Free Astronomy Magazine November-December 2021

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021 ica, so much so that ITC decided to commission a second series, which should have been called first “UFO 2” then “UFO: 1999”, to highlight the year in which the events would take place. Since UFO episodes mostly set on the Moon had been more successful than the others, ITC decided that the new series should be set entirely on the Moon. The Andersons proposed a much larger lunar base, where SHADO’s head- quarters would also be located, and with this guideline, pre-production began to do research and projects. But things did not go as planned because, while in Europe and Japan the whole UFO series was a success, in North America the initial enthu- siasm faded as the programming proceeded, and when towards the last episodes the ratings collapsed (as much as the interest in the Apollo missions), ITC decided to cancel the production of the second series. Not wanting to throw away all the pre-production work, in ‘72