Today, September 13, 1999 was the date in which the fictional Alpha moonbase incident in the TV series ‘Space: 1999’ occurred.

Space: 1999 was a scifi television series that ran from 1975-1977. In the show, on the date September 13, 1999, a load of nuclear deposits on the moon explodes, knocking the entire hunk of rock out of orbit and hurling it into space—along with its 300 some-odd inhabitants of the Alpha moonbase. Surprisingly, the show focused on those space-adrift moon passengers and not on the devastated outcomes Earth would experience without its moon.  But hey, space was all the rage with the success of Star Wars and the popularity of Star Trek (Read more about the original Star Trek series here).

Alpha moonbase was Earth’s research center, stationed on—you guessed it—the moon. The disaster, in effect, turns the moon into a massive spaceship traveling through space. The inhabitants encounter various alien worlds.

For the time, it was one of the most expensive series produced for British television. Apparently, on the actual date of September 13, 1999, Apparently the SciFi channel’s website (Now Syfy) posted a note in their history ticker about the moon being ripped from orbit and the fate of the inhabitants being unknown.

Here, check out this old commercial for the series: