An Unbiased Look At The Moon Landing Conspiracy
Presenting both sides of the Moon Landing Hoax debate
Voiced & Edited by Trevor Wells
Created for English 1102 at Kennesaw State University
Video Transcript:
On July 20, 1969 a team of three American astronauts left Earth’s atmosphere to become the first humans to go to the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface for 2 ½ hours while Michael Collins orbited in the command module above. Scientific experiments were put in place, photographs were taken, and moon-rock samples were collected before heading home. That is the official report anyway. Some people believe it looked a little more like this, filmed on a movie set right here on Earth. In fact approximately 20% of Americans believe the moon landing was a hoax.
But first to give a little backstory — the Apollo 11 mission took place at the height of the Space Race in 1969. The Cold War was going on between the United States and Russia at the time and in order to get out of a slump whoever put a man on the moon first would be a symbol of superior government strength. Because this was such important time some believe America would do whatever it took to win and regain confidence in its people, and since it has been speculated that NASA didn’t possess the technology capable of pulling off such a feat at the time, this has led some to believe NASA could have faked the Moon landing in a special effects studio out of desperation to win. This theory really picked up speed when the photographs supposedly taken on the Moon were released to the public. It wasn’t long until people were pointing out what they believed to be errors or mistakes in the photographs as evidence of being filmed on a movie set, which became the real basis for the belief in this conspiracy. NASA has come out with official responses to the theories but it’s hard to say which side is actually true. Every conspiracy theory has 2 sides of the argument. So I’ll provide both points of view for each piece of evidence and let you decide what to think of it.
Ok, so the first claim is multiple light sources. In this picture you can see Buzz Aldrin stepping down completely in the shadow of the lander and yet he is not dark at all, but clearly visible as if being illuminated by a separate light source. Furthermore in this picture you can see shadows off various objects are not running parallel to one another, but if the Sun is supposed to be the only light source how is this happening? Conspiracy theorists say this is the result of studio lights used when filming on a production set. NASA says reflected light off the Earth, Moon, Lunar module, and the astronauts themselves coupled with uneven terrain could account for the odd shadows and lighting.
A second observation is that this flag appears to be flapping in the wind, but since space is a vacuum and there is no air on the Moon that simply cannot be. Conspiracy theorists say it is flapping in a breeze and that breeze is coming from a draft in the studio where this was filmed. NASA says the astronauts twisted the flag back and forth while putting it in place and that the decreased gravity on the moon could have kept the flag’s inertia going for an extended period of time after they walked away from it.
Another observation is Neil Armstrong’s iconic footprint. Conspiracy theorists say it’s not possible to create a footprint this detailed on a bone-dry surface. That instead this had to have been done in something similar to wet sand, which of course is not available on the Moon, so again it had to have been done here on Earth. NASA says lunar dust is an extremely fine powder that can compact together and hold without moisture.
The next observation is that there are no stars visible in any single picture taken on the moon. Conspiracy theorists say whoever worked on the backdrop for the film either forgot to add them, or it would just be too much work to accurately map out the stars so they were left out intentionally. NASA says the dust that covers the moon is highly reflective, and the bright glare coming off the moon’s surface could have been drowning out smaller lights in the distance.
Our last observation is known as “the C rock”. In the bottom left of this picture you’ll notice one of the rocks has a definite letter C on it. Conspiracy theorists say props used in movies are sometimes marked with a letter C to keep track of position on set, and this rock is one of those props that must have been accidently turned around. NASA says it’s a just glitch in the photograph and must be a stray hair or some other fiber that got caught in the developing process.
So that was the top 5 observations that conspiracy theorists claim is evidence to support the idea of a large scale hoax. *Insert clip of Bart Sibrel getting punched in the face* With all the theories floating around out there, the question remains: Did we really land a man on the moon?
Leave A Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Latest Articles
Paranormal
