There are three major thrusts used by the fake landing advocates to bolster their claim: first, that the radiation exposure suffered by the astronauts was not survivable; second, that the photographic evidence “proves” that the landings were staged in a Disney movie studio somewhere; and third, that the mechanical aspects of the mission — the pure mechanics and physics of the journey — are not as claimed and therefore must be faked. As you will see, each of these is based on misinterpretations, misrepresentations, or just plain ignorance of the realities of space travel. It is not a coincidence that many of the “believers” in this myth are too young to literally remember the Moon landings. If they had been old enough to watch the actual missions, especially on live TV, they would have known that most of these claims are poppycock. For this article, we will deal with each of these claims in separate sections, and try to directly address the key sub-claims being made.
SECTION ONE - THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE
Percy is one of the primary drivers of this particular set of claims, but Collier and others have added to it. Let’s list a few of the claims one-by-one and address them.
ISSUE 1 - The shadows don’t fall right in images taken on the Lunar surface, proving that there are are multiple light sources, like professional stage lighting using high-powered lamps. Since the Moon has only one light source, the Sun, these images (these people claim) “have to have been shot on a sound stage somewhere.”
This one is usually based on images like the one above (taken from an Apollo 17 TV transmission), that seem to show the shadows of the astronauts coming from different lighting sources. However, a logical approach to this problem reveals that there is nothing at all mysterious about either the shadows or the light sources. If, in fact, the shadows were cast by different light sources, wouldn’t each astronaut have two shadows, instead of just the one each we see here? Of course they would. Yet, in the images that the “Moon Hoaxers” cite, there is consistently only one shadow being cast, indicating that the Sun is (as it should be) the dominant light source.
So, how to explain the seemingly divergent shadows in this image? If you look closely, you will see that the astronaut on the right is on a slight rise above the astronaut on the left. This has not only the effect of lengthening his shadow, but also if the slope is greater in one direction, say to the left of the astronaut on the right, it will tend to flow and elongate in that direction.
It’s important to keep in mind that the Moon has a very rough and uneven surface, with lots of slopes, rises and potholes. As a result, many of the shadows will appear to be non-parallel. Invariably, the Moon Hoax advocates will compare these lunar images to flat, smooth terrestrial landscapes, like this one below from David Percy. greater in one direction, say to the left of the astronaut on the right, it will tend to flow and elongate in that direction.
In a sense, the Moon Hoax advocates are correct here; there is no comparison to be made from Lunar landscapes and terrestrial ones. But, it is because the surface of the Moon is so uneven, not because there are multiple light sources, i.e. lamps, casting the “wrong” shadows.
Also at issue is the photographic equipment used by the astronauts on the lunar surface. Shortened wide-angle lenses, like the ones on the hand-held Hasseblad 70mm cameras used by the astronauts, will distort otherwise parallel shadows. Simply pull some outdoor photos from your own personal collection and see for yourself.
ISSUE 2 - The foreground of many images of the astronauts on the Moon are filled in with light, while the shadows remain absolutely black, again proving that there are multiple light sources.
In this one, the argument is that with his back to the sun, the astronaut’s suit should be as dark as his own shadow stretching out in front of him (see Apollo 16 image, above). Since there is no light diffusion in an absolute vacuum, NASA “must” have used reflectors or “fill-in lamps” to illuminate the astronaut for this photograph. The truth is, there is evidence of a “reflector” in this image — but it is the lunar surface itself! Obviously, the lunar surface is a fairly bright gray color. It is known, from the Apollo samples brought back and analyzed in Houston, to contain a LOT of glass beads, with a lot of reflective and refractive minerals in it. All of these materials tend to kick light directly back toward the source of illumination with very high efficiency, in this case the sun. This is one reason why the Full Moon is so much brighter (than other phases) in the night sky; the sun is “behind” the Earth. The effect of the sunlight hitting the lunar surface and being reflected back toward the sun itself creates a “backscatter” that fills in the astronaut’s bright white shadowed suit with excellent “fill-light.” And the fact that the shadow is so dark on the ground in front of him is proof of exactly the opposite of the claim being made by the “Moon Hoaxer” crowd. It shows that indeed, the astronaut is standing upright in a harsh vacuum, where his suit can “see” the illumination from the surrounding lunar landscape. By stark contrast (pun intended …), almost no light at all has seeped into the shadow — because it’s lying flat on the ground and cannot “see” anything but black space overhead! It is, as it should be, extremely dark and sharp.
Interestingly, as to the question of multiple light sources, some of the leading debunkers of the Moon Hoax theory have also made a very significant mistake. It is flat wrong, ,as many of them have stated, that the Earth is a “very significant” light source on the Moon. When full, the Earth is on the order of 68.4 times brighter than a full Moon as seen from Earth. It also takes up something like 13.5 times as much sky. But, that’s not the whole story.
The Earth is — maximum — 100 times the brightness of a Full Moon (we’re going to overestimate a bit to prove the point). The apparent magnitude (brightness) of a Full Moon is about -13. The equivalent magnitude of the Sun is about -27. Subtracting, that’s a difference of 14 magnitudes. Since each 5 magnitudes corresponds to a factor of 100 in brightness, a difference of 14 magnitudes corresponds to almost 100 X 100 X 100, or a factor of a million! Allowing for the ~100 times greater reflected brightness of the Earth (at “Full Earth”), the direct lunar sunlight is still ~100,000 times brighter than the Earth’s illumination.
There is NO WAY that the slide films used by the crews (even the “super film” developed by EG&G, see below) could have detected that feeble “Earthlight” on the lunar surface, even in the shadows, with exposures set for the sunlit view.
Of course, we have our own thoughts on this. Some of the debunkers must be realizing that backscatter is insufficient to account for some of what we are seeing on the lunar surface photography. To come up with an explanation, they have resorted to the (obviously incorrect) “Earth light” angle; but it is of course, more interesting than that. Read on.
ISSUE 3 - There are no stars in the background from pictures taken on the Moon.
This one keeps coming up, but the answer, while obvious, is somewhat complicated by our own lunar conspiracy theory. Usually, Moon Hoax advocates cite any number of pictures of the lunar surface showing an absolute black background, but this one above of John Young saluting the flag in front of the LM “Orion” is quite prevalent. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of photography can easily put this one to rest. Any brightly lit foreground object must be photographed with a very short exposure time. Otherwise, the image will be badly overexposed. Any background pinpoint light sources — like, say, stars that are literally trillions of miles further away — will not show up at all. Likewise, if the photographer wants to capture the background stars, he is going to have to use a very long exposure time, which means that the foreground will be totally washed out in one blob of overexposed light. Obviously, there would be no real benefit to taking such an image, since the point of the lunar surface photography was to document the activities of the EVA’s on the lunar surface — not to stargaze.
This whole process is complicated by the fact that in a vacuum, the problem is made even worse, the light far more intense, and the exposure must be even shorter. The Moon Hoax advocates also seem to have forgotten that they are basing most of their “analysis” on press release photos, which are invariably cleaned up before release to the press. So of course, these sanitized press kit images would reflect what we all would expect to see, an absolute black background.
Which brings us to our own thoughts on the Moon and lunar photography.
Contrary to what the Moon Hoax advocates have been saying, the sky above the astronauts should be absolutely black. And in fact, on most of the prints that they have been looking at, web based images, press release photos, and even new prints from the archives, it is. The problem is that while the sky should be absolute black, and does appear that way in images presented by by the Moon Hoax advocates, it most demonstrably is not absolute black in the images examined by Enterprise Mission investigators.
As you know, a few years ago Enterprise principal investigator Richard C. Hoagland was approached by former NASA flight instructor Ken Johnston, Jr., and supplied with a set of extraordinary first generation prints of Apollo lunar photography which had remained untouched for nearly thirty years since he obtained them from inside NASA. What these prints showed was quite another story — that the sky above the astronauts was far from blank — it was in fact filled with a strange, bluish, geometric set of ruins.
So the problem is exactly the opposite of how it is stated by the Moon Hoax advocates. The sky should be black, but it isn’t.
One amusing sidelight of this Apollo 16 photograph is that it is used on several web sites as “proof” that many of the pictures taken on the Moon are fake, since John Young “… is casting no shadow at all!” on the lunar surface. In fact, all it really shows is how dumb most of the Moon Hoax advocates really are. If you actually look at the picture, you will see that Young is casting a shadow to the right side of the picture a few feet away. How can this be? Why is the shadow not “attached” to young’s feet?! Well, because in this famous sequence, John Young is leaping into the air as he is saluting, while Charley Duke snaps the photo. Many Moon Hoax advocates, too young to have actually watched this all on live television, look at this picture and mistakenly believe that Young is standing on the slight dome shaped rise in the background, when in fact he is in midair (well, OK, mid-vacuum). This famous sequence is also a good way to show that the astronauts are indeed in the one-sixth gravity of the Moon, since in order to get this kind of elevation on Earth (especially with the bulky, several-hundred-pound spacesuit and backpack on), Young would have to have the leaping ability of Michael Jordan! For those interested, I can highly recommend the excellent NASA video series “Apollo - Mission to the Moon” which shows film of this famous live TV sequence.
ISSUE 4 - In some images, a huge light source can be seen reflected in the astronaut’s visors. This has to be a very bright, nearby source.
This argument is essentially a variation of the first argument. Occasional images, like the ones above (taken from the Apollo 17 EVA TV transmissions and Apollo 14), seem to show a very bright, huge light source taking up almost 25% of the astronauts visor. Moon Hoax advocates argue that this is proof of a large light source (a stage flood or a spot, again) positioned very close to the astronauts. What they are missing here is essentially the same geometric problem they missed with the “bent shadows” argument. As you can see from the previous image of Alan Bean (above), the gold-covered helmet visors that the astronauts wore were very convex shapes — similar to automotive wide-angle side mirrors included on many current models (” Warning: objects may be closer than they appear …”). Like the surface shadows in the earlier images above, this curved helmet has the effect of severely distorting the reflections, making them appear much smaller (and thus farther away) than they actually are.
The problem: the sun, in the lunar helmet reflection pictured here, appears much larger (and therefore closer!) than it possibly could. Our explanation for this remarkable observation is firmly grounded in our investigation of the REAL conspiracy that NASA has worked so hard, for over 40 years, to cover-up: the presence of ancient, glass-like ruins on the Moon. It is these ruins, sticking up above the lunar horizon and physically intervening between the low-angle sun and the Apollo astronauts roaming across the surface, which create the magnified halo of scattered light seen in the gold visors. Since this area of “forward scattering” is much larger than the optical size of the sun itself, it makes the “reflection” appear disproportionately larger — even in the curved gold visors — than the view of a similar reflection of the sun from Ed White’s helmet, photographed in Earth orbit on the Gemini 4 mission in 1965 (photographic comparison, below).
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