UPDATE

Cosmic Conspiracies were recently approached by Jim Oberg, NASA consultant, who was interested in a piece of footage that appeared on this page which showed the Surveyor III probe on the Moons surface, filmed by the astronauts aboard Apollo 12 as it descended onto the lunar surface. Mr. Oberg is writing a book (originally funded by NASA) about the whole 'Moon Hoax' subject, in a bid to put a lot of the speculation to rest. Mr. Oberg believed that the film we had (taken from 'What Happened On The Moon') was bogus and not original NASA footage, however David Percy and Mary Bennett believe otherwise !!! Click Here to read more





The Surveyor-3 ‘Hoax’ Footage

Our small UFO research team here in Gloucester goes by the name ‘Cosmic Conspiracies’. Our main contribution to the UFO genre has been a large web-site about UFOs and aliens, and related material, as well as our own brand of freelance investigative journalism. One of the team, Dave Cosnette, has a keen interest in the questions that hang over the Apollo Moon landings record. He has collated what he considers to be the best evidence available and presented it as a web-page on ‘Cosmic Conspiracies’ called “The ‘Faked’ Apollo Landings!”

It has proven to be a popular resource, allowing Internet surfers from around the world to look at the contested imagery and decide for themselves whether there may be grounds to be suspicious about the historical record of the Moon landings. Dave Cosnette was not, of course, one of the original authors and researchers who looked into this question. Instead, he has highlighted the work of Mary Bennett, David S. Percy and Marcus Allen. Recently, the web-page was scrutinised by James Oberg, who is currently researching the Apollo ‘Moon hoax’ claims for a forthcoming book. Oberg has since drawn us into an investigation that has culminated in a possibly surprising result.

In its January 2003 issue UFO Magazine drew attention to the controversy surrounding James Oberg’s book, that was commissioned, then ‘decommissioned’ within days, by NASA. Regular readers of the magazine will recognise Jim as being an ardent sceptic and debunker whose opinions have often been interlaced with some quite colourful language. He naturally prefers to describe himself as ‘Space Historian/Author’. Whether NASA are financially supporting his new book or not, he is clearly throwing himself into research that he hopes will put the ‘Moon Hoax’ theory to rest once and for all. Jim Oberg’s aim is clear: to rigorously test the evidence that has been amassed suggesting the Apollo Moon landings were faked by NASA, a conspiracy theory gaining ground year by year.

On 13th January Jim Oberg wrote to Cosmic Conspiracies’ enquiring about a particular piece of footage featuring on Dave’s Apollo web-page. This is what he had to say:

“Your video of Surveyor-3 from Apollo-12 shown at http://www.ufos-aliens.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/surv3.rm is extremely interesting, since NASA appears to deny all responsibility. Does ANYBODY know who may have created this sequence, when, and why?”

The sequence Jim is interested in was sourced from the video ‘What Happened on the Moon?’ published by Aulis. This video presents material from the book ‘Dark Moon’, written by Mary Bennett and David S. Percy (1999). The footage shows images of the Surveyor-3 spacecraft taken from the Apollo 12 lunar module as it descends towards the lunar surface. It is controversial because the motion of the camera used to make the film is not compatible with filming conditions astronauts would have experienced from within the lunar module. Instead, the footage appears to have been taken from a helicopter or control rig with a mobile mounted camera, allowing the cameraman to ‘pan’ the shot as he or she swept past the static Surveyor-3 lander. This ‘NASA’ film footage is described as ‘absolute Whistle-Blowing’ by Bennett and Percy in ‘Dark Moon’ (p160), and comprises one part of a large corpus of evidence that suggests fakery.

Now, we happen to know Mary Bennett, one of the authors of ‘Dark Moon’. Back in March 2002 Dave Cosnette’s web-page had been checked over by Mary, who suggested a number of technical changes, which were duly made. So we knew how to contact Mary, and she was aware of the general contents of the web-page. It thus seemed appropriate to take up Jim Oberg’s challenge and look into the matter.

We contacted Mary, asking for further information about the footage, and she came back to us with some factual information and a short
statement. This read:
“The sequence in question occurs about six minutes into a program called “CONQUEST, A history of space achievements from
the V1 to the Shuttle *Part Two: Apollo 12 to NASA's Viking flight to Mars and beyond. Including original NASA film".
(Distributed by GMH Entertainments). There is nothing in the program to suggest that this Apollo 12 landing footage is a
simulation. The sequence is sandwiched between other shots of Apollo 12 landing film and therefore it is entirely reasonable
for the viewer to conclude that it is 'original NASA film'.


The voiceover commentary for the scene is: "The landing module was to prove it could make a pin-point touch down by flying past
Surveyor III, a robot fired to the Moon three and a half years before."
And from the LM itself we hear: " . . .Got plenty of gas, plenty of gas." Houston: "30 seconds.

That’s why we have credited the sequence to NASA. In the video ‘What happened on the Moon?’ the cover of this video (from which
this sequence was taken) is shown to the viewer.”
Jim Oberg seemed to be right. This film clip made up part of a sequence of film images in a video that was interlaced with official footage.
Yet the Surveyor-3 flyby sequence was not from the NASA archive, and therefore, we now believe, could not be used as evidence of NASA
faking the Apollo record. Mary Bennett made a couple of further points in response to our subsequent questions:

"At the time of writing their book and making their video - it had not occurred to the authors that anyone - other than NASA -
would have supplied the material. Now, NASA records may well show this footage isn't theirs, but from the public’s point of view,
they are looking at an apparently official 1987 documentary covering the Space Program and are being led to assume that this
is all genuine footage. Since, if this Surveyor 3 flyby material is a simulation, this fact is not pointed out as such: it is not made
clear either on screen or on the soundtrack before, during or after this scene. Indeed, the astronaut’s live commentary plays over
this scene. * So the viewer is led to assume that, as printed on the case of their video, the documentary makers are using NASA
supplied material.”

Mary Bennett seemed to be conceding that, in hindsight, the Surveyor-3 flyby footage should not have been attributed to NASA, although she later denied this. Indeed, ‘Cosmic Conspiracies’ were directly and indirectly criticised for the way that we had followed their lead in attributing the footage and screen shots to NASA. Which made us chuckle. This prompted us to ask Mary what groundwork they had done at the time of writing ‘Dark Moon’ regarding this footage. Had they checked the NASA archive to validate the contested material? Had they asked the makers of the 1987 ‘Conquest’ video where they had obtained the footage, or asked their permission to feature it on ‘What Happened on the Moon’? Mary gave us this reply:

“We had no reason to doubt that this particular footage was anything other than NASA material and therefore in the public
domain. In any event this sequence was used under the accepted publishing term 'Fair Use', and in the video 'What Happened on
the Moon?' the source was made clear.

“The production company for 'What Happened on the Moon?' received dubs on NTSC Beta SP of a large quantity of Apollo
material, including all the lunar surface footage that was transferred from the original 16mm Kinescope B&W and color film.
Additionally, they received the 16mm camera on-boards and 16mm film from the lunar surface film cameras. All of which was
supplied through NASA.”

It is our opinion that this particular piece of footage seems to have slipped through Bennett and Percy’s net during their initial investigation, and that they simply assumed it was from NASA without looking into it. We agree with James Oberg here: this is not NASA footage from the actual Apollo 12 landing at all. Where it actually came from remains a mystery, one that Bennett and Percy continue to insist points the finger at a culpable NASA.

In the April 2003 issue of UFO Magazine (pp58-9), Graham Birdsall took up this research and gained a further statement from David Percy. The following extract highlights the reason why, in Percy’s mind, the footage remains controversial, despite NASA’s express denials of ownership:

“According to those who were involved in the making of this film, all the material covering Apollo and Gemini etc., was sent to the production company from NASA – footage that was in the public domain and resulting in a film far less expensive to make than would otherwise be the case. Note that this Surveyor 3 ‘fly-by’ scene would have been a very expensive exercise for just a few seconds of film. Specially recreating such a sequence would negate the criteria of keeping production costs as low as possible.

“When completed, this film was subsequently transferred to video-tape duplication masters and licensed by Lamancha Productions Ltd., Edinburgh, Scotland who added their logo to the start of the video (Andy: Jim Oberg warns that there is a similarly-named company in the US that specialises in Hispanic Gay Porn movies!). A former director of this company has also stated that, to his knowledge, all this material concerning Apollo was sent directly from NASA.”

So David Percy and Mary Bennett are insistent that their inclusion of this footage within the corpus of evidence they have collated should be allowed to stand. They argue that although NASA deny any knowledge of this footage, which is clearly faked, the film must have originally been sourced from NASA by the documentary-makers, whose word on the matter seems to be taken on face value.

From our point of view, however, we think that insufficient ground-work was carried out on the footage, and conclusions were attached to its importance that no longer stand up to scrutiny. In effect, this can no longer be considered to be part of the official ‘Apollo record’, so should not be used to argue for NASA fakery. Jim Oberg agrees with us on this, which is a rather odd situation for both parties to be in, but there we go.

On the other hand, Graham Birdsall argues that NASA, and more importantly JPL, still have some answering to do about this, and that they are set for a showdown with Oberg if they fail to produce a further statement on the matter:

“Although a staunch NASA supporter, James Oberg has also been highly critical of the space agency for its past failings. By flatly denying all knowledge of the Surveyor 3 fly-by footage, and with JPL officials refusing to comment, Oberg’s relationship with NASA could be sorely tested if they fail to provide him with definitive answers to specific issues raised by Apollo conspiracy theorists.”

Birdsall is throwing down the gauntlet to JPL here, which could produce results. But the reason why JPL aren’t talking to Percy and Bennett, we suspect, is not because JPL have anything to hide but because, well, it’s Percy and Bennett! JPL won’t want to give them any shred of credibility, by being seen to cooperate with conspiracy theorists who have such a poor general regard for the space agency. We suspect that JPL’s answer to Oberg will be just as unequivocal as NASA’s: ‘This is not our footage’.

Finally, we would like to say that James Oberg appears to be making real progress with his research and we are looking forward to the eventual release of his book. Going on the strength of this finding it should make for some very interesting reading indeed.

© Andy Lloyd, Dave Cosnette & Martin Cosnette - 28th March 2003