The Moon Landing Conspiracy

One of the greatest conspiracies of all time is the theory that NASA faked the Apollo moon landings on a movie soundstage in the Nevada desert. The stated reason for the hoax is that the political investment in the program was such that the U.S. government could not allow it to fail and that the available technology at the time was such that it could only fail if genuinely attempted ie with two spoons and a big jump. The main reasons for the conspiracy theory are as follows; 1)The lack of a blast crater from the landing, 2)Signs of grass on the moon, 3)The rocks brought back from the Moon are identical to rocks collected by scientific expeditions to Antartica, 4)Signs of an aircraft in view from the moon, 5) Astronauts reports of not seeing any stars from the capsule windows. in a vacuum, facing away from the sun, the stars should be gloriously brilliant, 6) the dangerous radiation of the Van Allen radiation belt, 7)The moon looks much smaller in photos, 8)The flapping flag despite no atmosphere, 9)Identical backgrounds in photos listed as taken miles apart, 10)Two photos were taken where astronaughts look like models. 11)No-one really likes America 12)We’re all bored of seeing that damn American flag on the moon. A leading conspiracy theorist Brian Berk invited me to his house to discuss his theory. When I got to his front door I was mauled by an abominable snowman. After breaking free of his grip I rushed through the open front door and met Brian for the first time. “What is the abominable snowman doing in your driveway?” I asked. “Him? He’s Jon my pet abominable snowman.” “Really?” “I’ve got loads of abominable snowmen.” He added proudly. “Where do you keep the other ones?” I asked looking round hurriedly. “In the abominable snowman cellar. Where else?” he replied as though I had just asked him if he breathes on a regular basis. Stumped by this last question I remained quiet. Where else would you keep abominable snowmen? In my silence, Brian took it upon himself to give me a tour of his house and, since he knew the house better that I did, I didn’t complain. I realised, after five minutes, that it was a bungalow, so I rushed back down the stairs feeling foolish. Brian finally got onto the subject of the conspiracy theory and told me that he believed that, because of the hard times the USA was going through, they cheated in the space race. He gave me the four pictures that you can see on your left. “The first”, he explains, “is a picture from NASA that was sent out after the moon landing, but, if you look closely, they don’t appear to be standing on the moon. If you look at the bottom of the photo, two appear to be sitting down, but there is surely no room for chairs in the moon. The astronauts are not even wearing all of their space gear, how can they breathe?” Not being an expert on such subjects I said “Well…maybe they are on a trampoline and they only had to hold their breath for a few seconds.” “Then who took the photo” he replied smugly. I had no answer for this; Brian had obviously thought this through. “Let’s look at the second photo,” he said. “This is Neil Armstrong in his famous position, saluting to the camera. Or is it?” I was dumbfounded. “Of course it is,” I said, feeling less sure than I had been a few minutes before. Now he came to mention it, the helmet’s visor did seem to be painted gold. Reading my thoughts, Brian said, “How could he have seen?” I had no answer for this; I was tired of playing devils advocate. Brian had already convinced me. Brian went on to say that the third picture couldn’t have been on the moon as, if you look closely, you can see there is a plane flying past, and the fourth picture shows grass, a life form, proving that Neil Armstrong was not on the moon. I felt cheated by the US government. So cheated that I hopped on my left foot until it was sore. I left Brian’s house in a daze (and a limp) and drove home thinking that if the US government had enough power to fool the world about this, maybe they could fool us about something else; maybe Bill Clinton did sleep with Monica Lewinsky, maybe Saddam Hussein could not have killed the world in one foul swoop. Maybe George W. Bush did say, live on Swedish TV unaware that cameras were still rolling ‘It’s amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity and incumbency.’ Maybe George W. Bush did say his favourite childhood book was ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ a good choice if it weren’t for the fact that the book was not even published until after he had graduated from college. Maybe George W. Bush did say; "They misunderestimated me."—Bentonville, Ark., Nov. 6, 2000 "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."—Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, Jan. 27, 2000 "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."--Reuters, May 5, 2000 "I think if you know what you believe, it makes it a lot easier to answer questions. I can't answer your question."— Reynoldsburg, Ohio, Oct. 4, 2000