10 reasons why moon landing could be a hoax
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10 Reasons the Moon Landings Could Be a Hoax
by Josh Fox, December 28, 2012
The theory that the moon landings were hoaxed by the US government to assert their victory in the space race
over Russia, is something which has grown in popularity over time.
Recent polls indicate that approximately 20% of Americans believe that the U.S. has never landed on the moon.
After the Apollo missions ended in the seventies, why haven’t we ever been back? Only during the term of
Richard Nixon did humanity ever land on the moon, and after Watergate most people wouldn’t put it past Tricky
Dick to fake them to put America in good standing in the Cold War.
In this list I have presented some of the proposed evidence to suggest that the moon landings were hoaxes. I tried
to include NASA’s explanations to each entry to provide an objective perspective.10
The Waving Flag
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Conspiracy theorists have pointed out that when the first moon landing was shown on live television, viewers
could clearly see the American flag waving and fluttering as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted it. Photos
of the landing also seem to show rippling in a breeze, such as the image above which clearly shows a fold in the
flag. The obvious problem here is that there’s no air in the moon’s atmosphere, and therefore no wind to cause the
flag to blow.Countless explanations have been put forward to disprove this phenomenon as anything unusual: NASA claimed
that the flag was stored in a thin tube and the rippled effect was caused by it being unfurled before being planted.
Other explanations involve the ripples caused by the reaction force of the astronauts touching the aluminum pole,
which is shown to shake in the video footage.
9
Lack of Impact Crater
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The claim goes as follows: had NASA really landed us on the moon, there would be a blast crater underneath the
lunar module to mark its landing. On any video footage or photograph of the landings, no crater is visible, almost
as though the module was simply placed there. The surface of the moon is covered in fine lunar dust, and even this doesn’t seem to have been displaced in photographic evidence.
Much like the waving flag theory, however, the lack of an impact crater has a slew of potential explanations.
NASA maintains that the module required significantly less thrust in the low-gravity conditions than it would
have done on Earth. The surface of the moon itself is solid rock, so a blast crater probably wouldn’t be feasible
anyway – in the same way that an aeroplane doesn’t leave a crater when it touches down on a concrete airstrip.
8
Multiple Light Sources
On the moon there is only one strong light source: the Sun. So it’s fair to suggest that all shadows should run
parallel to one another. But this was not the case during the moon landing: videos and photographs clearly show
that shadows fall in different directions. Conspiracy theorists suggest that this must mean multiple light sources
are present -suggesting that the landing photos were taken on a film set.NASA has attempted to blame uneven landscape on the strange shadows, with subtle bumps and hills on the
moon’s surface causing the discrepancies. This explanation has been tossed out the window by some theorists;
how could hills cause such large angular differences? In the image above the lunar module’s shadow clearly
contradicts that of the rocks in the foreground at almost a 45 degree angle.7
The Van Allen Radiation Belt
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In order to reach the moon, astronauts had to pass through what is known as the Van Allen radiation belt. The belt is held in place by Earth’s magnetic field and stays perpetually in the same place. The Apollo missions to the
moon marked the first ever attempts to transport living humans through the belt. Conspiracy theorists contend
that the sheer levels of radiation would have cooked the astronauts en route to the moon, despite the layers of
aluminum coating the interior and exterior of the spaceship.
NASA have countered this argument by emphasizing the short amount of time it took the astronauts to traverse
the belt – meaning they received only very small doses of radiation.
6
The Unexplained Object
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After photographs of the moon landings were released, theorists were quick to notice a mysterious object (shown
above) in the reflection of an astronaut’s helmet from the Apollo 12 mission. The object appears to be hanging
from a rope or wire and has no reason to be there at all, leading some to suggest it is an overhead spotlight typically found in film studios.
The resemblance is questionable, given the poor quality of the photograph, but the mystery remains as to why
something is being suspended in mid-air (or rather lack of air) on the moon. The lunar module in other photos
appears to have no extension from it that matches the photo, so the object still remains totally unexplained.
5
Slow-Motion Walking and Hidden Cables
In order to support claims that the moon landings were shot in a studio, conspiracy theorists had to account for
the apparent low-gravity conditions, which must have been mimicked by NASA. It has been suggested that if you
take the moon landing footage and increase the speed of the film x2.5, the astronauts appear to be moving in
Earth’s gravity. As for the astronaut’s impressive jump height, which would be impossible to perform in Earth’s
gravity, hidden cables and wires have been suggested as giving the astronauts some extra height. In some
screenshots outlines of alleged hidden cables can be seen (the photograph above supposedly shows a wire, though
it is extremely vague).
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4
Lack of Stars
One compelling argument for the moon landing hoax is the total lack of stars in any of the photographic/video
evidence. There are no clouds on the moon, so stars are perpetually visible and significantly brighter than what
we see through the filter of Earth’s atmosphere.
The argument here is that NASA would have found it impossible to map out the exact locations of all stars for the
hoax without being rumbled, and therefore left them out – intentionally falling back on an excuse that the quality
of the photographs washes them out (an excuse they did actually give).Some photographs are high-quality, however, and yet still no stars are shown. Certainly eerie, considering you
can take pictures of stars from Earth in much lower quality and still see them.3
The “C” Rock
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One of the most famous photos from the moon landings shows a rock in the foreground, with what appears to be
the letter “C” engraved into it. The letter appears to be almost perfectly symmetrical, meaning it is unlikely to be
a natural occurrence. It has been suggested that the rock is simply a prop, with the “C” used as a marker by an
alleged film crew. A set designer could have turned the rock the wrong way, accidentally exposing the marking to
the camera.
NASA has given conflicting excuses for the letter, on the one hand blaming a photographic developer for adding
the letter as a practical joke, while on the other hand saying that it may simply have been a stray hair which got
tangled up somewhere in the developing process.
2
The Layered Cross-hairs
The cameras used by astronauts during the moon landings had a multitude of cross-hairs to aid with scaling and
direction. These are imprinted over the top of all photographs. Some of the images, however, clearly show the
cross-hairs behind objects in the scene, implying that photographs may have been edited or doctored after being
taken. The photograph shown above is not an isolated occurrence. Many objects are shown to be in front of the
cross-hairs, including the American flag in one picture and the lunar rover in another.
Conspiracy theorists have suggested NASA printed the man-made objects over a legitimate photograph of the
moon to hoax the landings – although if they really planned on doing this, then why they used cross-hairs in the
first place is a mystery.
1
The Duplicate Backdrop
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The two photos from the Apollo 15 mission shown above clearly have identical backdrops, despite being
officially listed by NASA as having been taken miles apart. One photo even shows the lunar module. When all
photographs were taken the module had already landed, so how can it possibly be there for one photo and
disappear in another? Well, if you’re a hardcore conspiracy theorist, it may seem viable that NASA simply used the same backdrop when filming different scenes of their moon landing videos.
NASA has suggested that since the moon is much smaller than Earth, horizons can appear significantly closer to
the human eye. Despite this, to say that the two hills visible in the photographs are miles apart is incontrovertibly
false.
Bonus
The Stanley Kubrick Theory
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This loose extension of the popular conspiracy theory states that acclaimed film director Stanley Kubrick was
approached by the US government to hoax the first three moon landings. There are two main branches of this
somewhat implausible theory: one group of believers maintain that Kubrick was approached after he released
2001: A Space Odyssey (released in 1968, one year before the first moon landing), after NASA came to
appreciate the stunning realism of the film’s outer-space scenes at that time; another group contends that Kubrick
was groomed by the government to film the moon landing long before this, and that 2001: A Space Odyssey was
a staged practice run for him.So what evidence might support such claims? Well: apparently, if you watch The Shining (another Kubrick
picture), you can pick up on some alleged messages hidden by Kubrick to subtly inform the world of his part in
the conspiracy. The most obvious is the child’s Apollo 11 shirt worn in only one scene. Another supposed gem is
the line written on Jack Nicholson’s character’s typewriter: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, in
which the word “all” can be interpreted as A11, or Apollo 11.
If you aren’t convinced yet, Kubrick made the mysterious hotel room in the film number 237. Guess how many
miles it is from here to the moon: 238,000. So divide that by a thousand and minus one, and you’ve got one
airtight theory right there.
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zi artitect • 2 months ago
-10: The flag was fastened to a Г-shaped rod so that it did not hang down. The flag only seemed to flutter
when the astronauts were moving it into position. Without air drag, these movements caused the free corner
of the flag to swing like a pendulum for some time. The flag was rippled because it had been folded during
storage—the ripples could be mistaken for movement in a still photo. Videos show that when the astronauts
let go of the flagpole it vibrates briefly but then remains still
-9: No crater should be expected. The Descent Propulsion System was throttled very far down during the final
landing. The Moon lander was no longer quickly decelerating, so the descent engine only had to support the
lander's own weight, which was lessened by the Moon's gravity and by the near exhaustion of the descent
propellants
-8: Shadows on the Moon are complicated by reflected light, uneven ground, wide-angle lens distortion, and
lunar dust. There are several light sources: the Sun, sunlight reflected from the Earth, sunlight reflected from
the Moon's surface, and sunlight reflected from the astronauts and the Lunar Module. Light from these
sources is scattered by lunar dust in many directions, including into shadows. Shadows falling into craters and
hills may appear longer, shorter and distorted. Furthermore, shadows display the properties of vanishing point
perspective, leading them to converge to a point on the horizon.
-7: The radiation is actually evidence that the astronauts went to the Moon. Irene Schneider reports that 33 of
6★
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