Conspiracies: The Facts * the Theories * the Evidence (18 page)

image bank – revealing its original background of a zero gravity-

simulating test aeroplane. The photo of Collins had merely been

cut out and pasted onto a black background to give the impression of being in space. Curiously, the photo largely vanished from

circulation after this discovery.

Similarly, a famous image of Apollo 14 astronauts playing golf

on the lunar surface was found to be another demonstrable ‘cut

and paste’, col aged from a number of different photographs. The

shot was in any case impossible, showing the two astronauts at

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play from a high angle, with the LEM in shot behind them (with

no automatic still cameras, who took the photo, and from what

platform?). The identification of the source material used for the montage also saw this picture fall out of public circulation.

Even that most famous of images, the aforementioned portrait

of Buzz Aldrin, was manipulated for public consumption from the

start, as the briefest of comparisons with the original shot and the one issued by NASA Media Services shows. The ‘classic’ version is cropped at the sides and a large slab of black sky has been added at the top.

Thus NASA has never been above playing with its own

photographic record for publicity purposes. The problem is: if it can happen two or three times, why not four or five – or several

hundred?

Further Options and Questions

The very fact that the lunar hoax hypothesis has to be attacked

so frequently in the mainstream speaks not only of its dogged

public appeal, but also of its power to shock and annoy. Did the

Moon landings real y never happen at al , or is such thinking just deranged gibberish? Is there a middle ground to be found?

It is worth considering what the real motivation might have been

behind a hypothetical lunar deception of any scale, large or smal .

Was it that there was never any real possibility that the missions could work, or were there genuine intentions to head Moonwards

that were thwarted by unresolved technical issues with the craft?

After al , not one LEM ever worked successful y during terrestrial training, with one errant module nearly killing Neil Armstrong.

After the Apollo 1 fire (in itself contentious;
see
page 109), further dead astronauts would be an unacceptable publicity disaster in the political climate of the time, a serious consideration which might have led to a Plan B of pure theatre.

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Conversely, did NASA somehow successful y achieve its

objectives as claimed, but fail to obtain enough convincing

evidence due to unexpected photographic issues with x-rays and

cosmic radiation, requiring the hasty setting up of studio-staged

‘back-up’ material? Experiments with the extremes of heat and

cold found in sunlight or shadow on the Moon, matched with the

effects of unfiltered radiation, suggest strongly that the film stock might not have survived. Even the low-orbiting International

Space Station keeps its IMAX films in thick lead-shielded cases

today, but no such protection was available on the Apollo craft,

and they were far beyond the Earth’s protective belts.

As for the total-hoax scenario, no one argues that rockets didn’t take off – that is undeniable, given the public spectacle of their launches – but whether anyone was aboard, and where they real y

went if they were, has been the subject of much debate. Did the

occupants spend days in Earth orbit, or just secretly splash down immediately after launch, to reappear for the press receptions

after? Those who doubt the whole story point out that, aside from effects on film stock, the astronauts themselves would probably

have been detrimental y affected by all the unusual radiation they were exposed to if they had real y gone to the Moon, yet there

seems to be no more tendency towards cancer among the lunar

visitors than in any other demographic.

Some have even challenged the ability of the otherwise

impressive Saturn V rockets to have carried the weight claimed,

questioning everything from the colour of the launch exhaust to

their technical specifications. Attention has similarly been drawn to some intriguing anomalies with the properties of thruster

exhaust in space. In no Apollo footage – such as when the top

of the LEM is seen to ascend from the lunar surface, supposedly

with its rocket at full thrust – is there a visible effect of any kind, when all NASA space ventures since (shuttle manoeuvres,

for instance), using exactly the same fuel, have displayed an

unmistakable glow.

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Lunar Whistleblowers?

For all these admittedly fascinating discussion points, however,

could something as
big
as the NASA missions real y ever be faked?

With thousands of qualified minds involved in setting them up,

clearly with the best of intentions and believing it all to be possible, could that many people be so easily manipulated? And if so, why

go to such lengths to keep going with a deception covering six

missions that would surely have risked exposure at every turn?

Some truthseekers would argue that it
is
gradual y being exposed, of course – hence the high profile of this particular conspiracy

theory. It has even been suggested that those uncomfortable at

being forced to participate in such a deception
did
try, subtly, to leave clues that would in time reveal the fraud; clues which are now being unearthed by all the analysis. Perhaps those behind a hoax

might simply not have considered that something so significant

would ever be questioned, and consequently allowed a sloppiness

to set in, but there are certainly some curious statements made

by the astronauts at times, which could be interpreted as half-

heartedly bitter attempts to drop in deliberate hints at their

exasperation. Apollo 12’s Pete Conrad, for instance, makes some

very exaggerated statements about the Sun being ‘like somebody

is shining a bright spotlight on your hands!’

In answer to why no open whistleblowers have come forward

to expose what must have been such a widely staffed deception, it has been countered that in fact only a few committed conspirators may have been needed to have faked a studio set-up and keep it

secret (as Peter Hyams’s resonant 1977 fake-mission-to-Mars film

Capricorn One
postulates). Convincing mock-lunar landscapes were constructed for training purposes before the missions, and

might easily have been augmented for later photographic sessions.

With payments made, oaths sworn or threats made, just a small

camera crew and one or two directing authorities might have

made it possible to keep such sessions under wraps to all but the 108

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chosen few. If the whole venture was mounted as a full and real-

time hoax, on the other hand, broadcasts could have been made

as live from the anonymous studio, with mission control and

other global operatives making the reasonable assumption that

the signals were coming from the Moon, especial y if they were

routed cleverly enough. As it happens, the lunar transmissions

were indeed sent through a highly convoluted series of relays

around the world.

The dearth of whistleblowers may also be explained by the

possibility that there could have been an implicit understanding

among NASA staff that raising awkward questions about their

own project might not be wise, not least because two men who

vocal y questioned the technical ability of Apollo in the run-up

to the first mission had met with unpleasant ends. Virgil ‘Gus’

Grissom, an experienced astronaut original y intended to have

been first on the Moon, had been a loud critic of the unreliable

technology being developed to take them there, and publicly

expressed doubts about the programme’s feasibility to journalists.

He knew this made him vulnerable, and even warned his wife that

there might be an attempt on his life. Strange it was, then, that Grissom was one of the three astronauts who died in the launch-pad fire that raged through the oxygen-rich cockpit of Apollo 1

during training in 1967. Stranger stil , years later, when his son Scott Grissom, by then a qualified engineer, managed to examine

the remains of the capsule, he found evidence to suggest that an

electrical fault had been deliberately rigged to cause a fire, openly declaring to the media that his father was murdered.

Investigations in the immediate aftermath of the Apollo 1 fire

might have turned up this same evidence already, were it not

for the fact that NASA inspector Thomas Ronald Baron, who

suspected foul play and had identified unacceptable incompetence

throughout the whole Apollo programme – which threatened

its success, in his eyes – also met a premature end when he

and his entire family died as their car was mysteriously driven

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directly into a train. His full and damning 500-page report was

never published. These dubious factors may well have dissuaded

others from calling attention to further deficiencies in the Apollo programme.

Unanswered Questions

There are many other arguments that have erupted around almost

every aspect of the Moon landings, too numerous to dwell on

here. Unanswered questions remain on both sides of the debate.

If it was a hoax, for instance, why indeed continue on with six

missions (seven, including the aborted Apollo 13 attempt, in itself seen as a contrived PR scam by some theorists), when keeping

even one deception secret was surely a risk? Did they plough on

in the hope that at least one mission would eventual y real y work?

Or were the continued ventures just a PR necessity to keep the

black budget funds pouring in to military projects being masked

by the lunar programme, which were final y up and running by

the last ‘visit’? There is no question that much of the thrust of near-space exploration has been military in purpose, as the swarms of

unhealthily proliferating spy satellites and experimental weaponry orbiting over our heads today would confirm, for which publicity

is virtual y zero.

However, in a reversal of the usual conspiracy theory, another

fringe contends that a secret and successful space programme had

in fact already been up and running for years before Apollo, its

true achievements kept quiet for nefarious purposes (something

explored in the British spoof-or-was-it ITV documentary

Alternative Three
in 1977). In this view, we had to be fed a little to keep us all happy, but what we were shown was far less impressive than the astonishing reality. Another belief considers that the

evidence of what was real y found on the Moon was simply

unshowable, because it would have revealed the undeniable

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presence of extra-terrestrials visiting our planet, observing us

from bases on our satellite (
see
chapter 7). Why, after al , did NASA suddenly stop going to the Moon, despite all the gifts for

humanity it was claimed our presence there could bring?

For all the regularly announced lunar returns we have heard of

in more recent years, some from a number of different countries

(and even commercial ventures), why has not one of them yet

amounted to anything other than vague and unfulfilled plans?

Covert programmes notwithstanding, are we real y now capable

of doing something our 1960s forebears weren’t, or does the full

technology needed to leap human beings safely across the gulf of

space still remain elusive, hence the hesitation? There are endless possibilities to all this, beyond the remit of these pages – the

internet will keep the curious busy for many weeks.

Settling the Matter

What is the truth of this classic conspiracy theory, so attacked, and yet so tenacious? Concluding one way or the other as to

whether humans did walk on the lunar surface would seem

to be impossible without heading up there ourselves, as one

day perhaps an unbiased individual wil . Only an entirely

independent verification that the NASA objects are there in their exact places, and with the very same lighting conditions visible

in the iconic images, will settle the matter now. Aerial shots

alone will not suffice.

Supportive testimony for at least some kind of misrep-

resentation having occurred around the Moon landings is, as can

be seen here, perhaps stronger than might be imagined. Certainly, the claim that there is no evidence to support any part of this

conspiracy theory is unfair.

It is perhaps in trying to grasp the sheer enormity of such a

disil usioning trick being played, with all it would imply for many 111

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other areas, that some people prevent themselves from seriously