Is There a UFO Base on the Moon?

(Image credit: NewsNation)Below is a transcript of an interview I had on August 6, 2026 with Jesse Weber on NewsNation, regarding an unrefereed paper, written by the Ukrainian astronomers Boris Zhilayev, Vladimir Petukov and Sergey Pokhvala and posted here. The abstract of the paper states:“High-speed video recordings of the sky near the Moon have allowed us to detect numerous UFOs. The sizes of the objects vary from 14 to 36 kilometers, and their speeds range from 6 to 11 kilometers per second. UFOs demonstrate variable brightness in the range of several hertz with an amplitude of about two per cent. The reconstructed images show toroidal and disc-shaped objects. The toroidal UFO is about 36 km in size, has a rotation period of about 157 seconds and a centrifugal acceleration of 461.0 cm/s², which is half the acceleration of free fall on Earth.”The video segment of this interview is available here. In the transcript that follows, Jesse’s questions are marked by JW and my answers are marked by AL.***JW: One of the most exciting things about the recent Artemis missions to the Moon is the hope that we’ll see humans living on bases out of our celestial neighbor. But maybe we’re jockeying for that real estate because a team of Ukrainian researchers say they’ve discovered evidence of a possible UFO base that is already on the Moon. In a new study, researchers at Ukraine’s main astronomical observatory say that they have found more than 20 UFOs, or UAPs as they’re also called, moving near and across the Moon over the course of 2025. The scientists apparently used a high-speed camera attached to a telescope to capture the objects which can allegedly move at blinding speed. The researchers say they tracked one object moving at 4.1 miles a second. That is right around what the space shuttle needs for liftoff. The researchers also say that they were able to use light to measure the size of the objects, which, by the way, are apparently massive. One of the objects allegedly me