IJMC - What Else Is There To Say?

                                                                     -dave








[Since I work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the NASA site that flies
Voyager, and not Los Alamos (GRRRR!), I had lunch one day with Peterson
Zha, then President of the Navajo Nation. He told us the story and to make
sure it's told properly I'll tell it again as it was told.]
     
About 1966 or so, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission
took the astronauts near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo
Reservation looks very much like the Lunar surface.  With all the trucks
and large 
vehicles were two large figures that were dressed in full Lunar 
spacesuits.
     
Near by a Navajo sheep herder and his son where watching the strange 
creatures walk about, occasionally being tended by personnel. The two
Navajo people were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel. Since the
man
did not know English, his son asked for him what the strange creatures were
and the NASA people told them that they are just men that are getting ready
to go to the moon.  The man became very excited and asked if he could send
a message to the moon with the astronauts.
     
The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea so they rustled up a
tape recorder.  After the man gave them his message they asked his son to 
translate.  His son would not. Later, they tried a few more people on
the reservation to translate and every person they asked would chuckle and
then refuse to translate.  Finally, with cash in hand someone translated
the 
message, "Watch out for these guys, they come to take your land."
     
--Charles Phillip Whitedog, Ojibway and Network Manager Multimission 
Ground Systems Office (Mission Control), Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA