Positive Attitude

In an "Apollo 17" scenario we find another situation in which the American flag has been used by Whistle-Blowers to encode clues that all is not well.

Dark Moon, p. 45

Notice anything odd about this flag?

It was planted on the moon by the crew of Apollo 17. These pictures were taken five hours apart and show opposite sides of the same flag.

There is a prominent X-shaped crease running down the middle. On the lefthand view this crease is bulging outward. It's also bulging outward on the righthand view. Since it's on the opposite side, shouldn't it be inward? The bottom of the flag curls toward the viewer--on both sides. It's a strange way for a flag to behave.

It gets weirder. Here are two views of the same side, taken 46 hours apart:

Now every wrinkle and billow has been completely reversed. These should be opposite sides of the flag, but they're not--the background is the same in both pictures. And you can click these images for the whole picture. (The lefthand picture is a composite, so you will have to click both sides to get the full flag.)

Of course it's an optical illusion, easy to explain and easier to demonstrate. I found these examples while researching the Apollo 17 "double-positive flag anomaly" described on pages 44-45 of Dark Moon, and I'm showing them here because they are far clearer and stranger than the vague examples that Bennett and Percy presented. But if I'm adding to the Apollo deniers' repertoire, then so be it. Straw men are more fun to knock down when they've been built up nice and big.

To make comparing easier, I have flipped or stretched some of the images on this page. If you click on the pictures you can see the original images from the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. The Apollo 17 TV images are from the same RealPlayer clip, a17v.1182451.rm, which begins at Mission Elapsed Time 118:24:51.

And now, here are the pictures that caused problems for the authors of Dark Moon. On the left, Gene Cernan is photographing Harrison Schmitt alongside the US flag, while the right image is the picture he took.

Scene from TV image of flag deployment during Apollo 17: NASA, a17v.1182451.rm, 1:24

Same scene as photographed by Gene Cernan. NASA, as17-134-20384

Now, to see what concerned Bennett and Percy, let's take a closer look at that flag. To make the comparison easier, I turned around the photographed flag and squared it up.

Schmitt beside flag, back to TV camera -- detail of NASA, a17v.1182451.rm, 1:24

Schmitt alongside flag, earth above -- highly distorted detail, NASA as17-134-20384

When these images were taken, the sun was shining toward the free end of the flag (opposite the flagpole). In both images, the stripes on the far right are in bright sunlight, and there is a patch of shadow in the middle of the striped field.

Even though the image of the flag in the "earth overhead" photograph shows the effects of perspective distortion, one can still see that the shadow pattern is similar in both views. In the next pair the matches are more obvious.

The left image shows the flag as seen on TV, while the right was photographed at roughly the same time from the other side. The flag in both images has a large y-shaped shadow over the stripes, as well as a diagonal shadow running below the starfield. Also, the striped portion next to the pole is lit up. Common sense tells us that the shadow patterns on either side should be as different as night and day. Where one part bulges out to the sun, the other side should be sunken in shadow. Or as Bennett and Percy put it,

[T]he flag in this allegedly resultant still photograph is now billowing positive on the still camera side, where it should be negative, demonstrating that both images cannot be right--they should complement each another--and sadly, they do not. (Dark Moon, p. 45)

So what is going on? Well, you could buy into Bennett and Percy's theory. According to them, NASA faked the entire Apollo mission not once but twice--once on film and again on TV. (See Dark Moon, p. 45.) They built a second set that was identical down to pebbles and footprints and had their "actornauts" redo the whole thing with the exact same moves and body positions, apparently because they were unable to take a picture in the presence of a TV camera. And they would have got away with it but for those mischievous whistle blowers who festooned the set with magical flags for a pair of bright sparks to notice after 3 decades of searching.

Is your head aching? There must be an easier answer.

Happily, there is. The solution is almost literally transparent. And it's on the... next page.