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Moon Landing Conspiracy Theorists Biting Dust On the 50th Anniversary of First Lunar Mission

Moon Landing Conspiracy Theorists Biting Dust On the 50th Anniversary of First Lunar Mission

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Today, July 20 2019, at precisely 4:17:40PM ET, it is exactly fifty years since the Apollo Lunar Module ‘Eagle’ touched down on the Moon and while anniversary events are being held all over the world in honor of this monumental historic achievement, scientists and filmmakers are fighting for headlines in the ongoing battle over whether the Moon landing was faked.

Earlier this week, on July 18, The Sun printed a story about Bart Sibrel, a filmmaker who was once punched right in the face by astronaut Buzz Aldrin for accusing him of having lied about walking on the moon - who now claims he has “undeniable proof” that the lunar landings were just a hoax. One day later on Friday July 19, the Australian National University (ANU) published an article titled Lunar rocks debunk moon landing conspiracy theories which provides “hard evidence” dispelling any notions that the lunar landing was faked.

Conspiracies Shattered

Notions that humans lived with dinosaurs, that the Earth is flat and the moon landings were faked occupy significant online real estate, but ANU scientist Professor Trevor Ireland, who specializes in studying space rock, said yesterday “the scenario of an unmanned mission retrieving the Moon rocks was also practically impossible.” Illustrating why, the professor said “lunar soil results from eons of bombardment and the rocks have compositions that are unique to the Moon… No conspiracy would have or could have made the Moon rocks.”

In total, five other missions that landed on the Moon have recovered a total of about 380 kg of Moon rocks on Earth. Working alongside Dr Ireland was Ross Taylor who worked on the NASA team who first analyzed the lunar rocks that Neil Armstrong brought back in 1969; Bill Compston discovered lunar rocks were much older than any on Earth and scientists Ted Ringwood and John Lovering determined that the moon contained a set of minerals not found anywhere on Earth.

Returning to Mr Sibrel, the filmmaker who accuses NASA of “perpetuating a conspiracy symbolic of government arrogance”, the Sun article quotes him saying “It was totally 100 per cent contrived - none of it is true” and like almost every conspiracy theorists before him he points to the “shadows on the moon” claiming he has “carried out experiments” that prove the pictures could only be recreated using electrical studio lighting.

Professor Trevor Ireland from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences holds a vial containing moon dust collected by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong during his first walk on the Moon.  Since 1969, the ANU has played a critical role in the analysis of moon material. Image credit: Lannon Harley, ANU

Professor Trevor Ireland from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences holds a vial containing moon dust collected by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong during his first walk on the Moon.  Since 1969, the ANU has played a critical role in the analysis of moon material. Image credit: Lannon Harley, ANU

Come On, Pull the Other One

I am not a scientist, but I did study photography and filmmaking and I’ve taught these subjects to University students at degree level. Even amateur filmmakers and photographers know that the sun is about 93 million miles away and this is why the shadows in the Moon footage are parallel in most places and that if the light source were a nearby studio spotlight, the shadows would originate from a central point. Furthermore, the sun isn’t the only source of illumination on the Moon as it is also reflected from the ground causing some shadows to “appear” un-parallel.

If the scenes were filmed in a television studio, the standard set up of that time was to shoot in 30 frames per second and according to this BBC article, we know the video from the first Moon landing was recorded at ten frames per second in SSTV (Slow Scan television) with a specially adapted space camera, and that it couldn’t have been slowed down in post-production. In conclusion, let’s tomorrow celebrate a phenomenal act of human achievement and put aside those who fight to undermine not only the people who boldly went where nobody had been before, but the entirety of NASA and all of the dedicated scientists who have committed their lives to our better understanding of the Moon and the final frontier.

NASA Television have announced a Special Program called NASA’s Giant Leaps: Past and Future – Celebrating Apollo 50th as we Go Forward to the Moon airing on Friday, July 19, 1 p.m. ET.

Airing on the NASA Live page, the show will be broadcast from the historic Apollo mission control room at Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama “telling the story of how we got there and how we’ll get there again.”

Top image: Astronaut on the moon. Credit: Vadimsadovski / Adobe Stock

By Ashley Cowie

 

Comments

David Wayne's picture

The electromagnetic field to encompass Earth is the sole possibility of electricity & also responsible for yes ,electromagnetism & electrostatics that are what allow for wireless transmissions to travel through the air as well as maintaining mitochondrial cellular functions such as …..idk….a heartbeat? That gets jumpstarted with eee lec tri city bubba.

Now , does logic say that all is a lie ? A conspiwacy theowy? Or, does it say that men venture outside & beyond this energy field to debunk that lie by achieving +/- spark to maintain heartbeat, run lights, camera, & action by frolicking on da moon to even make a wireless call with a signal travelling through dead space & enter Earth’s energy field intact to continue undisturbed on to it’s destination being a landline in Houston. A scantily gold foil adorned landing craft that miraculously became a cone to bring the crew home. LMAO, if that were true they would have saved SS Columbia from breaking apart in excess of 26,000mph by tying 3 parachutes to the rear of it. Remote control cars on Mars anyone?  Who the hell wrote this article anyhow? may I interest you in ocean front acreage I own in Idaho.

Gary Moran's picture

Belief is a funny thing, some people just have beliefs that will not be changed regardless of the body of evidence. Religions are good examples, in spite of or because of events occurring (or not), there will be some who fervently believe, and some that just as vehemently oppose it. 

 

Blueskybigstar: Democracy is a popsicle (lollipop) for the masses. It has never ever been implemented anywhere in the world. Democracy, simply put, does not exist.

Humans are a very deceptive species and Americans and the West are worst of all. Why would anyone try to conflate doubting Americans’ achievements to other issues that have nothing to do with this one?

This article does nothing to show a well balanced side of the arguments. From the title, it assumes without proof that people who doubt the moonlanding have nothing to say. Perhaps, there are more important issues in the world than this one. Maybe, doubters of the moonlanding feel there is no use arguing with trolls and people too mentally challenged to look at all of the evidence.

Some of the most damning is the fact that the moon’s surface appears nothing like it is depicted by the USA. In both the Chinese moon rover and a Soviet satellite, the moon has a reddish surface.

There are other problems, for examples: the censorship of Stanley Kubrik’s admission that he directed the moonlanding that was long on the internet, but now can’t be found, and the fact that it was replaced with a fake;

Spacesuit not matching the prints depicted on film.

The lack of there being enough fuel to get back to earth on the return craft.

The fact that the USA says they threw away all the technology they used to get to the moon.

The fact that doonbuggies would have been of exorbitant cost to transport there and that there was not yet the battery technology to run them as they were supposedly being run.

Nobody can find any of the trash on the moon that had to have been left there.

There are also problems with the censorship of there being found a large alien colony on the dark side of the moon.

We should not be arguing about things that were paid for with our tax dollars.

Those who disagree should unite to demand the transparency from their government needed by the population to have an effective democracy. People fighting about issues like this is exactly the division wanted by those who want to keep us in the dark and fight against our best interests.

I do not grasp Ashley's refute. I do not understand his gist of that which he has written as a refutation.

George: It was discussed and outed within a few months but not many then listened. Many more do now, listen. We were a little more innocent back then. I dispute David Grimes's findings as it is just intuitively invalid (show me the submitted scientific papers and allow me to review please). His statement sounds very pro establishment in order to discredit people who question their (who ever 'they" are) intended story and pictures for your received, perceived and consumed reality.

Aruvqan: The Soviet Union was being very clever in not saying a word and this makes sense if one understands why America (had to) faked the landings.
The pathological America elite could not tolerate that Uri Gagarin was in space long before them and that Russia (USSR) had technology that they could only, in their wildest dreams, dream about. This is just too much for shiny ego Americans.
If the east had said anything at all, the western press would have cried "sour grapes" and almost all of the west (at that time) would have rallied behind America with the same cry.
Russia would have looked very silly, so they cleverly kept quiet, much to the frustration and chagrin of America. America created the landings to humiliate and to show the world that America is in advance of the space race.
If they had said "Fake", America would have demolished Russia's credibility and the rest of the world would (then) have believed in America being great, yet again .
Russians have always been more cunning than Americans as the Americans allow their ego's to create intellectual shadows. Russia, today is strong and getting stronger in credibility. England and America are looking quite foolish with their propaganda and silly (historic and persistent) anti Russian tricks. (ala Skripals Russians did it ) etc.

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ashley cowie's picture

Ashley

Ashley is a Scottish historian, author, and documentary filmmaker presenting original perspectives on historical problems in accessible and exciting ways.

He was raised in Wick, a small fishing village in the county of Caithness on the north east coast of... Read More

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