I know we've discussed Cosmic Dave's Apollohoax page a lot on this board (or rather you have. This was before I joined), but I was looking over his UFOs page and was thoroughly amused. I couldn't find any major discussion of this page in any search I did.

First, he shows AS12-49-7319 and says Neil Armstrong said a huge ball of light hovered over him for some time. Firstly, it's an Apollo 12 photo. Secondly, it's obviously a flare or scatter or something like that which happens all the time. I see it myself in some of my own photos.

The last photo he shows from Apollo 11, firstly shows a mountain range which is completely foreign to the Apollo 11 landing site and secondly, looks more like an artist's impression, although it could just be a shoddy quality pic.

The first transcript he provides is an remarkable non-sequitor. Altough I couldn't match it to anything from ALSJ, it sounded more like they were discussing debris in a crater which served as evidence of a secondary crater having splashed that debris in there. At the end, he says that they are talking in code. Brilliant. What they're saying is nothing to do with UFOs so in order to make it sound like they are, Dave just says they're speaking in code. There's a circular argument if I ever heard one. It also depends on Dave's own subjective interpretation of how excited they should be getting over selenology.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

The biggest problem with this page from Cosmic Dave is that on it he makes frequent references to his moon hoax theory page. Vast numbers of people have tried to explain to Dave that if the Apollo materials were shot on a soundstage in Burbank or Area 51, then it doesn't make a lot of sense to use that material as "proof" of UFOs. Mr. Cosnette hasn't grasped the notion that the Apollo materials have to be real in order to matter to his UFO argument.

First, it's inexcusable that he should use such poor quality photos when excellent renditions of those photos are freely available. This collection of thoroughly hazy and noisy Apollo photos, complete with wildly inaccurate captions, can be found on a number of UFO sites as "proof" of UFOs seen on Apollo missions.

His "alien spacecraft" are simply blobs of light with rather straightforward optical explanations. Many of them even appear only in the extremely poor quality versions of the photos. I'm sure the UFO crowd will claim they're "enhanced" or whatever to show the "alien". I can "enhance" holiday snaps in like fashion to show how common these artifacts are, but when I do this the UFO crowd just claims I've captured UFOs on holiday snaps.

In case you recall, Mr. Cosnette is not very proudly endowed in the critical thinking department.

We discussed these transcripts on one of the Yahoo groups. Basically, they're fabricated. Although Dave claims they are "corroborated by hundreds of amateur radio operators," he can't name any of them. And for those of us who read the Apollo transcripts, they don't sound very much like the people involved. For example, they've got Neil Armstrong almost paralyzed with fear, and Chris Craft [sic] swearing over the radio.

Some of the purported conversations incorporate sections of actual dialogue. We've verified some in the official transcripts, but they're always heavily edited and rearranged, borrowing a phrase from here or there. They're doctored to make them sound more mysterious, and the "code" phrases are simply words that the "editor" has inserted. Other "code" phrases are simply the normal Apollo jargon which anyone can understand who cares to study a bit. And yes, some of them are perfectly normal conversations that UFO enthusiasts vehemently claim "must" refer to UFOs.

Dave Cosnette rests a lot on the testimony of Maurice Chatelain, who he claims was "former chief of NASA communications". Such a person in a prominent post would have been remembered by someone, but no one at NASA has heard of Chatelain. After a little digging we discovered that Maurice Chatelain had worked as a low level technician for one of the subcontractors (RCA, if memory servces) but had been fired prior to Apollo 11. He never saw MOCR and likely only worked for a few days in one of the back rooms, not during any mission.

In short, this page -- like so many other offerings from "Cosmic" Dave Cosnette -- is an amusing assemblage of innuendo, fabricated "fact", poor reasoning, and fantasy.

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

Most conspiracists are at least sensible enough to realise that trying to say that both man never went there and that they went there are found weird alien stuff is a glaring contradiction that will expose them for the muppets they are.

Some other things I noticed:

• In an Apollo 17 excerpt, they mention a DMP. Wasn't DMP the Docking Module Pilot, as in Deke Slayton on ASTP?
• In an Apollo 16 discussion, they interview a geologist named El-Baz who pronounces that he isn't sure what they're doing, but that doesn't stop Dave from trying to make him sound pro-conspiracy.
• In the Apollo 11 excerpt, the phrase, "Mission Control calling Apollo 11" turns up. That's doesn't sound like something they would say.
• At the bottom, the photo ID's for Apollo 15 and 16 don't exist.
• The mysterious UFO in AS12-50-7346 is the S-IVB. Anyone remotely familiar with Apollo should at least be able to identify an S-IVB.

I know we say a lot about the Dark Lord, Sibrel and that lot, but Cosmic Dave desperately needs to be charged with Crimes Against Intelligence.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

I don't care about the DMP, maybe some typo or anything.
Farouk El-Baz is really existing. He trained the CMPs for the lunar observations from lunar orbit. He must be a great guy and surely no believer of such crap. In ST:TNG, they even had a shuttle named after him.

His webpages are at http://www.bu.edu/remotesensing/Facu...az/FEBbio.html

Harald

Should perhaps have been CMP, for command module pilot.

After looking at it again, it says it's lunar module pilot, but that would be LMP.

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"... to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson, Ulysses

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ToSeek on 2003-03-10 11:08 ]</font>

It's true, it really is. Some people, it seems, actively work against intelligence. They're not just stubbornly overlooking the obvious. This goes beyond that.

I wasn't really familiar with Cosmic Dave prior to this. So I am presently quite astounded to learn that there are people stupid enough to a) claim that the Apollo landings were hoaxed, and b) claim that the Apollo data are evidence of aliens on the Moon. This guy doesn't just disregard logic; he flaunts his illogic!

Some people, it seems, actively work against intelligence. They're not just stubbornly overlooking the obvious.

I think I would put Dave Cosnette in that category. I urge you to put on a pot of coffee, go back to the original threads in which we discussed Dave's web site, and try not to throw things.

At one point Dave demanded to see evidence that terrain could produce shadow variations as seen in the 16mm DAC footage. I produced a series of photographs showing the phenomenon, as well as how to produce the effect oneself. I also provided photographs to show that David Percy's explanation actually produces the opposite results. Dave looked right at the page and said it proved absolutely nothing. That kind of denial takes either a mind fairly disconnected from reality, or fairly connected to the realities of lying for fun and profit.

So I am presently quite astounded to learn that there are people stupid enough to a) claim that the Apollo landings were hoaxed, and b) claim that the Apollo data are evidence of aliens on the Moon.

Well, there are people so literally disconnected from structured and useful thought that they simply don't see this as contradictory. Remember, most of them have a particularly anti-government bias, so anything that seems to portray the government in a bad light is "all good".

He's one of those people who is simply impervious to logic. Normally a logical discourse or debate ends with one person either seeing or admitting the error of his ways, or at worst agreeing to disagree on some key premise. Dave Cosnette is one of those people who is so illogical that he simply can't participate in a discourse with rational people. They run screaming from the room in frustration. He is literally someone who would point to a white horse and say, "That horse is black."

It doesn't matter whether he's knowingly lying or simply deluded to the point of psychosis. You can't have an intelligent conversation with him. It is particularly sad since he seems to want to be taken seriously in the mainstream.

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

Some examples of the illogic from Cosmic Dave's UFO page...

“Again we have another example of code being used to disguise what has been found. For example, "Condorset Hotel".”

Big conspiracy! Condorcet (sp?) is the name of a crater.

= = = =

“We came upon – Barbara.”

From the ALSJ:

128:33:06 England: Okay, just a question now for you, John. When you got to Halfway or what you decided was Halfway, we understand you looped around the south, is that right?
128:33:19 Young: That's affirm.
128:33:23 England: In any of the craters that you looked into...

In other words, no reference to Barbara.

= = = =

“You don't suppose it could be Vostok?” (a Russian probe).

= =

True. It’s also the name of a crater on the Moon.

The rest of the conversation is so illogical, even though it uses a lot of familiar Apollo jargon, that it’s easy for me to believe this is a fabricated conversation. Terms like “Omni Bravo” relate to the communications system, though I don’t remember the details.

= = = =

Wilson writes (p.142): "And we might add that this is a very strange conversation. What are the real meanings of such terms used here as structure, blocked field, beaches, benches, terraces and the like? NASA claims that they are just metaphoric terms to describe unusual natural formations."

And we might agree with NASA.

= = = =

“Strange Apollo 17 conversation about "Watermarks" on the Moon…”

“It almost looks like a pattern as if the water were flowing up on a beach.”

That’s about as much of a hedge as you’ll find in a simile.

And so it goes...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Peter B on 2003-03-11 19:18 ]</font>

Wasn't Comic Dave also the one, who after being told the reason there were not any stars in the lunar sky in the Apollo photographs and his claim that it proved they were fake didn't hold water, later found what he thought was a star in one and said "See, A STAR you said there wouldn't be any, they ARE fake."

I can barely write a paragraph trying to explain it, let alone follow the logic...

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"Ignorance has caused more calamity than malignity" H.G. Wells

"Getting lost is part of exploring." Uniqua in "Backyardigans-Heart of the Jungle"

Correct.

He uses the same logic on his site with regard to the lack of a flame from the engine of the Lunar Module Ascent Stage: most twinkies are concerned that there's no visible flame. We point out there shouldn't be one. Dave points to the briefly visible flame at ignition and considers us proven wrong.

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_mad.gif[/img] or [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img]

or

Does someone have a gif for a smiley banging its head against a brick wall?

"Cosmic" Dave Cosnette appears to have an inferiority complex the size of Cydonia. His method is blatantly obvious. He tries to trap his opponents into what he can define as a contradictory position. Then, "obviously," if his opponents are confused or unclear, his theory must "obviously" be correct, or at least plausible.

He's not interested in the truth. He's interested in appearing to be right.

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

But, I think that you guys have completely missed the point of both of his pages to be honest. He doesn't say that Man didn't go to the Moon, he says that the photographic evidence released by Nasa is not a true representation of the event. That would explain why he also has a page about anomalies on the Moon.

But he's arguing about studio lights and things on his Apollohoax page. He's arguing that the Apollo photos were mocked up on a soundstage of whatever and then proceeds to use them to as authentic evidence for his UFO conspiracism.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

Actually those are the same lines found in the openning of Percy and Bennett's book Dark Moon. I know these people are either totally clueless or just liars. I'll give you an example. In Dark Moon, there is a whole section on the landing of the Apollo 12 LM and the Surveyor III lunar lander. They say Surveyor III should be covered with dust, but say it 's not. Unfortunately, they only looked at and presented photographs that showed no dust, but they didn't examine the entire record. If you go to,

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/Hi...2/20153788.jpg

and look at the mirror, you can see that Pete Conrad has wiped his glove across it, removing the dust.

Totally clueless or liars.

Ask and ye shall receive.

I had the fortune to meet him once. Amazing guy with a tremendous knowledge of the Moon.



Um...... because they don't exist?

WHAT? IS THIS GUY OUT OF HIS MIND? I have never encountered Cosmic Dave before, nor his ideas. I'd give him a 6 on the Bart scale. WHAT? First of all, it is illogical to say the Moon's atmosphere is a vacuum; it is contradictory. The Moon does not have any atmosphere that is significant enough to speak of, so at its surface, you have a vacuum. Boy, is this guy a moron. "The laws of physics demand that dust becomes hardened and will compress in a vacuum"? What is he talking about? The compression of the dust is governed by the mechanical properties of the regolith, not the vacuum. Of course dust is spewed out from under the LRV; the tires kicked it up. I hate when theories get this bizarre because I have a hard time debunkeing them. "Vacuum theory", eh? It's not a theory. We have empirical evidence that the lunar surface is almost in a vacuum. I can't say much else because I don't really understand him.

I don't remember seeing clouds in the ALSJ....

I believe Cosmic Dave is referring to Apollo 13's oxygen cloud, due to the explosion. He doesn't offer more information so I have to infer. Urion was never 100 miles wide.

Really? Funny, I never saw those either. I also always assumed that Apollo 8 was one mission.

Huh?

Schmidtt? Why is Cernan at Mission Control?

Orion and Charlie Duke were on Apollo 16. Just a fair indication of the reliability of Dave.

Not in the ALSJ. "Mission Control calling Apollo 11"? not standard NASA phraseology.

At least they admit it's a lie.

Kraft.

Kraft was not the flight director on Apollo 11 at any time, and flight directors never speak directly with the astronauts. A lie. What is that "interference control calling Apollo 11" garbage?

A lie. That's all that can be said. This conversation simply never took place.

Afansayev's first flight was to Mir in 1990. "Solyut 6" was never a space station. Cosmic Idiot has a whole bunch of information about the UFO he saw - since it was 11 years before he first flew I won't bother to comment on it.

http://www.astronautix.com/astros/afaasyev.htm

No visible exhaust in a vacuum.

The military has an interest in space, understandably. But it's rare that DoD actually gives any money to NASA.

Were they?

Didn't know it was.

Three points:

No real evidence of a "Moon City" exists.

Apollo costed billions, not millions, and the last flight was in 1972.

The reason is waning public interest; NASA could not get the funding to build a lunar outpost.

Are they? Of course some photos were processed, but I don't think airbrushes were ever used.

They ain't, Dave.

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"Too low they build, who build beneath the stars". - Edward Young, 1745

Totally clueless or liars.

I originally voted for "totally clueless" but now I vote for "liars". People who go to such great lengths to avoid contrary evidence and talking about contrary evidence clearly aren't simply mistaken. After a while the selectivity can only be deliberate.

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