Hi all

Firstly, forgiveness if I ramble in this a little.

Originally, I intended to post about 2 questions inspired by my own personal HB, but sadly it has expanded.

Let me first deal with question 3 and 4.

Said personal HB came up with a new photo (from Aulis) which had 2 "C" markings, one on the rock and one on the ground for the "Prop man" to identify where he should place the rock. Naturally, I went to research this, but found only debunkings of the single C (and that search gets lots of results), but none for the 2 "C"s. Then I made the ultimate mistake of going to Aulis to find their image, and I happened upon this:

http://www.aulis.com/jackstudies_5.html

Compelling what? until you visit ALSJ http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-37-5458.jpg and find that they have simply flipped the image to make things appear as they wish.

So question 3 and 4 become these:
4. Does no one one the other side ever check?

And
3. Is there no redress for such misrepresentation?

Onwards to my personal HB and his question about the "2 C" dealy, and my 2 resulting questions.

2. Copious searches reveal any amount of debunking of the single "C rock", but if there is anything about the "2 Cs" then it is buried under all the single "C rock" debunk efforts, therefore pointers would be a help. Has this already been debunked?

and finally
1. My personal view. In order for the corresponding "c" on the ground to appear to be a perfect "C" as shown, the supposed props man would have to draw on the ground a design which would appear to be a perfect "c" from the cameras point of view given perspective. Such a design would look like an abstract design from any other viewpoint. As such, this would be a)pointless from the point of view of a "props man" attempting to identify a location on a sound stage, and b) why would they draw it in such a way that the "ground C" was perfect for the camera at that angle only and useless for the "prop crew" (or anything else at a different viewing angle) if its function was for the "props crew" only.

Is there any flaw in that line of reasoning?

My thanks for your forebearance


http://www.conspiracy-theories-hoax....-problems.html for a "2 c" image about 1/4 way down page. Sorry for small image but had too much Aulis to continue rummaging.

I've always felt that the 'C-Rock' argument was one of the most desperate, grasping-at-straws pieces of 'evidence' proposed.

The suggestion is that the 'C' is a Set Director's mark on a prop, designed to ensure that it is correctly placed in a giant stage set. Let's ignore the point that the 'C' is not seen on the master and go straight to the logical implication - that each rock on set has it's own designation (otherwise, what makes the 'C' rock different from its companion rocks that it warrants special attention?).

Look at the photo again. A cursory glance shows 20-odd reasonably sized rocks. That takes care of A to T, I suppose.

Probably a tougher job for the set designer is labelling his rocks for this particular image.

And he probably handed in his notice when they asked him to come up with this set-up...

(All three images are from the same magazine - Apollo 16 mission, magazine 107.) Utter nonsense argument.

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4. Does no one one the other side ever check?

They don't want to.

3. Is there no redress for such misrepresentation?

Yes: laugh at their desperation.

Has this already been debunked?

I thought I did on my web site, but I don't. Bad me.

The question is not why someone would write "C" on the ground so as to be visible from only the camera's point of view, but why it would be written at all.

Some people say "C" is how you mark the centerline of a stage. False. First, in film there is no "center" of a stage. Second, marks on a theatrical stage are very small, if they're there at all. Same with film. Third, the mark on a drawing that indicates the centerline is an elided "CL."

I've been in film and theater for 30 years, and none of what these people claim about film or theater is true. I've built props for professional theater -- you don't mark them. You don't mark with big letters where they go.

"C" is a very common shape: it's just a curve. If you enlarge random parts of the ground, you see all kinds of digits and letters. Do they all mean something? Now that we know the C on the rock is just a hair on a print, what makes that particular mark so important?

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That's a good comment. For a good example one just has to look at the logos on a sports field, when they do an interview or something and the field is not shown from the "regular" angle.

(The multiple shadows seen in a night game make the field a double-example...)

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Thanks for the comments

The logo on the football field is exactly the effect I was referring to.
Why didnt I think of that example? DOH!

I find the "C" rather far fetched as a prop marker or even an intentional c. How are props marked anyway? If it was me the why not R for rock. Then you have medium, large etc so that becomes RM for rock medium. You will have more than 1 so you need a numbering scheme to catalogue all the rocks so somewhere you could have RM 0000000000000000000000001. Then RS (for rock small) 00000000000000000000000000000001. Then there are the colours. Grey, slightly grey, not so grey etc etc. Well, maybe. Then why mark the set with the risk of being discovered?

Thinking out loud. And by no means qualifying myself here.
To claim that it is a prop marker then you need all the back up that goes with a film set for your theory. That includes people. Now IF I was to do it today I do not expect I would do it any different now as I would then. That is to film it end to end for each mission. Then you would have people check and re check everything to make sure the place is clean of anything to give the game away. After all, you are going to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the USSR who will be scouring any images and film for their own satisfaction. You need to convince the rest of the world as well but the race is to beat the USSR.

Back to the people mentioned second paragraph, first line. They talk. I doubt you would find enough in the forces that have spent years practicing slick filming and production techniques. This is not a swipe at the forces, just that they do not do this as an every day job. So the staff on a project like this have family. They talk to their families and I think you would be able to find out when staff were away that coincided with a launch and trip to the moon. "where you off to dad?" "cannot say son, back in three weeks". Which raises another issue if you think about it.

Then the USSR. They did things like track the launches as well as many amateurs. Many staff at the remote tracking sites were locals. So is you think about it, you can launch a rocket with three men in it. Take it a bit further you can get it around the moon. A bit further again you can orbit the moon and drop down to land. Why cheat on a sound stage? Also very hard to cheat with the rocks as well. Impossible?

Really once you show that the "C" on the rock is nothing but a hair in the photographic paper and isn't on the transparencies, the scans or other prints, and nor is it on the rock when shown in other images, the "C" on the ground becomes irrelevant and just a curve that can be interrupted as a "C"

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

Excuse the edit but its in reference to this link. Just a thought, its aimed at the first picture. You can look up something yourself. Go and get AS 16-107-17446. Get it from here in the Apollo 16 section.http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html
You can then load it into PS or similar and zoom in to the section mentioned in that link.

They do, they just ignore everything that doesn't fit into their "theory"

Ok; I've seen the C garbage before (and never saw the hair mentioned).

But; I too made the mistake of going there. New argument that is so lame, it shows that they are now grasping at straws.

Astronaut is shorter than the flag (when he's farther away) and taller than the flag (when he's closer to the camera) Yep; another perspective argument.

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How are props marked anyway?

They aren't. Occasionally I use Post-Its or string tags to mark props during production, cleaning, repair, and other backstage activity. But in all the theaters and films in my experience, no prop goes in front of an audience or a camera sporting any visible mark. It's just not done. Backstage, the prop goes on a table or shelf or box that may be marked. It's the property master's job (and also sometimes the actor's) to know what prop is what.

Then why mark the set with the risk of being discovered?

In many cases sets must be marked. On a theatrical stage, props must be placed to coincide with the preset lighting or with sightlines. Often that can be done simply by reference to other objects or features of the stage. Our stage has a multitude of lifts that feature seams in the deck, so we simply place objects relative to those.

Where precision is required, a small strip of tape made specially for that purpose is laid down by the stage manager and is generally invisible from the audience. The most such "spikes" I've seen were on Penn and Teller's stage in Las Vegas -- not inappropriate for a magic show. But they're invisible from the audience; you have to be on the stage to see them. Most spikes are actually covered by the object whose position they mark. You don't put a spike near where a prop goes. If someone had found it necessary for any reason to mark the position of the rock, then the rock would have gone over the mark, not behind it.

In film, actors must often hit marks that, again, coincide with lighting; or more likely -- with focus and camera sightlines. These marks are also made with spiking tape and can be very large so the actor can see them with peripheral vision. However, they are well outside the camera's field of view.

That all presumes motion. That is, a theatrical stage and a film set are filled with actors and objects in motion, requiring the limits of that motion to be identified and controlled. In a still photography set there is no need at all to mark positions of things. You place the objects; you take the pictures; then you're done.

The overriding philosophy for all that stage work is: don't let the audience see it. So very often conspiracy theorists try to tell us about theatrical methods and technology whose tell-tales they think they see in Apollo records. Unfortunately it just reveals that conspiracy theorists know as little about stagecraft as they do about astrophysics and space engineering.

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At high resolution the "C" on the ground just doesn't look like a C. It's more closely revealed as a clump of dust.

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People enjoy spotting gaffs in film; like the Indian wearing a watch in Last of the Mohicans. If you're trying to discredit NASA, and point out that as smart as they think they are, they're no better than Hollywood, why not point out a "simple" stage mistake such as this?

Afterall, using letters to mark props to stage points sounds reasonable, so that must be how it's done.

But the very argument hinges on the premise that NASA was so detailed in their production of this "Incredible hoax", as to go so far as create and unfeasibly huge soundstage that's also a vacuum chamber, meticulously edit photographs, ensure that any "cut" or unused film (bad takes, etc) gets destroyed to the very last film cel, etc. etc..... but they somehow missed this obvious gaff that exposes the whole thing.

And we're to believe all this inspite of the copious amounts of evidence, data, and accounts to the contrary.

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Re prop marking. Thanks. Thought it might just be a big shelf full of whatever's but not sure. Either way if you were going down the hoax route then to mark items starting with one letter does not seem enough to fit that theory anyway. I am coming at that from quality control side of things when we label every bit of kit we have with a unique alpha numeric etc. So we would estimate the numbers and then set out range for the data base.

The marking the set question. If I was going to carry this out and I am in charge then I would have no markings as referred to in the hoax. Then I would have no markings on any props either, idea before I had been put right on the prop marking. Just trying to think in hoax. Probably never get a grade.

Thought it might just be a big shelf full of whatever's but not sure.

I searched my photo collection unsuccessfully for pictures of my theater's prop areas. We use wall-mounted shelves on which we stake out areas with blue painter's tape for each individual prop. A spot of glow-tape goes down in one spot of the boundary, on which we write the name of the prop (e.g., "Arthur's mug") in black magic marker. This allows it to be read in the dark, even though the prop area has a 15-watt light bulb.

For 1776 (the production pertaining to my avatar) we had nearly 30 walking sticks and handkerchiefs. The handkerchiefs were embroidered with the characters' initials (one of the rare exceptions to marking a prop in an audience-viewable fashion), but that was for occupational health reasons. The walking sticks had been made particular to each actor's height, character, and activity. Franklin's, for example, was a replica of his actual walking stick from the Smithsonian. Adams' and Dickinson's sticks had to be made extra strong because they duel with them. There was no need to mark them. They were each unique and each actor knew which was his. They were simply kept in an umbrella stand backstage.

Other props simply don't get lost. I have a great photo somewhere of a 1934 Chevrolet Cabriolet parked just offstage. If you need to mark that "1934 Chevy Cabriolet" then you probably need to take a trip to the optometrist. And there are only a few places on the stage where it will go.

Again, the only reason these would need to be marked is if they ever moved from their positions. Working theatrical stages cycle through productions one after the other. You have to do the same thing consistently day after day.

Either way if you were going down the hoax route then to mark items starting with one letter does not seem enough to fit that theory anyway.

Of course not. If there ever needs to be a label, then the label is the name of the object. You say "Arthur's mug" or "Hat Stand," not "C" or "Y". If you're labeling rocks, then it's "Rock 32," not "C". "C" doesn't tell a stage hand what to put there. But on film sets they historically used Polaroid photos to document the positions of things -- now simple digital cameras. The set dressers go to work, and when everything is the way it should be, the continuity director or script supervisor comes in and photographs it all. Therefore if they ever need to recreate it (e.g., for reshoots or because they don't have continuous use of the location) then they refer to the photographs.

Again, conspiracy theorists know nothing of stagecraft or filmmaking, even the ones who say they're filmmakers.

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It's an Apollo 11 photo. Maybe it's the "C" of Tranquility?

I kinda thought it'd be bigger, tho'....

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Interesting. Makes sense.

Wonder if the LM had something on it.... I know, just tugging at the HB beard.

But, that is exactly how the bad guy gets caught in almost every movie or television murder mystery. He forgets one minor detail which the (extremely intelligent but often eccentric and/or misunderstood) hero manages to spot.

The CTs have simpy extended that old cannard to the Apollo missions.

And - because they've seen it so many times on screen - it makes sense.

Perhaps they see themselves as that hero... no formal training, but extremely smart just the same, even smarter than the experts... certainly misunderstood, possibly eccentric - in a cute and endearing way... and able to spot the "simple mistake" that every villian makes.

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Wonder if the LM had something on it...

LM-15 had the honor of being built to go to the Moon, then grounded, then used as a set piece in From the Earth to the Moon. I highly doubt, however, that it had to be labeled "Lunar Module."

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