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Around 1966, a NASA
team doing work for the Apollo moon mission took several astronauts to
a site near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo Reservation was believed
to be similar to the lunar surface. Along with several NASA trucks and
vehicles used for the training session, there were two men wearing complete
Lunar space suits. Nearby, a Navajo sheep herder and his son watched what
they thought were two strange creatures walking around. Before long, some
NASA personnel noticed the sheep herder with his son and decided to speak
with them. Since the sheep herder didn't speak English, he told his son
to ask the NASA personnel what the strange creatures were. The NASA people
quickly explained that they were not foreign creatures, they were just
men in space suits preparing for a voyage to the moon. The boy explained
this to his father, who suddenly became very excited. The man spoke to
his son, and the son explained that his father wanted to know if he could
send a message to the moon with the astronauts. The NASA personnel thought
this was a great idea, so they found a tape recorder and recorded the sheep
herder's message in Navajo. When they finished recording the message, they
asked the son to translate it. The boy refused. Later as the training session
was coming to an end, the NASA personnel were eager to learn what words
of wisdom a Navajo sheep herder would want to send to the moon. They tried
asking several people on the reservation to translate the message, but
every person they asked would hear the message, chuckle and refuse. After
dozens of people refused, the NASA personnel decided to offer money for
a translation of the message, and finally they found someone to do it.
The translator listened to the tape recording, smiled to himself and then
spoke the message in English: "Watch out for these guys, they come to take
your land."
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