The Moon is shrinking and by 2012 it will have vanished completely, warn astrophysics conspiracy experts. And it's all the fault of top secret NASA experiments that have gone badly wrong.

Whistleblower organization NASAConspiracyWatch has obtained images under a Freedom of Information request that clearly show wrinkles forming on the lunar surface - some of them very recent.

"It's possible that the Moon's diameter has decreased by as much as 300ft since we started taking measurements," says William H Carpenter, head of the Carpenter Foundation for Belief in Science. "After we broke the story, NASA has started trying to add its own spin, calling the shrinkage natural and ancient. It's anything but."

So-called 'lobate scarps', photographed by NASA's spy satellite, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), are giant wrinkles formed as the Moon's core shrinks and the surface contracts. The fact that some of these run through young craters prove that the shrinkage is recent.

"There can only be one explanation," says Carpenter. "Or maybe two."

He points to lunar bombing raids carried out by the US Air Force under the guise of NASA missions. "These were intended to destroy underground alien bases," says Carpenter, "but there has almost certainly been some collateral damage. It's possible that the Moon's crust has been compromised allowing the escape of gases and, you know, other stuff. Now the Moon is collapsing like a punctured balloon."

However, Carpenter says a more probable explanation is that the disappearing Moon is the result of a scientific experiment that went badly wrong. What's more, the scientists were warned this could happen.

"We're all familiar with the controversy over the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is purported to be buried under Switzerland," says Carpenter. "Scientists knew that attempts to create the Higgs boson with such large energies would lead to the creation of a black hole. Well, now that's happened."

Carpenter points out that scientists at CERN in Switzerland have so far failed to produce any data, or even get their collider up to full power.

"The reason is simple," says Carpenter. "The LHC isn't there. It's on the Moon."

A secret international cabal of scientists have colluded with NASA to move the LHC to the recently discovered Mare Ingenii moon cave (pictured right). "The only thing buried under Switzerland is Nazi gold," says Carpenter.

"They've powered up the LHC, smashed those atoms and created the first artificial black hole," Carpenter adds. "And now it's eating the Moon. The problem is, once it's finished with the Moon, we're next."