"We want the truth!"
"We have the right to know!"
On the exotic streets, people of all genders and ages with camouflage makeup held posters and banners and protested.
Colonel Chu watched several videos in succession, all of them were similar in content. Thus, he lost his interest and stop watching.
"Damn it, which bastard leaked the video of the moon rover?!" Chief Engineer Yang ask angrily.
They had agreed to keep it secret, but now it had become a global sensation.
"Judging from the moon rover's design, it should be from the Five Eyes Alliance..."
Colonel Chu shook his head. "We can't do anything about it now that the video has gone viral. We need to find a way to minimize the impact. Any ideas?"
"What can I do? I'm just a scientist. I don't know anything about this!" Chief Engineer Yang said helplessly.
"Well, I have a plan," Colonel Chu said with a smile.
Colonel Chu smiled, "The video has already gone viral and it's impossible to delete or block it entirely."
"You know the old saying, 'it's better to guide than to block'. Instead of trying to completely stop something, it is sometimes more effective to redirect the flow towards a different path or outcome."
Chief Engineer Yang was a little curious and quickly said, "So, what are you going to do?!"
"Well, I talked to a friend who knows people in a film crew that made a movie about the moon before. They can create a similar video with some flaws added in."
"Flaws?" Chief Engineer Yang asked.
"Yes, like wind on the moon or sound. These flaws will be subtle, so the video will look similar to the leaked one, but there will be some differences in the details."
"But will it work?" Chief Engineer Yang asked.
"Trust me, It will work. people don't really care about the truth. They just want to feel superior to others,"
"To make it short, I've contacted some online users who can steer the conversation towards the aliens enthusiasts who would love it."
"And if they refuse?" Yang inquired.
"If they refuse, we'll find someone else," Colonel Chu replied confidently.
Chief Engineer Yang was amazed by Colonel Chu's efficiency. He was also amazed by the power that came with Colonel Chu's position. It was exciting to be on the same side as him.
Chief Engineer Yang had assumed that Colonel Chu would have to work very hard to solve the problem at hand, but to his surprise, it only took a few phone calls for him to resolve everything.
Colonel Chu even had spare time to inspect the expert building next door.
As Chief Engineer Yang watched Colonel Chu leave, he couldn't help but sigh at what a suave person he was.
..
Upon entering the room, Colonel Chu immediately asked, "Have you figured out whether the alien aircraft relies on anti-gravity or magnetic levitation to stay airborne?"
The higher-ups were more interested in acquiring the technology to allow the low-altitude hovering of the alien spacecraft, rather than secondary technologies like nanorobots.
"Well, it seems to rely on magnetic levitation," an old man stood up as a representative and explained. "Anti-gravity technology, also known as anti-gravity propulsion, is a highly advanced technology."
"The scientific community on Earth is still in the stage of theoretical perfection for anti-gravity technology. All experiments are still immature or superficial."
"On the other hand, our scientific community has already conducted research on magnetic levitation technology, which is in the preliminary stage of entry-level."
"Based on our current technological advancements, we can achieve low-altitude suspension, like the device you saw, if we can overcome the technological hurdles of magnetic steering universal frame, superconducting electromagnetic coil group, micro-nuclear power supply, magnetic drive frame, and so on."
"We believe that we can accomplish this within the next 30 to 50 years, which indicates that the technology used in this device is not too far beyond ours."
"Whether it's nanorobots or signal jammer, they all fall within our expected range of discovery and exploration."
"However, anti-gravity technology is something that Earth won't be able to study for at least one or two thousand years."
"This alien device should have similar technology to ours, rather than a gap of thousands of years. It's like we wouldn't use telegraph machines at home or carry beepers with us."
"Therefore, we believe that this alien collector is using magnetic levitation technology."
Colonel Chu was surprised and asked, "So it's not an alien spaceship?!"
"No," the old man shook his head. "Based on its function, it should be a low-power machine for collecting resources."
After thinking for a while, Colonel Chu asked, "How advanced are the alien beings on the moon compared to Earth, based on your estimates?"
"Judging from this alien collector, they are only ahead by fifty to one hundred years..."
..
Five days had passed.
The search and rescue operation for the three astronauts had made no progress.
Thanks to Colonel Chu's strategic guidance, online discussions about aliens were gradually fading away.
Since the government had not acknowledged the existence of aliens, people continued to live their daily lives as usual.
On this day, the four countries convened an emergency video conference.
"Without further ado, let me summarise what we've been up to," Colonel Chu said as he took the stage.
"Over the past few days, we have deployed a total of 113 small moon exploration vehicles to the moon."
"Unfortunately, only eleven of them are still operational," Colonel Chu continued, "102 rovers were captured by alien collectors. The analysis suggests those eleven vehicles happen to be outside of the alien collector's range of activity."
As he speak, Colonel Chu shared his screen and displayed a picture with densely packed dots and lines of various colors.
"The numbers here represent the serial numbers of the 113 exploration vehicles,"
"The white dots represent the landing positions of each exploration vehicle."
"The red dots represent the locations where they were eventually captured and lost."
"The lines connecting the red and white dots represent their paths on the moon."
"The 11 green dots represent the exploration vehicles that have not yet been captured."
"Now, we connect the outermost red dots with a line and get an orange line…"
"We have an irregular circular shape. According to statistics, the closer an exploration vehicle is to the center of the circle, the faster it is captured by the alien collectors."
"On the other hand, at the edge, like exploration vehicle number 88, it can roam on the surface of the moon for three days before it was captured by the alien collector."
As Colonel Chu spoke, the people in the conference started discussing.
"Is there a pattern hidden in this data?"
"Are exploration vehicles that are closer to the center of the circle captured more frequently?"
At this moment, Thomas spoke up.
"This is not important. We already knew about it two days ago."
"According to our speculation, there might be an alien base at the center of the circle, or a hidden alien spacecraft, or even some native inhabitants living on the moon's surface."
"Indeed!"
Colonel Chu nodded, "In addition to these possibilities, we have another speculation: there may be some natives living inside the moon, who have now made their way to the surface."
Thomas rolled his eyes. In the report he had received, the probability of such an occurrence was only 0.01%, which was negligible compared to the other two possibilities.
"Stop beating around the bush," Thomas said. "Our proposal is to launch multiple rockets loaded with nuclear weapons and aim them at the center of the circle, eliminating the hidden alien base or spacecraft, whichever it may be.