Conspiracy theories about humans on the Moon

In addition to the points listed below, there is a Wikipedia page listing all the third-party evidence of the Apollo moon landings.

Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings – Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buzz Aldrin says he’s never been to the Moon

Buzz Aldrin never said that, it’s mainly 3 videos that have been hijacked to manipulate his words. Here are the original videos, which when viewed in their entirety (or at least the part used by the conspiracy theorists) show beyond doubt what Buzz Aldrin really said.

The Earth seen from the Moon should be much larger than the Moon seen from the Earth

Well, no…

This has to do with the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Indeed, even though the Earth is about four times larger than the Moon, it is also approximately 384,400 kilometers away.
The apparent size of an object in the sky is measured in degrees of arc, which is a measure of how much space an object takes up in the sky. For an observer on Earth, the Moon takes up about 0.5 degrees of arc in the sky.
Similarly, for an observer on the Moon, the Earth also takes 1.8 degrees of arc, which is four times larger (as one would expect, given that the Earth is about four times larger than the Moon). However, due to visual perception, this difference is not easily noticeable.
Moreover, it is important to note that the apparent size can change slightly due to the Moon’s elliptical orbit around the Earth. When the Moon is closer to the Earth (at perihelion), it appears slightly larger, and when it is further away (at apogee), it appears slightly smaller

The American flag on the Apollo videos seems to move in the wind

Two extremely simple explanations for this “argument”:

_The flag is held in place by a horizontal rod, which is why it stays upright and doesn’t fall down.

_At no point in the videos does the flag move on its own, every time it does it’s either when it’s just been planted and, without atmosphere, the flag’s movement lasts much longer after the astronaut has released it, or when an astronaut touches it.

All this is explained in the MythBusters special “We walked on the Moon” available below. An experiment is carried out in a vacuum tank, and the exact same movements are reproduced.

The crosses on the Apollo photos go behind certain elements, so they are retouched.

It’s an “argument” that doesn’t need to be dwelt on for long: proponents of the conspiracy theory about the Apollo missions claim that the photos have been retouched and take as “proof” the fact that certain small crosses on the photos run behind certain elements, which would prove that these elements were added after the photo was taken. These crosses, which are engraved on a plate in front of the camera lens, serve as reference points for calculating distances and dimensions.

This effect is simply the result of light: the crosses are “burned” when the object behind them is brightly lit. In fact, it’s easy to reproduce the effect at home: take a needle or something very thin and place it between your eye and a light source: the needle will disappear. The physical phenomenon in question here is called light diffraction. You can read more about it here :

Diffraction — Wikipédia

Un article de Wikipédia, l’encyclopédie libre.

Finally, here’s an example often used to demonstrate this point. It should be noted that the brightness of the original photo has been increased and the quality reduced in order to increase this diffraction effect. In the original photo, the line of the cross is perfectly visible:

The cross is indeed attenuated by the diffraction phenomenon, but it doesn’t seem to pass behind the object as above, or the effect has been artificially enhanced. Below is another example of the effect of diffraction on these crosses and their attenuation in white areas:

The videos of Man on the Moon were filmed in a studio

Any videos or photos you may see showing astronauts being filmed or with terrestrial elements are systematically taken either from film shoots or training areas.

Film footage, hoaxes and “mockumentary“

The “First Man” Movie

One of the videos I see used the most on social networks is from the filming of the movie “First Man” starring actor Ryan Gosling. Here are some photos of the excerpts used by the conspiracists:

Here is the original video of the making of the film:

“MoonTruth” advertising video

Below are screen captures of a prank video made by Adam Stewart with the 1960s Ikegami Tube camera at Mount Pleasant Studios in London.

Source : https://flatearth.ws/moontruth
Copy : https://web.archive.org/web/20230709122231/https://flatearth.ws/moontruth

Images of training areas

Numerous training images are also used (sometimes modified by cropping the image or making it black and white). Some examples below:

It is impossible for the Earth to have communicated with the Apollo missions on the Moon

This assertion is often made by conspiracy theorists while comparing space communication with civilian communications of the time, which has absolutely nothing to do with it. Below you’ll find photos of the equipment used to communicate with the Apollo 11 mission, as well as a detailed article on the subject:

Article used as source and from which these photos are taken :

How did Apollo 11 communicate with Earth? – Apollo11Space

Learn about the technology and infrastructure that enabled successful communication during the Apollo 11 mission, including the NASA Deep Space Network, S-band and X-band frequencies, and portable radios used by the astronauts on the lunar surface.

Stanley Kubrick made the Moon videos

Introduction

This very funny theory originally comes from a book by Bill Kaysing published in 1974, “We Never Went to the Moon: The Thirty Billion Dollar American Swindle”. In this book, Stanley Kubrick is never mentioned, but Bill Kaysing writes that the Apollo 11 astronauts never went to the Moon. Instead, they went to a military base in the Nevada desert, where they recorded the videos with the same special effects used in “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Stanley Kubrick thus found himself linked to this story…

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the scene on the Moon in “2001: A Space Odyssey” is not produced using digital special effects, and that lunar gravity is in no way respected: the protagonists walk more or less normally as they would on Earth.

Source : https://www.vanityfair.fr/culture/ecrans/story/stanley-kubrick-et-le-complot-lunaire/10117
Copy : https://web.archive.org/web/20220831191918/https://www.vanityfair.fr/culture/ecrans/story/stanley-kubrick-et-le-complot-lunaire/10117

Technical impossibility

Astronauts’ movements on the Moon, due to the extremely low lunar gravity, are very special. According to the conspiracy theory, there are two ways of reproducing the same movements:
_Either the characters are attached to several large rubber bands, enabling them to move with slower movements and make long jumps.
_Or the video is simply slowed down.

In both cases, we encounter two problems:
_The first is that in either case, the result is very far from being similar to the Apollo 11 video – it’s not realistic.
The second is that to slow down a video, you have to shoot more frames per second than in normal recording, which would have been impossible at the time for such a long video (the reasons for this are explained in this article, if you’d like the technical details: https://trustmyscience.com/voici-pourquoi-il-aurait-ete-impossible-filmer-mission-apollo-en-studio/).

Finally, the digital special effects (VFX) of the time were incapable of delivering such a result.

It was therefore technically impossible to have astronaut movements such as we see on the Apollo 11 video.

Source about the result of slow motion or rubber bands:

Complete video of Apollo 11:

Stanley Kubrick confessed on his deathbed

No, it’s completely false. This rumor comes from a fake documentary directed in 2015 by T. Patrick Murray and starring actor Tom Mayk as Stanley Kubrick. You can find the IMDb webpage for this fake documentary here:

Shooting Stanley Kubrick (2015) ⭐ 3.6 | Documentary

Shooting Stanley Kubrick: Directed by T. Patrick Murray. With Tom Mayk. Before his death, Stanley Kubrick granted a rare interview to an unknown filmmaker, where he surprised the young director- and the world- by admitting his complicity in the greatest conspiracy in American history.

The full video of the shoot is available below, and includes the director’s instructions to the actor, whom he obviously calls “Tom”, on how to play the role.

Nixon’s advisers confessed to everything

Here, too, it’s the same thing: it’s taken from a fake documentary made by William Karel in 2002 called “Operation Moon“. The director explains how this deception was pulled off in this public lecture:

The atronauts’ boots could not have left such a clear trace on the Moon’s surface

Some people claim that it’s impossible to leave such a clear trace on the ground without it being wet, but there’s no moisture on the Moon, so this photo wasn’t taken on the Moon…

This is totally false.

This very clear trace is due to the very particular composition of the lunar soil (called regolith) and to the very tenuous and insignificant atmosphere compared to the Earth…

This phenomenon was explained in greater detail and experienced in the MythBusters program:

The shadows are not always in the same direction, which shows that there are several sources of light

This effect is simply due to the relief of the terrain: the shadows don’t appear to be parallel, but in fact they are.

The experiment was carried out on Earth on the TV show MythBusters. They recreated a similar miniature lunar setting with a single light source, and here’s what they came up with:

Here’s the complete MythBusters show:

Buzz Aldrin is illuminated even though he is in the shadow of the lunar module, so he is lit by a spotlight

The phenomenon is very simple and quick to explain: the light – which comes from a single source: the sun – reflects off the lunar surface and illuminates Buzz Aldrin.

The experiment was performed on Earth in the MythBusters programme, and anyone can reproduce it at home:

The shape of the astronauts’ suit shoes does not correspond to the footprints taken in the photos

This photo is regularly used to show that the footwear on spacesuits does not match the footprints left on the Moon. In fact, the footprints look like this:

This difference in prints is simply due to the fact that the overshoes are not present in the first photo… In fact, the astronauts wore shoe covers over their suits:

And these shoe covers did have these prints: