On July 20th, 1969, half a billion people gathered around
televisions to watch the iconic, shadowy images of Neil Armstrong
climbing down from the lunar lander to take mans first step onto the
moon. The Apollo 11 mission was one of mankind's most awe-inspiring
technological feats and captured the worlds imagination. But many
people believe that the giant leap for mankind was really a historic
hoodwink and that Armstrong never set foot on the moon. Instead, they
claim the famed astronaut walked around a fake lunar landscape built on a
massive Hollywood-style soundstage, a scenario that inspired the plot
of the 1977 conspiracy film Capricorn One.
A Gallup poll
in 1999 found that six percent of Americans doubt that the moon landings
ever happened. A 2005-06 poll by space consultant Mary Lynne Dittmar
found that 27 percent of U.S. 18- to 24-year-olds question the reality
of the moon landings. And a 2009 survey in Great Britain found that one
in four believe the moon landings never occurred.
Rumors of a Conspiracy Started Early
Speculation that the moon landings were faked began circulating
almost as soon as the Apollo 11 capsule splashed back down to Earth. Bill Kaysing, author of We Never Went to the Moon: Americas 30 Billion Dollar Swindle,
is often credited with being the father of the moon-landing conspiracy
theories. A former writer and librarian at Rocketdyne, a major aerospace
contractor, Kaysing was among the most vocal and visible hoax adherents
from the publication of his book in 1976 until his death in 2005. He was featured prominently in Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?,
a 2001 film that presented the evidence skeptics claim as proof that
the missions were staged. The show created a stir and is credited with
reviving waning speculation that the landings were a hoax. Following the
broadcast, NASA was bombarded with so many questions from the public
that it was compelled to post an official rebuttal on its website.
On
the program, Kaysing claimed that in the late 1950s, Rocketdyne
conducted a feasibility study that concluded the probability of a
successful trip to the moon by 1969 was only .0017 percent. He said this
report made it clear that a lunar landing was virtually impossible. On
May 25th, 1961, President John F. Kennedy stated his belief that this
nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is
out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the
earth. And the end of the decade was looming. So conspiracy buffs say
the United States, compelled by Kennedys self-imposed ticking clock, was
forced to fake the landings in order to secure a key victory in the
space race with the Soviet Union, thus achieving a major propaganda coup
in the Cold War.
Other theorists claim the motivation was to draw attention away from the unpopular war raging in Vietnam, raise national pride and quell growing political unrest at home. Wernher von Brauns place at the helm of NASAs space program at the time is reason enough to question the entire operation, many hoax adherents say. During World War II, Braun headed the German team of scientists who developed the V-2 ballistic missiles for the Nazis, and is thought by some film historians to be one of the real-life figures that inspired the title character from Stanley Kubricks classic cold war comedy Dr. Strangelove. The missiles, used against targets in Europe during the war, were allegedly built by forced labor.
A Phalanx of Hoax Theories
Among the most prominent hoax theorists carrying Kaysings mantle today are David Percy and Mary Bennet, coauthors of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle Blowers, and Bart Sibrel, who produced the film, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Moon.
Sibrel is notorious for a 2002 incident in which he ambushed Apollo 11
lunar-module pilot Buzz Aldrin in an interview and asked him to swear on
a Bible that he'd been to the moon. The astronaut not only
refused, but famously punched Sibrel in the face in front of news
cameras after the conspiracy theorist called him a coward, a liar and a
thief. Sibrel and other advocates of the hoax theory maintain
websites where photos and videos from the moon landings are pored over
to discover new evidence that they were faked.
Some
make the specific charge that footage of the first moonwalk was shot by
Stanley Kubrick, acclaimed director of the 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey,
which won an Academy Award for its special effects. The lack of visible
stars in the photographs of the Apollo moon landings is most often
cited as proof that the astronauts were actually bounding around a
soundstage and not on the surface of the moon. But scientists,
photographers and firm believers in the moon landing have set up
websites of their own to debunk point by point the hoax theories.
Phil Plait, who writes the Bad Astronomy blog for Discover
magazine, says the simple explanation for the starless heavens is the
extreme brightness of the moons surface, caused by the lunar dawn. The
brief exposure times required in these conditions were too fast to
register the faint stars on film. Then there's the infamous photo
of a moon rock that appears to have the letter C on it. Moon-landing
skeptics say it is a prop marking that was carelessly left visible. But
debunkers say the C has been found to be a fiber on the original print
that was digitized and reproduced. There is no sign of the C on the
original negative.
How Can a Flag Wave on the Airless Moon?
In
images from the Apollo missions, the American flag appears to be
rippling in the breeze. But hoax believers point out that this is
impossible without an atmosphere. They are right. However, a special
flagpole was constructed with a telescoping rod along the top to hold
the stars and stripes out. The Apollo 11 astronauts weren't able to
deploy the rod fully, leaving folds in the flag like those in a curtain.
On subsequent missions, the astronauts chose to only partially expand
the rod because they liked how the flag appeared to be waving.
Conspiracy
theorists claim the camera crosshairs in many photos disappear as
though blocked by objects within the picture. But debunkers point out
that the crosshairs always disappear over a bright white object, which
causes overexposure and the resulting crosshair fade-out.
The Hoax Theories Keep Coming
Shadows of a Doubt
Moon-Landing Skeptics Kicking Up Dust
Apollo Missions and the Van Allen Belts
Hoax
believers say shadows cast by the astronauts, the lunar module and moon
rocks go in different directions, which would be impossible with the
sun as the sole light source. They believe the lack of perfectly
parallel shadows reveals the use of multiple light sources, like those
employed on a film set. However, NASAs website and other hoax debunkers
counter that the uneven lunar surface caused the divergent shadows, a
phenomenon that can be viewed on sunny days even here on Earth. Photos
where the astronauts are clearly in the shadow of the lunar lander, yet
are lit enough to show details on their space suits, are held out as
more evidence of multiple light sources. But debunkers counter
that sunlight bouncing up off the brilliant lunar surface would
illuminate any astronaut or object that was in its shadow.
Doubters
point to multiple clues in the fine, light quality of the moons soil.
They offer pictures where the lunar modules disk-like feet are
completely free of dust following the landing. Others question why
footprints are visible in the dust mere yards from the spacecraft.
Wouldnt exhaust from the landing have cleared a larger swath of the
lunar surface? Moonwalk adherents state that these theories rest
on a misconception that dust on the moon would act like dust on Earth.
Without air, they say, any particles moved around by the landing would
drop like rocks the moment they were no longer being pushed by the
exhaust. Dust doesnt kick up, swirl and drift in a vacuum, so it makes
sense that the landers feet were clean and dust stayed pretty close to
the module.
Kaysing
and other hoax adherents claim a moon mission was impossible because
the astronauts would have become gravely ill or died when passing
through two powerful bands of radiation that encircle the Earth. The
donut-shaped Van Allen Belts are filled with high-energy particles from
the solar wind and the Earths ionosphere that are trapped by the planets
magnetic field. But debunkers say conspiracy buffs dont have
their science right. While extremely radioactive, the belts were of
little danger to the astronauts, who passed through them quickly and
within the relatively safe confines of their shielded command capsule.
Monitoring devices found the astronauts exposure was minimal for the
round trip.
How do hoax believers account for the complicity and 41-year silence
of hundreds of NASA employees involved in the massive scheme to fool
the world? And what of the spectators who watched the Apollo rockets
lift off with their own eyes? Kaysing and other theorists claim
only a handful of key players actually knew about the fraud and most of
the people in mission control were also duped. They say the astronauts
took off in the rocket and orbited the Earth until it was time to splash
down again in front of a worldwide audience.
Some hoax adherents say many would-be whistle-blowers were too fearful to reveal the truth. Apollo
1 astronauts Virgil Gus Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger Chaffee
died in a flash fire that erupted in the cockpit of their rocket during a
launch-pad test in 1967. Kaysing said the three astronauts were killed
because they were threatening to tell the truth. An extensive
investigation into the fire found no evidence of sabotage. The report
concluded, however, that conditions in the command module were extremely
hazardous and the accident could have been prevented. The Apollo
missions were put on hold as major safety modifications were made.
Footage Destroyed to Preserve the Hoax?
In
2006, news broke that the original taped footage from the Apollo 11
moon landing had been misplaced. The famous dark, hazy images were the
result of conversions necessary for broadcast, but clear recordings of
the direct transmissions were also made. In July 2009, days before
the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, NASA revealed that an
investigation found the magnetic tapes had been mistakenly erased in
order to be reused. This revelation was heartbreaking for most people.
For hoax theorists, it was more convincing evidence of a cover-up.
Then
came news that, in an odd way, brings the possibly faked first moon
landing full circle from claims that it was originally filmed on a movie
set by 2001: A Space Odyssey director Stanley Kubrick. NASA announced that the best available Apollo 11 footage would be digitally
restored by a Hollywood production company. Chosen for the job was none
other than Lowry Digital of Burbank, California, the company that was the
force behind the digital remastering of George Lucass Star Wars trilogy. More fuel for the conspiracy theorists fire, no doubt.
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