This post is aimed at those who like to put down debunkers, some of which deserve it - but not all, not realizing that good, successful debunking is the end result of good detective work.

At rense.com you can find this article: "John Walson Visits The Moon - Part 4" - 4-14-08 http://www.rense.com/general81/moon4.htm

And, to cut to the chase, here is how I responded to the article. I thought, as in the past that James Neff, Jeff Rense's Webmaster, would have appended my comments to the above article or give it its own page. Nevertheless, read for yourself.

Hi Jeff: Here I am again enjoying my favorite pastime, debunking. The last time was a few years ago when I took on a claim found in a couple of books, the most famous one being "THE DA VINCI CODE" in which I laid to rest, with careful research and visually with photos, the claim that there is a disembodied hand holding a dagger in Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Last Supper." ("DaVinci, The Dagger & Bullcookies", 5-3-04, http://www.rense.com/general52/dav.htm"

Now, I'm taking on John Walson Leland with the claim that a couple of his lunar photos (and video) show "...arresting evidence of large scale intelligent activity on the lunar surface." I'd like to challenge that with this saying credited to Abraham Lincoln: "You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." versus Carl Sagan saying: "...Precisely because of human fallibility, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

In Rense's latest article: "John Walson Visits The Moon - Part 4" - 4-14-08, we are told: "In another stunning exhibition of astrophotography, John focuses once again on the moon and takes us right down to the surface and unearths (no pun intended) arresting new evidence of large scale intelligent activity on the lunar surface." This is followed by a still frame taken by Walson through his telescope of the lunar surface. Additional closeups are shown to bolster the claim that what one is seeing is not a natural feature but signs of alien activity.

Any such claim immediately activates me into action and I engage in research to prove the claimant right or wrong. Walson does not provide location information nor is any lunar feature named, such as crater names. This makes it difficult for researchers but I am fortunate to own a copy of a NASA publication, "LUNAR ORBITER PHOTOGRAPHIC ATLAS OF THE MOON," BOWKER and HUGHES, NASA SP-206, 1971. This huge and heavy volume features 675 large black and white PLATES of the complete lunar surface in high resolution. I had to look through many plates before I found what I believed to be the appropriate area, realizing as I was doing so that the photos featured in the article might be reversed (due to the telescope) making the search a little more difficult. But eventually I succeeded.

Sure enough, Walson makes the claims because of a visual shortcoming very simply explained: you cannot see any feature on the moon through an earth-bound telescope and claim that it is not a natural feature. High resolution closeup photos of the same area, taken by the Lunar Orbiter, are superior to a view through a telescope and counter the claims of "intelligent activity."

I'm an old hand when it comes to debunking similar claims made by others who instead of looking through a telescope, used poorly-reproduced NASA photos.

Instead of my sending you digital photos of the PLATES in my ATLAS showing the areas in Walson's photos, to show you how wrong he is, I'll take advantage of the fact that my ATLAS was digitized and can be found on the web at
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_or...g/iv_110_h2.jpg

On that page you'll see Lunar Orbiter IV photo IV-110-H2 broken up in 3 views: 1-overall, 2-overall with feature names, 3-sketch of moon showing location of overall photo, in black. The location is Mare Imbrium (Latin for "Sea of Showers" or "Sea of Rains", a vast lunar mare filling a basin). Each thumbnail can be clicked on for a larger photo.

The features claimed to show "intelligent activity" are 2 natural features known as "Grand Piton" (the brighter object) and Piton the T-shaped object. In the high resolution photos you can see that these are natural features. They are seen in even higher resolution in my ATLAS since making digital copies for the web removed a little resolution.

Then, referring to a closeup of Crater Aristillus, the caption reads: "Now, take a look at this single frame of a crater. What is that strange cluster of objects, or forms, in the bottom?" Again, I refer you to: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_or...g/iv_110_h1.jpg and you can see in Lunar Orbiter IV photo IV-110-H1 that the center peaks are natural formations and not what a telescope gives you the impression that you're seeing artificial features made by aliens.

Finally, the caption reads: "OK...let's take a look at the video. Pay special attention to the scene starting at 1:50. What do you see?" I'll tell you what I see, a very nice video of the lunar surface and not showing "breathtakingly clear details of the lunar surface..." For if, indeed, the video was "breathtakingly clear" the details shown would closely equal the digital photos which show nothing but natural features. Nothing else.

John Walson Leland has not provided extraordinary evidence, just human fallibility.

You must have alot of time on your hands...

I do. But why this as a reply? What does it have to do with anything?

You went and debunked The da Vinci Code? You know that was a work of fiction, right?

Very, very nicely done, vajaina (how do you pronounce that??) - nice to see some proper thinking happening around these parts

I rather think vajaina does know that; whether Dan Brown and 90% of his readership know that, is a different question. The book makes various specific and erroneous claims, among which is the 'disembodied hand' nonsense which originates from Brown's confusion between fine art and crossword puzzles.

Good thinking on your part also, Nucular. Yes, I knew it. In 1994 I read "TURIN SHROUD" by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince where on p. 104 they mention "...a hand with a dagger..." Then in 2004 when I read "THE DA VINCI CODE" (sic) and saw "Is that hand wielding a dagger?" I knew that Dan Brown had gotten it from "TURIN SHROUD" so I started looking at pictures of "THE LAST SUPPER" and found a sketch by Leonardo of the arm used in the painting and saw that it didn't belong to a "disembodied" hand, it belonged to St. Peter! Etc., etc. I went to our buidling's basement with my wife and I posed in the same position with a long kitchen knife and the article and the photos became the rense.com article. The article received thousands of visits and I received many emails congratulating me. It was fun. I tried contacting Dan Brown to tell him to go to rense.com and check it out but it was impossible to contact him.