About a week ago I tried to post a message to the Aulis board basically aking if they had look at the A11 video where Armstrong jumps up 4 feet or so onto the ladder. My message wasn't posted, but I did get an email saying that when David Percy returned he'd have a look at the video and provide comments.

Today I got another email from Aulis and here's what they had to say (paraphrased).

It looks more like the video shows Armstrong jumping down off the ladder and that there is evidence that this scene was reversed and cut into the rest of the video sequence. Armstrong was instructed to remove the film pack from the Hasselblad camera just about the time he made the jump and nobody on the audio makes any refernce to his jump.

I'll respect BA's rules and not post the actual email here unless Aulis gives me permission, but if anyone wants the complete text of the email, send me a private message and I'll send it to you. I'm in shock that Percy could draw such an outlandish conclusion if he watched the same video I watched, but maybe I'm biased.

Of course you're biased. You believe in making a judgment based on the evidence and not trying to make the evidence fit some preconceived idea.

One of things I noticed is that as the hoax believers are being confronted with data, the story changes to something even more unbelievable.

I take it from your e-mail that Percy believes that the footage of Armstrong jumping up to the LM is just footage of him jumping down shown in reverse.

This statement to me again shows the clear lack of investigation/research of any sort. The human body behaves completely differently jumping up versus falling or jumping down. Do it yourself.

In jumping down, your feet are prepared for the shock of landing and your arms and hands are used for balance. When jumping up, your hands and arms too are prepared to grasp something (in this case the ladder) and your legs are sort of in free fall. There are a lot of differences in the human body (angles of legs, finger position, etc) that even under a space suit a poor kinesiologist could tell were faked. In other words, was the up jump really a reversed down jump.

Ya, but the HB's would just say Armstrong practised making a jump down look like a jump up until he got it right in the reversed video. Simple explanation. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]

I agree with you that they just make more outrageous claims each time a hole is blown in their theory - as though saying something would make it so. I've heard about the secret antigravity technology, monstrous vacuum chambers etc etc ad nauseum. The cardinal rule seems to be: If you are an HB, you don't need to be constrained by math, physics, chemistry or any other reality.

Makes me want to be a conspiracist when I grow up! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DaveC on 2002-04-23 14:41 ]</font>

Reversed film? That's silly; you could trivially match it frame-by-frame.

The "real" hoax explanation would be that he had a small wire leading up to the crane in the top of the sound-stage, and he was counterweighted so he could jump higher.

Sheesh. These guys aren't even trying.

Silas

I just downloaded the Quicktime Video from alsj showing the jump - Armstrong's a real good actor/athlete if he did that jump in reverse in 1G!!!

Video

Is there a better version available? The original video was of poor enough quality to begin with and the quicktime compression almost makes it unviewable.

[fixed hyperlink]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SpacedOut on 2002-04-23 15:16 ]</font>

A new cleaned up version of the is being released soon.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...962259-9491114

According to amazon, its out, but I haven't found yet at our local bookstore.

It should be noted that this particular clip is finally what convinced maverick astronaut Brian O'Leary that the Apollo landings were genuine. No doubt lingers in his mind.

Aulis keeps missing the boat. They don't understand why this is important footage. See, originally they argued that no footage existed of lunar gymnastic feats. The 18-inch jump of John Young, they argued, was all there was. But now we have footage of Armstrong jumping five feet up the ladder. And that footage has been there for 30 years. And Armstrong's claim that he did this has been there for 30 years.

The question is not how Aulis thinks it was done -- you could guess they'd try to explain it away by some hypothetical stage trickery. The question is why Aulis didn't know about it in the first place. They claim to have done meticulous, exhaustive research. But time and time again we find that when they say, "There is no X in the Apollo record," we have little trouble finding appropriate examples of X.

When they say the obscured fiducials look like the result of cuts and pastes, it's pretty easy to show that for every one of their examples we can find three examples of an obscured fiducial that's obviously and optical phenomenon.

When they say the pictures are all studio perfect, it's pretty easy to find examples of photos that are poorly framed, focused, or exposed.

Aulis is responding the way they always respond to evidence of their shoddy research: by changing the subject. They don't ever acknowledge that they've been trumped on that point; they just convert the argument into another question that hasn't yet been answered and pretend that their knickers aren't blowing in the breeze.

It's time for David Percy and Mary Bennett to stop the posturing and admit that their research was cursory at best, or selective at worst, and therefore does not represent the opinion of someone adequately familiar with the Apollo record.

From a ballistics point of view, Aulis' argument is a non-issue. Physics dictates that the displacement-over-time curve of an object going up to the apex of its arc is the mirror of the curve of an object falling from that same point. It's no good to say it "looks like" a falling object. That's expected. If Aulis wish to have us believe that it's a film of a falling astronaut run in reverse, then they must provide the distinguishing proof -- the bit of evidence that can only be explained by a falling astranaut, not evidence that supports either assertion.

But the most important rhetorical aspect of this point is not whether Aulis can come up with a plausible method for falsifying the Armstrong leap. It's the fact that -- once again -- Bennett and Percy must backpedal. How many more times must this happen before the world realizes its Aulis, not NASA, who is not telling the whole story?

More info about the Armstrong leap.

__________________
~AstroMike

That video is indeed very hard to see.

Here's another question, was the shot of Armstrong's jump taken with the film camera or the video camera?

If it was the video camera, wasn't it being broadcast live? in which case it couldn't be reversed. (Of course, the HB's just say it was a rebroadcast of a previously recoded film though.)

But in any case, this is another example where I ask "why even bother in the first place?" The difficulties and chances of fakery being discovered are so high in such a shot that it's better just to not do it at all.

And if NASA was so good at getting it to look right, why didn't they do it more often; you know, in order to show more "proof" that they really went there?

It's just ill-logic.

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

<a name="20020424.2:38"> page 20020424.2:38 aka Boo.. Hiss..
On 2002-04-24 01:33, David Hall wrote: To:10 CIMI 0 POP
I really mean that.. The kind of Junk {oh never mind]
now where was I on doDA
386 time drift ve NIST
or some National Institute
for slantted Talk
YES and audio 2
---- waht do i get
a TV camera shot of cars
going around a curve
on the freeway
:::; now about this week Earth Quake
""LIVE"" TV coverage from Planet Earth
itself {ahHaHaHa} what town are you in again ? Toyat0? [oh i see its Oh sac A] Nice? Velly Nice..ee

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HUb' on 2002-04-24 06:50 ]</font>

Sorry HUb', I don't quite follow you.

You aren't insinuating that I'm in earthquake danger are you? Egads!

__________________
...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

If HUb' is predicting an earthquake in Osaka using his 386 with the wrong clock time (or was that the 486?) you likely aren't in any danger. The earthquake actually took place on Venus last week.

No, Hub' is reminding us that he says there is an increased probability of an earthquake in the Pacific northwest on April 27.

CJSF


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Christopher Ferro on 2002-04-24 15:31 ]</font>

A couple of thoughts – I’ve reviewed Percy’s email – Thanks DaveC – According to his “analysis” there is a point before and after the jump where the video could have been edited and the reverse footage cut in. By Percy’s accounting this cut of reversed video is over 5 minutes long!

Granted Neal Armstrong wasn’t moving for the entire period – possible only a min or two – but in order for Percy’s claims to be valid Armstrong had to back out of the hatch – climb down the ladder – jump to the ground – and move around- in REVERSE in 1G - making it all look like it happened correctly in 1/6 G!

Amazing – simply Amazing - he deserves an Emmy!

Also – wouldn’t that pesky wind that kept blowing the flag around have moved the camera as well? Sorry, I guess they remembered to close the doors that time!

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SpacedOut on 2002-04-24 15:28 ]</font>

I don't think even an Emmy winning performance, no matter how long it was rehearsed, could make even the simple task of climbing down and jumping off a ladder look like jumping up and climbing when played in reverse - even ignoring the additional complication of making a 1g maneuver look like it was in 1/6g. I've sent Aulis another email asking why they weren't aware of this video (when Percy said there are no films/videos of gymnastic feats) and whether Percy would be willing to make a film/video of someone jumping off a ladder and walking about and show that he could reverse a piece of it and edit it seamlessly to show a jump up. Let's see what they say.

Didn't they always do that on 'The Six Million Dollar Man', when Steve Austin was supposed to be jumping onto a roof or somewhere high? They just got a stuntman to fall off a building backwards and then played it backwards. It was never really convincing then, even as a kid. Nowadays it just looks like someone has run the film backwards of someone falling off a building.

Since Armstrong was on the moon for about 2.5 to 3 hours, the sun angle changes, wouldn't that be detectable if NASA decided to splice in some earlier footage?

I agree the six million dollar man jumping up (reversed going down) always looked bad and I knew what they had done.

"Since Armstrong was on the moon for about 2.5 to 3 hours, the sun angle changes, wouldn't that be detectable if NASA decided to splice in some earlier footage"

The sun angle change probably wouldn't be noticable over a 2-3 hour period since it only changes by a maximum of about 12 degrees per earth day (on the equator). Anyway, with all the special lighting effects NASA mastered, this wouldn't be an issue. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I figured that would come out to approximately 1.5 degrees. If that's detectable or not, I couldn't say.

Of course NASA didn't think of the changing solar angle, because if they couldn't remember the parallel light sources, I'm sure they wouldn't remember something like that.

Just Kidding

In that low quality video, I doubt 1.5 degrees would be detectable. I'm going to study it more though and see if there is any sign that the shadows "jump" just before or after Neil does.

The shadow movement wouldn't be easily detectable on Apollo 11, but as a matter of irrelevant fact it quite noticeably affects the photography in the J-missions, where the sun angle changed by about 36&deg; over the course of the mission.

I've already had hoax believers try to pawn off photos taken days apart showing "anomalous" differences in shadow angles.

Perhaps I'm just being dense, but I'm not sure what a lighting discontinuity would be expected to prove. Sure, if there were an abrupt discontinuity it would suggest an edit, but continuity is not something from which the lack of an edit can be inferred.

I agree if you could show a very slight, very consistent shift in lighting angle over the entire EVA video, this would suggest having been legitimately taken on the moon. However the television camera is only planted for a little over an hour at its final position. The sun angle changes by only half a degree per hour, so I doubt that would produce anything observable.

While not useful for the video, you could examine carefully the LM shadow as seen from the cockpit, depicted before the EVA in Roll 40 and after the EVA in Roll 37. Roll 37 lacks a reseau grid, though, and the zero phase angle will make it difficult to locate the shadow by reference to terrain.