"Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA," Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara: The last time an astronaut stepped on the moon, in December 1972, I was a mere infant. Nearly 36 years have passed and NASA hasn't sent astronauts on a return visit to that mysterious object orbiting our blue planet. Why? Is it technology? Is it cost? Is it something darker and far more sinister.

Well, authors Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara have released an in-depth and rather shocking book on the subject titled "Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA" published by Feral House.

On the cover an astronaut is shown on the moon supporting a flag not of the United States of America but a Masonic flag reading "Supreme Council 33 degree, Southern Jurisdiction, USA" with the double-headed eagle.

So, NASA is run by Masons, you ask? From the research of Hoagland and Bara, it sure appears that way. And that flag on the book cover? Well, it turns out that 32nd degree Freemason Buzz Aldrin, who went to the Moon in July 1969 not only brought that flag and wore his Masonic signet ring on the trip, he also performed some sort of secret ceremony that even startled fellow Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong.

What is going on here? Over the course of more than 500 pages and numerous photos -- clear and fuzzy -- Hoagland and Bara are determined to find out. Now. If the name Richard C. Hoagland sounds familiar, then you stay up late at night and listen to conspiracy and mystery radio show "Coast to Coast AM." Hoagland, a former CBS science advisor and space historian is a frequent guest, criticizing NASA and claiming there is a cover up regarding a large "face" on the surface of Mars and that glass structures are all over the surface of the moon. Basically, Hoagland believes ancient civilizations called the moon and Mars home and that while NASA has evidence of this, they aren't sharing it with the American taxpayer.

And while it's a shocking read, it's a heckuva mess. First, did these guys have an editor? Between the misspelled names, factual inaccuracies and distracting quotation marks surrounding words in every other paragraph, it seems pretty much thrown together, marking it as an amateurish effort. That's too bad because they have a lot of interesting points to make and lot of research to share.

For instance, recalling the December 1972 Apollo 17 mission, the authors include a transmission of astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan driving their moon buggy to a crater and then telling Houston mission control about the place, with Cernan calling it a "mysterious looking place." Of course that could mean anything. Then there's an alleged robot head photographed on the moon during the same mission. Interestingly, a scheduled Apollo 18 mission was quickly scapped at this time and we have not returned since.

And while the included photographs are fascinating and curious, to be sure, they are not entirely convincing. Having heard Hoagland on late night talk radio numerous times, his arguments are tiresome at times. This is the case in the book. The authors delve into NASA's occult origins, the fact that they are more than a civilian space agency, that they are a defense agency of the U.S. government.

And believe it or not, there's an Oklahoma link to all this. The authors note that a man involved with caring for a collection of Apollo mission photos, Ken Johnston, is ordered in 1972 to destroy all the photos he has. Alarmed and disturbed by this order, Johnston keeps a set hidden away at Oklahoma City University before handing them over to Hoagland and Bara. What would be interesting is to get NASA's take on all this, rather than speculation, messy sentence structure and absurd allegations. But then I tend to think that we weren't able to really go to the moon anyway, due to various issues, including the Van Allen radiation belt located between Earth and the moon. Of course the authors address this and say the popular notion of a moon landing hoax has been a covert attempt by the government to cover up the truth about the mysterious discoveries on the moon and Mars. Again, it would be nice to think we went there and found alien artifacts and structures but I really wasn't convinced after reading "Dark Mission."