The Truth Behind the Moon Landings

This is a well-conceived short guide to the moon-landing conspiracy theories - 50 minutes the lot, presenting the main arguments from both sides with clear, concise dialogue, neither talking down to us nor trying to blind us with science (a more difficult balancing-act than it looks).

The two leading hoax-claimants are both given a fair chance to expound their theories. What they don't do is make any reply to the counter-arguments. Apparently they never do, according to conspiracy-sceptic Jay Windley, also interviewed here.

Undisputed father of the conspiracy theory is Bill Kaysing, seen in his new, rather unlikely career, running a cat's home out in the desert. He claims that he had a hunch, well before the landings, that no-one would ever get to the moon. Today he maintains that no-one could get there even now. This passionate re-asserting of the case, unsupported by evidence, somewhat weakens his credibility, as does his claim that he has been the object of several assassination attempts. To me, it seems significant that neither he nor his fellow-believer Ralph René had any formal training in the relevant technology, and both their books on the subject had to be self-published.

What keeps up the suspense is that all the claims can look plausible at first. The Stars and Stripes fluttering in a non-existent breeze. Shadows that would require two different suns. Not a star to be seen in the sky. Radiation that would have killed the crew before they were even out of the earth's atmosphere. Moon rock easily faked for effect. Even a suggestion that they were running out of time to fulfil Kennedy's original boast that an American would walk on the moon by the end of the decade, so NASA's funding might be under threat... And one by one, all these claims are demolished, certainly to my satisfaction. With a well-kept Buzz Aldrin in the presidential chair. And a rather elderly Patrick Moore, unfortunately not very audible, but clearly on the side of the sceptics too.

It has been rightly called both a 'compelling myth' and 'cultural vandalism'. (Ralph René was big enough to chuckle at being called a vandal!)

Why arguing about this so-called "Moon Landing" is a hoax or fake or made-up crap? If you are a die-hard American patriot, doubting the Moon Landing is simply a treasonable like denial of the American Pride. To me, you don't have to debate or argue whether it's true or false, 'cause the only way to solve this argument of conspiracy or not is simple: Send a low orbit mapping satellite to the Moon, using its advanced camera lens, focus to the specific landing area where NASA claimed, photograph to see if those objects, devices, machines, or even the famous American flag are still there or really exist. Those things would be forever there since there's no AIR, MOISTURE, HUMIDITY, i.e., WATER there. There's no WIND, RAIN or whatever there. There's no corrosion on the Moon that would erode, rust or corrupt those items left behind by the Americans, those things would be forever there, they would be still like when they left behind or put over there. Those items would never be buried since there's no air there, so there's no wind effect. Things would be there as NASA claimed. So just sending back the pictures back to Earth, see if they do exist.

But if judging by the difficulties that NASA showed us that even sending the Space Shuttle to the lower orbit of the Earth proved to be an uncertain venture and most of the time, very dangerous, I really doubt America or NASA would send a expedition satellite to do the job. I'm relying on the Chinese to achieve such goal and terminate this never-ending argument. The Chinese should not try to land their machines behind the Moon, they should land their Moon vehicle right down on the areas where the Americans claimed as their landing zone. Once the investigation carried out, whether the American Landing on the Moon in 1969 is a hoax or a fact would be answered. Why argue something or some theories that you couldn't approve? It's like trying to solve a murder case: Where's the body? Where's the murder weapon? Where the crime was committed? What's the motive? Or, it's just another Cold Case, nobody want to reopen it or try to block it and keep it cold?

Somewhat a convincing moon hoax movie, but the problems about it is the issue that they don't allow both sides to go face to face on the issue. And this makes me very uncomfortable that both sides should get equal chance. A carefully edited movie can easily be made to side one way or the other.

This worries me, because I have done this kind of movie editing before. Why did they don't analyse don't use lie detector tests (voice stress, polygraph, reverse speech), I don't know. At least it will give some information to the viewers, done by a competent expert, who can prove his expertise based on known information.

I still remember to this day about the shooting of JFK, in which ABC T.V. interviewed a forensic expert after looking at the autopsy that he had analyzed a bullet coming from the front and go through the back of the head of JFK. Unfortunately, this was censored out from mass media for nearly 40 years, but still available in historical archives, and now we conclude still wrongly that the bullet came from behind, without an information from forensic experts records based on autopsy examination.

The difference between a good documentary and a persuasive movie is a documentary gives full chance of presenting all evidence a persuasive movie will edit out certain information. I could easily defend on the other side by just telling you that the lunar module was robot spaceship and there is a video that during the lunar landing that these three were circling the earth. Of course that piece of information was not "presented" here or perhaps "carefully edited out" as what one movie maker mentioned to me in passing.

I watched a repeat of this program recently. Both sides of the alleged moon hoax were presented. The information presented was easy to understand, but not dumbed down. I was disappointed in the program's short length (1 hour with commercial breaks). It would have been interesting to hear more of the interviews with the hoax proponents just to see how ignorant they really are concerning space travel. It would have exposed them very well. The show also spent very little time examining each claim made by Kaysing and other hoax believers. Too bad they did not include video of Buzz Aldrin socking it to Bart Sibrel when Buzz was accused of being a fraud. All and all, it was a very enjoyable program.

The above psudoscientific rant about the nonsense called reverse speech is garbage, and should be ignored. This is an excellent documentary that puts the boot into the utter daftness of the conspiracy theorists. For the moon landings to have been faked, over 1,000 people would need to have been involved, none of whom have ever blabbed about the "truth" (sic). Compare that to Watergate, which was known to less than a dozen people... Next, the Discovery Channel should do the same for debunking reverse speech, and other such nonsense. James Randi also offers $1 million for anyone who can demonstrate such paranormal claims under properly controlled conditions. So far, no moon hoaxer and no reverse speech enthusiast have won, because their claims are utterly void of content. Oh, and did I mention, this is a great documentary?