I work for a major publication, in their mail room, and our book editor/critic recently received "the Moon Hoax Review," which looked like a small, glossy journal about how the Apollo missions were faked. However, upon review, which I quickly did because I'm not supposed to look at other people's mail, it turned out to be some promo material for a book called "the Loony" by Christopher Wunderley. Its a novel and recounts how a scientist helped fake the lunar landings and then, of course, gets caught up in all the conspiracy stuff. There was, however, a ton of quotes by famous writers saying the book was hilarious and crazy and absurd and such. I think it said it comes out in 2005, but I couldn't really inspect the contents too much. I just thought I'd give everybody a heads up.

I have no problem with the notion of a moon landing hoax considered as a theme for fiction. In fact, I would eagerly read such a novel or see such a movie.

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Posting the same thing three times is considered spamming. I deleted the other two posts, so please continue from this one.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

nothing on google from Wunderley and moon hoax--in fact, "Christopher Wunderley" doesn't get me a hit either

It's a hoax, it's a hoax!

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First let me say sorry for "spamming," at first I didn't realize I could create my own posting and so, I looked for postings about books - so, my apologies to everybody for posting my message too many times.
Second, it isn't a hoax. I saw it yesterday come through our mail room. However, the book doesn't come out for awhile - 2005. We don't usually receive stuff for our book editor/critic so early, but our movie critic will receive all sorts of promo stuff for movies that aren't due to come out for a whole year. So, that's my guess about why there's nothing on it yet. The writer's name is Wunderlee too, not Wunderley, as I previously posted.
I was only able to take a quick look at the material, since I'm not supposed to really read the stuff, just make sure it gets to whoever its posted to, but it is indeed about a scientist who helps the space program fake the Apollo lunar landings.
I know for a fact the book is called "the Loony" and there's a tagline that says: Did any of it ever really happen? With a picture of Aldrin's footprint in the lunar soil.

Here is the only book that Chris Wunderlee appears to have written so far. However, after reading the description of the book, a moon hoax novel sounds like the type of thing that he would write.

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Capricorn One IMDB link, the 1978 movie about a faked Mars manned mission

That is the right author. A quick web search showed it to be him. There’s a random quote in which he says: “The Loony is in good hands,” although I don’t know the reason for his response. Also, it’s not the only book he’s published. There’s a poetry book called Kalopsia, which means (I’m paraphrasing) a state when things appear more beautiful than they really are. It does sound like he’d write a book about faking the lunar missions.

Now that this thread has become quiescent, I hope it'll be OK to go rather far OT.

Every time I've seen the thread title in the forum list, I've thought that "The Loony" would be a great name for an annual award in the conspiracist segment of the entertainment industry.

Loonys would be awarded in various categories, like "Best use of an ordinary household appliance in an invalid demonstration of a misunderstood principle" or "Best supporting unsupported assertion".

The awards show could be televised live, from Roswell NM, of course.

Soon we'd be seeing hoax video and book promoters advertising their products as

"Nominated for six Loonys at the 2005 Roswell Film Festival!" :wink:

LOL
I wonder what categories Bart Sibrel could be nominated for.

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If only closed minds came with closed mouths!

For those interested, I came upon the site for the book.

Click here

A novella? The excerpt makes it appear to be a work of dramatic fiction rather than an attempt to prove the landings were faked.

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Something about this thread and its poster is not quite right.

What makes you say that? :-k

What is wrong with me posting?

It seems like you're trying to promote the book.

To be fair, it's been clear from the first post that we're talking about a novel, which is presumed to be a work of fiction. I don't think the author is claiming it's a historical theory.

The site for the book contains, however, a link called "proof" which purports to give evidence that the book's character, a Dr. Albert Lochner, was a real person assigned to Apollo. The achievement award there is a blatant forgery. So I don't know what to think. If it's a novel, then obviously the people aren't expected to be real and there wouldn't be any paper trail to establish their identities. But then why try to create one? To create some illusion of authenticity?

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I guess I don’t see the difference between “promoting” something on here and announcing something. I’ve seen quite a few announcements for new books, shows and other things on the message board. I thought this was one of the purposes of it.
I’ve read things here for a long time, as well as at Clavius and Moon Hoax, been interested in the Moon Hoax debate ever since Fox’s lame show. I’ve been following it ever since, mostly through these websites. But, I’m an admitted amateur. I read replies and can’t believe how much many of the posters know about these subjects. This was the first time I had information to offer. Information I thought no one else would have but would be interested in. I got excited and “spammed” accidentally. When I read that people were interested, I did what I’ve observed people on this message board do before, I tried to gather more information.
It is a novel, or novella. I don’t know about the Proof thing. I’ll leave it up to the experts then.

I would prefer that posters here do not accuse other posters here of nefarious scheming without some pretty good evidence. Doing otherwise goes against the spirit of this board and the website.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

I guess I don’t see the difference between “promoting” something on here and announcing something.

The difference between promotion and announcement is often just the amount of enthusiasm. Perhaps readers here are mistaking your enthusiasm for some vested interest in the book itself. That's likely just a misunderstanding, and I suggest you ignore it and keep posting as you see fit.

It is a novel, or novella. I don’t know about the Proof thing. I’ll leave it up to the experts then.

It's been described from the start as a novel or novella, so we can safely assume, until proven differently, that its author doesn't intend to purport its content as fact. But the author of the site seems to have supplied information that suggests "Dr. Albert Lachner", the presumed hero of the novel, was a real person who actually worked for NASA. Some of that information is clearly forged.

Now the landscape becomes a bit ambiguous. It's been common in recent years to use verisimilitude to promote purely fictional products. So there may be a perfectly innocent motive behind trying to create a documentary history for the characters in the novel. But because the moon hoax theory in general -- and most conspiracy theories -- involve people with fabricated or inflated credentials, we can't leave out the possibility that the "novel" might be taken seriously, either intentionally or inadvertently.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Here is what I wrote at ApolloHoax regarding the authenticity of the Apollo Achievement Award.

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Clavius Moon Base