Animation Source Forums

The myth is that mankind did NOT land on the Moon, and that it was nothing more than a conspiracy by the American government during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is so widely-believed, estimates say anywhere from 15% to 40% of people around the world do not believe we went to the Moon.

Let me start off with the basics: the United States and Soviet Union were in a "space race" to see who would become the "ruler" of outer space. From the beginning, when Russia launched Sputnik in 1957, the United States had to prove it was just as technologically superior as they were - if not more so - to keep the public opinion strong. They lost several "firsts" to the Russians: 1st spaceflight, 1st man in space, 1st two-man mission, and 1st spacewalk. They also sent probes to the moon first, and several planets as well. At the time, the United States feared that nuclear weapons would be next - though in 1967, both nations signed a treaty stating outer space would be used only for peaceful, non-military purposes, an agreement that both nations have kept ever since.

Not to say the United States was COMPLETELY behind. They accomplished the first long-duration spaceflight, the first rendezvous in space, and the first docking in space as well (Neil Armstrong was on that flight, Gemini . In 1967, the Apollo 1 crew lost their lives in a test run of their launch, throwing public morality in the space program into turmoil. THIS POINT, most conspirators agree, is where the government began lying.

1968 was not a good year in America. Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed, as was Bobby Kennedy. The US entered the Vietnam war, and across the country dozens of rallies and protests erupted throughout the whole year. However, in December, Apollo 8 orbited the moon, carrying 3 astronauts - the first time human beings visited another world. (The astronauts became Time's People of the Year for 1968.)

Eight missions visited the Moon over the next 3 years. Six of them landed; the other two were Apollo 10 (which was a "dress-rehearsal" mission for the Apollo 11 mission) and Apollo 13, which had to abort landing in order to get the astronauts back to Earth alive. In total, 24 men visited the moon. Three visited twice. 12 walked on its surface.

Now, all throughout this point, nobody doubted that people had gone to the Moon. Astronauts were the most-recognized celebrities of their day. Neil Armstrong was just as huge of a name as, say, Johnny Depp is today. The very first person to professionally publish an article saying that America's moon landings were faked was Bill Kaysing, in his 1974 book We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. The book was published 2 years after the last man stepped foot on the moon, and a good 5 years after the first. Ever since, numerous conspirators have said that we never went to the moon, with various theories pertaining to it set up to demonstrate how it didn't happen.

Many people, however, have stepped up to show how we DID go to the Moon. Famously, MythBusters centered an entire episode around it, proving how cast shadows on the Moon are different than the Earth, how 1/6th gravity shown in the film footage of bouncing astronauts is achievable ONLY in 1/6th gravity (as opposed, say, to a system of wires or slowing down film footage), and how there are manmade objects on the moon strong enough to bounce back a laser.

Recently, the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter (LRO) took actual PICTURES of the Apollo landing sites, which shows not only placement of objects as they appeared in the '60s and '70s when they first landed there (they would be no different now, as the Moon has no atmosphere), but also stuff you might not expect. Astronaut footprints. Blast marks where the Lunar Modules landed. Flags that have been shred of their color due to intense UV rays.

There's an entire Wikipedia article on the subject, which is actually very thorough and well-written. I encourage people to read it, here.

I don't mean to be rude...but why were you suddenly encouraged to bring this up on here? Mentioning conspiracy theories can get pretty nasty.

As long as it doesn't get personal, people should be allowed to debate maturely on subjects. In my opinion, anyways.

I rather agree with The Batman on this, Davy. There was no intro, no explanation. He just rolled right into it without explaining why he's even posting this. And conspiracy theory stuff really is exasperating, IMHO.

This REALLY came way the hell out of left field...

MythBusters beat you to it dude.

There are people here that lack the maturity that young children have, so I have to disagree.

So has snopes.com (http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/moonhoax.asp).


My God...truer words were never spoken.

You're right, this DID come out of nowhere. No argument or conversation of any kind triggered this, nor am I thinking of any one person in particular this is directed at. I thought, hey, this is a topic that would make for a fun conversation, and people might actually enjoy it.

Yes, MythBusters beat me to it. As did Snopes. But this isn't about what /I/ have to say about it. It's about what ANYONE has to say about it - anyone at all. I actually encourage as much discussion as possible.

Space doesn't exist.

The government wants us to buy this space baloney. No waaay, maaaaaan...

Nothing exists. There is only a brain that has thought of everything. We may think others are smart, but it's our brain that makes them smarter than us.

This is all a dream.

This brings unpleasant flashbacks of being forced to read DesCartes' treatise on existence in college. It was...painful...

You take the blue pill -- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill -- you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Let's just add a quote from the Matrix here whilst we question our existence or individual thoughts. xDD

"Je pense donc je suis..." ("Cogito ergo sum"..."I think therefore I am" for those who are confused...which did not appear in the book in question in Latin, but only in French)


"But I observed that, while I was thus resolved to feign that everything was false, I who thought must of necessity be somewhat; and remarking this truth--I think, therefore I am--was so firm and so assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were unable to shake it, I judged that I could unhesitatingly accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking. I could feign that there was no world, I could not feign that I did not exist. And I judged that I might take it as a general rule that the things which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true, and that the only difficulty lies in the way of discerning which those things are that we conceive distinctly."


--- René Descartes, Discours De La Méthode Pour Bien Conduire Sa Raison, Et Chercher La Vérité Dans Les Sciences


...a most painful and frustrating book to read...in any language.

I'm going to put an end to this right now, before it gets out of hand. If it gets off-topic one more time, I'm going to request this thread closed.