Unexplained Mysteries: A popular topic this year on Unexplained Mysteries was that of the Apollo Moon landings. It is one of the most controversial conspiracy theories of modern times, and one that continues to maintain quite a following despite it being over 35 years since the Moon landings took place. Did humans really visit the Moon in 1969 ? Did Neil Armstrong set foot on the Lunar surface and utter those famous words, or was he really setting foot in a movie studio as part of the greatest hoaxed event in history ? This year we saw dozens of forum topics covering this subject, usually involving some heated debate between the hard core conspiracy believers and the hard core pro-Apollo side. But who is right ? Surely the greatest space voyage of all time couldn't have been fabricated ? Could it ? While we don't have an answer to that, we did cover this topic in our site poll for December 2006. We asked "Were the Apollo Moon landings a hoax ?".

No - 55%
The vast majority maintain that the Moon Landings did happen, that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon in 1969 and everything occured as history records.

Yes - 31%
Almost a third of you who voted believed that the Moon Landings were hoaxed.

Undecided - 14%
A minority were undecided, and could be swayed either way.

The poll results suggest that there is still a lot of doubt over the genuinity of the Apollo Moon landings. The trouble is that there is very little evidence that would ever satisfy the true hard core conspiracy believers. Even if when humans one day set foot upon the Lunar surface, walk up to the Lunar rover or flagpole and take crystal clear images of the previous Apollo mission landing sites; someone somewhere will make the claim that all of it was put there beforehand to keep the coverup alive, and thousands more will believe them.

is their going to be a different poll now?

The replacement poll on the main site is now:

Will we find life elsewhere in our Solar System ?

All vote sessions have been reset, so if you already voted in the previous poll you can now vote again.

thanks SaRu.

p.s. I like the new avatar.

I wonder if some of the one-third of people who voted to say the moon landing was hoaxed were truly serious -- because if they were, it's mind boggling. Forgive me, but it's just so difficult that anyone could be so thick in the head to believe in something so ridiculous as a faked moon landing.

Do they realize just how difficult it would be just to keep such a thing a secret?

Anyway -- I like the new poll. I just finished reading Ben Bova's SF novel "Titan" and he paints a wonderful picture about possible life on Saturn's largest moon. I also recall Arthur C. Clarke's gripping account in 2010 about how astronauts confronted under-the-ice life forms on Europa.

Of course, that's SF -- but I really like the chances for at least microbial life on Titan and something much more interesting beneath the ice-surface of Europa. Sometimes, I lay awake at night dreaming about the exciting possibility of life on Titan or Europa!

I have a good idea for the next poll;

Do you think the U.S government was involved in the 9/11 attacks?

I'm not implying anything, I would just like to see the numbers.

nah, the us govt. didnt have anything to do with the attacks but their guard was down which WAS their fault.

31% of you people are smoking too much weed. Take a look at this.

http://www.filecabi.net/video/landed-on-the-moon.html

kams912

What is the source of the poll, Saruman?

This poll was embedded on the front page for about a month

Thank you.

I would too.
I think they would be predictable, and disturbingly high in favor of governmental involvement as well.

Although in this format it's likely an impossibility, I'd like to see some breakdown data on these polls, demographics, etc.
For instance, I think it would be telling to see what makes up the 31% of people who believe Apollo was hoaxed:

Age range and educational level might be pertinent. Employement status, political affiliation, religious background, geographic location might also be interesting categories, although not in themselves adequate.

Another point about this particular poll is that it is representative of UM voters. It is not entirely unreasonable to think that UM, based upon it's premise, attracts a relatively large percentage of people who belive lots of conspiracy theories (moon hoax, alien coverups, etc...). Thus it is probably expected that the numbers would be high in favor of such things here.

I wish I could find the article I read, a while back, which spoke to nationwide polls taken on the moon hoax matter. I think it was some time after the Fox program aired. It showed what to me was a very disturbing number of "believers". I recall a 5-6% figure at the time. I remember thinking, as I watched a football game on the TV, that among the 65,000 people in that stadium, there were likely 3000 to 4000 moon hoax believers among them.

That was a frightening number, and, if true, a very telling statement on the quality of education in this country today. In fact, I consider that level a sign of a serious problem nationally. 31%, I don't buy it...but if it's true, we're beyond the serious problem stage and into disaster.


...I don't think there's enough weed available in the world to produce that high a number of "believers"...

From my perspective I see people who believe in all kinds of things without any evidence whatsoever! So, I guess I'd say we're already "into disaster" (probably have been for quite some time).

I think some of them truly are serious, which is disturbing enough. And, they'll argue their positions beyond all logic, and despite being provided the information they need to realize the fallacy in their position.


We've seen several different types around here, however. There are those who think something was amiss, but eventually see that they are incorrect; there are those who refuse to learn anything, and maintain their positions for reasons that escape me, and are probably something for the realm of people qualified to assess psychologic state; there are those who actually do have pronounced problems (perhaps drugs) and who come here to flame incoherently...they of course being dispatched eventually; and there are those who aren't really serious, but are maintaining their position so that they can insult people and cause problems, perhaps due to some underlying problem in their past (we've seen one of them, and he was eliminated in rather short order).

Whatver the case may be, the vast majority of the hoax believers come with a decided lack of knowledge about that which they speak, a distrust of the government--which has generally moved beyong the nominal and indeed healthy distrust which is a founding principal of this nation--and often a pronounced lack of critical thinking skills, which places them at a disadvantage when speaking to scientifically literate people who attempt to explain what actually happened and how. Some of these folks realize that they lack knowledge, and actually learn something through the ensuing discussions. They may not change their tune entirely, but they're alot more enjoyable to talk to, because they're receptive to knowledge.

It's really a very complex sociological and psychological issue, and I think alot of it comes down to educational and cultural factors that are very multifaceted. It may be ridiculous on the surface, but I'm thinkling that thick-headedness may be a little simplistic as a manner of explanation.




Simple answer: no, they do not. But again, this is a result of the lack of knowledge and critical thinking skills which is, by and large, a pre-requisite of such a belief.

I don't usually visit the front page, so I'll give my opinion here. I do think we landed on the moon in 1969, but a part of me still questions it. I really hope we did.

theres good points on both sides. i dont know who to believe.

This is precisely what the various threads on the subject have addressed: belief, as opposed to knowledge.

Arguments are made by HBs, and the explanations are given with an eye toward the HB actually researching the voluminous information for him or herself, in order to gain knowledge, and thus, an understanding of what was behind this project, how it was done, what was done, etc.

Once one learns something of the sciences and technologies involved in executing the lunar program (which again are sorely lacking in the HB knowledge base), one realizes that the "good points" only actually exist in the explanations given to the HBs.

It is better to know than to believe.

I stand on the hoax side as i don't believe there was anyway we could go up their with the technology that was available back then unless they were hiding some sort of more advanced technologies and that technology came out when they went to the moon.

But there is evidence on both sides that is relevent but i personally believe it didn't happen but then theres times i do believe when i see evidence...

Well, that is a rather common position.
You don't believe there was any way we could've 'gone up there' with the technology that was available back then.

Such a position implies that you at once know what technology we had at the time, and additionally implies a knowledge of what technology was necessary to execute the lunar missions.

So, I'd ask...

What was necessary to actually execute the lunar mission, technology-wise?
What did we not have, technology-wise that was required?


Answers to those questions would be a starting point for educational discussion.

Thing i heard on a documentary but could be totally false as it was about the moon landing hoax or trying to put forward a case but i heard on it back then the technology being used is like a calculator today.

But i have to agree in what you said what technology does it take and what did they have or not have.

Actually, I was asking you, woody, since you stated you were on the hoax side based on the fact that they didn't have the technology to do it.

It appears you heard something on a documentary, and that would be the basis of your position?


You must realize that a statement saying, '...the technology being used to execute the Apollo missions was like a calculator today' says nothing at all, and is rather silly.

What it took technologically to go to the Moon was multi-faceted, and involved hardware for the most part (launch vehicles, spacecraft, and their various systems), and of course, computer technology.

We indeed had the hardware. We spent ten years developing and testing the machines. We also had adequate computer technology. In fact, state-of-the-art computers were utilized in the MOCR, and were designed for the purpose. Computers on board the spacecraft had to perform maneuvers, track the spacecraft based upon radar inputs, and such things.

If anyone thinks we didn't have the computer technology to do these things (and compared to today's computers, it was nothing...but it was completely sufficient to do what was needed), they are completely mistaken.

If anyone thinks that it took more than we developed, or that it took today's computer capacity to do Apollo, they are profoundly mistaken.

The fact is, the principals of spaceflight were already known, the mechanics well understood, and the hardware proven. In order to do what we did, vis-a-vis computers, we did not need anything close to what we have today. We needed what we designed, and no more.

In fact, today we need no more than we had then. But, we have it, and you can be assured that we'll use it!

Orbiting the moon and successfully landing and taking off are two entirely different matters. We could have simply orbited thus tricking the whole world and never actually landed. Only a select few people would have been involved in the hoax.

Some people seem to forget that the LEM has been photographed on the surface. Elvis was also photographed on Mars by the Mars Rover.

Do you realise how much easier it would be for the US government to fake a moon landing and keep it a secret than to actually get a person on the moon? The US wanted to claim the moon to beat the Russians and it wouldn't surprise me if they did go to such extremes as to have a mass cover up especially when Americans are so gullible (no offence).

Tell me this; if it is possible to get a man on the moon with the technology available, than why in the last 30 years have they not been able to get anyone else on the moon and get new digital footage with high resolution.. i'm sure it'll happen one day.

The dudes on weed got ever so higher than Neil Armstrong ever had.

I disagree, the number of people who would have had to keep quiet about such a thing (hoaxing the moon landings) would have been enormous (people eventually talk). BTW, if you have a fairly good science background you can access information that will show you exactly how it was done...or you can PM 'MID' here on UM and he'll be glad to answer your questions.



Money, we haven't been back to the moon because it's expensive. As for the high resolution images, someday is likely to be quite soon.... the LRO is due to launch in 2008.



Yeah, ok.

Yeah everything's a hoax, me, you, earth, the sky, life, death.......can anyone say PARANOIA?

How many people would it really take to make a movie? One or more of them probably couldn't keep a secret, word travelled and that's why many more have tried to disprove it "scientifically".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMINSD7MmT4
at 1:18 ish you can actually see the wires that the astronaut actors are connected to. That's the simplest proof right there without going into details of light, shadow and gravity of the moon and how the moon landing footage does not reflect this "scientifically".

LRO? an unmanned gizmo that does laps aroung the moon, woohoo!

Feel free to stay on the planet of astronaghts, Santa Clause and unicorns.

In all honesty, i really admire Stanley Kubrics work. Fantastic director, a true visionaire, but the moon landing footage was definately not his masterpiece.

Unfortunately, you linked to a short snippet of Apollo 11 footage, and there is no OPS reflection appearing there at 1:18. I think you may be referring to another clip of a later Apollo mission, where we see the rather typical sun reflections off of the OPS antenna that extended up from the top of their OPS unit (on top of the PLSS).

They're reflections, not wires...besides, one virtually invisible wire couldn't support the weight of an astronaut in a suit, and this one "wire" was off center of the vertical axis of the astronauts body, which would've made him tip sideways upon being lifted.

At any rate, this is an old, tired fabrication put forth and completely debunked long ago.

This is not proof...it is an illustration of a lack of knowledge about what went on during Apollo.


p.s. The moon landing footage does indeed reflect in scientific fashion the fact that these men are on the surface of the Moon. Perhaps your definition of science is somewhat different?






Perhaps this might be explained more thoroughly?
Rhetorical question, forget it...




Well, you're absolutely correct about that!
We might be getting somewhere!

We've all heard the innane theory about Kubrick doing the Apollo footage in a Hollywood studio. It's insane of course, and Kubrick wasn't anywhere near Hollywood in 1969 (he worked out of England from 1962 until the end of his career).

The Moon footage was of course the result of Westinghouse TV cameras taking images of men on the surface of the Moon. The producers were the men at MCC who planned the EVAs, and the directors were the men in mission control.

You're new here.
Do you realize how innane that first paragraph actually is? Especially since it's been explained completely a hundred times on this board!


We beat the Soviets to the Moon for reasons which are completely understood, and also explained right here many times.



Because they haven't tried to do so. This is because they haven't had the mandate, nor the funding to return to the Moon in the past 30 years. Congress appropriates funds for NASA. Look into Congress and you'll see why we haven't been back to the Moon since 1972.



I am forming an impression that perhaps you are one of those dudes?

If you are psychic spy, you shouldn't have to question anything and have all the answers.... just wondering