There's a thread on UFO UpDates, "23,000 Clementine Photos - Conspiracy Proof?"

In this post, Eleanor White asks a very simple question - why?

But, before we can look at the question, you have to understand what is behind it.

The Clementine project was announced in 1992 by The Department of Defence and NASA and was to be the first return to the Moon by the United States in over 23 years. Officially, the project was termed, "The Deep Space Program Science Experiment", unofficially; it was called Clementine, and commenced on January 24, 1994.

The two-part mission was to begin with a 2 month long orbiting of the moon gathering extensive lunar imaging, mapping, and multi-spectral mineral identification data. The secondary part of Clementine does not concern us but it was to do a fly-by of the Earth crossing asteroid, 1620 Geographos. Unfortunately there was a problem and Clementine never got to do that particular leg of it's mission, but it DID relay back to earth almost 400 Gigabytes of images and data that it had gathered in the two month long orbit of the Moon and therein lies the problem.

John Velez was concerned about some 23,000 images that were gathered by the Clementine Project of the far side of the moon and were subsequently not released and were designated to be classified information.

Eleanor's question was simply, "Can anyone explain why any photos of the surface of other worlds should be classified?"

She goes on to further add that it makes no sense; seeing that NASA is supposed to be a civilian organization devoted to the exploration of space and is not supposed to be a military arm of the United States.

But the fact of the matter is whether NASA is acting in a military capacity, or on behalf of a military body, the big question really should be what could possibly be contained in those images that would cause them to be classified?

For anything to be classified, it has to directly impact the security of a nation. So, if these 23,000 images exist, WHAT could possibly be on them that would have them HIDDEN away from the masses? Is it possible that some other nation on Earth, other than the United States made their way to the moon and landed there? nope, if anyone else from this planet made a manned landing on the moon, trust me, they wouldn't be hiding it from us, we'd be inundated with news because they'd want to be bragging all about it. So, that only leaves the possibility that whatever images were gathered by Clementine would be Extraterrestrial in nature.

But that puts another paradox into play because the official position is that there are no such things as extraterrestrial creatures or spaceships that have been visiting Earth. Now, if there is no such thing, why would it be necessary for something that doesn't exist to be classified?

Although Eleanor asks a very simple question about a very specific situation, there really does not seem to be a simple answer.

Ufologists have been trying to go through FOIA channels for a long period of time now seeking answers about events that have been well documented - so much so - that it is impossible to deny the event took place and in some situations they have received notification that certain aspects of what they're asking about is actually classified and it leads me back to a question that I will continue to ask, probably until the day I die.

I don't understand how and why you continue to officially classify something that doesn't officially exist?

But that's just my take on it.....