Author and space historian, James Oberg wrote in the same thread that 'It is widely believed that streptococcus germs aboard Surveyor-3 (inside the TV camera) survived their three-year lunar sojourn and were brought back to Earth by the Apollo-12 crew. Leonard D. Jaffe was Surveyor project scientist and custodian of the Surveyor 3 parts brought back from the moon.'
He wrote to the Planetary Society recently that according to a report from somebody on his staff who had witnessed the biological test which gave positive results, a "breach of sterile procedure" took place at just the right time to produce a false positive result."
One of the implements being used to scrape samples off the Surveyor parts was laid down on a non-sterile laboratory bench, and then was used to collect surface samples for culturing. It was that sample set which showed the presence of the germs, a common human infectuous bacteria.
Concluded Dr. Jaffe, 'It is, therefore, quite possible that the microorganisms were transferred to the camera after its return to Earth, and that they had never been to the Moon. The test, of course, could only be performed once, and the parts were subsequently taken out of quarantine and fully re-exposed to terrestrial conditions, so we'll never know for sure. But it looks suspiciously like a lab error rather than a lunar germ colony.'
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Originally Posted by RBG
