Body of evidence

Nothing could convince me now. You couldn't show me a thing.

We did go to the Moon, we did, we did, and you'll never change my mind. You can't change the facts of history. But what if I'm wrong and the hoax crowd are right after all? Well, I don't want to be called a total idiot. So unlike Wild Bill Kaysing, I might change my mind if someone showed me a lot of honest proof. But before I tell what that proof might be, here's what I will not accept:

Unacceptable Evidence

These claims have been refuted so often they're pathetic. Anyone who repeats them to me will be cheerfully ignored.

  • Insisting that stars can be seen in broad daylight
  • Saying the moon's surface does not reflect enough light to take a picture
  • Saying the moon's surface reflects enough light to blind anyone near it
  • A flag waving whenever an astronaut waves it
  • Claims that a rocket with less thrust than a helicopter can punch a hole through solid rock
  • 50-year-old estimates of cosmic radiation
  • Vague photographic anomalies that need lines, arrows, and numbers to point them out
  • Pictures of astronauts in training
  • Inability to take a joke
  • Any "How did they...?" such as:
    • "How did they talk to each other in a noisy rocketship?"
    • "How did they take pictures without looking through the camera?"
    • "How did they operate a computer that didn't have a mouse?"
    • "How did they show Neil Armstrong coming out of the LM?"
    • "How did they go to the bathroom?"
    ...which have already been answered by NASA and others in excruciating detail.
  • Anything to do with cross hairs
  • Oven-baked film
  • Flames
  • Anything from CBS-FOX's Did We Really Land on the Moon?

Acceptable Evidence

If you want to change my mind, here is a list of ways to do it, arranged from hardest to easiest. Good luck!

Find some incriminating Apollo hardware

In one hoax scenario, NASA fired the moon rockets on a ballistic curve into the sea: "The Apollo 11 vehicle, or Saturn 5, was sent out of people's sight, and then it was jettisoned into the South Atlantic, where all of the six [sic] that were launched now reside" (Kaysing, Nardwuar). I think I would have to concede points if someone fished up a coral-encrusted Command Module, identical to one in the museum. And NASA would certainly have some explaining to do. It shouldn't be hard to locate; they found the Liberty Bell 7, and you have nine larger Apollo capsules to look for.

Of course the hoax buffs won't even try to look. Instead they will offer a bunch of excuses: that the dummy capsules totally burned up on re-entry, that they were eliminated by onboard destruct charges, that Navy SEALs picked up every scrap of wreckage, yawn, yawn. I don't want to hear excuses, I want to see hardware. The resources of NASA may be vast and all-encompassing, but they are no match for a couple of smart cookies like Bill 'n' Bart. Get one of Dave Percy's remote viewers to find the pieces of that phoney capsule, then haul them up. I'll wait.

Find a really compromising picture or video

For every minute of movie you see on the screen, many more minutes wind up on the cutting room floor. If the Moon landings were a theatrical production, then there should be literally miles of out-takes waiting to be discovered. Not only that, there should be setup shots, rehearsal films, and documentary snaps, taken openly or in secret. Surely one of the ubiquitous "whistle-blowers" would have pocketed a few of these pictures.

Don't show me funny shadows or hot spots; show me the lights that made them. Show me astronauts planting the flag and then removing their helmets. Let me hear "That's one small... aw shucks, what's the rest of my line...??" Don't give me esoteric "encoding"; show me the guy in the director's chair. I want to see photographic evidence that is obvious to a ten-year-old, or even me--if it exists.

And I am most definitely not interested in lame excuses. Don't tell me that the almighty CIA suppressed every embarrassing picture. If the "whistle blowers" could sneak ladders and light towers into the studio, then they were clever enough to smuggle out a few pix under the dozy noses of the NASA Police.

(These next items aren't really proof, but they make the argument more intreresting. And producing any of them would be a lot easier than searching for evidence that never existed. If you can't make it, fake it.)

Cook up some moon rocks

Among the inarguable results of the moon landings are 600 pounds of rocks, soil and 4-foot core samples that could not possibly have been created on Earth. Of course the hoax crowd think different: "Of all the tasks undertaken to assure the near-success of the hoax, creation of believable moon rocks was the easiest" (Kaysing, We Never Went to the Moon, p. 10). Bill Kaysing says they were baked in a kiln. Other deniers say those rocks really came from meteorites--including the foor-foot core samples. If it's that easy, let's see you do it. Don't forget to include the micrometeroid impacts, alpha nuclei, solar wind particles, and the total absence of water or oxidation. Tell the exact ingredients and procedure you used. Then see if your concoction will fool a competent geologist. Or me.

Fake a moonwalk movie

So you say all those scenes of harsh sunlight, bounding astronauts, and free-falling dust was a load of special effects? Don't tell me, show me. Show me how easy it is to simulate lunar conditions right here on Earth. Make a 20-minute movie of your space-suited friends dropping feathers or driving over the plains without choking on their dust. Remember to include pans and moving shots. And film it all in one take. Granted you don't have NASA's mega-budget, but you should be able to compensate with superior intelligence. Heck, you could probably do it for less than the cost of self-publishing another hoax book.

Fake a moon photo

If a short movie is beyond your resources, then how about a picture? You won't even need to rent a spacesuit; the astronauts took thousands of empty landscape shots like this one. So all you have to do is photograph some eerie, unearthly landscape, show your pix next to some genuine Moon photos, and ask people to tell the difference. If even one person fails the test, then you can enjoy weeks of website crowing. You might even make me look like a fool. What have you got to lose? What's stopping you? I'm waiting....

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