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Post by gillianren on Feb 19, 2010 14:45:58 GMT -4
Obviously, as a Brit who only watched 911 as it unfolded on TV thousands of miles away, my perspective on it will certainly be different than those more directly affect, but surely a bunch of foreign terrorists attacking a major city is evil and sinister enough without inventing reasons why it might be even more so. Do remember that, by sheer distance, you were about as close as I. Culturally, of course, I was probably closer. For what it's worth, though, I don't understand it, either. I do understand governmental mistrust--I grew up in a culture where we knew people in our government were involved in, well, dirty tricks. I watched the Iran-Contra hearings on TV one summer when I was in elementary school. We knew, and it probably makes us more likely to believe even when there isn't any evidence.
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Post by Glom on Feb 20, 2010 9:19:35 GMT -4
It's important because we learn so much. Before coming across the Conspiracy Theory of the Apollohoax, I knew a bit about Apollo but not much. In order to resolve the issues raised, I had to learn lots more, not just about Apollo but also about many other things such as photography. In fact, I would nail down the origin of my interest in photography to reading Jay's photography section. I have studied Apollo in a fair deal of detail now and that has been of much utility to me. I am also more convinced than ever that the official story is true. Well apart from the "One small step" line. He fluffed it. Get over it.
What we need to know is why it is so important to you to defend McGowan?
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Post by drewid on Feb 20, 2010 10:54:20 GMT -4
I'm sure there are plenty of other people debunking wacko 911 and JFK theories.
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Post by blackstar on Feb 20, 2010 18:06:24 GMT -4
Possibly the greatest 'conspiracy' in modern history was the deception plan surrounding the D-Day landing in 1944, and yet there were leaks, there moments when it nearly fell apart, and it only had to maintained for a year or so by highly motivated people who knew that failure could cost hundreds of thusands of lives. Put any of the other modern conspiracies up against that and they are more than absurd, they're pathetic. Hoaxes that would have to last in effect for ever? Conspiracies that would kill thousands carried out without one person having an attack of conscience? Ludicrous and stupid, or in some case just plain dishonesty by people cashing in on a public with an appetite for shock and scandal.
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Post by randombloke on Feb 20, 2010 22:03:44 GMT -4
Again, a fundamental problem with the Apollo hoax hypothesis (beyond and before any of the technical stuff about photographs and dosimeters) is that it requires bunches of skilled, educated, relatively prosperous people to be fundamentally dishonest enough to be able to pull it off in exchange for payment, yet fundamentally honest enough to not rat out the whole thing in hopes of greater payment (or simply for the perverse pleasure of causing chaos) later.
Seriously, where is the psychological line where someone will take money to lie but will not take more money to tell the truth? And more importantly, how do you surreptitiously test 400,000 workers and staff for it, to find the ones you can tell the real secret to?
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Post by ka9q on Feb 21, 2010 2:43:29 GMT -4
Some hoax proponents cavalierly dismiss the 400,000 people who worked on Apollo by alleging that it was "compartmentalized". No one could see beyond his tiny role in the program, you see, and so only the few at the very top knew that it was a hoax.
Of course this is utterly preposterous. It shows this guy hasn't a clue what scientists and engineers do for a living and how they go about their jobs. He must think the people who worked on Apollo were mindless automatons, devoid of the curiosity and creativity that was essential to figuring out how to go to the moon. No, they labored on for years without any concept of the big picture. They never talked to their friends, never asked questions, never went to conferences, never looked anything up in the reference material.
Yeah, right.
The military was certainly involved in Apollo, but it was officially a civilian project. The overall system design and many of the subsystems were fully public. A popular bit of US propaganda was that unlike the closed and secretive Soviet space program, we did ours in full view of the public.
I do see quite a few Apollo documents on the NTRS that were previously classified "confidential" and have since been declassified. I don't see any redactions. Some, like the transcripts of onboard tape recordings, were routinely classified because they contained personal medical information and private conversations, so I presume the astronauts have since waived confidentiality. Others gave detailed post-flight performance figures on the Saturn V and the Apollo spacecraft guidance systems, so I presume NASA didn't want the Soviets to get the benefit of our experience to help them beat us to the moon. Or maybe adapt them to their ICBMs.
But even though all these documents are now publicly available, the "conspiracy" remains air tight. No one has come forward to spill the beans, not counting clueless morons like Bill Kaysing who left early and didn't know anything anyway.
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Post by dwight on Feb 21, 2010 5:34:10 GMT -4
While putting Live TV From the Moon together, I used to think to myself, "What would happen if I uncovered a document or report that clearly showed some form of hoaxery took place - be it using a set in Nevada, or whatever?". I had invested 5 years of my life to researching the project leaving no stone unturned in getting the information I needed.
During the whole research phase, I discovered only one glaring error that I had made: that was the disk recorder used to matrix the sequential color signal. I had wrongly assumed that it was a standard off-the-shelf Ampex HS200 unit. I made this assumption based on the vague recollections of engineers and what little I was able to find on the subject (not much at all I can report). I even posted here and on BAUT that the Ampex system was used.
However, the lack of information always bugged me. I really wanted a clear "yes" or "no" statement as to whether Ampex built the unit. I asked as many people as I could until I got a response from Bill Wood who said, "I seem to remember it was custom built." We then shared information as he was adament it wasn't the Ampex unit. I had two photos of the NASA machine, and so we organised a blow.up from the negative. From that we worked out the converter was custom built by Data Disc Inc.
Now, it is not a universe changing fact, but it did highlight to me just how important it was to get my facts straight. I could have pretended that I never knew the Data Disc link, and happily maintained the lie that it was Ampex. I still cringe when I do a google serach on the color converter only to find my erroneous posts come up. Although I did post retractions, that one little error has permated enough already.
The end result is the book is fact checked 100 times over. Given that, if I did mistakenly list something, then the credibility of it won't crumble overnight. However, had everything been built on unchecked satements, innuation and plain fabrication, then I would have a whole lot more to lose from those 5 years spent researching the project. I would also have no choice but to a. retract the work as completely erroneous thereby losing potential income, or b. fight to the death that all my "facts" hold true.
Luckily I have to do neither as I am confident my research has been thouroughly checked and confirmed from at least 3 different sources.
While I don't agree with it, I can see why someone who has presented sloppy research as solid hard fact would get defensive when questioned about it. They have a LOT to lose.
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Post by tedward on Feb 21, 2010 9:36:12 GMT -4
Possibly the greatest 'conspiracy' in modern history was the deception plan surrounding the D-Day landing in 1944, and yet there were leaks, there moments when it nearly fell apart, and it only had to maintained for a year or so by highly motivated people who knew that failure could cost hundreds of thusands of lives. Put any of the other modern conspiracies up against that and they are more than absurd, they're pathetic. Hoaxes that would have to last in effect for ever? Conspiracies that would kill thousands carried out without one person having an attack of conscience? Ludicrous and stupid, or in some case just plain dishonesty by people cashing in on a public with an appetite for shock and scandal. A point I have used once or twice. It also raises the issue that the Germans could have had a lot of info or recognised it despite the secrecy. They remained confident that Enigma could not be broken for example, therefore the allies had never broken it (in their mind). But there were tell tales, but as they were confident it could not be broken these tell tales were ignored or attributed to chance.
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Post by ka9q on Feb 21, 2010 9:59:00 GMT -4
Again, a fundamental problem with the Apollo hoax hypothesis (beyond and before any of the technical stuff about photographs and dosimeters) is that it requires bunches of skilled, educated, relatively prosperous people to be fundamentally dishonest enough to be able to pull it off in exchange for payment, yet fundamentally honest enough to not rat out the whole thing in hopes of greater payment (or simply for the perverse pleasure of causing chaos) later. Yes, that's fundamental. But you still understate the situation. Apollo workers weren't drones. By all accounts, most of them were very highly motivated and believed very strongly in what they were doing. It certainly wasn't something they did just because they needed the money. And so the Apollo hoax claims aren't just silly, stupid, self-contradictory and completely unsupported by any evidence. They're also extraordinarily offensive and insulting to everyone who worked on the project. The people I know who worked on Apollo are a smart, inquisitive and outspoken bunch. They're the very last people I'd expect to stay quiet if they even suspected that their work was part of a gigantic sham.
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Post by spacedog on Feb 21, 2010 10:48:31 GMT -4
Porphyry said that he was banned before his first post which would fit with an over eager spam/sockpuppet detection system triggering on something about him (username, email, IP, ect) and blocking his account. Which as BAUT does use such systems is plausible. Also the Contact Us form on BAUT until fairly recently wasn't set up properly (it was sending to a dead addy IIRC) so him saying that he tried to use it and didn't get a response is also plausible. I guess I did better, I only got banned as a "spammer" after making my first, on-topic, post. Inquiring about the reason my post was considered "spam", I got exactly the response I was expecting (that is, no response at all). Place is not worth the trouble.
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Post by ka9q on Feb 21, 2010 10:50:25 GMT -4
While I don't agree with it, I can see why someone who has presented sloppy research as solid hard fact would get defensive when questioned about it. They have a LOT to lose. Dwight, you invested a serious amount of time and effort into your book, and so you naturally want to feel that it was well spent. I certainly can't blame you for that. But most of the Apollo hoax theories seem to have been cooked up in a matter of minutes. More than a few seem like the collective product of a couple of guys after more than a few beers, each trying to outdo the others on outrageousness and implausibility. I certainly don't see the kind of honest care and thought that goes into any serious publication. The vast majority of what the self-professed "hoax researchers" call "research" consists entirely of poring over the Apollo video and photo archives, flagging as an "anomaly" or "whistleblower clue" anything and everything they don't immediately understand. Or, in some cases, looking for anything that can be edited, cropped, modified and otherwise used to intentionally deceive people into believing an earlier assertion. There's no attempt to stay consistent with everything else that is known. Rarely is there even an attempt to explore the necessary implications of their assertions: what are all the other things that must be true if my assertion is true? They certainly don't know how to conduct what most scientists and forensic investigators would consider proper research. You always start by collecting and studying as much source material as you can get. If possible, you interview participants. You identify experts and ask their advice. If you feel that you might improve on an existing explanation of the evidence, or perhaps show that an accepted explanation is incorrect, you can devise your own hypothesis. Then you set up one or more experiments to test it. I.e., you deliberately try as hard and as honestly as you can to destroy your own hypothesis. (How many Apollo hoax researchers have ever done that?) If the experimental results conflict with your hypothesis, then you modify it for a better match while remaining consistent with the rest of the evidence. If they show your hypothesis is completely wrong, then you scrap it and start over. Only after your hypothesis has survived everything you're able to throw at it do you even begin to call it a "theory". And then you call in your peers and explain what you've done. You ask them to check and verify your work. You explain what you think are its weakest and most vulnerable aspects. And then you ask them to come up with ways to destroy your theory that might not have occurred to you, or been unable to test. This is how real science operates. And the "hoax researchers" are light years away from even having a clue about it.
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Post by tedward on Feb 21, 2010 10:59:11 GMT -4
Place is not worth the trouble. I have found it very informative, I read it a lot and digest. Certainly can see that it will be a target for some after the back slapping kudos of their peers (whatever they may be) and that the site has to take precautions and that some may be automatic other wise the persons running it may never see the outside of their houses.
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Post by spacedog on Feb 21, 2010 11:24:48 GMT -4
I have found it very informative, I read it a lot and digest. How I felt for a while as a lurker, now I'm feeling rather burned by it.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 21, 2010 15:32:18 GMT -4
I loved it when it was still BABB, but now it's too big for it's own good. There is no way to keep up with all that is going on, and some posters there are just a little too arogant for my liking. That's why I perfer it here nowadays.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 21, 2010 15:38:42 GMT -4
Porphyry,
A few people have asked, and I'd quite like to know too... You ask us why Apollo is so important to us, but you haven't stated why it is so important to you, or McGowan. Why is it that he feels that he has to keep up a site that is demonstratably wrong? If his goal is to pul back the covers and find the truth, then shouldn't he do his research first (and not just of the conspiracy sites) and find out the real truth behind the CT claims, not only of Apollo, but also JFK, 9/11 and other happenings? To be honest, the truth isn't hard to find when you start looking, unless you refuse to look outside of the conspriacy sites and instead take what they claim as pure gospel, something that really is rather foolish. When credibility is built on accuracy, shouldn't he want to go for accuracy over popularism to the fringe crowds?
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