Favorite Conspiracy Theory

Sanz · 01-02-2006, 09:18 AM

Inspired by C_C's recent thread on 9/11. For me the best one is story about how Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never landed on moon. Here is a recap of the whole story :-

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm

The Great Moon Hoax
Moon rocks and common sense prove Apollo astronauts really did visit the Moon.

Listen to this story (requires RealPlayer)

February 23, 2001 -- Last week my phone rang. It was my mother ... and she was upset.

"Tony!" she exclaimed, "I just came from the coffee shop and there's an [adjective omitted] man down there who says NASA never landed on the Moon. Everyone was talking about it ... I just didn't know what to say!"

That last bit was hard to swallow, I thought. Mom's never at a loss for words.

But even more incredible was the controversy that swirled through her small-town diner and places like it across the country. After a long absence, the "Moon Hoax" was back.

Above: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon in 1969. [more information]

All the buzz about the Moon began on February 15th when Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Guests on the show argued that NASA technology in the 1960's wasn't up to the task of a real Moon landing. Instead, anxious to win the Space Race any way it could, NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios. Neil Armstrong's historic first steps on another world, the rollicking Moon Buggy rides, even Al Shepard's arcing golf shot over Fra Mauro-- it was all a fake!

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Fortunately the Soviets didn't think of the gag first. They could have filmed their own fake Moon landings and really embarrassed the free world.

Shows like Conspiracy Theory ought to be as tongue-in-cheek as they sound. Unfortunately, there was an earnest feel to the Fox broadcast, enough to make you wonder if the program's makers might have fallen under their own spell.

According to the show NASA was a blundering movie producer thirty years ago. For example, Conspiracy Theory pundits pointed out a seeming discrepancy in Apollo imagery: Pictures of astronauts transmitted from the Moon don't include stars in the dark lunar sky -- an obvious production error! What happened? Did NASA film-makers forget to turn on the constellations?

Most photographers already know the answer: It's difficult to capture something very bright and something else very dim on the same piece of film -- typical emulsions don't have enough "dynamic range." Astronauts striding across the bright lunar soil in their sunlit spacesuits were literally dazzling. Setting a camera with the proper exposure for a glaring spacesuit would naturally render background stars too faint to see.

Here's another one: Pictures of Apollo astronauts erecting a US flag on the Moon show the flag bending and rippling. How can that be? After all, there's no breeze on the Moon....

Not every waving flag needs a breeze -- at least not in space. When astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil (anyone who's set a blunt tent-post will know how this works). So of course the flag waved! Unfurling a piece of rolled-up cloth with stored angular momentum will naturally result in waves and ripples -- no breeze required!

Left: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin deploy a U.S. flag on the Moon in 1969. [more]

The Fox documentary went on with plenty more specious points. You can find detailed rebuttals to each of them at BadAstronomy.com and the Moon Hoax web page. (These are independent sites, not sponsored by NASA.)

The best rebuttal to allegations of a "Moon Hoax," however, is common sense. Evidence that the Apollo program really happened is compelling: A dozen astronauts (laden with cameras) walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Nine of them are still alive and can testify to their experience. They didn't return from the Moon empty-handed, either. Just as Columbus carried a few hundred natives back to Spain as evidence of his trip to the New World, Apollo astronauts brought 841 pounds of Moon rock home to Earth.

"Moon rocks are absolutely unique," says Dr. David McKay, Chief Scientist for Planetary Science and Exploration at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). McKay is a member of the group that oversees the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at JSC where most of the Moon rocks are stored. "They differ from Earth rocks in many respects," he added.

"For example," explains Dr. Marc Norman, a lunar geologist at the University of Tasmania, "lunar samples have almost no water trapped in their crystal structure, and common substances such as clay minerals that are ubiquitous on Earth are totally absent in Moon rocks."

"We've found particles of fresh glass in Moon rocks that were produced by explosive volcanic activity and by meteorite impacts over 3 billion years ago," added Norman. "The presence of water on Earth rapidly breaks down such volcanic glass in only a few million years. These rocks must have come from the Moon!"

Right: A glass spherule (about 0.6 mm in diameter) produced by a meteorite impact into lunar soil. Features on the surface are glass splashes, welded mineral fragments, and microcraters produced by space weathering processes at the surface of the moon. SEM image by D. S. McKay (NASA Photo S71-48109).

Fortunately not all of the evidence needs a degree in chemistry or geology to appreciate. An average person holding a Moon rock in his or her hand can plainly see that the specimen came from another world.

"Apollo moon rocks are peppered with tiny craters from meteoroid impacts," explains McKay. This could only happen to rocks from a planet with little or no atmosphere... like the Moon.

Meteoroids are nearly-microscopic specks of comet dust that fly through space at speeds often exceeding 50,000 mph -- ten times faster than a speeding bullet. They pack a considerable punch, but they're also extremely fragile. Meteoroids that strike Earth's atmosphere disintegrate in the rarefied air above our stratosphere. (Every now and then on a dark night you can see one -- they're called meteors.) But the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it. The tiny space bullets can plow directly into Moon rocks, forming miniature and unmistakable craters.

"There are plenty of museums, including the Smithsonian and others, where members of the public can touch and examine rocks from the Moon," says McKay. "You can see the little meteoroid craters for yourself."

Right: Nick-named "Big Muley," this 11.7 kg Moon rock was the largest returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts. One side of Big Muley was peppered with meteoroid "zap pits." Below right: A close-up view of 1 mm diameter zap pits shows tiny craters lined with black glass surrounded by a white halo of shocked rock. [more]

Just as meteoroids constantly bombard the Moon so do cosmic rays, and they leave their fingerprints on Moon rocks, too. "There are isotopes in Moon rocks, isotopes we don't normally find on Earth, that were created by nuclear reactions with the highest-energy cosmic rays," says McKay. Earth is spared from such radiation by our protective atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Even if scientists wanted to make something like a Moon rock by, say, bombarding an Earth rock with high energy atomic nuclei, they couldn't. Earth's most powerful particle accelerators can't energize particles to match the most potent cosmic rays, which are themselves accelerated in supernova blastwaves and in the violent cores of galaxies.

Indeed, says McKay, faking a Moon rock well enough to hoodwink an international army of scientists might be more difficult than the Manhattan Project. "It would be easier to just go to the Moon and get one," he quipped.

And therein lies an original idea: Did NASA go to the Moon to collect props for a staged Moon landing? It's an interesting twist on the conspiracy theory that TV producers might consider for their next episode of the Moon Hoax.

"I have here in my office a 10-foot high stack of scientific books full of papers about the Apollo Moon rocks," added McKay. "Researchers in thousands of labs have examined Apollo Moon samples -- not a single paper challenges their origin! And these aren't all NASA employees, either. We've loaned samples to scientists in dozens of countries [who have no reason to cooperate in any hoax]."

Even Dr. Robert Park, Director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society and a noted critic of NASA's human space flight program, agrees with the space agency on this issue. "The body of physical evidence that humans did walk on the Moon is simply overwhelming."

"Fox should stick to making cartoons," agreed Marc Norman. "I'm a big fan of The Simpsons!"

Sanz · 01-02-2006, 09:20 AM

The Moon Hoax :- http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm

Langeveldt · 01-02-2006, 09:29 AM

Or when Neil Armstrong went to take his first steps on the moon only to find Chuck Norris's footprint already there..

Sanz · 01-02-2006, 09:53 AM

Who is Chuck Norris ?

open365 · 01-02-2006, 09:58 AM

^

The princess Diana theory has allways been my favourite because it;s the only one i can think of that has some creibility.

Deja moo · 01-02-2006, 09:59 AM

My favourite conspiracy theory is the one which has everyone in the BCCI and the Indian team conspiring to keep Ganguly out without sound reason.

luckyeddie · 01-02-2006, 10:12 AM

I love the whole 'moon hoax' thing - it surely must have been the inspiration for one of my all-time favourite films (Capricorn One - the 'bogus mission to Mars') - or perhaps Capricorn One was the inspirition for the moon conspiracists?

luckyeddie · 01-02-2006, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by open365

^

The princess Diana theory has allways been my favourite because it;s the only one i can think of that has some creibility.

It's kept the Daily Mail in business for the last decade.

Sanz · 01-02-2006, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deja moo

My favourite conspiracy theory is the one which has everyone in the BCCI and the Indian team conspiring to keep Ganguly out without sound reason.

Was Harbhajan part of that Indian team ?

Barney Rubble · 01-02-2006, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

Or when Neil Armstrong went to take his first steps on the moon only to find Chuck Norris's footprint already there..

Armstrong: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind....."
Chuck: ".....and one giant roundhouse kick to the face from Chuck Norris."

How else do you think the Apollo 11 crew got home?

(yes, Rich, I know I don't quite have the flair for it

)

luckyeddie · 01-02-2006, 10:19 AM

Noooooooooooooo.

I get a 'not found' error when I try to access my one-time favourite loony site, Conspire dot com (I think C_C owns it).

There's obviously something really important on that site, and the damned world governments or the BCCI don't want us to know the truth so they are blocking access to it.

Parascope's nowhere near as good - I reckon it's full of propaganda, half-truths and disinformation. Damn you, Bush.

Langeveldt · 01-02-2006, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barney Rubble

Armstrong: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind....."
Chuck: ".....and one giant roundhouse kick to the face from Chuck Norris."

How else do you think the Apollo 11 crew got home?

(yes, Rich, I know I don't quite have the flair for it

)

My mate from Southampton Uni is also a massive chuck Norris fan.. Small world hey? (Or maybe everyone in the world is just a chuck fan)

Deja moo · 01-02-2006, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sanz

Was Harbhajan part of that Indian team ?

Nope. Harbhajan is the guy who, if he had requisite skills, would write the book + shoot the documentary video on that alleged conspiracy.

luckyeddie · 01-02-2006, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

My mate from Southampton Uni is also a massive chuck Norris fan.. Small world hey? (Or maybe everyone in the world is just a chuck fan)

Those that don't want to feel the fury of the roundhouse kick are.

Barney Rubble · 01-02-2006, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Langeveldt

My mate from Southampton Uni is also a massive chuck Norris fan.. Small world hey? (Or maybe everyone in the world is just a chuck fan)

I think it's the latter.

01-02-2006, 09:18 AM	#1 (permalink)
Sanz Hall of Fame Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: USA Posts: 16,228	Favorite Conspiracy Theory Inspired by C_C's recent thread on 9/11. For me the best one is story about how Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin never landed on moon. Here is a recap of the whole story :- http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm The Great Moon Hoax Moon rocks and common sense prove Apollo astronauts really did visit the Moon. Listen to this story (requires RealPlayer) February 23, 2001 -- Last week my phone rang. It was my mother ... and she was upset. "Tony!" she exclaimed, "I just came from the coffee shop and there's an [adjective omitted] man down there who says NASA never landed on the Moon. Everyone was talking about it ... I just didn't know what to say!" That last bit was hard to swallow, I thought. Mom's never at a loss for words. But even more incredible was the controversy that swirled through her small-town diner and places like it across the country. After a long absence, the "Moon Hoax" was back. Above: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon in 1969. [more information] All the buzz about the Moon began on February 15th when Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Guests on the show argued that NASA technology in the 1960's wasn't up to the task of a real Moon landing. Instead, anxious to win the Space Race any way it could, NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios. Neil Armstrong's historic first steps on another world, the rollicking Moon Buggy rides, even Al Shepard's arcing golf shot over Fra Mauro-- it was all a fake! Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery Fortunately the Soviets didn't think of the gag first. They could have filmed their own fake Moon landings and really embarrassed the free world. Shows like Conspiracy Theory ought to be as tongue-in-cheek as they sound. Unfortunately, there was an earnest feel to the Fox broadcast, enough to make you wonder if the program's makers might have fallen under their own spell. According to the show NASA was a blundering movie producer thirty years ago. For example, Conspiracy Theory pundits pointed out a seeming discrepancy in Apollo imagery: Pictures of astronauts transmitted from the Moon don't include stars in the dark lunar sky -- an obvious production error! What happened? Did NASA film-makers forget to turn on the constellations? Most photographers already know the answer: It's difficult to capture something very bright and something else very dim on the same piece of film -- typical emulsions don't have enough "dynamic range." Astronauts striding across the bright lunar soil in their sunlit spacesuits were literally dazzling. Setting a camera with the proper exposure for a glaring spacesuit would naturally render background stars too faint to see. Here's another one: Pictures of Apollo astronauts erecting a US flag on the Moon show the flag bending and rippling. How can that be? After all, there's no breeze on the Moon.... Not every waving flag needs a breeze -- at least not in space. When astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil (anyone who's set a blunt tent-post will know how this works). So of course the flag waved! Unfurling a piece of rolled-up cloth with stored angular momentum will naturally result in waves and ripples -- no breeze required! Left: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin deploy a U.S. flag on the Moon in 1969. [more] The Fox documentary went on with plenty more specious points. You can find detailed rebuttals to each of them at BadAstronomy.com and the Moon Hoax web page. (These are independent sites, not sponsored by NASA.) The best rebuttal to allegations of a "Moon Hoax," however, is common sense. Evidence that the Apollo program really happened is compelling: A dozen astronauts (laden with cameras) walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Nine of them are still alive and can testify to their experience. They didn't return from the Moon empty-handed, either. Just as Columbus carried a few hundred natives back to Spain as evidence of his trip to the New World, Apollo astronauts brought 841 pounds of Moon rock home to Earth. "Moon rocks are absolutely unique," says Dr. David McKay, Chief Scientist for Planetary Science and Exploration at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC). McKay is a member of the group that oversees the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at JSC where most of the Moon rocks are stored. "They differ from Earth rocks in many respects," he added. "For example," explains Dr. Marc Norman, a lunar geologist at the University of Tasmania, "lunar samples have almost no water trapped in their crystal structure, and common substances such as clay minerals that are ubiquitous on Earth are totally absent in Moon rocks." "We've found particles of fresh glass in Moon rocks that were produced by explosive volcanic activity and by meteorite impacts over 3 billion years ago," added Norman. "The presence of water on Earth rapidly breaks down such volcanic glass in only a few million years. These rocks must have come from the Moon!" Right: A glass spherule (about 0.6 mm in diameter) produced by a meteorite impact into lunar soil. Features on the surface are glass splashes, welded mineral fragments, and microcraters produced by space weathering processes at the surface of the moon. SEM image by D. S. McKay (NASA Photo S71-48109). Fortunately not all of the evidence needs a degree in chemistry or geology to appreciate. An average person holding a Moon rock in his or her hand can plainly see that the specimen came from another world. "Apollo moon rocks are peppered with tiny craters from meteoroid impacts," explains McKay. This could only happen to rocks from a planet with little or no atmosphere... like the Moon. Meteoroids are nearly-microscopic specks of comet dust that fly through space at speeds often exceeding 50,000 mph -- ten times faster than a speeding bullet. They pack a considerable punch, but they're also extremely fragile. Meteoroids that strike Earth's atmosphere disintegrate in the rarefied air above our stratosphere. (Every now and then on a dark night you can see one -- they're called meteors.) But the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere to protect it. The tiny space bullets can plow directly into Moon rocks, forming miniature and unmistakable craters. "There are plenty of museums, including the Smithsonian and others, where members of the public can touch and examine rocks from the Moon," says McKay. "You can see the little meteoroid craters for yourself." Right: Nick-named "Big Muley," this 11.7 kg Moon rock was the largest returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts. One side of Big Muley was peppered with meteoroid "zap pits." Below right: A close-up view of 1 mm diameter zap pits shows tiny craters lined with black glass surrounded by a white halo of shocked rock. [more] Just as meteoroids constantly bombard the Moon so do cosmic rays, and they leave their fingerprints on Moon rocks, too. "There are isotopes in Moon rocks, isotopes we don't normally find on Earth, that were created by nuclear reactions with the highest-energy cosmic rays," says McKay. Earth is spared from such radiation by our protective atmosphere and magnetosphere. Even if scientists wanted to make something like a Moon rock by, say, bombarding an Earth rock with high energy atomic nuclei, they couldn't. Earth's most powerful particle accelerators can't energize particles to match the most potent cosmic rays, which are themselves accelerated in supernova blastwaves and in the violent cores of galaxies. Indeed, says McKay, faking a Moon rock well enough to hoodwink an international army of scientists might be more difficult than the Manhattan Project. "It would be easier to just go to the Moon and get one," he quipped. And therein lies an original idea: Did NASA go to the Moon to collect props for a staged Moon landing? It's an interesting twist on the conspiracy theory that TV producers might consider for their next episode of the Moon Hoax. "I have here in my office a 10-foot high stack of scientific books full of papers about the Apollo Moon rocks," added McKay. "Researchers in thousands of labs have examined Apollo Moon samples -- not a single paper challenges their origin! And these aren't all NASA employees, either. We've loaned samples to scientists in dozens of countries [who have no reason to cooperate in any hoax]." Even Dr. Robert Park, Director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society and a noted critic of NASA's human space flight program, agrees with the space agency on this issue. "The body of physical evidence that humans did walk on the Moon is simply overwhelming." "Fox should stick to making cartoons," agreed Marc Norman. "I'm a big fan of The Simpsons!"

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01-02-2006, 09:20 AM	#2 (permalink)
Sanz Hall of Fame Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: USA Posts: 16,228	The Moon Hoax :- http://www.apfn.org/apfn/moon.htm

01-02-2006, 09:53 AM	#4 (permalink)
Sanz Hall of Fame Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: USA Posts: 16,228	Who is Chuck Norris ?

01-02-2006, 09:58 AM	#5 (permalink)
open365 International Vice-Captain Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: liverpool Posts: 4,066	^ The princess Diana theory has allways been my favourite because it;s the only one i can think of that has some creibility.

01-02-2006, 10:12 AM	#7 (permalink)
luckyeddie Hall of Fame Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Derby, England Posts: 17,629	I love the whole 'moon hoax' thing - it surely must have been the inspiration for one of my all-time favourite films (Capricorn One - the 'bogus mission to Mars') - or perhaps Capricorn One was the inspirition for the moon conspiracists?

01-02-2006, 10:19 AM	#11 (permalink)
luckyeddie Hall of Fame Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Derby, England Posts: 17,629	Noooooooooooooo. I get a 'not found' error when I try to access my one-time favourite loony site, Conspire dot com (I think C_C owns it). There's obviously something really important on that site, and the damned world governments or the BCCI don't want us to know the truth so they are blocking access to it. Parascope's nowhere near as good - I reckon it's full of propaganda, half-truths and disinformation. Damn you, Bush.

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