APOLLO 71 - the hidden story

BREAKING NEWS . . . . .

1971 was an extremely exciting time to be a student at St. Joseph High School.  Students enrolled in Mr. Thomas Patton’s Space Science class were setting records for space exploration.

Mr. Patton’s class built a working replica of the NASA Apollo space capsule and were actively planning 3 missions.  The project was called “Apollo 71”.

The capsule and its control room located in Science Lab Room 325 were completed in several months.  Simultaneously, 6 astronauts, 3 male and 3 female, and the mission control team were being trained in their duties.

Per Kenosha News reporting at that time:

May 14, 1971, Kenosha – Three St. Joseph’s high school students embark on a 74-hour continuous space mission at 9:05 this morning.

May 17, 1971, Kenosha – The three Apollo 71 astronauts completed their successful 74-hour space mission, splashing down at 11:40 am today at St. Joseph High School.

This first mission was an all male crew of three St. Joe students.  One week later an all female crew flew the second mission.

One thing not reported at that time was a third mission, called “Apollo 71-AF”, almost one year later that began on April 1, 1972.  This part of the project involved modifying the spacecraft for an uncrewed mission that was to carry various scientific instruments for research in near earth orbits including gaseous anomalies, solar flares, and much more.  Various devices included a flux capacitor and a Mr. Fusion power generator, both invented by Dr. Emmitt Brown in the mid-1950s were used. Upgraded versions of both were later used in a mid-1980s prototype car.  Other on-board packages included experiments designed by SJHS biology, chemistry, and physics students.  As this was an uncrewed mission, a larger computer was needed and so a HAL-9000, an advanced AI processor (for its time) was installed. This mission was to be a real Space Odessey.

The mission began as planned, but soon after experienced a complete loss of communication with ground control and the spacecraft was not heard from again despite repeated attempts to regain contact with it.  The capsule and mission were considered a total loss.

That is until today, 53 years later, April 1, 2025.  The capsule mysteriously re-appeared on St. Joe’s front lawn near the school sign.  It showed the typical signs of a fiery re-entry and landing.

School faculty, students, and staff were totally amazed at what they found coming to school this morning.  Many had no idea what it even was, as the Apollo program had ended before most of them were even born.  However, a quick check through school archives found out what it was,

As no one in the school had any clue of what to do with the capsule or how to handle it, NASA has been contacted and will soon be arriving to retrieve the spacecraft.  Although there are indications that the US Space Force may try to claim jurisdiction here.

So, what happened during all these years?  We may never know.  Since the spacecraft never showed up on any radar, initial speculations are that maybe the capsule hit some form of rift in the space time continuum or hit an intersecting dimension and phased, or upon reaching a speed of 86 mph - it time warped.  In any case it may have moved through time in the same location and just ended up here today.  Of course, conspiracy theorists are claiming an alien abduction and are asking for government release of its X-Files on the matter.

Mr. Patton was contacted and asked for his opinion to which he responded: “Only fools would believe such conclusions today.  It was just Lost in Space all these years.  As a former NASA space watcher, I cannot comment any further on the subject.”