With the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I’ve been reading up on the conspiracy theories, for and against. I personally don’t think it *was* faked, although it’s an interesting idea.
What made me think of this lately was the incredible news that NASA taped over the original moon landing footage! And then they recently had Hollywood "clean up" copies of the footage, George Lucas-style. I wonder if this time, we’ll see Buzz Aldrin shoot first? Anyway, I read that and thought "OMFG the conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this news."
So I posted up a quick (and yes, badly worded) twtpoll today asking people what THEY thought about the moon landings – fake or not?
Yes, yes, I *know* it’s a small sample size (to all the haters out there) – when did you think a twtpoll was a scientific research methodology?
What’s interesting to me is how the attitudes of the Twittersphere differ from the general public. If this is an accurate sample of the Twittersphere in general (and not just my followers), does it suggest we are more skeptical of our governments that the general public? Or is it a product of the past decade since the Gallup poll? Or it is Australians (who probably make up at least 25% of my followers) are more skeptical than Americans about the event?
For all of the people who replied that the folks who think it might have been faked are morons, let me ask you – why do you believe so strongly? What evidence do YOU have that they DON’T have?
Let me also ask:
Do you think the USA *could* have faked it if it wanted to? Seems possible to me. People say "how could THAT many people keep a secret?" but how many people REALLY needed to know the truth? Let’s face it – the US has been doing LOTS of dirty shit over the last 60 years that they’ve managed to keep mostly quiet… who shot JFK again?
Do you think the USA had motivation for faking it? Sure – the cold war, space race, investment in the military industrial complex, etc. JFK said they were going to do it before the decade was out – how would it looked if they failed?
Do you realize all of the moon landings – ALL OF THEM – happened during Richard Nixon’s White House? Do you believe anything ELSE that came out of Nixon’s White House?
A few people asked me what evidence there is to suggest it was a hoax. I don’t have any and I don’t believe it *was* a hoax. HOWEVER… it got me thinking… if it WAS a hoax, what evidence WOULD there be? What evidence would we be searching for?
For that matter, it if was genuine, what evidence would it take to convince the skeptics?
I didn’t come up with any good answers. Do you have any?
What would I look for to suggest a hoax? Leaks. To pull off such a major hoax so competently and expertly, you would need to have LOTS and LOTS of competent and expert people involved. And someone, somewhere, sometime would eventually talk about it – even if it was only on their deathbed to clear their own conscience. But more likely it would be because they got pissed off, or greedy enough to want the ego attention and huge monetary reward that would go to ANY ONE PERSON who broke their silence.
In any case what govt could possibly do something so difficult, and so perfectly executed as to leave NO EVIDENCE? Typically they can’t even build a road to a given schedule.
I don’t remember any credible evidence about this in the past, but since its come up recently, I have delved into the subject quite a bit. A lot of the “evidence” is grasping at straws and not very convincing, but some of the evidence is at least intriguing and may have some merit. Hard to say.
The greatest argument for it being a hoax is the track record of the American Government. That has nothing to do with the moon landing. Also… the space race was a good motivation and certainly, under the circumstances… it appears a LOT easier to fake the moon landing than to make the moon landing. There would not have needed to be a super large group of conspirators and the government certainly has ways of keeping most people involved in such things silent. Nevertheless, I found it highly unlikely it was hoaxed.
But then NASA has to go and record over the original video tape. Certainly not unprecidented… but since most of the arguments those claiming it was a hoax revolve around the video and original film… it is a forgone conclusion that it will bolster the position of those who claim it is a hoax. I certainly makes it a lot more credible in my mind.
But there was a certain solution to this whole question that is obvious and its funny that its actually not so easy apparently. Just get visual confirmation of the LEM / moon lander that was left on the moon. Its 30 feet wide. Some other items were left there. Unfortunately… what my research has told me, is that it is too small and too far away for even the hubble space telescope to see. We can come close, but we apparently don’t have the zooming capability to visually verify it from either Earth or the hubble telescope.
So that is the real test of whether or not it happened. It hardly seems likely that NASA will spend any real money trying to prove what they already did actually happened… so…
at least for the time being, it can’t be verified.
I haven’t given it any thought until about 3 days ago ( i’ve been sick) when I followed a link to a NASA site that had photos of the landing sites as taken from Earth and someone asked where are the rovers? There were no where to be seen in any photo.I am not convinced but the one nagging thing is there are NO PICTURES with stars in them: NONE. We put the Hubble up to get out of ATMO so we could see more and these guys didn’t see or photograph 1 star? There is not one star in the famous “earth Rise” photo. I google pictures from the ISS and there are TONS of stars out those windows. ( the conspiracy answer is that figuring out the correct alignment of stars would be too difficult) I don’t by that since they forgot so many rover tracks.
I have a college degree and was in the military and can’t believe I am thinking these thoughts because cover ups are impossible!
If the yanks did not make it don’t you think the Russians would still be yelling from the highest mountain about it.
The landing is a matter of historical fact now. It is not up to us to prove to the skeptics but the skeptics to prove to us.
Ask Mike Moore, he is fantastic at taking bits of historical truth and blending them into a conspiracy theory.
I have a friend who’s quite the paranoid conspiracy freak and he’s certain that the moon landing was fake- and tries to point out the circumstantial stuff- suck as the rehearsal pics that he says were purported to be official NASA pics.
Anyway here’s why I think they really went to the moon and back: Bill Clinton. Why Bad Boy Billy? Well he got a BJ from one woman. One person. And could not keep that a secret. To fake the moon landing you’d need what- 1000+ people in on the secret? And not one person from that group has come forward (death bed confessional style) to say “It was fake, here’s the definitive proof”.
So let’s celebrate- we went to the moon!
Tom
How do you know Bill Clinton didn’t get 1000+ BJs in the White House and we know of only one? Maybe for good PR, his spin team should’ve faked a few from his wife. That would’ve been harder than faking the moon landing.
Tom – do you believe JFK was really killed by a lone gunman?
No Cam I do not- but that conspiracy could have been limited to 3 people. The moon landing requires 100 times that and therefore 100 times the chance of the troof getting out.
DO YOU think they went to the moon?
Yeah I think they went to the moon but I don’t automatically think the skeptics are morons, either. It bothers me a lot that many people on Twitter refer to them that way. Skepticism is healthy. Even skepticism about global warming. We should value skepticism highly, not rubbish it. The diff between global warming and the moon landing, though, is that we have huge amounts of evidence (apparently) that support the theory of human-caused global warming. We don’t have the same kind of evidence for the moon landing.
As for the number of people you’d need to buy off or scare into keeping a secret such as the moon landing – 300 people doesn’t sounds like a lot to me. Tell 300 guys at NASA in the 60s that if they ever leak a word of this, they and their families will get killed? It could happen.
Let’s remember, too, that the director of the NASA facility at the time was a former Nazi.
So that’s who we’re trusting implicitly? A Nazi and Richard Nixon?
Sheesh.
This peaked my curiosity, but after review of the other Apollo missions and space activity, apparently we had actually been to the moon several times already, but just had not landed with a human. Its not that big of a deal to me for them to have actually gone through with a landing, if they had already gotten so far as to circle the moon numerous times on previous missions.
I always thought there would be reasonable explanations for the photo’s, as they couldn’t be that stupid if they faked it. (well.. I guess they could, but the probably wouldn’t). I’m willing to concede the landing occurred without needing further evidence. But its a real testament to the lack of trust we have in our government that so many people are willing to believe something like this, not because the evidence is so good or they are so gullible, but rather that’s what we think of our government’s credibility.
Well let me ask you this. If it is impossible to keep quite about a hoax of going to the moon from alot of people (some one threw out the number of 1000 people). Then how is it that we do not really know what goes on in area 57? We know there is experimental aircrafts there, but that is becuase it is an active base. The Space program was over after Nixon so of course it would be harder to get solid facts. They even waxed Virgil Grissum after he brought up how poor the space program was. Oh thats right it was an “accident”. I’m not saying it was a Hoax I’m just saying.