I'm the nutcase with the website..

Greetings. I'm the webmaster of Clavius.org.

here's the not-so-round earth link.

Okay, now prove it's squashed in the original negative, not in the hasty scan posted on ALSJ.

I've found a number of spatially distorted photos on ALSJ, but only in the photos which have only numbers as their file names, not in those which have their NASA catalogue numbers for file names.

So I did the unthinkable. I sent an e-mail to Kipp Teague, the photo curator of ALSJ, and asked what was up. The answer is quite satisfactory. The inferior photos were scanned by an automated process in the 1980s. How else would you scan 20,000 photographs? It involved loading a second-generation master onto a fairly primitive negative drive scanner modified to accommodate 70mm longrolls.

This type of scanner is made for speed, not quality. And if you examine the photogrammetric fiducials in the scanned photos, you'll notice a tendency to compress the image in the roll-longitudinal direction -- the vertical axis in the photographs. This also corresponds to the direction of the scan head motion.

The "numbered" ALSJ photos are known by researchers not to be spatially faithful. That's why real research is done from contact copies of the transparencies, or photogrammetrically controlled prints.

Further, your Photo 7 is not evidence of an egg-shaped appearance to the earth in Apollo photographs. The falloff in intensity of illumination on the cloud cover at the 4 o'clock position on the disk should have been a clue that you're looking at the terminator, not the disk boundary.

Someone dropped 11866 7-8 degrees and raised 11863 7-8 degrees, of course they're gonna match. Irwin (11866) should be tilted more than what he is.

But that's the point. You're using the astronaut as your estimate of "up". John is pointing out that the backgrounds do in fact match if you consider the mountain top orientation in connection with the LM orientation and the flagpole orientation. John is not using the image boundaries as a reference as most hoax believers inexplicably do.

... it's just I can't get anyone pro-NASA to say so. Must be a pandora's box thing.

Not at all. First of all, I am not "pro-NASA". I merely believe the evidence against the Apollo moon landings is incredibly ignorant.

Second, nobody should have to "admit" to some hypothetical process of falsification when it's clear to anyone with actual photographic experience what is going on. You seem to want the NASA crowd to meet you halfway, and you promise you won't gloat. I can't do that if I find all your evidence faulty.

As for http://www.clavius.org they don't mention most of the photos (if any) I have. And whoever posted that should've known before they posted.

Whoever posted that noted that many of your "other arguments" are covered at Clavius, not necessarily your photographs. You speak at length on the whys and werefores of the hoax theory. So do we.

They won't respond to my questions

Very well. See below.

Ask up, if you want.

I too would like to know your level and focus of education.

I too would like to know if you have any photographic experience involving manual exposure and hand developing. Have you ever retouched or modified a photo using only mechanical or chemical techniques?

Your assertions:

Opening paragraph. I do not vehemently defend NASA. I defend the historical authenticity of the Apollo landings. I do not claim no photo was faked. I claim that the evidence I have been shown in the attempt to prove that various photos are fake, is the most absurd evidence I've ever been shown.

Regarding hoax believers being of sub-par intelligence, I can't vouch for that. But having been professionally trained as an engineer and having apprenticed as a photographer prior to that, I can say that the hoax believers exhibit almost total ignorance of these and other applicable fields. I don't claim they're dumb; I claim they're either underinformed or misinformed.

Photos 1-4. John Witts has provided a satisfactory explanation. Everything in those photos can be explained in terms of camera location and orientation. Further, your hypothesis does not answer parallax observations in what you claim to be a backdrop.

Photos 5-6. Taken from scans known to be variously spatially distorted by the scanning process.

Photo 7. Answered above. You apparently do not know what earth's terminator looks like.

Photos 8-9. Of course a smudge on a photograph is not proof. But it is, however, something that hoax believers must explain. Had you obtained and read the paper in which this photograph was presented, you would have learned that it is not a visible-spectrum photograph. It is, in fact, a collection of registered images taken in various wavelengths and processed digitally. This is how most "photographs" taken with remote sensing spacecraft are produced.

Photo 8 is a visible spectrum photograph.

You're right: you are not a scientist. But you seem to be very liberal with your assertions that something is "absolutely ridiculous" before you have fully investigated it.

Photos 10-12. You seem completely oblivious to the effects of exposure and scattering. Your assertion that the sun disk should appear identical in size and intensity in all the photos exposes (pun intended) your inexperience in photography.

Had you done a thorough survey of the ALSJ photos and read the accompanying text, you would have understood the scattering effect produced by a coat of fine lunar dust on the lens. You would have seen other evidence of this phenomenon in a number of other photos.

And if you knew anything about optics you would know that even a perfectly clean lens will scatter light.

(By the way: Please use the NASA catalogue numbers, e.g., AS15-84-11348, instead of ALSJ file names. Those have meaning only in the ALSJ while the photo IDs are a universal reference. Those of us who may wish to consult other photo sources can't use the ALSJ file name to do so.)

Photo 13. Lies near the end of roll 84/MM and therefore is susceptible to sunstrike. The vertical patch of overexposure just left of center confirms sunstrike. The anomaly in question is thus likely to be post-exposure light contamination that occurred as the magazine was removed from the camera body.

If you measure the fiducials in this photo, you will find it is evidence for my assertion above that the photos in the "number" series are frequently squashed vertically.

Photo 13b. Your assumption that the patch of light in the picture is the sun is naive. The lunar module windows are angled downward. This means that from the pilot's standing point of view the window would tend to reflect objects on the LM's ceiling. Above the pilot's head is a rectangular docking window. The shading on the command module in the photo indicates the sun is roughly above the LM. The light scattering effect of condensate and chemicals outgassing from the window seals is well documented and evident in most photographs of the spacecraft interior. You are seeing the reflection of scattered sunlight through the docking window, reflected on the main window through which the photograph was taken.

Photo 14. No reference is given and the photo is of poor quality. Please provide either the NASA photo ID or a clearer photo.

Photo 15. Taken nearly up-sun. What you assume is reflected light on the lunar surface are "rays" scattered by the camera lens.

Photo 16-17. Your hypothesis is that the edge darkening is a byproduct of having airbrushed out the original background to replace it with a black sky.

You correctly note that it happens only on black and white photographs, which is more than most hoax believers manage. However, your hypothesis doesn't really explain it.

Consider the following flaws in your observation.

1. Are you aware that the color film was reversal while the black and white film was negative? Do you know the difference in how each would have to be processed in order to get the image you're looking at?

2. You ignore the fact that other edge boundaries, not just terrain-sky boundaries, also exhibit edge darkening.

3. You ignore the fact that it does not appear in adjacent photos on the roll, photos apparently snapped only seconds apart.

Consider the following misconceptions regarding airbrushes:

1. An airbrush would indeed leave such an indistinct edge -- but only in the hands of a complete novice. Even beginning airbrush artists are taught the principles of masking. In fact, it's a fundamental skill to the medium. Your hypothesis does not present a plausible use of an airbrush.

2. Airbrushes are not the only tools that can be used to mechanically alter photos. Airbrushes are used only when smooth gradients are needed. To obtain high opacity or sharp lines, regular bristle brushes are commonly used. Your hypothesis does not present a plausible method of photo retouching.

3. Removing an original earth sky and replacing it with black is best done with razor techniques. It would be very labor-intensive to paint it uniform black when could be done much more quickly and easily done by razoring out the sky on a negative and printing from that. You get the uniform black background for free. Your hypothesis does not present a plausible method for this type of photo retouching.

You seem unconcerned that all the evidence points to insufficient agitation during the positive baths that would only affect black and white film (since the color film didn't require that process), only affect it in spots, and produce just such a "dodge" effect.

Photo 18-19. If the photographs were taken in broad daylight, how does your hypothesis explain the stark shadows?

Photo 20-21. You say you haven't been able find any evidence of a second flag. It took me 18 seconds to find this:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi....alsepoff.html

Maybe people don't answer your questions because it's obvious you aren't looking very hard yourself for the answers.

Bright surface photos. Do you understand photo exposure? Do you understand exposure latitude in reversal film? It has nothing to do with "NBs" admitting that "HBs" were "right all along." You seem to have no clue how photography works.

Returning to the moon. Clavius deals with this at length. A point not mentioned there is how badly Apollo 13 had scared everyone -- they decided to quit at 17 because of that. Nowadays there is no social mandate to go, so we don't go. It's not NASA's decision. It's the decision of the U.S. public.

NASA's viability. NASA did in fact suffer through numerous failures in the early 1960s. Your hypothesis is historically inaccurate.

Distraction from Vietnam. Again, historically inaccurate. The same people who were protesting Vietnam were also protesting the moon landings. And "Tricky Dicky" had almost nothing to do with Apollo except to slash its budget and accept all the accolades for the Johnson administration's work.

The whistle-blower theory. It's not a rumor going around the Internet but rather the subject of a 500-page book by David Percy. Releasing photos on the Internet is irrelevant. The photos have been available on the Internet since the mid 1980s, and in print and transparency form since the mid-1970s. They have always been in the hands of expert photo analysts and qualified researchers from all over the world.

Making them available on the Internet simply makes it easier for uninformed, uneducated, inexperienced people to download them from the comfort of their living rooms and make up wild stories about them.

I concur with the opinions given already. Your site certainly doesn't "foam at the mouth" like other sites, but it is nevertheless based on assumption you've made in the absence of experience, knowledge, and careful research. You're jumping repeatedly to hoax-based conclusions to explain what you believe are anomalies. Yet you seem not to want to be considered a hoax believer.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-02-05 11:29 ]</font>