I remember hearing about the Phobos 2 event back in grad school, listening to the Art Bell show. It seemed truly anomalous and therefore something that one might put in the evidence bin for alien contact. But then why did it take the Art Bell show for me to hear it? (I digress).

The Exposing Pseudo-Astronomy podcast recently posted an interesting critique / debunking of the Phobos 2 story. It’s worth a listen. The episode can be found and downloaded here.

For those unfamiliar with the lore of Phobos 2, the Exposing Pseudo-Astronomy site describes it this way:

The year was 1989, and the second of a twin spacecraft – the first having failed two months after launch – was close to its target: Mars’ moon, Phobos. Just before it was to launch its two landers to study the surface of the moon, something went wrong, and all contact was lost. The last image it sent back just before it lost contact was of a thin, cylindrical object — a UFO mothership — that must have blasted it out of the sky to hide from the Earthlings the closely-guarded Illuminati secret that Phobos is actually a gigantic spaceship.

… or at least, that’s what they want you to believe.