Moon Landing Hoax Theories Explored
Moon Landing Hoax Theories Explored
ABSTRACT
A lot of historians believed that there are American astronauts who explored the
surface of the Moon in the middle of year 1969 and 1972. During their time on the lunar
surface, each of the Apollo crew located an American flag on the surface of the Moon.
There are 1970's conspiracy theories that have been arised in which the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) forged the moon landings. Most of the
evidences used by the conspiracy theorists are comprised of photographs and films
released by NASA during the Apollo Program. Moreover, there are such arguments
states that the moon landing is a greatest conspiracy theory hoax of all time. This paper
will examine the claims of the conspiracy theorists and will provide clarifications in
support for the historical reality about the 1969 moon exploration
Sources:
Knights https://qz.com/1663894/the-origin-of-moon-landing-conspiracy-theories/
Godwin, R. (2019). One giant ... lie? Why so many people still think the moon landings
were faked. Retrieved February 17, 2020 from
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/10/one-giant-lie-why-so-many-people-
still-think-the-moon-landings-were-faked
Blakemore https://www.history.com/news/buzz-aldrin-communion-apollo-11-nasa
Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar
surface on July 20, 1969. Even back then, some people were skeptical that the
feat was technologically possible. The James Bond movie "Diamonds Are
Forever," for example, had a joke about faked moon landings just two years later,
in 1971.
But what really propelled the conspiracy theory into popular culture, Plait said,
was the 1978 Peter Hyams film "Capricorn One," which portrays a faked human
landing on Mars. (Also, a 1976 self-published pamphlet by Bill Kaysing, "We
Never Went to the Moon," was popular among conspiracy-minded people of the
day.) That was 40 years ago, but moon-hoax enthusiasts are still with us today.
"The X-Files" brought all sorts of space conspiracies into the public
consciousness in the 1990s and 2000s, and the rebooted version of the show
addressed the moon landing in a 2018 episode. The conspiracy was also
addressed in many other fictional TV shows, from "Futurama" to "Friends."
Meanwhile, some documentary films and reality-TV efforts — a 2008 episode of
"MythBusters," for example — tried to chase away the conspiracy theory by
educating people. Other filmmakers, such as the folks behind the 2002
mockumentary "Dark Side of the Moon," spoofed moon hoaxers.
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Opinion polls over the years regularly show that around 5% of Americans believe
the Apollo moon landings were faked, former NASA chief historian Roger
Launius recently told the Associated Press. That's more than 16 million people,
assuming a U.S. population of 327 million.
Sources:
Howell, E. (2019). Moon-Landing Hoax Still Lives On, 50 Years After Apollo 11. But
Why? Retrieve February 17, 2020 from https://www.space.com/apollo-11-moon-
landing-hoax-believers.html
No Stars
On the videos and pictures taken by NASA, it was seen that stars
were missing from the black lunar sky.
Capricorn One
Inspired in the 1978 movie "Capricorn one" in which it
portrayed how the government attempted to fool the world
through faking a mission to Mars. Some scenes in the movie
were more likely similar to the recorded Apollo footage. It could
be implied that the NASA's 40 billion budget could possibly
create an realistic scenes to pull off a hoax because they were
not able to land in the moon.
Area 51
Kaysing theorizes that the lunar moon landings were not
actually on the moon because it were filmed in the Nevada's
high desert at the top secret military based in Area 51. There
were footage about this place that it was strictly guarded by
the military and so it was really hard to seek information.
Moreover, Russian spies satellite taken photos of barren moon
like areas which coincidentally same as the craters seen in the moon.
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This crater that was seen on the Area 51 acknowledged by
Astronauts.
Moon's Photo of
orbit by crater at
Apollo 10 Area 51
Engine Noise
Kaysing stated that the noise level of a rocket engine can be very loud as it can reach
a 140-150 decibel range which means that it's impossible to
hear the voices of astronauts having a background noise of a
running rocket engine.
LEM Design
Another point on the conspiracy was about the prototype Lunar Excursion Module
(LEM) where months before the actual day a flight test
conducted and Neil Armstrong struggled in controlling the
vehicle and when it reached 300 feet he ejected and floats to
safety. And so if the Lander was so unstable to fly in the
controlled environment of earth the how could the LEM land
six times flawlessly in the alien environment of the moon.
Footprints
Conspiracy theorists stated that the footprints themselves were very suspicious.
According to Kaysing, to have a powerful rocket engine blast
the surface of the moon blasting all of the way of the dust and
then find footprints surrounding the lunar Lander that would be
an impossibility.
No Blast Crater
Kaysing found his most conclusive pieces of evidence when there's no blast crater
under the landing of LEM in the moon. It was also stated that
there were also no sign of visible blast crater found among the
6 lunar landings.
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Gravity
One point in the conspiracy said that although it appears that the astronauts are
moving in the moon's gravity which is 1/6 that of the earth,
Percy, and American award winning film artist, notes that when
the speed is doubled the astronauts appear to be running as if
in the Earth's gravity. Moreover, when the footage of lunar
rover is in doubled speed, it looks likes the typical driving on
earth.
Flag waving
Kaysing emphasizes that the fact that the flag flaps on the moon when there's no
atmosphere it means that there must be a little blast of wind out
of area 51 where they shoot. In addition, the blow of the wind
might be the reason why astronauts struggled on planting the
into the lunar surface.
Still photos
The conspiracy showed that the design of the bulky space suits would have made it
extremely difficult for the astronauts to operate their chest
mounted cameras. And so if these were too difficult to be
manipulated, how are thousands of photos taken with crystal
clarity and precise framing
Artificial Lighting
Conspiracy theorists pointed out that lighting was a major flaw in the lunar photos.
Kaysing said that the astronauts' main source of light was
only the sun but the shadows of photographs from Apollo 14
were casted to different directions suggesting that there were
multiple light source.
Identical background
This photo seem to have the same mountain backdrop yet the lunar module is only
present in one of them. Seemingly impossible since the LEM
never moved and its based remained even after the mission.
Some suggest the same artificial backdrop was used when
shooting two entirely separate pictures background
discrepancies are also apparent in the lunar video. The best
evidence are some pictorial anomalies in the photographic record of the trip to the
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moon there is one for Apollo 16 where the same shot the same hill appears in two
different days.
Cross hairs
Another point was that crosshairs were permanently etched into the lunars cameras
so they would have to appear on top of every image. But in
this photo, a crosshair is behind a part of the lunar rover this
situation is impossible and has to be a result of technical
manipulation and doctoring of the image. And in this photo
from apollo 11 , the equipment of the in the foreground is
covering the crosshair not behind it. And in another from apollo 12, the american flag
is covering one crosshair and the astronaut is covering the other.
Radiation
Suspicious deaths evidence of doctored photos and flags waving in the airless
vacuum of space are not the only reasons to doubt that we
ever went to the moon. Some says that the astronauts could
not even survived the trip the reason why they couldn’t go to
the moon of a phenomena that few people now about called
the Van Allen radiation belts 500 miles above the earth.
These bands of intense radiations surround our planet and are thousands of miles
thick human being travelling through the Van Allan Belt would have been rendered
either extremely ill or actually killed by the radiation within a short time. \
Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5ZwUX0uRZE
Conclusions
Whether the flags have remained standing or have survived decades of
exposure to the harsh lunar environment, their legacy as a symbol of the human
exploration of space remains intact.The findings about Moon landing has been
plausible and practical, the given evidences helps to solidify the viewpoints of those who
believe that the moon landing is a hoax. There are clear scientific and technical
explanations for the “discrepancies” that the hoax believers cling to and use as
evidence. , They claim that the purported inconsistencies in the NASA photographic
record were created by “whistle-blowers” within the agency in order to help later
investigators discover proof of the hoax. Belief in moon landing hoax theories has been
solidify by the given testimony such as examining the image and video that is
incongruent to the evidences and analysis, the given evidences was clearly stated on
Bill Kaysings book We never went to the moon 1974 And we also have learned how
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easy it is for someone to misinterpret what they see in lunar photographs or in a video
frame viewed out of context, the relevance of flag waving is one of the defect why
Kaysing stand firm on his belief, The corroboration to the photographs of the Lunar
modules on the Moon do not show a blast crater on the lunar surface from the force of
the spacecraft engines, thus the shadow are not paralllel to each other, the given
validations aids to figure out the truth behind the conspiracy theory. Kaysing suggests
that the fraudulent still photos and videos were filmed at a secret U.S. military facility
outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, perhaps with the assistance of Hollywood special effects
artists, the area 51 has the wide speculation as the venue in filming moon landing. As
Kaysing explains in the Fox “Conspiracy Theory” show, “The fact that the flag flaps on
the Moon where there’s no atmosphere means that there must have been a little blast of
wind out in Area 51 when they shot this”.
Despite all scientific evidence debunking the aforementioned suggestions,
various conspiracy theories about the moon landing have lingered for five decades, For
those of us who have confidence in the reality of the moon landings it is difficult to
understand why people would believe these claims. Many in the space industry
conclude that it is a symptom of inadequate education or a complete lack of scientific
literacy on the part of the general public. However, belief in the lunar landing hoax is
really not as prevalent as the conspiracy theorists would suggest. It is likely that these
conspiracy theories are just a reflection of our popular culture, in general. People are
often distrustful of government and technology, especially when they don’t know much
about how these things work. Plus, the culture of self-publishing, self-produced video,
and the ease of distributing this information via the Internet all contribute to the
perception that belief that the moon landings were faked is not only prevalent, but is
also spreading.
14. The U.S. beats Sweden in curling at the Olympic games — Season 21, Episode
12
In one of the biggest upsets at the 2018 Winter Olympics, the
U.S. curling team won gold over the favorite, Sweden.
In real life the U.S. Men's Olympic Curling Team won a gold medal after defeating
Sweden even though they were behind, which is exactly how it played out on "The
Simpsons." The victory is the second curling medal ever for the United States (not
including Marge and Homer's, of course).
16. Lady Gaga's Super Bowl halftime show — Season 23, Episode 22
In 2012, Lady Gaga performed for the town of Springfield
hanging in midair. Five years later, she flew off the Houston NRG
Stadium roof in real life to perform her Super Bowl halftime show.
17. Daenerys Targaryen's big plot twist in 'Game of Thrones' — Season 29, Episode
1
On the penultimate episode of "Game of Thrones," Daenerys
Targaryen shocked fans when she and her dragon laid waste to
an already surrendered King's Landing, obliterating thousands of
innocent people.
Conclusion
The conclusion many have reached, then, is that “The show is the product of
brilliant minds, many Harvard educated… The result is a show packed with references
to art, literature, pop culture, politics, and science.” The natural result of this, writes
William Irwin in The Simpsons and Philosophy, is that “When that many smart people
produce a television show, it’s bound to make some startling ‘predictions.’ The other
thing to bear in mind is just how darn long the show has been going, and how much of a
reputation it has for its predictions in the first place. Combine these two factors, and
you’re bound to hit on examples of the future being “predicted,” and a huge fuss being
made of them when they are. Persi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller, in their paper
Methods for Studying Coincidences, write of The Law of Truly Large Numbers. It states,
they explain, that “with a large enough sample, any outrageous thing is likely to happen.
The point is that truly rare events, say events that occur only once in a million, are
bound to be plentiful in a population of 250 million people.”
In the case of the show, then, this makes perfect sense. After so many episodes and so
many references to that Simpsons-fied “real world,” they’re bound to hit on some events
that actually do turn out to be real. Educated guesses, in short, and Harvard-educated
guesses at that. As well as this, the Law of Truly Large Numbers could also be referring
to that one fan in a million who notices a building that looks a whole lot like The Shard,
and starts a little hysteria but insisting that that’s what it is.
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TOPICS:
GROUP 3
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