One of the most important inferences of the Lunar Prospector mission data was the existence of subsurface water ice in the permanently shadowed craters near both lunar poles <Feldman et al., 1998>. We propose and substantiate an alternative explanation that hydrogen can exist in the shallow lunar subsurface in the form of clathrate hydrates: CH4⋅6H2O and/or CO2⋅6H2O. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union