Speaking of lunar mining: Something which may or may not be relevant to this conversation (heck knows I only half believe it myself):
I recently read Ingo Swann's 1998 book 'Penetration':
http://www.amazon.com/Penetration-Quest ... 0966767403. Swann as most of you probably know is one of the key originators of remote viewing along with Hal Puthoff. Penetration is a sort of rambling memoir, half about his experiences being asked to remote-view the moon, and half a catalogue of outstanding 'lunar anomalies'.
The guts of the story is that in February 1975 he is approached by one of many remote-viewing clients, who turn out to be some kind of tiny special-forces cell of the kind that makes me think 'Caroline?' A 'Mr Axelrod' and two 'twins' take him to a secret location (hooded and blindfolded), and other than being secretive with a military air, seem to be otherwise very polite, pay him $1000 a day to RV a list of locations on the moon, which he does, and 'sees' what appear to be derrick structures and humanoid 'open-air' mining operations. Swann is very surprised by this and 'Axelrod' is disturbed; it appears to confirm information they didn't want confirmed.
In July 1977 (after meeting 'the twins' at a supermarket observng a woman he feels is 'alien'), he is further contacted by 'Axelrod', who offers him the chance to go UFO spotting in Alaska. He agrees, and they fly in a private Lear Jet that flies without lights ('"It's a very high-tech plane,' Axel commented. "It just LOOKS like a standard Lear."') to an undisclosed location, drive in a camouflage van to a lake, where they observe a diamond-shaped UFO 'fading-up' out of fog with 'purple, yellow and red lightning bolts' but in complete silence. It appears to suck water upwards out of the lake, shoots 'laser beams' at them, which they dodge, and then vanishes again. He has the impression they've done this sort of thing (UFO-spotting) before. Swann is asked for his psychic impressions of the thing, which he replies he is unable to because it is pretty much completely outside his experience. He never sees 'Axelrod' and friends again after this.
The rest of the book is mainly Swann comparing his remote-viewing sketches to George Leonards' 'Somebody Else Is On The Moon' (they do seem to slightly match), listing various alleged lunar anomalies, and speculating about whether there is an alien anti-telepathy conspiracy.
It's the story of 'Axelrod' and his team which interests me the most, though. One of the little tidbits which I'm wondering whether anyone with intelligence background could confirm, is that when 'Axelrod' wants to summon him the second time, his secretary calls on an ordinary telephone and tells him to find a secure line, by going to Grand Central Station. One of the 'twins' there directs him to a specific public telephone, sets up the call on it, and apparently it is then a secure line.
Is that the sort of thing which real spies would have used in the 1970s? It sounds logical to me that before the days of ubiquitous encrypted cellphones, intelligence services might have had special arrangements with telephone companies to install designated public phones with a secure capability. But maybe it's just a flight of Hollywood-inspired imagination?