Moon Hoax

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Contents 1 Definition 2 Claims 3 General Debunking 4 See also 5 References 6 External links 7 Parody Sites

[edit] Definition

The Moon Hoax, also known as the Apollo Moon Hoax, is a common way of referring to conspiracy theories saying that NASA never landed on the moon, instead staging the moon landings in secret for worldwide broadcast.

[edit] Claims

Claims of the moon hoaxers are too numerous and varied to cover in a single page. They generally conform to the following categories, and these claims will be debunked in each page:

• Photographic evidence, including anomalies such as the stars not being visible or the shadows not aligning properly
• Scientific claims, including claims about the Van Allen Belt and micrometeorites
• Purported mistakes of those who allegedly perpetuated the fraud, including the "C" rock and the "waving" flag
• Physical evidence such as moon rocks

[edit] General Debunking

There are several ways of debunking this claim without having to individually rebut hundreds of claims. One way is to look at the scientists over in the Soviet Union, who viewed the moon landings like everyone else. They would have loved to have been able to claim it was faked! Why would they sit silent with all of this supposed evidence in front of them? Why wouldn't they have slapped it all over the front page of Pravda?

Another is to consider the hundreds of people who would have to be quiet; not just the astronauts, but the engineers, technicians, government officials, etc. The idea that all of them could keep quiet for over 35 years strains credulity.

Like all conspiracy theories, a big reason to consider it specious is its lack of falsifiability. Even if we were to develop telescopes capable of resolving images of the landing sites on the moon, the conspiracy theorists would just say they were doctored, or, if they were shown them through the telescope with their own eyes, would say that we just sent up landers in robotic missions.

Discovery Channel's Mythbusters devoted a full episode to debunking several of the "facts" used in common moon landing conspiracy theories. They demonstrated that the lighting in a couple of the famous Appollo landing photographs do not "prove" that those photographs were faked. They demonstrated that the bouncing strides the astronauts used under lunar gravity are exactly how one ends up walking in diminished gravity and that such a stride is not easily replicated by suspending someone from a wire. They showed that lunar dust will hold a footprint in a vacuum in spite of the absence of moisture. The grand finale was using a radio telescope to prove that astronauts had left a reflective device on the moon by bouncing a signal off of it.

[edit] See also

• Bart Sibrel

[edit] References

• Clavius.org - a site dedicated to debunking "moon hoax" theories
• Bad Astronomy page on the FOX Apollo Moon Hoax program
• Did We Land On the Moon? A Debunking of the Moon Hoax Theory

[edit] External links

• clavius.org
• Categorically debunking Moon hoax claims
• Bad Astronomy debunking site
• The Moon Landings were NOT faked
• "Bogosity" Episode 3: Lunar Lunacy

[edit] Parody Sites

• The moon landings were faked!
• The Moon hoax