The bit that I don't believe is that America could keep it quiet for that long! Or that this could even be possibly (true/false), Take your pick.

Did man really walk on the Moon or was it the ultimate camera trick, asks David Milne? The great lunar lie. In the early hours of May 16, 1990, after a week spent watching old video footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the mind of Ralph Rene. "How can the flag be fluttering," the 47 year old American kept asking himself, "when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon?" That moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the self-taught engineer from New Jersey. He started investigating the Apollo Moon landings, scouring every NASA film, photo and report with a growing sense of wonder, until finally reaching an awesome conclusion: America had never put a man on the Moon. The giant leap for mankind was fake.

It is of course the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. But Rene has now put all his findings into a startling book entitled NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's being sold by mail order - and is a compelling read. The story lifts off in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri Gagarin into space, leaving a panicked America trailing in the space race. At an emergency meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put a man on the Moon. With an impassioned speech he secured the plan an unbelievable 40 billion dollars.

And so, says Rene (and a growing number of astro-physicists are beginning to agree with him), the great Moon hoax was born. Between 1969 and 1972, seven Apollo ships headed to the Moon. Six claim to have made it, with the ill fated Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks apparently exploded halfway - being the only casualties. But with the exception of the known rocks, which could have been easily mocked up in a lab, the photographs and film footage are the only proof that the Eagle ever landed.

And Rene believes they're fake. For a start, he says, the TV footage was hopeless. The world tuned in to watch what looked like two blurred white ghosts gambol through rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was that, strangely, NASA provided no direct link up. So networks actually had to film "man's greatest achievement" from a TV screen in Houston -a deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that nobody could properly examine it.

By contrast, the still photos were stunning. Yet that's just the problem. The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred. As Rene points out, that's not all: The cameras had no white meters (light meters) or view ponders (viewfinders). So the Astronauts achieved this feat without being able to see what they were doing. There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurised clubs. It should have been almost impossible without the use of their fingers.

Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows: The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources and, in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on the Moon was the sun. The American flag and the words "United States" are always brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow. Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time. The pictures are so perfect each one would have taken a slick advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts managed it repeatedly.

David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by "whistle blowers", who were keen for the truth to one day get out. If Persey is right and the pictures are fake, then we've only NASA's word that man ever went to the Moon. And, asks Rene, why would anyone fake pictures of an event that actually happened?

The questions don't stop there. Outer space is awash with deadly radiation that emanates from solar flares firing out from the sun. Standard astronauts orbiting Earth in near space, like those who recently fixed the Hubble telescope, are protected by the Earth's Van Allen belt. But the Moon is up to 240,000 miles distant, way outside this safe band. And, during the Apollo flights, astronomical data shows there were no less than 1,485 such flares. John Mauldin, a physicist who works for NASA, once said shielding at least two meters thick would be needed. Yet the walls of the Lunar Landers, which took astronauts from the spaceship to the moons surface were, said NASA, "about the thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil". How could that stop this deadly radiation? And if the astronauts were protected by their space suits, why didn't rescue workers use such protective gear at the Chernobyl meltdown, which released only a fraction of the dose astronauts would encounter?

Not one Apollo astronaut ever contracted cancer - not even the Apollo 16 crew who were on their way to the Moon when a big flare started. "They should have been fried," says Rene. Furthermore, every Apollo mission before number 11 (the first to the Moon) was plagued with around 20,000 defects a-piece. Yet, with the exception of Apollo 13, NASA claims there wasn't one major technical problem on any of their Moon missions. Just one effect could have blown the whole thing. "The odds against these are so unlikely that God must have been the co-pilot," says Rene.

Several years after NASA claimed its first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin "the second man on the Moon" - was asked at a banquet what it felt like to step on to the lunar surface. Aldrin staggered to his feet and left the room crying uncontrollably. It would not be the last time he did this. "It strikes me he's suffering from trying to live out a very big lie," says Rene. Aldrin may also fear for his life.

Virgil Grissom, a NASA astronaut who baited the Apollo program, was due to pilot Apollo 1 as part of the landings build up. In January 1967, he hung a lemon on his Apollo capsule (in the US, unroadworthy cars are called lemons) and told his wife Betty: "if there is ever a serious accident in the space program, it's likely to be me." Nobody knows what fuelled his fears, but by the end of the month he and his two co-pilots were dead, burnt to death during a test run when their capsule, pumped full of high pressure pure oxygen, exploded. Scientists couldn't believe NASA's carelessness - even chemistry students in high school know high pressure oxygen is extremely explosive. In fact, before the first manned Apollo fight even cleared the launch pad, a total of 11 would-be astronauts were dead. Apart from the three who were incinerated, seven died in plane crashes and one in a car smash. Now this is a spectacular accident rate. "One wonders if these 'accidents' weren't NASA's way of correcting mistakes," says Rene. "Of saying that some of these men didn't have the sort of 'right stuff' they were looking for." NASA won't respond to any of these claims, their press office will only say that the Moon landings happened and the pictures are real.

But a NASA public affairs officer called Julian Scheer once delighted 200 guests at a private party with footage of astronauts apparently on a landscape. It had been made on a mission film set and was identical to what NASA claimed was they real lunar landscape. "The purpose of this film," Scheer told the enthralled group, "is to indicate that you really can fake things on the ground, almost to the point of deception." He then invited his audience to "come to your own decision about whether or not man actually did walk on the Moon".

A sudden attack of honesty? You bet, says Rene, who claims the only real thing about the Apollo missions were the lift offs. The astronauts simply have to be on board, he says, in case the rocket exploded. "It was the easiest way to ensure NASA wasn't left with three astronauts who ought to be dead," he claims, adding that they came down a day or so later, out of the public eye (global Surveillance wasn't what it is now) and into the safe hands of NASA officials, who whisked them off to prepare for the big day a week later.

And now NASA is planning another giant step - project Outreach, a 1 trillion dollar manned mission to Mars. "Think what they'll be able to mock up with today's computer graphics," says Rene chillingly. "Special effects was in its infancy in the 60s. This time round we will have no way of determining the truth."

Space oddities Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.

A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Lander lifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?

One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot? The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.

The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares.

Only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot? The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why is the flag fluttering?

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), November 03, 2000

Answers

But Malcolm, this is old hat. I think there has already been a Hollywood movie (years ago) to illustrate this particular conspiracy theory. Someone with a better memory than I will post the title. (A vague recollection... could it be: The Capricorn Project? or some such?)

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), November 03, 2000.

Gee, what was I really working on?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 03, 2000.

Brian, I believe the movie you're thinking about was called Capricorn One.

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), November 03, 2000.

Capricorn One. James Brolin starred.

-- moviehound (moviehound@theaters.com), November 03, 2000.

No, Capricorn One was about the first horse ever discovered that had a horn sticking out of it's head.

-- dub (i.remember@that.one), November 03, 2000.

Malcolm,

What a bunch of hooey! Thick, unmitigated hooey.

>"How can the flag be fluttering," the 47 year old American kept asking himself, "when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon?"

Well, if you watch closely, the flag actually fluttered only when an astronaut was planting or adjusting the flagstaff.

And you _do_ know, don't you, that the flag planted on the Moon was deliberately made to have ripples in it so that it would look like it was fluttering in a breeze even when motionless, because that was thought to look more natural to the average viewer? Don't you? NASA explained that long ago. A regular cloth flag would have just hung down and not been very photogenic.

>NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's being sold by mail order

Lotsa books about wacky stuff that has no factual merit are author-published, because the author can't find a publishing house that'll accept it.

>Not one was badly composed or even blurred.

Gee -- think maybe NASA astronaut training included an hour or two on how to use the expensive cameras they were taking with them? How to compose a picture, stuff like that?

Blurred? You _do_ realize, don't you, that the sunlight on the lunar surface where the astronauts were was quite intense? You know -- no clouds, no atmosphere, sun high above the horiaon. So all the exposure times would be quite fast, which tends to minimize blurring? Don't you?

And ... what was moving, besides the astronauts, that would have appeared blurred, anyway? Hunh? Oh yeah, that "fluttering" flag...

And ... you think maybe NASA did a little cropping on the margins of photos that weren't lined up just right, so they wouldn't look tilted? Hunh? Or did you expect them to just release raw full-frame photos with all the minor defects showing?

>The cameras had no white meters (light meters) or view ponders (viewfinders).

You don't suppose the astronauts had _separate_ light meters, not built into the cameras, do you? I saw a professional photographer use one of those on Earth once ... But you wouldn't actually suppose that, would you?

Viewfinder? Weren't the cameras held in some kind of frame on the front of each spacesuit (moonsuit, whatever ...)? And maybe there were field-of-view markings on the spacesuit visors? Sure, the spacesuits had some flexibility, so that there could be some difference between the precise direction of the camera and the precise direction of the markings ... but not much -- those things were pretty stiff. And ... do you suppose that the visor markings showed margins that allowed for whatever flexibility there was? And that the astronauts trained beforehand to use those visor markings to compose their photos? (No, I guess you wouldn't suppose that. Would tend to diminish the impact of the hooey.)

>So the Astronauts achieved this feat without being able to see what they were doing.

You actually think those visors were so opaque the astronauts couldn't see through them? Hard to believe ... but there are your statements, right there in black-and-white. Amazing.

>There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless.

Of course! No one would _ever_ think of providing any radiation shielding in the camera mounts of the spacesuits!

Well, no one except folks like the author of this hooey. But he doesn't claim to have been involved in any stage of design or manufacture of any equipment NASA used, does he?

>They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurised clubs. It should have been almost impossible without the use of their fingers.

Well, AFAIK every astronaut had the standard five fingers on each hand. All fully functional, as well.

Of course, no one at NASA would have thought to design the cameras so that all operations could be accomplished with spacesuit-gloved hands, would they? At least, not if they all thought like David Milne or Ralph Rene.

>Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings

Pretty astonishing, all right. Guess he never won any awards in astronomy.

>But the only light source on the Moon was the sun.

... which, as David Persey knows, is such a puny light source, especially with no atmosphere.

>The American flag and the words "United States" are always brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow.

Think maybe the astronauts planted the flag on the _sunny_ side of the lunar lander? No, I guess not.

>And, during the Apollo flights, astronomical data shows there were no less than 1,485 such flares.

... every one of which must have emitted radiation in the _exact_ direction of the Earth-Moon system, right?

>And if the astronauts were protected by their space suits, why didn't rescue workers use such protective gear at the Chernobyl meltdown,

Because everyone knows that the Soviets had thousands of NASA spacesuits shipped to them right after the Chernobyl explosion ... or, wait ... that the Soviets had manufactured thousands of spacesuits in anticipation of need to clean up a reactor meltdown, having nothing better to do with their enormous surplus peacetime productivity ... something like that.

>the Chernobyl meltdown, which released only a fraction of the dose astronauts would encounter?

Care to provide factual data to support that assertion?

>Several years after NASA claimed its first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin "the second man on the Moon" - was asked at a banquet what it felt like to step on to the lunar surface. Aldrin staggered to his feet and left the room crying uncontrollably. It would not be the last time he did this. "It strikes me he's suffering from trying to live out a very big lie," says Rene.

Ralph Rene ... world-renowned expert on emotional reactions to having been on the first manned landing on the Moon and spending considerable portions of the rest of ones life being asked to talk about it.

>Apart from the three who were incinerated, seven died in plane crashes and one in a car smash. Now this is a spectacular accident rate. "One wonders if these 'accidents' weren't NASA's way of correcting mistakes," says Rene.

Ralph Rene ... expert actuary and seller of life insurance policies to test pilots, no doubt.

>You bet, says Rene, who claims the only real thing about the Apollo missions were the lift offs. The astronauts simply have to be on board, he says, in case the rocket exploded. "It was the easiest way to ensure NASA wasn't left with three astronauts who ought to be dead," he claims, adding that they came down a day or so later, out of the public eye (global Surveillance wasn't what it is now) and into the safe hands of NASA officials, who whisked them off to prepare for the big day a week later.

Ralph Rene ... known expert on fake TV coverage of Apollo capsule ocean landings and fake radio transmissions that fool even the best "ham" radio operators.

Wait ... did Rene forget to mention how NASA fooled a world full of ham radio operators who thought they were listening to live broadcasts during the mission, complete with Doppler shifts in frequencies that matched the supposed Apollo mission module movements? Oops. Better add that to the second printing of his book.

>Space oddities Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.

Ralph Rene ... expert on the English language who knows that "teased" means "communicated with utter sincerity that is always to be taken at exact face value".

>A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Lander lifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?

Ralph Rene ... expert on remote control.

>One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot?

Guess poor Ralph was out of the room when the commentators explained that the lunar module had a TV camera mounted on its outside, and that Armstrong released it from its stowed position while he was still on the ladder. You see, NASA anticipated that they'd want live TV pictures of the first step onto the Moon ... but I guess Ralph can't be an expert on everything.

>The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.

Here, Ralphie reminds us of the well-known fact that NASA never, ever, ever managed to solve that particular spacesuit design difficulty before the lunar landing. Those films of Gemini astronauts bending their spacesuit joints are fake, too ...

>Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth?

... when they'd already broadcast radio signals that could easily be triangulated to determine that they originated from the Moon? Sheesh. Ralphie's so visually oriented ...

> The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares.

Ralphie knows that magnesium burns all by itself, without needing any oxygen for the reaction. You see, he's already explained that there's no atmosphere on the Moon, so he can't say that burning magnesium requires an oxidizer ...

>Only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera.

Ralphie must've had a poor print of that photo. I could see the camera.

>And why is the flag fluttering?

... and we're back to the first question, so scroll back to the top of this posting ...

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 03, 2000.

Speaking of astronauts, I received this item a few years ago. Can't vouch for its authenticity.

GOOD LUCK MR. GORSKY...

When Apollo Mission Astronaut Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, he not only gave his famous "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" statement but followed it by several remarks, usual com traffic between him, the other astronauts and Mission Control. Just before he re-entered the lander, however, he made the enigmatic remark "Good luck Mr. Gorsky." Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark related to some rival Soviet Cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or the American space programs. Over the years many people questioned Armstrong as to what the "Good luck Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

Just four years ago, (on July 5, 1995 in Tampa Bay FL) while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 29-year old question to Neil Armstrong once again. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had recently died and so Neil Armstrong felt he could finally answer the question. When he was a kid, he was playing baseball with a friend in his backyard. His friend hit a fly ball which landed in the front of his neighbor's bedroom windows. His neighbors were a Mr. & Mrs. Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky. "Oral sex? You want oral sex?! You'll get oral sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), November 03, 2000.

"...Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball..."

Trust me when I tell you I am no "golf pro", nor do I play the game (only been to a driving range once), but isn't a slice caused by hitting the ball off the end of the driver(?) instead of squarely in the middle? I thought it had nothing to do with "air flow" of any kind.

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), November 03, 2000.

NOT A HOAX

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), November 03, 2000.

Patricia, you might be thinking of a "shank," in which the golf ball goes off to the right in a more or less straight line. A "slice" is an actual curve of the ball to the right (for a right handed golfer), and is generally caused by an outside-in swing. Such a swing imparts spin that causes the air pressure "at" the lower left of the ball (from the golfer's perspective) to be considerably less than the pressure at the upper right of the ball. (The spin of the ball drags nearby molecules in the air with it.) This pressure difference causes the ambient air to "push" the ball to the right.

The movement of a sliced golf ball is based on the same principle (Bernoulli's Principle) as the movement of a baseball or that of a shower curtain toward a vigorous stream of water. Without an atmosphere, it is not possible to slice a golf ball (or to hook it).

Thanks for keeping this thread delightfully removed from politics. 8^)

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), November 04, 2000.