This has probably been addressed lots of times in the countless posts of this section. Moderator please remove if I am repeating what has been said by others.
What is most puzzling about these CT's is, why did nobody of the hundreds of thousands of persons involved in the Moon landings for example, come forward and said, “there never was a moon landing. I was there. It was a hoax and I was forced never to reveal anything”. This is so completely against human nature to remain silent about anything as serious as this.
A famous Afrikaans poet, writer and philosopher, CJ Langenhoven once stated ( freely translated from Afrikaans), “ if you ever want a story to spread like a wild fire, reveal as a deepest secret to a neighbor – preferably one who is married”
What I also find amazing is how aggressive and abusive these conspiracy theorists become once you drive them into a corner. Must be in their nature.

Phil

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This has probably been addressed lots of times in the countless posts of this section.

Not recently, as I recall. But it has been discussed.

What is most puzzling about these CT's is, why did nobody of the hundreds of thousands of persons involved in the Moon landings for example, come forward and said, “there never was a moon landing. I was there. It was a hoax and I was forced never to reveal anything”.

The common answers are:

1. They did, but in subtle whistle-blowing ways that fool well-qualified scientists and technicians and the public at large, but can't slip by some college drop-out living in his parents' basement peering at enlarged JPEGs on his computer monitor.

2. They did, and published their findings. Bill Kaysing, for example, tried hard to style himself as a whistle-blowing insider even though he was only peripherally involved. Several people have come forward subsequently claiming to be intimately associated with NASA, accusing NASA of one kind of shenanigan or the other. But their involvement invariably turns out to be overstated.

3. They were about to, but NASA creatively murders them just before they're about to give any evidence -- including evidence that they were about to give evidence. Gus Grissom is commonly cited as just such a victim.

4. NASA carrots and sticks are just that good.

What I also find amazing is how aggressive and abusive these conspiracy theorists become once you drive them into a corner. Must be in their nature.

Likely. I believe much conspiracism derives from paranoia, therefore when you activate the paranoia response by disagreeing with a conspiracist's world view you get the fight-or-flight response.

Most conspiracists are completely unequipped to deal with the notion that someone simultaneously knows the facts and disagrees with their opinion. Most of the people they encounter don't know enough about space exploration and history to challenge the conspiracy theory. When they meet someone who does, there is usually a rather comical attempt to bluster their way onto a pedestal of superior knowledge, followed by ill-mannered attempts to discredit their opponent on irrelevant and personal grounds.

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Clavius Moon Base

Thank you Jay for responding. I have read many of your posts and realize that you are an expert in this field. Therefore I really appreciate your input.

Thanks a million.

Phil

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The CTs would say that they would but they are all bribed and/or scared and won't. The more likely answer is there is nothing to talk about because there wasn't a hoax.

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Now in the case of alien contact they would say the the government is bound by the Constitution. Part of the preamble " to insure domestic tranquility" Some would argue that the revelation of aliens would create panic. Perfect example at the time at the height of UFOlogy was the War of the Worlds broadcast.

The time of the height of "UFOlogy" was the 1960s and 1970s. "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast (called "The Panic Broadcast" in the title of scriptwriter Howard Koch's book) by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater was on October 30, 1938.

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...and what do UFO's have to do with the Moon Hoax??

Some folks just can't keep all their hoaxes and ducks in a row, it seems.



Re the OP, the Occam answer is, once again, because there was nothing to talk about.

For example, there is a vast conspiracy to cover up the invisible elf in Van Rijn's backyard. How do I know this? Because everyone with any knowledge of the elf has been threatened by the evile gubment and thus has been kept quiet.

Of course there are a few individuals who express such knowledge, but they're obviously on the fringe, are dissed by the GDAs, and the gubmint will get them eventually, even if only to fake their "natural" death at age 82.

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Of course one could say that about every scandal (Watergate for example) and crisis (Cuban Missile crisis for example) that has happened. Yet each one of those has been reveled, either at the time or shortly after. So that argument doesn't seem to hold water.

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Some would argue that the revelation of aliens would create panic.

Who, exactly? Who argues this except for UFO enthusiasts groping for some reason why no such revelation has occurred?

Perfect example at the time at the height of UFOlogy was the War of the Worlds broadcast.

The height of ufology was much later than this broadcast.

Further, you fail to distinguish between the "alien" aspect of the broadcast and the "invasion" aspect. The Welles broadcast created a panic not because it talked about extraterrestrial life, but because it alleged that the U.S. was under attack.

And what does this have to do with allegations that NASA defrauded the taxpayers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for Apollo? How does the Constitution cover that?

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Clavius Moon Base

One other aspect to some of the CT claims is that only a small number of people were true insiders who knew there was a hoax. All the others who worked on the Apollo program thought it was all real, and were duped like the general public.

There's so much wrong with this it's hard to know where to begin. And, of course, no CT is willing to commit to a specific number of insiders, or even an order of magnitude. Apparently just enough people knew about it to pull off the hoax, but not quite enough so one of them would blow the whistle, ever.

Oh, also, if I'm not mistaken (and IANA Constitutional law expert) the preamble to the Constitution has no force of law, except where its sweeping generalities have been used to guide court decisions.

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"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

One other aspect to some of the CT claims is that only a small number of people were true insiders who knew there was a hoax.

Right; I forgot about that one. Unfortunately that's not how people work. You can't compartmentalize people to the point where all of them fail to recognize a hoax, or that the degree of compartmentalization is itself suspicious. When you're talking about the true insiders, you can't just withhold vital information. You have to make them think they're doing an ordinary project under ordinary circumstances.

And, of course, no CT is willing to commit to a specific number of insiders, or even an order of magnitude.

Not quite true. A few have gone on record saying things like "fewer than 100 people." Unfortunately they just pull these numbers wishfully out of some orifice. They don't offer any rationale for their estimate other than that's what they need to be true.

Oh, also, if I'm not mistaken (and IANA Constitutional law expert) the preamble to the Constitution has no force of law, except where its sweeping generalities have been used to guide court decisions.

The preamble is not binding. The articles and amendments carry the actual power. However the preamble need not be binding in order to guide some agency of government in acting within its powers granted elsewhere to carry out some action. The problem is that the "sweeping generalities" can be variously interpreted on both sides of this question. Keeping the lid on aliens might be one person's idea of ensuring domestic tranquility, but the justice, welfare, and liberty clauses might be used by others to argue that government has no right to withhold such a momentous fact from the people.

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Clavius Moon Base

Well you could have gotten the Aerospace Industry to design and build the vehicles required, then just not used them. That would eliminate the construction teams from the hoax. You use military personnel who were assigned to "Vietnam" for your hoax crew and them have them "Killed in Action" after you are done with them. Mission control wouldn't know if the signal was real or not so that keeps them out of the loop if required, so really we're down to what? Those in charge, those that designed and built the secret roverer gatherers, and the crews and those on the landing pad who would need to know that the crew weren't going and sneak them out, so what's that, about 100 people?

Of course it begs the obvious questions of where did the extra money come from, and if you had equipment that could get you to the moon, why not actually just use it?

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

October 30, 1938 to be exact. According to qualitative studies UFO interest peaked from the middle 1960s to the late 1970s, just about the same time that the first wave of New Age "thinking" occurred.

I'm pretty sure that at the time of "The Panic Broadcast" the term UFO hadn't been coined yet (American Word Origins has it listed as from 1953), and "UFOlogy" was just a gleam in some proto-CTer's conspiratorial eye.

BTW, I've got a recording of the entire CBS broadcast. It's a fun listen. "Isn't there anyone on the air? Isn't there ... anyone?"

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remember the flashy thingy in "Men in Black"? i bet they just used them on the entire population of the world to make them honestly think we sent men to the moon. the people that think there is a conspiracy were inside buildings with tinted windows and had their tv's turned off when they set off the flashes, so they weren't affected.

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I believe that explains one of the reasons why the conspiracy is to far out there to be true.

I was going to suggest some well trained members of the Ministry of Magic using "Obliviate"

And let's not forget those NASA death squads that were responsible for the deaths of Thomas Baron (murdering HIM after he made his testimony) and Christa McAuliffe (blowing up the shuttle instead of i.e. staging a traffic accident).
It was obviously* a very clever ploy. Kill them in a way, that wouldn't make sense to a sane person, and only the enlightened HPs will see through it.

*this must be one of the favourite words for HPs

You forgot to add, using a magnifying glass.