Up to the April Fool’s Day this year I thought that all evidence for the Moon Hoax was only that some photos from Apollo missions had been retouched and NASA had lost some data.
It is always good to check these old conspiracy theories, even if they seem highly improbable, especially if you select for your blog a name like A Small Study on Conspiracy Theories, like I did. So, I did check it.
It is actually true that some photos have been retouched. It is worse than that, some photos are forgeries, composites. There are quite reasonable arguments against several photos. It is also true that at least one moon stone was a forgery, the one in the Netherlands. The other one, Big Bertha, has a so strange explanation that I strongly suspect it was not found by an astronaut from the Moon. Additionally, there are other concerns, the biggest being that there were six trips and everything went fine on live television. There was a serious risk in every trip. NASA could not know when a solar storm, SPE, a solar proton event, starts. Such would have killed the crew it they were on the Moon. There was also a risk that the take off from the Moon would have failed. It could not be tested well on the Earth. Yet, NASA made six trips.
I find this problematic. Why six? Why not one as there was a fairly high risk? Also, if the trips to the Moon were fakes, why six? Why not one or maximum two fake trips?
This is why I think the most logical explanation is that there were six trips to the Moon but they were unmanned. There is no doubt that the USA was able to do unmanned trips to the Moon.
But NASA insists that the trips were manned. They did put astronauts to the Moon six times. Now, I have been told such a stupid motto as “Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proofs”. I have been told that of some of my papers, where I do present proofs to my claims. They are not at all so extraordinary claims as putting a man to the Moon, nor are my proofs so extraordinary. They are simply written mathematical proofs that certainly could be checked, only nobody cares to check them. But the NASA claim is extraordinary.
Do they have extraordinary proofs? Or even ordinary proofs?
In a brief reading of Wikipedia’s list of this type of evidence:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings
I could not spot anything that could differentiate between unmanned missions to the Moon from manned missions. In the last three missions there was the Lunar Rover. Assuming it is a robot, the tracks and even a robot placing a flag, do not prove that astronauts were there.
There is Apollo 14 photo (by NASA, but I’ll accept it for now) which is claimed to show astronaut footprints and Apollo 12 photo with some scratches that may be footprints. Apollo 12 was 1969, Soviets put a robot there 1970. I think it is possible that Apollo 12 could have put a more primitive robot there in 1969, so the tracks may not be astronaut footprints. The resolution is not sufficient to tell.
Maybe there could be something that one could accept as an artifact that proves that a human was on the Moon, rather than a robot. Maybe it could be very clear photos of footprints made by some other country than the USA. But so far there is nothing.
I am not saying that Americans did not land astronauts to the Moon. I cannot prove they did not, only that nobody can prove they did. I do not really care if they did. I saw it in the television and it is an old story for me if they did, and if they did not, it is also an old story as it has been rumored for a long time.
There is a joke of Russians, a Polish joke I think. It goes something like this, if I remember correctly:
“Russians landed on the Moon.”
“All of them?”
“No, only three.”
“So, what’s the big deal?”
I feel more or less the same about Americans landing on the Moon or not, what’s the big deal, but it is kind of interesting that there are no clear proofs that they did, yet those who question it are framed as crackpots. That is typical nowadays. That’s why I wanted to check this conspiracy theory. It is possible, maybe even believable, not at all crazy. There is a reasonable doubt.