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Boston, Mass, February 21 A science club's gathering to watch last night's lunar eclipse turned to horror when the moon suddenly exploded.

A large crowd of astronomy buffs and curious stargazers gathered Wednesday night at Boston Community College of Floral Design to watch the first lunar eclipse of 2008.

A dozen telescopes were set up and about 5000 people took advantage of the opportunity. The eclipse began at about 8:45 p.m., with the best viewing between 10-10:45 p.m.

The crowd murmured its "oohs" and "ahs" as the familiar red shadow of planet Earth fell across the lunar surface.

And then tragedy struck.

"At first, it was a very beautiful event," Professor Roy Hinkley said of the eclipse. "There were a whole range of colors, from grays, greens and dark green through to the oranges and reds, and fuchsia, and aqua, and then, brilliant blinding white, that burned my retinas."

Witnesses say that the expected red glow intensified, turned brilliant white, and the Moon was ripped apart in a massive nuclear explosion.

"We knew something was wrong immediately," said student Jonas Grumby. "In a lunar eclipse, the Moon's appearance changes to orange, blood red, and brown as the Earth moves between the sun and Moon, casting its shadow on the lunar surface it hardly ever explodes like that."

Three terrorist groups "Earth First," the "Laughing Lunar Lunatics," and an extreme faction of the "Make Pluto a planet again" cult all claimed responsibility for the destruction of Earth's Moon.

The CIA issued an immediate statement saying, "This has NOTHING to do with any secret military base in the Sea of Tranquility established in 1972, because there was NO secret military base on the moon and even if there were, the particle accelerator was not even online at the time."

But the explanation for the Moon's destruction proved far more mundane a simple accident caused by poor timing and an over-enthusiastic computer missile guidance system.

As reported previously, that same night, the United States Navy was working frantically to shoot down an out of control satellite that was threatening to crash back to Earth.

The satellite, known as "Brother Eye," would be knocked out with a modified missile to prevent a leak of a deadly toxic gas from its fuel tank. The multi-billion dollar craft was due to re-enter Earth's atmosphere next Tuesday after spiraling out of control shortly after launch in 2006. Defense officials said they feared that the poisonous fuel could kill if it was released into Earth's

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