I got an email from a reader who pointed me to this page: The Museum of Hoaxes. This came out in 1977, after Kaysing claims he had already determined the landings were a hoax (and guess how much I trust his claims), so it almost certainly didn't start the hoax idea. I wonder how many people still point to it and believe it, though.

Go the the Enterprise Mission message board, and you'll find out. It's pretty appalling.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

TBA, what on Earth are you talking about, man?

That page is about a TV show, done as an April Fool's Day joke, that claimed the Moon landings were faked. The show was aired in the UK in 1977.

ToSeek: Go the the Enterprise Mission message board, and you'll find out. It's pretty appalling.

I have been to the Enterprise Mission message board several times. I haven't wrote anything there, but I have looked through it.
Nibiru? Nemesis? Planet X? Hollow Moon? I guess people will believe anything before learning some real astronomy.

__________________
~AstroMike

I couldn't find anything in a brief search on the message board, though I did find five sites that appear to believe this April Fool's joke:

truinsight

Nazis on the Moon

Thule.org (This one includes a clipping quoting the original writer as well as a link to an HB page.)

Best Video Productions

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

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ToSeek on 2002-02-08 13:33 ]</font>

Didn't Capricorn One come out about the same time? Hmmmm... I think I smell a conspiracy. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

K. Hovis: Didn't Capricorn One come out about the same time?

Capricorn One was released in 1978. What your's point? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img]

_________________
"The contemplation of celestial things will make man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs." -Marcus Cicero

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: AstroMike on 2002-02-08 14:09 ]</font>

Bah! All of this is preceded by James Bond who, if you recall, stumbles over a fake moon set in the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever. A number of people believe this to be a huge whistle blow, including David Percy. Apparently DP got a few important facts regarding the script writing wrong, and so his claim has been thrown out. I still find it quite an interesting claim, myself. As I currently understand it, nobody has taken credit and no explanation has been forthcoming for why the scene was included. There are also a few vague references from James Bond regarding radiation shielding.

Bah! Ian Fleming died in 1964, and he wrote Diamonds Are Forever in 1956, two years before NASA was incepted.

Here's Clavius' dismissal: http://www.clavius.org/movies.html

__________________
~AstroMike

Wait a sec...

You're suggesting that because a James Bond movie showed a "fake" lunar surface (er, make that a fake fake lunar surface, since it was a movie set of a fake lunar surface), that this is somehow evidence that the Apollo missions were faked?

[boggle]
This follows how?
[/boggle]

If I recall that scene correctly, it took place in the facility of a NASA contractor; there was a guy in an EVA suit on the fake moon, picking up rocks with a long tool. JB hijacks his lunar rover and uses it to escape.

You don't suppose they might have wanted to give the astronaut some training before they sent him up there? You don't suppose they might have needed to show this to give our hero a plausible reason to stumble across a vehicle he could escape in -- one that would make for an interesting and unusual chase sequence?

Man, sometimes I just can't believe how [insert invective here] some people can be.

Addendum: just read the Clavius refutation of the HB claims about Fleming. While it easily refutes the idea that Fleming himself might have been a lunar-hoax whistle blower, it doesn't address the question of why the scene was there, leaving open the possibility that somebody else involved in the production was a whistle blower. But as I tried to express above, there's no mystery as to why the scene was included.

Remember, when the movie was written, the general public had never seen a lunar rover. If Bond was to escape in one, there had to be a setup shot so that people would understand what that funny-looking go-kart thing was. Hence the scene of a practice lunar EVA.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Donnie B. on 2002-02-08 16:57 ]</font>

AstroMike: Bah! Ian Fleming died in 1964, and he wrote Diamonds Are Forever in 1956, two years before NASA was incepted. Here's Clavius' dismissal:

I am not promoting the Ian Fleming angle. Quite the opposite, in fact. So your dismissal is completely uncalled for.

I think I read somewhere that the scene in question was introduced much later for the screenplay. Perhaps Jay can shed some light on that.

Donnie, no, I'm not suggesting James Bond is proof of anything. I'm just saying that this film is the earliest reference I know of and it happens to be an interesting one.

Donnie B.: You don't suppose they might have wanted to give the astronaut some training before they sent him up there?

Nah, they had the whole slow motion thing going on. If it was aboveboard they would have instinctively grabbed him as he raced across the set. As it was the astronauts continued to glide as he made his escape, indicating they were being filmed or suchlike.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Squirm on 2002-02-13 11:05 ]</font>

In the movie, Bond comes across a secret simulation training exercise which foreshadows Specter's more sinister lunar intentions. In some other later Bond film, there's an entire orbiting space station, which would have required a lot of secret Specter launches and money. Funny how movies seem to predate hokum and mumbo jumbo beliefs. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

James Bond. What a man. There are so many contrived scenes in these movies just because things are current news that JB usually ends up somewhere groovy. There's no need for him to slide down the Millenium Dome in London in his last(?) film, but it was there at the time, so they made it fit the film. Why did JB wander around the pyramids in one of his films? Why does he go anywhere? Because it makes interesting viewing.

The radiation shields mentioned in the film and jumped upon by DP (cool) were never meant to be regarded as spacecraft radiation shields. In laboratories where X-rays or radiation is used, everyone wears a little yellow badge called a 'radiation shield'. Every few months, they are all collected and checked to see what dose everyone has been exposed to. This is called 'checking the radiation shields'. I've worn one for a while. No big deal. It's even obvious that it's the little badges that they are talking about in the film. The lab tech even gives one to JB. DP has just taken a single line of dialogue completely out of context and turned it into a global conspiracy.

Well, it must seem quite petty arguing over the likes of James Bond, especially to those who don't much care for this topic, but..

John: Every few months, they are all collected and checked to see what dose everyone has been exposed to. This is called 'checking the radiation shields'.

I think you may be missing the point, John. If this was a whistle blow then it is only natural that the message is going to be slightly obscure. Wouldn't you agree?

The message is, of course "You can't be too careful about radiation. Where is your radiation protection?".

Like I said earlier, I do find this interesting, especially as there is quite some emphasis when he challenges him on this issue. Of course, this could be nothing, but then again..

And from his commentary I think DP (cool?) is more interested in the fact that these two scenes feature so close together, and that someone was animated enough to do this as early as 1971.

Radiation.mp3 [254 KB]




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Squirm on 2002-02-12 13:39 ]</font>

<a name="20020209.8:03"> page 20020209.8:03 aka " A.B.C. "
On 2002-02-08 17:58, johnwitts wrote: To: JD2452315.8:03
8: Reacll there are many Many ways to COUNT radiation
7: personally i use the click methode
The radiation shields mentioned in the film and jumped upon by DP (cool) were never meant to be regarded as spacecraft radiation shields. In laboratories where X-rays or radiation is used, everyone wears a little yellow badge called a 'radiation shield'.6:
5: {it wind up as a COUNT of clicks{events} per time unit
4: usually per second anyway my poit here was
3: recently on TV the A remained Atomic
& the Bremained Biological but it seamed to me,
{I wasn't paying much attention} that the 3rd changed From Chemical to Radiation? No I dont understand. 4get it.

The message is, of course "You can't be too careful about radiation. Where is your radiation protection?".

I assume this is a quote from the film. The badge is the protection. It protects by measuring the total amount of radiation recieved by the wearer. There's a piece of photographic film in there, and how cloudy it gets depends upon the exposure to radiation. It's not some magic device that stops exposure, just a check of accumulated dose. If a wearer is found to have recieved a particularly high dose, they can be checked out medically or their post changed. There's only a mystery here if you don't understand how these things are managed.

I think I read somewhere that the scene in question was introduced much later for the screenplay. Perhaps Jay can shed some light on that.

I don't have any specific knowledge about how and when that scene was introduced, but I know the screenplay was written by the end of 1970.

The interpretation of the scene -- i.e., what it intends to depict -- is still an open question. It's certainly possible it was intended as a whistle-blow, but by Broccoli, Salzman, and Maibaum (the creative forces behind it).

The question I attempt to answer on Clavius is merely whether or not Fleming had any involvement in it. Fleming was involved in covert operations during WWII and is properly considered an "insider" in the British intelligence community, although probably not to the extent generally believed by Britons. This makes him an attractive character for David Percy to weave into a conspiracy theory. Percy can argue that his contacts in British Intelligence informed him of their knowledge of the American plans to falsify the moon landing.

Richard Maibaum is simply a Hollywood screenwriter with no such inside knowledge. He cannot be expected to have inside knowledge. Therefore it makes far less sense to claim this is a whistle-blow if Maibaum wrote it. The scene doesn't appear in the book.

But it does demonstrate just how poorly David Percy researches his claims. He promised us incontrovertible proof, and instead he delivers offhand assertions which are easily shown to be in contrast with well-established fact.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JayUtah on 2002-02-10 09:23 ]</font>

<a name="20020210.7:51"> page 20020210.7:51 aka Lu HUb' D'b Aga HUb'
On 2002-02-10 08:53, JayUtah wrote: To: Temp 2 BEN 11 PAX
1:Chances are the chances are AWFully good
2:that i'll just wind up D'baiting self
3:as to just how far the Moon was away
4:from Earth at any given time
5: "USING" data coming out of Texas
6: and the University down there
Undoubtedly WELL FUNDED.

If this was a whistle blow then it is only natural that the message is going to be slightly obscure. Wouldn't you agree?

I certainly don't agree. This notion of subtle sabotage intended as whistle-blowing is an invention of conspiracy theorists. It's not how whistle-blowing works in the real world. By definition whistle-blowing is substantial, unmistakable, and overt. "Sneaky" whistle-blowing would be far more dangerous and ineffectual. The whistle-blowing process described by Percy and others is a fabrication to explain the vast gulf between their conclusions and observed fact, not to describe how people actually behave.

Compare the story of the prisoners who were forced to forge "white fivers" during WWII. They thought about introducing subtle "whistle-blows" into the notes but decided against it. They knew that the Nazis would be inspecting the notes with far greater scrutiny than a British banker whom the prisoners hoped would be the one to see the intentional flaws. They saw that sort of subtle whistle-blowing as a good way to get themselves killed without accomplishing anything.

The badge is the protection. It protects by measuring the total amount of radiation recieved by the wearer.

We should also at this point differentiate between emission and dosage. Geiger counters attempt to measure emission, which is the amount of radiation given off by a source. Dosage is the amount of radiation trapped by an object or organism, and that is the important measure.

It is also important to differentiate skin dose, which is that measured by the film dosimeter, and dose in various organs and bone, which is where the damage is done. Skin dose is converted to internal dose by a complex statistical model. In the 1950s test subjects would swallow film capsules on a string to calibrate internal doses in comparison to skin doses.

For particle dosages it's not uncommon to have a high skin dose but relatively little internal dose.

The real point, I guess, is that it's impossible to accurately measure internal dose, and darn near impossible to compute it according to a theoretical model. Models of irradiation exist, of course, but they are very difficult to apply to any given situation since there are so many variables involved.

Rule of engineering: Never compute what you can measure; never measure what you can look up.

Squirm said: "...they had the whole slow motion thing going on. If it was aboveboard they would have instinctively grabbed him as he raced across the set. As it was the astronauts continued to glide as he made his escape, indicating they were being filmed or suchlike."

Well, sorry old chap, but that doesn't make sense.

Think about it.

The astronauts are being filmed as part of some hoax. They're doing the whole slow motion thing. Then James Bond runs across the set. So the astronaut-actors grab for him in slow motion.

Why the ... would they do that?

Don't you think they'd figure that scene is going to have to be filmed again? So they don't really need to keep up the pretence, do they?