Can you resolve my skepticism?

[openmindedskeptic]

Hi, I'm Mike. I recently saw the movie Capricorn One that was made back in the 70's, and it got me thinking about something that I've always taken for granted: the Moon landing. Did humans actually land on the Moon? It seemed silly at first until I really started thinking about it. How could one of the most prominent moments in human history be a hoax? I've spent the past few weeks looking at the skeptic arguments, and the Apollo supporter arguments. Many skeptic arguments are incorrect in my view (the crosshairs, the flag waving when they put it into the ground, shadows that aren't perfectly parallel, etc.). However, there are a few skeptic arguments that really got me thinking. Here they are:

1. The "C" rock. I noticed that this site only shows the rock. It doesn't show the ground underneath the rock. If it did, then you would see a second C:
www.conspiracy-theories-hoax.com/images/c.jpg
The two C's are clearly present, and they are shaped differently, so the argument that it was the same blemish that was somehow replicated doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The argument that this lettering system would only allow for 26 stage props isn't very strong either, since a whole array of classifications, a blend of classifications, or even informal markings to assist the stage crew in their organization of the setup could have been used. The C's aren't exactly smoking gun evidence of a hoax, but it looks a bit suspicious.

2. The Moon rocks; possibly strong evidence that we actually went to the Moon. However, that "Moon rock" that was given to the Dutch turned out to be petrified wood. Did NASA give the official stamp of approval for this rock? Also, the Russians were able to bring back a small sample with a probe, and their sample was different than the Apollo samples. Could our probes have been able to bring back larger amounts? Could Moon rocks from Antarctica been altered in some way to make them appear to be Moon rocks that came straight from the Moon? Is this information from SourceWatch correct?
"Unlike the Apollo lunar samples, their Soviet counterparts exhibit triboluminescence and non-oxidation, contain 6 to 9 times more mercury (which should be uniformly distributed on the lunar surface), orders of magnitude more molybdenum, wolfram, cadmium and silver, and have 50 times lower thermoluminescence sensitivity. Also, A. Dollfus and E. Bouell of the Paris Observatory found that unlike the NASA samples, the polarisation of reflected light from the Soviet samples corresponds to that from the Moon surface. Geochemist Minoru Ozima of the Tokyo University discovered that the nitrogen-14/nitrogen-15 isotope ratio in the Apollo lunar samples is very different from that in the solar wind whose blasts drilled these atoms into the lunar soil."

3. The mirrors on the Moon. Do they exist, and can we be certain that it was people that put them there? I saw a video that explained that, before the mirrors were put on the Moon, scientists were able to use a much weaker laser to bounce off the bare lunar surface, and some of that light returned to the spot on Earth where the laser originated. We use a much stronger laser nowadays, so I'm wondering if there are any mirrors there at all. Also, could they have been placed there by probes?

4. The camera trick. I'm sure that you've all seen "Banned in America: Proof of Fake Moonlanding". Now THIS sure looks like strong hoax evidence. Some of the members here claimed that it couldn't have been a photograph or a model of the Earth, since it would have looked different than a real image of the Earth. Well, was it a picture of the Earth, OR was it some sort of attachable window that constricted the image of the real Earth? It looked like they were un-screwing the iris, and when they did that, the full brightness of the near Earth came flooding through the window, the blackness of space was just the darkened walls of their ship, and the camera was revealed to be at the back of their craft. It didn't look like they were removing a picture of the Earth. Instead, it looked like some kind of reducing lens (I think that this is the correct term) that was unscrewed. Can we be certain that this footage is authentic?

5. The shadows. I know that shadows on an uneven surface will not cast perfectly parallel images, and that the shape of the object and the distance from the viewer can change the direction of the shadow. However, I've seen pictures where two close objects cast shadows that are practically form 90 degree angles. Am I overlooking something?

6. Why such poor images of the Apollo landing sites? Earth satellites can now reveal licence plate numbers on cars. Why can't a satellite provide much better images of the Moon which has no atmosphere?

7. Some astronauts claimed to have seen stars on the Moon, while others claimed that they could see no stars on the Moon. Why is that? Why shouldn't stars always be visible on the Moon, that has no atmosphere?

8. Was the Earth actually photographed at different angles over the lunar horizon in the Apollo 17 photos? The link to this claim is at the "Moon Hoax Theory" page of SourceWatch.

9. Did Dr. Brian Todd O'Leary really say: "I can't be 100% sure that man actually walked on the Moon. It's possible that NASA could have covered it up, just in order to cut corners, and to be the first to allegedly go to the Moon."?

10. Shouldn't astronauts on the Moon (considering their body weight plus the weight of the suit) be able to jump 2 meters high?

11. Did the stationary flag wave when the astronaut ran past it without touching it? Could he have bumped into it with his shoulder? Wasn't there also a flag scene also flutter a little bit when the astronaut was jumping about 10 feet away from it?

12. 27 of 61 space rocket launches in 1968 were secret, and 20 of 47 were secret in 1969. That's 47 secret launches. What were they doing? Is this information correct?

13. Are there scenes miles away with identical background and foreground (objects in between the astronauts being filmed, and the person taking the picture)?

14. Why is no dust blown away in any of the Moon landings? It just looks too neat.

15. The best possible evidence for the Moon landings was when Larry Baysinger and Glenn Rutherford (two private citizens that had no apparent connection to NASA) picked up on Apollo transmissions from Earth. Then again, were they on the Moon, or just in space orbiting the Earth? Radio experts at the time figured that picking up on lunar transmissions from homemade equipment on Earth would have been impossible. If they were only orbiting the Earth, the signal would have been much closer. This evidence could backfire and end up supporting the hoax theory. Could these guys be "in on the conspiracy"?

This issue of "Did we land on the Moon" has been driving me nuts for the past few weeks, and I'd love to have some resolution one way or the other. Thanks. If you want to e-mail me any documents, my Yahoo address is [e-mail].

Best Regards,
Mike

[gorgonian]

1. It's a hair on the scan. This has been demonstrated.
3. They could not have been placed by probes with the precision that they were placed. And yes, they are there.
4. There's a sticky in this forum that completely demolishes this claim. Look up at the top of the forum for "The Smoking Gun of Bart's Smoking Gun Footage" and read it. Carefully. Understand fully what is happening in that thread and this one will go away, permanently.
5. Yes terrain/perspective.
6. Because the moon is extremely far away. Image quality is a function of distance in this case. Recently a probe circled the moon and took much better images.
7. Because if you are viewing the surface of the moon, your eyes will adjust to the brightness of the sun reflecting off of it (think daylight on earth). If you crane your neck back so that the surface is not visible, your eyes will adjust to darkness and you could theoretically see stars that way. They also imaged stars from the surface outside of the visible spectrum I believe, so you may have read something about that.
11. I believe there is one case of the flag reacting to static electricity when an astronaut passed very near it. Isn't the hours of footage of the flag never moving a millimeter more convincing?
13. I'm sure there are some very similar backgrounds with different foregrounds yes. Perspective can cause this.
14. Dust was blown away during the landings.
15. Yes. And the signals were demonstrably coming from the moon.

These are just a few quick answers off the top of my head. Some of your claims I wasn't terribly familiar with, so I'm sure others will come along on those. I realize these aren't detailed answers, but most of these claims are very old and long debunked.

Check out www.clavius.org

[openmindedskeptic]

Thanks for your responses. My responses are in red.
1. It's a hair on the scan. This has been demonstrated.
There were two C's, not one. It would have to be one heck of a coincidence
3. They could not have been placed by probes with the precision that they were placed. And yes, they are there.
Are you sure? Why couldn't they have been?
4. There's a sticky in this forum that completely demolishes this claim. Look up at the top of the forum for "The Smoking Gun of Bart's Smoking Gun Footage" and read it. Carefully. Understand fully what is happening in that thread and this one will go away, permanently.
I couldn't find it. Could you give me the direct link?
5. Yes terrain/perspective.
I wasn't too sure about this one. A physicist named Dr. David Groves studied Apollo photos, and determined that artificial lighting was used. Could you give me more specific information.
6. Because the moon is extremely far away. Image quality is a function of distance in this case. Recently a probe circled the moon and took much better images.
Could you give me a link for these images?
7. Because if you are viewing the surface of the moon, your eyes will adjust to the brightness of the sun reflecting off of it (think daylight on earth). If you crane your neck back so that the surface is not visible, your eyes will adjust to darkness and you could theoretically see stars that way. They also imaged stars from the surface outside of the visible spectrum I believe, so you may have read something about that.
I'll look into it. Thanks for your input.
11. I believe there is one case of the flag reacting to static electricity when an astronaut passed very near it. Isn't the hours of footage of the flag never moving a millimeter more convincing?
There should be no evidence of air currents. In this one case, he moved by the flag quickly. Slowly moving by a piece of hanging cloth, or moving by it from a greater distance, would be much less likely to cause it to move. Could you explain how static electricity could have caused the flag to wave? Any links?
13. I'm sure there are some very similar backgrounds with different foregrounds yes. Perspective can cause this.
I didn't take my 13th question as seriously, since I later learned that there was a voice over issue that explained this one. Thanks. For all practical purposes, my 13th question can be removed.
14. Dust was blown away during the landings.
I saw dust blowing during the video footage of them landing, but the still pictures didn't show the dust blown. This picture shows no dust on the LEM leg:
www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/atmosphaerenfahrt/22_mondfotos-o-mondfotograf-d/013-apollo-11-AS11-40-5918-Landefuss-der-mondlandefaehre-o-staub.jpg

[gillianren]

Seriously, Mike, how anyone can watch Capricorn One and not see the enormous errors that make its fake easily detectable to anyone at all paying attention bewilders me. It's a terrible movie that doesn't even follow its own internal logic.

May I repeat the suggestion of reading Jay's site, clavius.org? Would it surprise you to learn that not one question you've posted hasn't been answered and re-answered dozens of times over?

[Bob B.]

Hi, Mike. Welcome.

Mar 16, 2010 20:53:31 GMT -4 openmindedskeptic said:

1. The "C" rock. I noticed that this site only shows the rock. It doesn't show the ground underneath the rock. If it did, then you would see a second C:
www.conspiracy-theories-hoax.com/images/c.jpg
The two C's are clearly present, and they are shaped differently, so the argument that it was the same blemish that was somehow replicated doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The argument that this lettering system would only allow for 26 stage props isn't very strong either, since a whole array of classifications, a blend of classifications, or even informal markings to assist the stage crew in their organization of the setup could have been used. The C's aren't exactly smoking gun evidence of a hoax, but it looks a bit suspicious.

The “C” on the rock is just a hair or fiber that got on the image when it was scanned. The “C” on the ground is a random pattern in the soil.

2. The Moon rocks; possibly strong evidence that we actually went to the Moon. However, that "Moon rock" that was given to the Dutch turned out to be petrified wood. Did NASA give the official stamp of approval for this rock? Also, the Russians were able to bring back a small sample with a probe, and their sample was different than the Apollo samples. Could our probes have been able to bring back larger amounts? Could Moon rocks from Antarctica been altered in some way to make them appear to be Moon rocks that came straight from the Moon?

I don’t know the story behind the Dutch rock. The Soviet samples were obtained from a different part of the Moon (their landings were further east than any of the Apollo sites), so naturally there are going to be some differences. Beyond that, I can’t comment on the specifics. How could it be know in 1969 that rocks from Antarctica were from the Moon?

3. The mirrors on the Moon. Do they exist, and can we be certain that it was people that put them there? I saw a video that explained that, before the mirrors were put on the Moon, scientists were able to use a much weaker laser to bounce off the bare lunar surface, and some of that light returned to the spot on Earth where the laser originated. We use a much stronger laser nowadays, so I'm wondering if there are any mirrors there at all. Also, could they have been placed there by probes?

There is no evidence that the mirrors were placed on the moon by any other means than by Apollo astronauts. The astronomers that conduct the lunar ranging experiments have stated categorically that they believe that the lasars are bouncing off mirrored retroreflectors.

4. The camera trick. I'm sure that you've all seen "Banned in America: Proof of Fake Moonlanding". Now THIS sure looks like strong hoax evidence. Some of the members here claimed that it couldn't have been a photograph or a model of the Earth, since it would have looked different than a real image of the Earth. Well, was it a picture of the Earth, OR was it some sort of attachable window that constricted the image of the real Earth? It looked like they were un-screwing the iris, and when they did that, the full brightness of the near Earth came flooding through the window, the blackness of space was just the darkened walls of their ship, and the camera was revealed to be at the back of their craft. It didn't look like they were removing a picture of the Earth. Instead, it looked like some kind of reducing lens (I think that this is the correct term) that was unscrewed. Can we be certain that this footage is authentic?

This has been debunked to death. See here for instance.

5. The shadows. I know that shadows on an uneven surface will not cast perfectly parallel images, and that the shape of the object and the distance from the viewer can change the direction of the shadow. However, I've seen pictures where two close objects cast shadows that are practically form 90 degree angles. Am I overlooking something?

Perspective and ground slope can play all kinds of tricks with shadows. I don’t think you are seeing anything out of the ordinary or suspicious.

6. Why such poor images of the Apollo landing sites? Earth satellites can now reveal licence plate numbers on cars. Why can't a satellite provide much better images of the Moon which has no atmosphere?

I think the reading of license plates is an exaggeration, but satellites in Earth can indeed provide some very good images. Those satellites are also very large. There is no reason to go through the expense of sending something that large to the Moon. The satellites that have gone to the Moon have been able to achieve their science goals with much smaller cameras that lack the capability of what we have in Earth orbit.

7. Some astronauts claimed to have seen stars on the Moon, while others claimed that they could see no stars on the Moon. Why is that? Why shouldn't stars always be visible on the Moon, that has no atmosphere?

Generally speaking, stars can’t be seen during lunar day because the glare of the bright lunar surface is just too great and overwhelms a person’s ability to see faint stars. In some cases, such as when standing in the shade of the LM, astronauts said they could manage to make out a few of the brighter stars.

8. Was the Earth actually photographed at different angles over the lunar horizon in the Apollo 17 photos? The link to this claim is at the "Moon Hoax Theory" page of SourceWatch.

I don’t know, I haven’t seen this claim before.

9. Did Dr. Brian Todd O'Leary really say: "I can't be 100% sure that man actually walked on the Moon. It's possible that NASA could have covered it up, just in order to cut corners, and to be the first to allegedly go to the Moon."?

He was quoted as saying something like that.

10. Shouldn't astronauts on the Moon (considering their body weight plus the weight of the suit) be able to jump 2 meters high?

They might be able to get that high, though the highest I’ve seen is maybe 1 to 1.5 meters. Why would they want to jump 2 meters high and risk injury or damage to their spacesuits or life support systems? Just because one can doesn't make it advisable to do so.

11. Did the stationary flag wave when the astronaut ran past it without touching it? Could he have bumped into it with his shoulder? Wasn't there also a flag scene also flutter a little bit when the astronaut was jumping about 10 feet away from it?

There is an example of a flag moving when as astronaut walked by it, but it in not conclusive that he didn’t touch it. He may have bumped it, or perhaps static electricity caused the movement. I don’t know about the 10-foot away claim – that’s a new one to me.

12. 27 of 61 space rocket launches in 1968 were secret, and 20 of 47 were secret in 1969. That's 47 secret launches. What were they doing? Is this information correct?

I don’t know about the numbers, but there were certainly many classified Department of Defense launches during that time period. It was the Cold War and spying on the Soviets was a top priority.

13. Are there scenes miles away with identical background and foreground (objects in between the astronauts being filmed, and the person taking the picture)?

The scenes were not miles apart; they were taken minutes apart at the same location. The claim comes from a documentary in which two video segments were incorrectly identified as being from different EVAs. It was a simple mistake that NASA had nothing to do with.

14. Why is no dust blown away in any of the Moon landings? It just looks too neat.

There was dust blown away and this is clearly documented in photographs. I don’t agree with your claim that it looks too neat.

15. The best possible evidence for the Moon landings was when Larry Baysinger and Glenn Rutherford (two private citizens that had no apparent connection to NASA) picked up on Apollo transmissions from Earth. Then again, were they on the Moon, or just in space orbiting the Earth? Radio experts at the time figured that picking up on lunar transmissions from homemade equipment on Earth would have been impossible. If they were only orbiting the Earth, the signal would have been much closer. This evidence could backfire and end up supporting the hoax theory. Could these guys be "in on the conspiracy"?

Earth orbiting satellites move across the sky very quickly, while Baysinger/Rutherford were tracking the Moon. It is impossible that an Earth orbiting satellite could have fooled them.

[banjomd]

Can you resolve my skepticism?

Nope, I can't. Neither can anyone else if you choose to believe the pseudoscientific drivel that HB'ers spew.
You've been given a key (hint: clavius.org); use it wisely I believe almost all of your doubts will be addressed there.
Just my opinion.
Now, a question for you:
Why would someone want to cast aspersions on the greatest feat of manned exploration? Something that people dedicated their careers and and occasionally their lives to accomplish only to have it be spat upon by vandals who, for reasons unknown, wish to take it away.
The people who made it possible, from the (lowly) machinist who constructed an antenna that remains on the lunar surface to the men who zipped up the only thing that kept them from a decompressive hypoxic death, are dwindling. Why would anyone find joy in spray-painting graffiti on their accomplishment?
I just don't get it.

[PhantomWolf]

Mar 16, 2010 22:56:00 GMT -4 openmindedskeptic said:

Thanks for your responses. My responses are in red.
1. It's a hair on the scan. This has been demonstrated.
There were two C's, not one. It would have to be one heck of a coincidence

The one "on" the rock is conclusively a hair in the paper of the image, the one on the ground is a curve in a rock, rounded curves aren't uncommon.

3. They could not have been placed by probes with the precision that they were placed. And yes, they are there.
Are you sure? Why couldn't they have been?

They are too well positioned to have been placed by probes (cf the soviet reflector) and there is no evidence of any program to develop or deploy reflectors by pobes by the US whereas there is a lot of evidence that they landed people.

4. There's a sticky in this forum that completely demolishes this claim. Look up at the top of the forum for "The Smoking Gun of Bart's Smoking Gun Footage" and read it. Carefully. Understand fully what is happening in that thread and this one will go away, permanently.
I couldn't find it. Could you give me the direct link?

Try looking, you were given the name of thread, it's about 5 down from the top of the page.

5. Yes terrain/perspective.
I wasn't too sure about this one. A physicist named Dr. David Groves studied Apollo photos, and determined that artificial lighting was used. Could you give me more specific information.

Try doing a search on the forum for Groves, there is little to prove he is at all able to do what he claims. The funniest of his claims was that there was a light source about 1-2 feet to the right of the camera when Buzz was decending from the LM. While his math is impossible due to the ability (or inability to measure exact distances to the level he requires) he was sort of right, there was, it was the sun shining off of white suit covering Neil's shoulder.

6. Because the moon is extremely far away. Image quality is a function of distance in this case. Recently a probe circled the moon and took much better images.
Could you give me a link for these images?

Do a search for LRO images.

11. I believe there is one case of the flag reacting to static electricity when an astronaut passed very near it. Isn't the hours of footage of the flag never moving a millimeter more convincing?
There should be no evidence of air currents. In this one case, he moved by the flag quickly. Slowly moving by a piece of hanging cloth, or moving by it from a greater distance, would be much less likely to cause it to move. Could you explain how static electricity could have caused the flag to wave? Any links?

Things on the moon build up a static charge over time, the flag moves towards the Astronaut indicating that it was attracted to him as he passed it. Had it been in an atmosphere the flag would not have been stationary before it, and the movement would have been dampened faster.

13. I'm sure there are some very similar backgrounds with different foregrounds yes. Perspective can cause this.
I didn't take my 13th question as seriously, since I later learned that there was a voice over issue that explained this one. Thanks. For all practical purposes, my 13th question can be removed.

Just a note on this one. It appears to be based on a claim where two bits of footage were showing the same hill, but the documentary they were in had mis-labeled one as a different mission. Having said that, a lot of the photos have the same mountains in them because when you are exploring an area just a few kilometers in radius, surrounded by mountains that are twenty odd kilometers away, they'll tend to look very similar from most places in the exploration site.

14. Dust was blown away during the landings.
I saw dust blowing during the video footage of them landing, but the still pictures didn't show the dust blown. This picture shows no dust on the LEM leg:
www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/atmosphaerenfahrt/22_mondfotos-o-mondfotograf-d/013-apollo-11-AS11-40-5918-Landefuss-der-mondlandefaehre-o-staub.jpg

The engine disengaged just before the lander touched down, so the dust was still moving outwards. Looking at the High Res images avalible from the ALSJ you can see the surface has errosion marks in them, and there are swept areas were the craft came over before landing.

[PhantomWolf]

I don’t know the story behind the Dutch rock.

The Dutch rock was never authenicated by NASA, it was given to the then Dutch PM by the US Ambassodor of the time to celebrate the trip of Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins there, but nowhere on the plaque does it say it is a moon rock, nor that NASA was involved in the presentation in any way. Futher to that, no Apollo 11 sample matches it, and it was too big to be an Apollo 11 sample return. It was the wrong colour too. The best that can be guessed is that due to it being a gift comemerating the Astronauts' visit the ex-PM (or his family) believed it was a moonrock but never bothered to ask if this was the case.

[Bob B.]

Mar 16, 2010 22:56:00 GMT -4 openmindedskeptic said:

6. Because the moon is extremely far away. Image quality is a function of distance in this case. Recently a probe circled the moon and took much better images.
Could you give me a link for these images?

LRO Sees Apollo Landing Sites
First Look: Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3
Exploring the Apollo 17 Site

Mar 16, 2010 22:56:00 GMT -4 openmindedskeptic said:

14. Dust was blown away during the landings.
I saw dust blowing during the video footage of them landing, but the still pictures didn't show the dust blown. This picture shows no dust on the LEM leg:
www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/atmosphaerenfahrt/22_mondfotos-o-mondfotograf-d/013-apollo-11-AS11-40-5918-Landefuss-der-mondlandefaehre-o-staub.jpg

That photo shows clear evidence of scouring on the ground. Note what appears like rays emanating from under the LM.

[chew]

Lo-res photos are the hoax believer's best friend. This link is to the original photo of the C rock without the C. Note the C on the ground is just the edge of some regolith clump. It's 2 meg. spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/apollo/apollo16/hires/as16-107-17446.jpg

I saw dust blowing during the video footage of them landing, but the still pictures didn't show the dust blown. This picture shows no dust on the LEM leg:

For dust to be on the lander pad would require the dust to swirl up. And that would require an atmosphere.

[Bob B.]

The other thing I always find funny about the “C on the ground” claim is that it contradicts the original “C on the rock” claim. Ralph Rene started this nonsense and he said nothing about the C on the ground. He saw the C on the rock and then tried to claim that it is common practice to place cards on the ground with the ID numbers of the props that are to be placed at those locations. Allegedly the cards are picked up after the props are put in place. It wasn’t until later that somebody noticed what looked like a C in the soil and the story transmuted into something else.

So what is it? Is it industry standard to use cards as Rene claimed or does somebody go around with their finger scribbling characters into the soil? From what I’ve heard, it’s not common practice to do either. Rene and the others are just making stuff up in an effort to attach a huge conspiracy to an insignificant coincidence.

[JayUtah]

Mar 16, 2010 20:53:31 GMT -4 openmindedskeptic said:

...

It seemed silly at first until I really started thinking about it.

Keep thinking. You'll eventually understand why all the relevant qualified experts accept the Moon landings as genuine.

However, there are a few skeptic arguments that really got me thinking.

Given how colossally wrong the other ones are, do you think it's more likely that they got these few right? Or that they are colossally wrong on these points two and you just haven't heard the whole story?

The two C's are clearly present, and they are shaped differently, so the argument that it was the same blemish that was somehow replicated doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Straw man. I haven't heard anyone try to explain it that way.

The "C" on the rock is clearly a fiber on the print.

The "C" allegedly on the ground is just a random feature. Blow it up huge, and it's just like any other shadow. "C" is not a hard letter to make -- it's just an arc. Since it wasn't actually in the scene on the rock, there's no points for trying to argue the one on the ground is some sort of coincidence.

Further, no one ever seems to remember the other picture taken of this same rock, wherein there is no "C" either on the rock or on the ground.

...to assist the stage crew in their organization of the setup could have been used.

Ever been on a film or theater stage crew? When I'm not building spacecraft or taking photos, I'm designing sets and props for film and theater. No one marks props or their locations that prominently, or at all. No one puts little cards or marks out there to designate where things go.

Ralph Rene was a construction worker. He didn't have any show business experience. He's just making all that hogwash up.

Did NASA give the official stamp of approval for this rock?

No.

Also, the Russians were able to bring back a small sample with a probe, and their sample was different than the Apollo samples.

So why did NASA knowingly give Apollo samples to the Soviets, knowing the Soviet scientists would likely discover the truth if they were fake?

Could our probes have been able to bring back larger amounts?

Not unless you can show me a probe that can.

Could Moon rocks from Antarctica been altered in some way to make them appear to be Moon rocks that came straight from the Moon?

Considering they weren't discovered there until long after Apollo, no. Besides, you can't undo the effects of millions of years of residency on Earth.

Is this information from SourceWatch correct?

No.

...and can we be certain that it was people that put them there?

More certain of that than of any other proposed method.

scientists were able to use a much weaker laser to bounce off the bare lunar surface...

Mythbusters put that one to rest.

Also, could they have been placed there by probes?

They could have been placed there by magic space fairies. "Could have" means nothing. There is simply a wealth of evidence showing they were placed by human astronauts, and zero evidence that they were placed by any other means. You don't get to hold up some other alternative as an unproven default.

Now THIS sure looks like strong hoax evidence.

Only because it has been carefully edited to omit evidence to the contrary.

...the blackness of space was just the darkened walls of their ship

And if the window had been round, that would have meant something.

...and the camera was revealed to be at the back of their craft.

No, your video just edited out the part where they moved away from the window and explained exactly what they were doing. Mission Control asked them to get footage of the inside of the spacecraft, so you see the astronaut backing away from the window and "reconfiguring [the camera] for interior lighting" (i.e., opening the iris).

it looked like some kind of reducing lens (I think that this is the correct term)

Handwaving. You either know how it was done or you don't.

Can we be certain that this footage is authentic?

Can you be sure that the video you saw told the whole story?

However, I've seen pictures where two close objects cast shadows that are practically form 90 degree angles. Am I overlooking something?

Yes.

Earth satellites can now reveal licence plate numbers on cars.

A common claim, but untrue.

Why can't a satellite provide much better images of the Moon which has no atmosphere?

Pictures of the landings sites are available.

The problem with photographing the landing sites recognizably is not air so much as it is the resolving power of the primary lens or mirror. For the most part the cameras we've sent to lunar orbit tend to be very small. Spy satellites have huge optical assemblies -- more than 2 meters in diameter and 5-7 meters long. It takes our largest heavy-lift boosters to get those to Earth orbit. We don't have the money or capacity to put one of those in lunar orbit.

Some astronauts claimed to have seen stars on the Moon, while others claimed that they could see no stars on the Moon. Why is that?

Varying viewing conditions, having to do with what else is in the astronaut's line of sight.

Why shouldn't stars always be visible on the Moon, that has no atmosphere?

Because atmosphere isn't the reason stars are visible or invisible either on Earth or on the Moon.

Was the Earth actually photographed at different angles over the lunar horizon in the Apollo 17 photos?

No. Conspiracy theorists generally know nothing about actual techniques of photographic analysis. In one case the hoax theorist didn't rectify the scale and rotation of the various photos. In another case the "analyst" assumed the visible horizon was the theoretical horizon and didn't realize he was looking uphill.

Did Dr. Brian Todd O'Leary really say: "I can't be 100% sure that man actually walked on the Moon. It's possible that NASA could have covered it up, just in order to cut corners, and to be the first to allegedly go to the Moon."?

Well if you're directly quoting him then you ought to be able to provide a source. Otherwise it's just hearsay.

The last time I spoke to Dr. O'Leary he reaffirmed his believe in the authenticity of the Moon landings and asked people to stop embroiling him in their hoax theories. BTW, Brian O'Leary was an astronaut in title, but he never flew and he quit the program fairly early on.

Shouldn't astronauts on the Moon (considering their body weight plus the weight of the suit) be able to jump 2 meters high?

Would that be a good idea?

Did the stationary flag wave when the astronaut ran past it without touching it?

Clearly the flag moves. Why it moves is not yet conclusively determined. There are some good theories. The problem is that conspiracy theorists just assume it moves because the astronaut's wake makes it move, allegedly proving there was air in the shot. I have yet to see a conspiracy theorist test this with an actual flag. It's all supposition.

Could he have bumped into it with his shoulder?

Yes, possibly. Photogrammetric analysis cannot rule out that the astronaut brushed it physically.

Wasn't there also a flag scene also flutter a little bit when the astronaut was jumping about 10 feet away from it?

I don't know; was there?

27 of 61 space rocket launches in 1968 were secret, and 20 of 47 were secret in 1969. That's 47 secret launches. What were they doing? Is this information correct?

I don't know what to make of this nonsense. You're either sure of your information, or you're not. If you're not, then no one is obliged to explain it. If you are, and you're aware of "secret" launches, then they aren't secret. If you allege they were doing something with an allegedly fake Apollo scenario, then you have the burden to prove there was any such connection. You're just handwaving about some generally suspicious stuff to make it sound like there's something wrong somewhere. Sorry, you gotta have your ducks in a better row than that.

Are there scenes miles away with identical background and foreground (objects in between the astronauts being filmed, and the person taking the picture)?

No, there are lots of scenes that show appropriate parallax that go unnoticed by careless conspiracy theorists who have no training or experience in photographic analysis.

Why is no dust blown away in any of the Moon landings? It just looks too neat.

How should it look and why?

Apollo 11 photography shows quite a bit of fluid action on the surface immediately surrounding the lander. Why doesn't that suffice?

Then again, were they on the Moon, or just in space orbiting the Earth?

If so they'd be moving too fast to track, and the signal would only last about four minutes -- the typical length of a line-of-sight transit in low Earth orbit.

Radio experts at the time figured that picking up on lunar transmissions from homemade equipment on Earth would have been impossible.

But they were wrong, as has been subsequently demonstrated.

Could these guys be "in on the conspiracy"?

Circular reasoning.

[JayUtah]

Mar 16, 2010 22:56:00 GMT -4 openmindedskeptic said:

...

Thanks for your responses. My responses are in red.

Awesome, that saves me a lot of time formatting my answer.

There were two C's, not one. It would have to be one heck of a coincidence

If it were an "R" or the word "rock" you'd have a case. A "C" is just a rough arc. Simple shapes are coincidence. Complex correlations are the only ones that mean anything.

Again, the problem is that there were two photos taken of this rock from slightly different angles, and only one shows the alleged "C" on the ground. That proves it's more likely to be just a shadow. And none of the originals or dupe masters show the "C" o the rock -- it exists only in scans taken of a particular print from LPI. When the print was examined microscopically the "C" was shown clearly to be a fiber on the paper during printing.

Why couldn't they have been?

It's not so much that no one could devise a mechanism to do it, as it is that it's just so much easier for a human to do it. The Soviets took their best shot. Theirs were automatically aligned, and they didn't do a very good job of it. You can say that the Soviets just didn't have enough know-how, but it's more parsimonious to say that it's just a hard problem to solve with a machine. The Soviets clearly equaled or surpassed the Americans in their automated probes. It's just too easy to reach down and wiggle a mirror until the bubble level reads true. Harder to make a machine to do it. The Apollo LRRRs had much greater statistical success.

I wasn't too sure about this one. A physicist named Dr. David Groves studied Apollo photos, and determined that artificial lighting was used.

Where to begin.

First, find me Dr. David Groves. I've been searching for him for more than 10 years. Real experts don't just up and disappear. For every shadowy pseudoscientist out there, there are a hundred real live photographers and photo analysts who accept the Apollo photos as real.

Second, Groves didn't prove artificial lighting was used. He simply proposed to compute that a light source existed that was within a certain number of centimeters of the camera, and that this was the source of a hot spot on Aldrin's boot as he came down the ladder. Since Groves couldn't think of a light source that would be there, his client David Percy surmised that it "must" have been an artificial light. Neither of them considered that it was Armstrong's brightly reflective space suit. In the television footage, Armstrong is seen to be standing in bright sunlight as he took these photos.

Third, Groves grossly overstates the precision and accuracy with which he is able to derive the measurements in his study. As a result he obfuscates the true error in his computations. One has to read his study very carefully to find where he has hidden his key assumptions so that they will be difficult to find.

There should be no evidence of air currents.

You don't get to assume that all movement is the result of air currents.

Could you explain how static electricity could have caused the flag to wave?

The lunar environment is very prone to electrostatic buildup. On Earth, as we (for example) shuffle across a carpet, the charge that builds up dissipates into the air. Humid air especially. On the Moon, shuffling through lunar dust builds up a charge that tends to remain with the astronaut. Static cling was a huge problem on the Moon. As he walks by the flag, he may be close enough that the charge on the surface of his space suit attracts the flag just enough to make it wave slightly.

I didn't take my 13th question as seriously, since I later learned that there was a voice over issue that explained this one.

Oh, I spoke prematurely in my answer; I apologize. Yes, you're probably thinking of the incident in the film Nothing So Hidden..., which wasn't made by NASA but rather by AV Films of Houston. They took original NASA film and made half-hour documentaries out of it. In that particular film, the same clip was used in two different places, and the voiceover is talking about two different locations on the Moon. AV Films is responsible for the way they edited their film; it's not that way in the original footage.

This picture shows no dust on the LEM leg

Why should there be any? The struts were covered in stuff that resembles what snack-size chip bags are made of. Try throwing a handful of sand at one of those and see how much sticks to it.

The entrained dust was moving fast -- a thousand meters per second or so. Nothing with that much energy is going to land in or on a piece of landing gear and just stay there.

[carpediem]

Mar 16, 2010 20:53:31 GMT -4 openmindedskeptic said:

4. The camera trick. I'm sure that you've all seen "Banned in America: Proof of Fake Moonlanding". Now THIS sure looks like strong hoax evidence. Some of the members here claimed that it couldn't have been a photograph or a model of the Earth, since it would have looked different than a real image of the Earth. Well, was it a picture of the Earth, OR was it some sort of attachable window that constricted the image of the real Earth? It looked like they were un-screwing the iris, and when they did that, the full brightness of the near Earth came flooding through the window, the blackness of space was just the darkened walls of their ship, and the camera was revealed to be at the back of their craft. It didn't look like they were removing a picture of the Earth. Instead, it looked like some kind of reducing lens (I think that this is the correct term) that was unscrewed. Can we be certain that this footage is authentic?

Most of us know it as Bart Sibrel's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon". It's not banned in America, you can buy it on Amazon. You call yourself openmindedskeptic, what do you think of the hoax believers resorting to lies like calling something "Banned in America" when it isn't?

[openmindedskeptic]

Thanks for the responses. Yeah, Capricorn One just got me thinking about the subject. I'll consider everyone's input about the C's. Rene didn't notice the second C on the ground at first, but it's been pointed out by others before. BTW, I came to the conclusion that the "C" on the ground is only somewhat visible if the contrast of the picture is dimmed substantially. When I zoomed in on the C on the ground, it didn't look like a C at all. It only does when seen from a distance, and when the picture is darkened a bit. As for the Dutch petrified wood sample, if it wasn't endorsed by NASA, then it wouldn't count as evidence toward the Hoax. I'll read up on the rebuttal to the "Banned in America" clip. From what I saw, it was debunked. Siebel seemed to be using partial truths. I have one other question about that Banned in America video: why was the 3rd party person telling the astronauts when to talk? As for the LRO images, the only ones that I could find showed the remnants of the Apollo missions as looking like dots. I was hoping for something that really zoomed in. It would be worth-while to send large, high quality satellites to orbit the Moon and take pictures. The world would love to see those detailed pictures. Siebel's harassment of the Apollo astronauts is definitely wrong. I'll bet that Siebel would look like an idiot when and if detailed photos of the Apollo equipment are possible.

Actually, through my research, two more questions came up:
1. Why do astronauts sometimes appear very bright (even when they're facing away from the sun), while their shadow is solid black? If light from the surface of the Moon illuminates them, then why wouldn't the reflected light from their white suits illuminate the ground in their shadow? It's as if their entire figure is evenly lit and perfectly lit from head to toe, but the ground immediately by their feet is pitch black. I would expect the lighting of the astronauts to diminish as the distance from the ground decreases, or I would expect to see the shadows underneath them at least partially lit.
2. What's the deal with that guy that claims that a computer analysis of the sun in the Apollo photos revealed that it was a spotlight?