe splits off into multiple smaller pipes winding through the chambers. The drone had suffered too much necrosis before we could explore these pipes; the air down there is worse than in the silo. After she disconnected, we noticed Eighty-Two's skin had become greasy. Even after several showers, she still smells foul.
> 
> The moon is hollow, Damian. Not only that; it is //artificial//. It baffles the imagination. Who built it? Why? Where do the pipes lead? Did the ministry know? 
> 
> Hide these letters somewhere safe. If something happens, a record must persist.
@@ @@

> More questions. We equipped a small drone with a hazard suit; Eighty-Two had him prepare cameras to record the typewriters, and another trained on the CONTAMINATION dial. It was at sixty. A consequence of the previous drones? Possibly. Nothing remains of their bodies save a black, bubbling sludge. The very air is corrosive.
> 
> Eighty-Two made it to the glass chambers. Some of them house glass cages shaped like human organs -- eyes, lungs, liver, a stomach -- filled with black smoke. They feed the pipes, pumping into the moon. Eighty-Two noticed other chambers, suspended alone in the lattice. Connected to nothing, but filled with that black smoke. Some of them pulsed and throbbed.
> 
> We all feel uneasy. It is as though we are traipsing through a dragon's hoard, oblivious to its curious eyes.
> 
> The mystic found out about the structures. Eighty-Two, most likely. They are inseparable now. He was crowing about it being the resting place of his goddess -- shredded, he claimed, by a ritual his apprentice botched. He claims to have taught the American Rasputin everything he knows. His rituals grow more depraved by the day. Thankfully, Dorofeyev reassigned me to work on the orbital mechanics.
@@ @@


> We found the mystic with Eighty-Two today. He had coerced her into participating in one of his rituals.
> 
> One of our men wanted to shoot him on the spot. Cooler heads prevailed. He is of no more use; we simply will fulfill our end of the bargain.
> 
> I was told the surgeons did not sedate him before implanting the necessary components. I examined him only afterwards, when he rested in his deep torpor. Even now, his face haunts me -- that sickening, frozen smile as we sealed him inside the capsule.
> 
> He wants to meet his 'goddess'? So be it. 
@@ @@

> God help us.
> 
> A moment after he awoke inside the silo, the mystic tore the antennae from his scalp. He did not bleed -- he //vented//. Black smoke poured from his skull. Eighty-Two could no longer pilot him; she fainted. Tar oozed from her skin.
> 
> Dorofeyev had prepared for this possibility. The camera trained on the dial was armed with a remote detonator. It took him several minutes to acquire proper authorization; as he did, we watched helplessly as the mystic sank down into the shaft. Shortly after he vanished, Dorofeyev transmitted the sequence -- we lost the feed. Presumably, the shaft was sealed by the explosion. The last image we captured was of the dial at seventy-five. It was still rising. 
> 
> The Luna programme has been cancelled. We will not return to the Moon. 
> 
> Burn these letters.
@@@@

**Addendum 4220.4: Joint Containment Negotiations**

//During the Paraweapon Cessation Treaties of 1963, both GRU Division "P" and the Pentagram conducted secret negotiations regarding containment of SCP-4220 without the Foundation's official awareness. The following transcript was recorded covertly by Foundation listening devices, but due to bureaucratic incompetence and internal political turmoil, they were filed away with their significance unrealized until the discovery of SCP-4220.//

[[collapsible show="+ Level 5 Access Required" hide="- ERROR! LEVELEVVVE 4444444 LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE GRANTED "]]

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[[size 140%]]Internal Audio Recording Transcript[[/size]]
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**In Attendance:**

* Pentagram Director Edward Teller
* NASA Administrator James E. Webb
* GRU Division "P" Liaison Victor Dorofeyev
* USSR Engineer Valentin[[footnote]] most likely Valentin Glushko [[/footnote]] 
-----

**[GRU] Liaison Dorofeyev:** So. We have a problem with the Moon.

**[PEN] Director Teller:** We do.

**[NASA] Administrator Webb:** Excuse me? I'm - I'm sorry, I'm not quite following. I'm still - ah, I'm still unclear as to what this meeting is about. I'm not sure I know you, Mister...

**Dorofeyev:** You may call me Victor. My colleague goes by Valentin. Director Teller, if you would?

**Teller:** Right. Let's get down to brass tacks. Boys, I hate to break it to you, but you will NOT be landing on the Moon. 

[!--

//Click.//

**[USSR] Valentin:** Bozhe moi!

**Teller:** Bozhe moi indeed. James, where do you think this picture was taken?

**Webb:** On the - on the moon... but that's impossible! That's a Soviet suit! 

**Teller:** Far from it. I apologize, James, but the USSR technically won the Space Race.

**Webb:** What? But - but - but - but how? And why haven't we heard anything about it?

**Dorofeyev:** You think we want the world to know about //this//?

//There is a click and then retching sounds.//

**Dorofeyev:** Or this?

//There is another click and more retching sounds.//

**Dorofeyev:** Or -

**Teller:** Victor! I th - I think they get the picture... You understand, gentlemen? There are some things above this Earth that men were not meant to know about. This is one of them. We need to make sure that the good people of the United States - and yes, the Soviet Union - can go about their lives without worrying about this hanging above their head.

--]

**Webb:** Wh - what? You can't be serious!

**Teller:** Sorry, James - I'm as serious as a heart attack. The Moon is a no-go. Completely off limits. We absolutely cannot, hell, must not, put a man on the moon.

**Dorofeyev:** But we cannot //not// put a man on the moon. To do so would be political suicide.

**[USSR] Valentin:** So. Are we putting someone on moon or not?

//There is a pause.//

**Dorofeyev, Teller simultaneously:** Yes.

**Dorofeyev:** Fake moon landings.

**Teller:** To clarify, the landing is not going to be faked - we are simply going to use a fake moon.

**Webb:** A fake - a fake //moon//? What the //hell// are you trying to pull?

**Dorofeyev:** Be quiet and listen.

**Teller:** Please, James. Don't you know the Boy Scout motto? Be prepared. The United States has had a plan for landing on the moon in case we couldn't actually land on it for almost a decade now. Trust me when I say that [[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1812 |we have a backup in place]]]. All you need to do is keep building your rockets, and then have your boys fly them to where we tell you.

[!--

**Teller:** But, no - there are too many variables to account for. Moon rocks, video footage, radio delays - impossible to fake on Earth.

**Dorofeyev:** We can handle that. We have actual samples of our own.

**Teller:** Yes, but those samples are ancient and it's unlikely that they would hold up. Nor can we just fake the materials. Damn - if only we could build our own moon!

**Webb:** Stop it - stop stop stop! I've heard enough! Ghost rockets? Psychic astronauts? The US and USSR //faking// the moon landing? This is all some kind of huge prank, isn't it? Where's the - the ray to make my privates grow?

**Teller:** We built one of those, actually. It's untested, but it could probably grow a rock to the size of the Moon.

//There is another pause.//

**Glushko:** What about moon rock?
--]

**Webb:** But - but - but - but why? Why on Earth do we need to do all this? What the hell is wrong with the Moon?

There is the click of a projector screen.

**[USSR] Valentin**: Bozhe moi!

**Webb**: Christ almighty! What on earth is - is that a face?

**Dorofeyev**: It is the dark side of the Moon.

**Valentin**: No. It is a face. Whose?

**Teller**: We believe it - ah, we suspect that -

**Dorofeyev**: It is the face of Aleister Crowley.

**Valentin**: But — that is a //woman//‘s —

**Webb**: How can you even tell? That’s, that’s bone — it’s //brain// —

**Dorofeyev**: Brass.

**Teller**: The technical term is rebis. The… well the male half is Crowley. The female half —

**Dorofeyev**: Was inside the moon. Before Crowley //fucked// it.

**Webb**: But what is it — what is it doing?

**Valentin**: What is that //look//?

**Teller**: The expression, you mean? Well, ah… I don't want to be crude, but -

**Dorofeyev**: It is having an orgasm.

[END TRANSCRIPT]

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