Moon-Landing Hoax

MOON-LANDING HOAX

How did this happen? How could humankind’s greatest adventure and greatest technological achievement end up being called a hoax and a secret conspiracy by millions of people around the world? The Apollo program landed men on the Moon six times! The astronauts talked to us from the Moon. They took photographs. They filmed their moonwalks. They brought back nearly a thousand pounds of rocks. Nevertheless, many people deny that the Moon landings ever happened. They charge that it was an elaborate trick designed to make the United States look good during the Cold War. President Richard Nixon and NASA lied to us. The astronauts were actors.

As we covered in the section on conspiracy theories, great stories are irresistible to the human brain. We can’t help ourselves. We have to listen to stories and gossip. We can’t stop ourselves from considering them and imagining if the wild claims are true. The juicier, the better. The urge to believe in and spread gossip is probably instinctual, just part of who we are, say some researchers.47 It’s less about what we do and more about who we are. “Gossiping Primates” is not only a great name for a rock band, it’s also who we all are deep down. In light of this, I think that something like the Moon-hoax claim should be viewed as less a kooky aberration and more an inevitability. The Apollo missions were too big, too complex, too difficult, and too spectacular for everyone to accept. When the moment arrives that a human finally walks on Mars, I guarantee that some subset of the world will say it’s happening on a Hollywood soundstage.

Because I am committed to being an open-minded skeptic, I have always made the effort to listen to and consider the arguments of Moon-hoax proponents. No matter how ridiculous some of the ideas may seem to me, I don’t automatically dismiss them without at least thinking them over. The polls cited here describe belief at the time of Harrison’s account. Gallup reported that about 6 percent of American adults believed it was all a hoax.48 Although that figure represents millions of Americans, it’s definitely a fringe number for a poll. One can ask just about anything and get at least 6 percent to agree to it. However, we also have to consider how many people doubt the landings, if not deny them. There is also the question of how many non-Americans don’t believe anyone has been to the Moon. I have lived outside the United States and traveled extensively, and many times I have been shocked to discover how widespread this belief is. Based on my experiences, it’s very common in many Asian, African, and Caribbean countries. One poll found that a quarter of all British people are Moon-hoax believers.49 Motivations for this belief vary, I’m sure. It might be ignorance about science (What’s the Moon?), poor knowledge of history (President Nixon was impeached for his role in the Moon hoax, right?), lack of imagination (There’s just no way!), or even anti-American sentiments (I hate Americans, therefore they never went to the Moon.). Late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was a Moon-hoax believer, probably in large part because he didn’t like the United States.50 Some people, members of the Taliban in Afghanistan are a good example, are so lost in medieval thinking and superstition that they likely view it as impossible for mere mortals to achieve such a voyage. For some it may be a result of the formal education they received. I had heard, for example, that the Moon-hoax claim is taught to children as fact in Cuban schools. I was very curious about this when I visited that country. But as an American citizen allowed in as a journalist, I wasn’t in a position to stir up political debates, so I skirted around the issue. The Cuban people I encountered were consistently bright and had positive views about science—but some were unconvinced that NASA ever sent men to the Moon.

Harrison suggests that, for younger people, the landings of the 1960s and 1970s can feel like remote history. Someone who has never watched a Moon mission unfold may find the old technology difficult to reconcile with the achievement. So how did people do it with “prehistoric” twentieth-century technology? No cell phones or laptops, but they went to the Moon? Sure. It doesn’t help that any curious kid with a computer can watch or read Moon-hoax propaganda on the web. Without some honest context and sensible counterarguments, it can seem credible, I’m sure.

In 2001, Fox TV broadcast a terrible pseudo-documentary during primetime called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? It probably helped inspire a new wave of irrational deniers then, and Harrison describes its continued circulation online. In his account, YouTube clips had drawn hundreds of thousands of views. Professional presentations work, regardless of how factually incorrect or dishonest they may be. One survey found that 27 percent of young Americans aged eighteen to twenty-four had “some doubt” that astronauts went to the Moon, and 10 percent said it was “highly unlikely.”51

When I read about such statistics or meet people who believe in the hoax, my first reactions are sympathy and disappointment. I feel sad for those who feel no connection to this important accomplishment. It was a human feat that all people should at the very least take some measure of pride in. Sure, it was motivated by Cold War militarism and shallow nationalism, but it was still profoundly special and meaningful. The moment the first humans landed on the Moon, we were no longer an Earth-bound species. We had extended our physical reach and in doing so expanded our collective ability to dream bigger dreams. Or at least that’s what should have happened.

Here are some common Moon-hoax claims and responses. The point is to examine the evidence, rather than agree with me “because I’m right.”

Where are the stars? This is probably the most common of all the challenges to the Moon landings. It’s also the easiest to explain. If those astronauts were really on the Moon, hoax believers ask, then why are there no stars in the black space behind them? It looks suspiciously like the black wall of a movie-studio soundstage. The reason for this is simple. Stars in space are relatively faint dots of light. The surface of the Moon, however, is very bright when the Sun is shining on it. So too are the lunar module (landing vehicle) and the white spacesuits the astronauts wore on the Moon. Therefore, in order to take a decent photograph in such conditions, the camera’s shutter speed must be set to a speed that is too fast to take in the relatively faint light from stars. The result is a photograph with properly lit astronauts but only black space behind them. If you still have doubts, try it yourself. Go out on a starry night and take a photo of a well-lit building or person. If the shot comes out well for the primary subject, you won’t see stars. It’s about differences in light. The contrast was so great, in fact, that Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke says he couldn’t even see stars with his eyes while on the surface of the Moon.52

The flag waved. There is a film clip hoax believers say shows the American flag waving in the wind on the Moon. Of course, this could not have happened because the Moon has no atmosphere, no wind. But there it is, plain as day for anyone to see, flapping around. Clearly somebody opened a door in the studio or turned on a fan while the fake flag planting on the Moon was being filmed.

Don’t confuse moving with flapping in the wind. Yes, the flag moves. But why? It moves because an astronaut wiggled the flagpole while driving it into the lunar surface. There may not be wind, but the laws of physics are still enforced up there just like they are down here on Earth. The flag moves because of inertia. Movement of the flagpole results in movement of the attached flag. Simple as that.

Tricky Dick. Some people point to the man who was in the White House during the Apollo landings as a key reason to believe this conspiracy theory. But just because someone is known for lying and being involved in conspiracies doesn’t mean everything he or she was ever involved with is necessarily corrupt. President Richard Nixon may have been an unethical politician, but this alone is not proof that he orchestrated six fake Moon landings. Watergate does not prove Moongate.

They lied. I have met many people who participated directly in America’s space program during the Apollo years. I spoke with some casually at science conferences, others I conducted lengthy, formal interviews with for various writing projects. The following is a partial list:

Gene Cernan (Apollo 10, Apollo 17 commander)

John Young (Apollo 10, Apollo 16 commander)

Charlie Duke (Apollo 16)

Gene Kranz (Mission Control Center flight director)

Alan Bean (Apollo 12)

Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11)

Scott Carpenter (Mercury Seven astronaut)

Tom Stafford (Apollo 10 commander)

Frank Borman (Apollo 8 commander)

Rusty Sweickart (Apollo 9)

Jim McDivitt (Apollo 9)