Link: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/to-the-stars-in-1969-apollo-11-stumbles-onto-an-alien-artifact-2-0.528837/
July 21st, 1969
Neil Armstrong was having the time of his life. Being the first man to step foot on the Moon was the most important thing he'd ever do, and he was savoring every moment of it. His only disappointment was that the first Moonwalk would be quite short compared to the ones planned for subsequent Apollo missions, a single jaunt of no more than three hours. Not having been tested under "field conditions", NASA didn't want to take a chance on overexerting the water-filled cooling systems of their spacesuits.
Still, things were going well enough, in spite of the difficulty he'd had planting the US flag, only being able to push the pole a couple of inches into the regolith. Thank God it hadn't toppled over on live tv! He still had a little time and was keeping on schedule, so he had decided to go up to the rim of Little West Crater, some 200 feet from the Lunar Module. They hadn't planned on landing near any craters of significant size, but they'd put down a bit of a ways from their planned landing site when it turned be strewn with boulders. It would be foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity to sample it.
As he walk/hopped up to the rim, he saw an otherwise unremarkable crater around a hundred feet in diameter. But there was something in the middle, and it was clearly artificial. He stared at it for a full thirty seconds in astonishment. Thinking furiously, he radioed for Buzz Aldrin to meet him at the rim, keeping his voice as calm as he could. Mission Control broke in.
"Neil? Are you all right? Your heartbeat just shot to 160...you doing ok?"
Armstrong forced himself to calm down. A bit, anyway. "I'm fine. Just a little winded."
After a few minutes, Aldrin reached the rim to find Armstrong taking picture after picture with his Hasselblad camera. Armstrong knew every word they said would be sent back to multiple receiving stations on Earth. There would be no way to keep this under wraps, but they had to report what they saw in case they didn't make it back. "Buzz? Please describe what you see."
Mission control broke in for a moment after a three second round trip light speed delay. "Buzz, your heartbeat's up to 170. What the hell's going on?"
Aldrin replied in a shaking voice, "There's something artificial in the middle of the crater. There's a platform, I estimate it to be roughly thirty feet across with sloping sides leading gently up to it. It's grey in color, similar to the Lunar surface. It looks perfectly smooth. The only other feature I see is a pillar to the left of the platform on the crater floor. It's about four feet high and is topped with a rectangular grid of some kind. Hard to tell from here, but it almost looks like a keyboard." He had moved some distance along rim of the crater and was, along with Neil, taking photos as quickly as he could.
There was stunned silence from Mission Control for a moment, and they then responded. "Commander Armstrong, can you confirm this?"
"Yes, we're both taking pictures of it. A moment later in a surprisingly calm voice, he said "I would note that the grid on top of the pylon just lit up."
A few seconds later they hear Mission Control tensely replied, "Do not approach the....artifact. You are to get back to the LM and begin preparations for ascent as quickly as possible. Don't take time to retrieve anything on the surface, all that matters is the film.".
"Acknowledged. Heading back to the LM now."
Two hours later, the LM took off, headed towards what would be a successful rendezvous with the Command Module and a three day trip back to Earth. In the meantime, the head of NASA had a phone call. President Nixon wanted to speak with him...now.