The Moon Landing of 1969 holds the place of one of the most monumental achievements in human history. It was a great day not just for the Americans but the humanity spanning across the globe as a part of it had taken its feet to the moon. But every great thing comes with a background commentary questioning its authenticity and we all are all too aware of the conspiracy theories surrounding the moon landing.
This historic event that our grandparents watched sitting in front of a black-and-white box TV has also been clouded by a persistent conspiracy theory. This theory by the flat earthers suggests that the entire $30 billion mission was a hoax orchestrated by NASA and the U.S. government to win the space race in the cold war raging hot against Russia.
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The Origins Of The ‘Great Moon Hoax’
So one of the biggest and still going strong conspiracy theories first gained traction in the early 1970s, just a few years after the Apollo 11 mission. Needless to say, the key factor to spread the word around was the war, a cold one at that. World War had just ended and there was unrest in the public along with that sharp skepticism towards the government, it’s easier to call pink a red when you want to. Yet there was one prominent name that lit the fuse still dimming, Bill Kaysing.
The ones who did, believed his word because Kaysing was actually a part of the US space program during the years of 1956-1963. So now this ex-employee who could very easily just have been butthurt, self-published a pamphlet ‘We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle’ in the year 1976. Now that stretchy title had got to get him the attention of a ready-to-tear-the-government-apart public.
In the wake of this newfound take on the enormity of the Moon Landing, backing its falseness with a bunch of poorly described photographs, the doubters ignored the biggest evidence crushing the theories, the 382 kg of moon rock that is present on earth today. Not to mention the crystal clear images we get of the earth and the eclipse every now and then to be amazed by.
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Key Arguments Of The Conspiracy Theorists
Conspiracy theorists present several arguments to support their claims. These ‘arguments’ include anomalies in photographic and video data, such as the American flag appearing to wave in space, the lack of stars in lunar sky images, and shadows that they claim contradict a single light source which is the Sun. They also make a counter on the astronauts’ capacity to survive through the Van Allen radiation belts and speculate that the lunar surface footage was shot in a hidden studio with the advanced camera tricks and special effects available at the time. Despite extensive rebuttal by specialists and continuous testimonies from astronauts and scientists from around the world and not just the US, these claims continue to fuel the conspiracy notion among flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, and Area-21 believers.
This theory asserting that the NASA moon landing was fake has been an around-the-table discussion for decades now. Advocates of this ridiculous theory argue about the authenticity of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission with evidence laced with their resentment towards the government and refusal to believe in the facts of science. A guest on the U.K. show ‘This Morning’ argued that the moon landing was fake because the moon is made of light therefore no one can walk on it. These silly claims have been scrutinized through the lens of scientific inquiry many times making it nothing but a mosaic of misunderstandings and misinformation.
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Scientific And Technical Rebuttals
Experts in aeronautics, physics, and photography have methodically refuted every claim advanced by the flat-earthers, I mean fake moon landing conspiracy theorists. For example, the strange movements of the American flag, which theorists believe would have been impossible in a vacuum of space, are simply explained by the presence of a horizontal rod designed to completely display the flag. Similarly, the absence of visible stars is due to the camera’s exposure settings, which were designed to capture the lunar terrain and astronauts rather than the distant, faintly illuminated stars.
One of the most debated pieces of evidence concerns the quality of the images obtained on the moon’s surface. Critics have questioned the sharpness and clarity of these photos, claiming that such shots would be impossible without studio lighting. Guess they forgot that the moon is a literal light bulb charged with the direct reflection of the Sun. But since they didn’t think of this fourth-grade factor themselves, photography experts explained that the moon’s surface reflects sunlight, acting as a natural light reflector, illuminating the scenes clearly. Furthermore, the cameras used by Apollo astronauts were specifically built and adjusted for lunar circumstances, (Like they would go to the Moon without their best shooting gear) which explains why the images were of such high quality despite the hard environment.
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