We have had a thread about the strongest piece of evidence that the moon landings were genuine here

I thought that I would open this thread for those arguments that come out of left field that we struggle with and sometime make us wonder if HB's have a point. Perhaps others can then show us how they are countered.

On strong one that came out from a discussion programme was about the radiation issue, answered here on the Clavius site.

I think the other argument that is quite powerful goes along the lines of "How can you believe all that, everone knows the US government lies and it was faked, I bet you still believe in the tooth fairy and Santa claus"

i.e the general distrust of governments and the nagging belief that they are all liars mixed in with peer pressure.

(Kind of countered by the fact that enemies of the US, at the time, verified that it was all on the level) :-?

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To me most of the big items, such as the radiation issue, are actually the easiest to debunk. The things I find more difficult to explain are the trivial items. For example, the one about Buzz Aldrin's disappearing antenna found here at Clavius. Unless you happen to know the antenna is a flat piece of metal it is hard to explain why it appears in one photo and not the other. These trivial items all have explanations and the do not even come close to challenging Apollo's authenticity, but it sometimes takes considerable research to find the answers.

As far as there being a strong piece of evidence for the hoax; I don't believe there is any.

This isn't powerful at all, in my opinion, because the argument is riddled with fallacies and prejudicial language.

The fact that "the government" has lied in the past does not serve as proof that it has lied in this case. That "everyone knows" that "it was faked" is demonstably false. Even if "everyone" were merely "most" or "many", it would still be a fallacy. A factually incorrect notion popularly held, is nevertheless incorrect...even if "everyone" believes it. The last bit is prejudicial language, likely to be associated with an ad hominem attack upon a hoax opponent. To summarize, the argument has no substance.

Another shibboleth are the old ones of "No smoke with out fire" ????? :-? and "all those people can't be wrong - there must be something in it" (which can apply to other insinuations as well) :-? :roll:

Mind you there have been times in thge past where the majority were wrong

Incidentally they will be re-showing a programme on UK C5 This Thursday at 7:30 about greatest conspiracy theories

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If there was any evidence to support it, any at all, then Una's "Coke bottle" on the moon's surface would do it. However, since she is the only person who claims to have seen it, since the letters to the editor she says she saw from others who did are not to be found in the archives, since her claim that she was watching the landings Live late at night is obviously wrong, this story is then nothing but a fiction.

Other than that there is nothing that has not been shown to be perfectly consistent with a real Moon landing.

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It's concluded, then, that there aren't any strong arguments.

What about the funniest arguments?

The funniest one presented in all seriousness is, IMO, the one about not being able to get from the CM to the LM because the heat shield is in the way.

The funniest joke argument was by somebody on this BB (I forget who but if you're reading this please remind me) - if the NASA rockets are so well engineered, how come large bits of them keep falling off while they are flying?

I think the Funniest REAL One ...

Was from that guy on GLP, who said, "In all the Ascent Videos I've Ever Seen, they Always look Different, and There's NO Flame Visible!"

Well, not Only, is there a Visible Flame, on Pitch Over, But, There was ONLY ONE FILMED ASCENT!

#-o

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Actually, Apollo's 15, 16 and 17's ascents were all filmed from the LRV camera but Apollo 17's was, by far, the best. The others were lost pretty quicky by the camera after launch. It took Ed Fendell three times to get it right and the third was perfect!

Yep, all using The Camera on The Rover ...

15's was pretty much a Bolter, and 16's Started About Half a Second too Late, but as you stated, 17's was Downright Perfect, So Perfect, in fact, that it's The Only One usually Shown ...

Forgive me for Brevity, but it Helped to Make the Point.

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So is there a link to a copy of the Apollo 17 take off?

BTW, on the TV last night they had the claim that while they were supposed to be un the Moon, the apollo astronaughts got into a bar fight in Las Vegas over a show girl called Peachy - who they have not been able to trace :-?

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Did they look for her in Georgia?

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Actually 15's ascent wasn't filmed as the clutch on the camera tilt was playing up and they decided that they couldn't do it. 16's was okay but not wonderful due to it being late and for 17's they parked the rover too close to the LEM and lost sight of it after a few (6) seconds rather then following it all the way up as planned. Three chances to get the shot and they screwed up all three times. I guess they did that just to make the hoax convincing.

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Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Actually 15's ascent wasn't filmed as the clutch on the camera tilt was playing up and they decided that they couldn't do it.

The ascent wasn't followed, but it was filmed in a static shot. You still get to see the ascent stage blast off from the surface.

for 17's they parked the rover too close to the LEM and lost sight of it after a few (6) seconds rather then following it all the way up as planned.

May I respectfully suggest you rewatch the ascent footage. The ascent stage is in the frame for at least 20 seconds before drifting off the left hand edge (clip from the ALSJ), and as I recall it was recaptured again shortly afterwards.

Three chances to get the shot and they screwed up all three times.

That's a little harsh. The first attempt was ruined by a technical hitch, so hardly a screw-up. The second and third were bloody good attempts at a very difficult shot.

I guess they did that just to make the hoax convincing.

So the HBs would say. Funny how when it all goes well it's too good to be believable, but when something goes slightly wrong it's a deliberate attempt to avoid making it all look too perfect....

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Outstanding! The one I found at ALSJ cuts off at 13 seconds and didn't have any sound - at least for me. Ed Fendell really did a great job.

Thanks for the link Bob.

There has got to be a video game in that somewhere. Somebody made a game out of taking snapshots of the Lock Mess monster. This should be more fun - Try not to screw up your last opportunity to film a historic event, oh, and get jt-3d to know your name.

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I said ascent, not blast off. Two different things.


I'll cop to not checking the time, I was in a hurry and didn't have the time so used the figure someone had posted elsewhere when we where discussing it recently. however....

The shot itself wasn't all that difficult, it's just a case of mathematics and timing. They merely had rather bad luck in all three attempts. The first would have worked but for techinical stuff, the second was incorrect timing and the Astronauts screwed up the parking for attempt three, even though it still resulted in very good footage regardless. Had it been a movie set where they had an unlimited attempted to get it right all three wouild have ened up on the cutting room floor as failures, the fact that they didn't, shows that it wasn't.

Actually I was trying for irony against the usual claim that everything was too perfect, but yeah you are right, the usual response to being shown that photos and film are far from perfect when compared to what was wanted is that "They obviously did that one deliberately."

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It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Getting back to the original thread topic

Maybe not strong argument, but the main problem is the drip drip effect.

Was it Stalin who said if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it? and as I said in my maiden post oh so long ago, the US government has a credibility problem, not helped by the failure to find WMD's in Iraq.

It would be interesting to know how many people now believe in the hoax theory compared to the figures originally given by Fox. :-?

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Perhaps the goofiest argument in my book comes from Ralph Rene on the Fox Special when he says something like "it is my studied opinion, the Lunar Module's hatch was too small for an astronaut to go through". Of course, ignoring all of the televison and film footage of astronauts, trainers, engineers and even reporters going through a LM hatch suited up. And ignoring the fact that he could actually test this hypothesis in about 30 seconds with a ruler in his own home.

The second goofiest was Bart Siebrel's statement on a radio show that the landings were obviously fake because NASA never sent a telescope to the lunar surface. His conclusion was that the scientists could not convincingly fake a photo of a star (read: single point of light). But apparently they could convincingly fake 800 pounds of lunar samples, 20,000 plus photos, 60 hours plus of video, hundreds of hours of audio. But they could fake a photo of a star. It also shows the documentation that BS DOESN'T have in his library that any space historian should have, such as the Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report which shows a TELESCOPE on the front cover sitting in front of the LM. Or the Apollo 16 press kit, video collection, etc, which highlighted their telescope.