One of the more common fairy tales is the conspiracy theory that we never went to the Moon, never landed there and that supposed ‘giant leap for mankind’ was a false step taken on a sound stage.
By Egon E. Mosum
There are a lot of songs that have ‘Moon’ in the title. There’s ‘Ol’ Devil Moon,’ ‘Moon River’ and of course, ‘Bad Moon Rising.’
Along with the songs, there are a lot of stories about the Moon too, and some of them are just plain lunacy.
Let’s take out the telescope and look at some of the theories about our only natural satellite that has been a focal point for romance, a space travel goal to be reached, and a never-ending source of nonsense.
One of the more common fairy tales is the conspiracy theory that we never went to the Moon, never landed there and that supposed ‘giant leap for mankind’ was a false step taken on a sound stage.
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Conspiracy theorist Bill Kaysing was raising hell about the supposed Moon landings, claiming they never happened — nary a one of them. He was perhaps the lead vocalist in this ‘song’ about the Moon.
In 1976, he self-published his minimum opus, We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. In it he claimed that the National Aeronautical and Space Administration did not have enough of the ‘right stuff’ to land men on the Moon and get them back to Earth.
The technology just wasn’t there, Kaysing claimed.
He further noted that in the photographs of the Moon landing, there were no stars showing, that there weren’t blast craters beneath the landing craft and there should have been, and there were optical ‘anomalies’ in the Moon photographs.[1]
Kaysing’s creative writing work was, as may be imagined challenged by others.
Via telescope, the landing site and remnants of the moon landing are visible. The bit about there being no stars in the sky was due to the fact that the Moon photos were taken during the day, when sunlight would have overpowered any light from stars.
Another claim that the flag planted on the Moon was fluttering, (which absent air should not be the case), was debunked by the explanation that as the flag unfurled it crumpled and weak Moon gravitation was insufficient to straighten it out.[2]
Another proof of the fact that Kaysing had rocks in his head was the eight hundred and thirty-two ‘kilograms of Moon rock that Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth. These rocks have been independently verified as lunar by laboratories around the world.’[3]
Okay, so it looks like, yes, we went to the Moon and landed there—several times in fact. But were we the only ones who did?
One theory is that the Nazis had a secret base on the dark side of the Moon. Supposedly they got there in 1942, twenty-seven years ahead of the United States.[4]
Sounds like science fiction? That’s what it was — no proof for this conspiracy theory.
Okay, Americans on the Moon, Nazis, not so much; but what about aliens on the Moon?
There was a claim that astronaut Buzz Aldrin saw aliens on the Moon while he was visiting.
This particular bit of stuff and nonsense likely originated from a British tabloid article in 2018 that boldly went where no newspaper had gone before with the statement ‘Moon Walker Buzz Aldrin and three other astronauts have passed lie detector tests over claims they experienced alien encounters.’[5]
Perhaps the un-credited author of that bold faced lie should have taken a lie detector test, for ‘in a 2014 "Ask Me Anything" Reddit thread, Aldrin wrote that while "the probability is almost CERTAIN" of life somewhere in space, "It was not an alien" that he saw on his Apollo 11 route to the Moon.’[6]
Okay, we would expect the tin foil hat crowd to come up with this kind of thing, but in the nineteenth century there were respected astronomers who bought in to the man in the Moon theory.
‘In the 1820s, the Bavarian astronomer Franz von Paula Gruithuisen claimed to have glimpsed entire cities on the Moon with his telescope.’
Now maybe you never heard of him, but you might have heard of ‘Sir William Herschel, a prominent British astronomer and composer, also thought aliens lived on the Moon and made regular observations about the progress of their construction projects.’[7]
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
The Moon is rather important for the Earth. It affects the ocean tides, climate, and the speed of our rotation. While we might survive without it, sans Moon, the earth would be a very different place.
So, while we need it to keep things as they are, some of us have a need to mythologize it without the bounds of science fiction, and posit all kinds of theoretical nonsense as ‘fact’ without any evidence to back it up.
We do not need any more unscientific nonsense than we already have in our society; in an American society that academically, when it comes to the sciences, is lagging behind much of the rest of the world.
The claims that we never went to the Moon, that the Nazis got there first, that there are alien bases on the Moon should be, must be, thrown into the same dung heap as the flat earth theory.
Science and technology are crucial to our development and survival as a society, and to our ability to maintain military dominance in an ever more hostile planet.
Science fiction makes for great books and movies, but it has no place being put forth as science fact, and the crazy Moon conspiracy theories are indicative of a regression of thought in our present day society; a dangerous detour from logic and fact.
While some of us may merely scoff at crazy Moon theories, the truly frightening fact is there are some out there who actually believe them, and more malevolently, some out there who seek to profit from them at the expense of truth and reason.
Russian and Chinese scientists even now are planning to colonize the Moon, and extract such resources as it may provide. That is something definitely to be concerned about by the West as it poses a significant threat.
We do not need to spend our intellectual capital in imaginary fears and nonsensical theories about who is or who is not on the Moon. We need to be concerned as to who is going to get there next and what they might be doing.
Sources:
[1] BILL KAYSING Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Kaysing
[2] HOW DO WE KNOW THAT WE WENT TO THE MOON Institute of Physics https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/moon/how-do-we-know-we-went-to-the-moon
[3] IBID.
[4] THE MOON LANDINGS HAVE A NAZI PROBLEM Fraser MacDonald 6/23/19 History News Network https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/the-moon-landings-have-a-nazi-problem
[5] I saw a UFO’ Buzz Aldrin PASSES lie detector test revealing truth about aliens 4/8/18 DAILY STAR https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/news-ufo-aliens-lie-detector-17126863
[6] Fact check: False claim that Buzz Aldrin saw an alien on his trip to the moon Mackenzie Sadeghi, 3/23/21 USA TODAY https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/03/23/fact-check-buzz-aldrin-did-not-claim-he-sighted-aliens-apollo-11/4790026001/
[7] 7 UNUSUAL MYTHS AND THEORIES ABOUT THE MOON History.com https://www.history.com/articles/7-unusual-myths-and-theories-about-the-moon