Buzz Aldrin's Boot: NASA's Spotlight on the Moon

The photos that Neil Armstrong took of Buzz Aldrin exiting the Lunar Module are quite famous. These photos have been poured over by conspiracy theorists for decades.

A dignified champion of the Moon hoax conspiracy has indeed poured over those Aldrin photos, and he is highly qualified to do so. His name is Dr. David Groves. Dr. Groves is a physicist and photo imaging expert. The most well-known hoax claims have always included copious references to the shadows in the Aldrin photos, and Dr. Groves has touched on that issue; however, in his research, Dr. Groves has not overemphasized the role of those shadows. In other words, this research is not another tiresome analysis concerning parallel shadows and vaguely scientific explanations. His ideas are fresh. This article only touches on one of his ideas (the gleaming boot), but you can find his videos on the internet if you are interested in more.

Dr. Groves noticed a very peculiar thing about one of the Aldrin photos: a heavy reflection of light on one of Aldrin's boots. Dr. Groves claims that only a specially placed spotlight could have created such an intense reflection on the boot.

Lunar surface luminosity and depth of shadow in these photos has been debated time and time again. The most common complaint about these photos is that Buzz should not be "lit up" so well, since he is clearly in the shadow of the Lunar Module. The only major light source was the sun, and so he ought to be part of the darkness of that LM shadow. Buzz should be a shadowy outline, not a brightly lit up Astronaut.

 

NASA explains that the Lunar surface, Earth, and light reflections off of the Lunar module combined to illuminate Buzz in the photo above. Well, if the Lunar module reflects light so well, then why is it pitch black underneath it? The Lunar surface doesn't reflect enough light to illuminate the backs of nearby rocks, because the backsides of those rocks always appear to be pitch black in these NASA photos. As an example, take notice of the rocks to the side of Aldrin in the picture (first picture) with the illuminated boot problem.

 

Clearly, we have a dilemma here. On the one hand, we are supposed to assume that the Lunar surface is highly reflective. We are supposed to also assume that the Earth is shining down light on the Astronauts. Think about it, though. When was the last time that the full Moon provided you with enough light for a night photo of your friends? That just doesn't happen. So why should the Earth be any different? It is bigger, but not exactly more reflective. Now, those nearby rocks are casting thick shadows. Neither the light from the Earth nor the light shimmering off of the Lunar surface is enough to illuminate those dark spots. So, why should we believe that Buzz has been illuminated by light reflecting off of the Earth, the Moon, or the lander? It just doesn't seem to add up.

Let's take another look at Buzz' backpack. We know that there is a bright flash of light coming from his boot in this picture, but let's take a closer look at his backpack. Notice how the bottom of his backpack is brightly illuminated, and is possibly the brightest part of his body (aside from those curiously bright feet). Both the feet and the bottom of the backpack are not facing the ground. In fact, his body is directly in the path of light coming from both the ground and the lander! So, the bottom of that backpack should not be so brightly lit! The yellow circle shows this brightly lit area, and you can see his body positioning in the photo at the top of the article.

It seems likely that a direct spotlight would be needed to create this lighting effect. This would explain why the top (upper portion) of the backpack fades away into shadow. The blue circle shows this shadowy part of the backpack. The sharp contrast between the brightly lit bottom of the backpack and the shadowy upper portion is a curious dilemma. The presence of a spotlight explains this dilemma perfectly. Apollo Astronauts did not have a spotlight on their missions, by the by.

Moon hoaxers are spending a lot of time analyzing these photos. Some of their findings are quite interesting. The above information finds itself rooted mostly in scientific reasoning, but there are some rather interesting things in the photos themselves too (aside from the Coke bottle and the Disney cartoon character, which you can read about in another article here). We'll get to some more interesting photo problems at a later date.

The Flapping Flag: Poor Conspiracy Evidence

Every Moon hoax conspiracy theorist knows about the flapping flag. Whenever Astronauts in the Apollo films plant a flag on the Moon, the flag goes flapping around like a strong breeze is flowing through the area. The hoax theorists claim that the flag can't do this, since there's no atmosphere on the moon.

 

Despite the initial reaction people have to this hoax theory, the theory really has no solid logic. It's pure sensationalism. The Astronaut in the picture torques the flag left and right in order to screw it into the ground, so naturally that same torque will be applied to the flag post and the flag itself. All of this torquing results in the appearance of a breeze flowing through the flag. This is just basic physics at work.

If you read my post about "marionettes," you'll find an explanation about why it is possible to jump higher in a vacuum. In a vacuum, the lack of heavy oxygen, nitrogen and argon on top of you allows you to jump higher. An atmosphere of gasses is like a giant hand pressing in every direction - up, down, sideways, etc. In other words, atmospheric gasses offer resistance to motion. Since the Lunar surface has no atmosphere, any torque applied to the base of the flag allows the flag to flap even more than it would on Earth, because there are no gasses present to slow down the motion

As droll as it may seem to conspiracy theorists, NASA allowed the Mythbusters team to torque a flag in one of their own vacuum chambers. Naturally, the flag appeared to flap even more in the vacuum - not less. Evidence like this doesn't phase a conspiracy theorist one bit. The experiment was done in a NASA laboratory, and for all we know, there wasn't a real vacuum in that chamber. The conspiracy theorist believes that allowing NASA to conduct anti-Moon hoax experiments is like allowing a tobacco company to determine whether cigarettes are harmful.

The flapping flag theories represent some of the worst evidence that conspiracy theorists have come up with. After the flag has been planted by Apollo Astronauts, it remains stationary. This theory might have some credence if the flag were to flap randomly, without the presence of the Astronauts. Flag flapping hoax theories really drive home the notion that these conspiracy theorists have never studied basic (high school) physics.

The Moon Landings: A Disney Production

If the Moon hoax is real, then someone or some studio had to be behind the whole thing. Many say the key player was Stanley Kubrick, because he was granted access to NASA's Zeis camera lens for his film Barry Lyndon. The special lens was used to film satellites in orbit from the ground, but Kubrick used the camera to film a 19th century period movie using only candlelight and natural sunlight to illuminate the actors. Needless to say, Barry Lyndon contains some of the most beautiful footage ever captured on film. There are other ways to link Kubrick with NASA and the US government - through such films as Dr. Strangelove (Pentagon footage and B-52 Bomber accuracy) or 2001: A Space Odyssey - but Kubrick wasn't necessarily involved with the Moon landing shoots. He may have been involved, but two other players in this film conspiracy need mention first.

In the middle of the 1950s, Walt Disney and Dr. Wernher von Braun (a central player in the Apollo missions, and the man who brought us the Saturn V rocket) worked together to create a film called Man and the Moon. People were amazed at how realistic the movie looked on television. Was this a rehearsal for the real thing?

 

 

There were a lot of similarities between Man and the Moon and the actual Apollo missions. Dr. von Braun really seemed to know a lot about the future of NASA - right down to how the LM would work (picture included). Why would the government allow a scientist to televise methods that could actually land a man on the Moon? Well, to be fair, the space age didn't begin until Sputnik launched in 1957, but still - why allow the Russians to see something that could feasibly work? Dr. von Braun was already working for the United States government during the filming of this movie, and he had been doing so ever since he had been recruited from the NAZI SS during project Paperclip.

Man and the Moon represents a rather remarkable feat. Today, science fiction films tend to depict places, events, and technologies that won't be around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years; but, Dr. von Braun's science fiction story about a Moon landing became reality in a little over 10 years. Amazing!

It seems logical to speculate that, during the height of the Cold War, the 30 billion dollars worth of money appropriated to the Apollo program was instead used to fund covert operations, technologies, and other Cold War related necessities. A small amount was given to a film crew that must have worked primarily out of Disney Studios and other venues. The Moon landings - brought to you by Disney!

The Moon landing films and footage are, honestly, immaculate. It remains quite hard to prove that they are filmed in a studio, though hoaxers and conspiracy theorists try and try again. With scientists like Dr. von Braun pulling the strings of a Moon hoax production, you can be sure that the results would be nearly perfect; and, for the most part, they are.

The few at Disney that knew about the hoax must have wanted desperately to leave their mark. How could they pull off the greatest hoax of all time, and never receive any credit? They had to do something, and they did.

In the early videos, Disney only added the most basic and subliminal elements that one can use to verify the Disney presence. When Apollo 17 rolled around, they knew that they had one last chance to put their trademark somewhere on the footage - and boy did they.

Hidden messages within Disney art is no great secret. It seems that many Disney artists do this. Take a look at the cover of The Little Mermaid sometime. Look at the castle, and you'll see a large phallus posing as part of the castle.

The above picture is taken from an Apollo 17 film feed. The Astronauts are collecting soil samples near "shorty crater" (geology station four), and one of the Astronauts appears to be resisting some of the lines that he may have been required to recite. Over and over again, they make references to a dog, and to the animal faces in the rocks. Some claim that the Astronaut is trying to imply that the "jig would be up" if they showed this Disney rock, because it is just too obvious. The innuendo is so obvious that the official NASA historical video no longer contains audio. If you would like to download this video from the NASA website, contact me (bottom of this page).

Conspiracy theorists claim that the original Astronaut audio has been tampered with, but the multiple references to dogs and to these strange rocks remain. The video with the above rock can be downloaded from the NASA website.

It seems very plausible that a Moon hoax would have been filmed using Disney stages and equipment. Heck, they already had the Moon sets from Man and the Moon. More than this, though, Disney was a firm partner to the US government's interests. During World War II, Disney studios produced training films and other necessities for the army. Disney Studios was the only place where dreams could become reality - on the big screen, that is.

Coke Bottle on the Moon: A NASA Photo Anomaly

The original "Coke bottle on the Moon" story comes from a woman named under the pseudonym "Una Ronald." Miss Ronald claims that she saw footage of the Moon landing (possibly tape-delayed) late at night in Australia. For a period of three seconds, Ronald is absolutely sure that she saw the Astronauts kick a bottle of Coke across the screen accidentally (during the scene where Buzz is demonstrating his Moonwalk). For whatever reason, this Coke bottle never appeared in the film footage ever again.

Moon hoax theorists and anti-hoax theorists have poured over any evidence surrounding the Coke bottle. Though miss Ronald herself remains utterly mysterious, she claims that letters were written to a local newspaper in support of the Coke bottle theory. Real evidence of these claims, and Miss Ronald's story, has yet to surface.

A mind-numbing conversation about the satellite feeds and paths of television signals on Earth has ensued. Some claim that miss Ronald could have seen an early version of the Moon broadcast, while others say that this was impossible because of the path that the signal took. This argument seems pointless. Nobody should have ever been curious about how the Moon landing footage of Apollo 11 was routed around the world - at least, before Una Ronald's story. It seems likely that, in the event of such a discovery, a misinformation campaign could have been introduced to make Ronald's story more unbelievable. This website claims that the CIA might have been involved in a Moon hoax cover up, and misinformation was (and still is) a standard CIA practice. It's hard to prove or disprove anything when you can't even get the facts straight.

One thing remains - the photographs of the Apollo 11 mission. Moon hoax theorists believe they have found proof of the Coke bottle claims within the photographs. The following photo is a scene with Neil and Buzz planting the flag - but we are not interested in the flag planting at the moment. Notice the circled portion - it seems as though someone has tried to disguise a coke bottle as part of the Lunar landscape. This part of the photograph looks very strange. It doesn't look like a rock, yet it casts a shadow. Do take a good look. Notice how the top of the shadow looks strikingly like that of a glass Coke bottle.

 

So, why would there be a Coke bottle in the pictures? If a film crew had staged the Moon hoax, shouldn't the crew have seen this bottle and removed it? Maybe. You have to remember, they took a lot of photographs. The photographers were expecting the film editors to examine these prints and remove any anomalies (such as weeds, lizards, Coke bottles, and anything else that you find in the desert). In the end, maybe they just didn't do a good enough job.

Whether or not you believe in the hoax, you have to admit, that section of photo above really does look like a Coke bottle. The presence of such a bottle makes Una Ronald's fantastic story much more plausible. She supposedly saw the bottle in the film footage, which was televised "live" around the world. The photo above was taken from NASA's photo archives of the mission, which weren't made available to the public until long after the Apollo 11 Astronauts had returned home from their voyage.

Lunar Laser Reflectors: Is This a Joke?

NASA claims that Apollo missions 11, 14 and 15 left Lunar laser reflection units on the Moon. Key observatories on Earth claim to use these reflectors to bounce off lasers, and thus calculate the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Perfectly scientific, right? Well, this may be a bit much to swallow for some.

 

These reflectors are tiny little things. Hitting one with a laser from Earth should be almost impossible. Furthermore, any backyard astronomer knows that the Moon is a moving target. The closer that you zoom in with your telescope, the faster the Moon zips away under high magnification. You have to calibrate your telescope with the Earth's axis perfectly in order to minimize that movement. Even with perfectly (and I really mean perfectly calibrated instruments), hitting a small target the size of a few books on the Moon should still be impossible. Imagine for a moment that I gave you a gun that could shoot targets over 250,000 miles away. How long would it take you to hit a target the size of a few books 230,000 miles away? It's not going to happen!

Right, right, we have those things called telescopes; but, NASA claims that even the Hubble Space Telescope can't get us a good look at the lunar landing sites - let alone get us a shot of the tiny laser reflectors. Even the recent LRO probe (there's an article here about it) can't give us a real picture of the landing sites. The alleged photos of the landing sites, taken by the LRO, look like globs of indistinct, white light.

Despite everything I just said about inadequate telescopes, NASA claims that their telescopes can find the laser reflectors and bounce light off of them. In NASA's words, "only the largest telescopes can be used" to bounce light off of the laser reflectors on the Lunar surface. How convenient for NASA! Or, is this just a bit of icing on the cake that "proves" that the Apollo manned Lunar landings were successful?

Are thousands of NASA astronomers "in on" the conspiracy? No, they aren't. Most of these telescopes are guided by computer systems these days, so coordinating the telescopes with the position of the alleged Laser reflectors is a snap. The astronomers believe they are bouncing lasers of of reflectors on the Moon. Are they really? Not necessarily.

Surely it isn't a huge surprise that the Moon is highly reflective. Just wait till the next full Moon and take a good look. It lights up the sky like a giant spotlight. You can bounce a laser off of the surface of the Moon without the need of any reflective equipment.

The US first bounced a laser off of the Moon's surface in 1962, and the Soviet union followed with the same experiment in 1963. The Moon's approximate distance from the Earth was calculated using this data. This is the data which would help the Soviets and Americans send probes into lunar orbit, with the hope of a soft-landing on the Moon. The hard landing on the Moon achieved by a Luna probe in 1959 (there is an article on this here, as well) was more of a "shoot directly at it" approach to landing on the Moon. To achieve a stable orbit, you have to aim just a bit to the side of the Moon.

Anyway, all of this talk of "Lunar reflectors" seems to be hype. If you are science minded, then you are probably thinking, "but... the reflectors allow us to calculate the distance to the Moon more precisely than just bouncing lasers off of the Moon's surface does..." Yes, perhaps. Or, perhaps improved laser technology (or improved computer algorithms) allow for that precision. Both are possible in this matter. The fact remains - NASA has already explained that Earth telescopes cannot be used to find the Lunar landing sites. They have no way of locating these reflectors with any sort of precision. Yet, they claim to be able to locate them with ease during their laser exercises. Something is amiss here, and it's not the logic presented in this article.

Mind Control: The Conspiracy Gets Even Smaller

In a previous entry here, it was explained that the supposed Moon hoax might only involve a select group of people. That group of people could have been as small as one hundred. At minimum, it would have taken the Astronauts, some scientists, film crews, and government agents to stage a Moon landing. The rest of America - including mission control and 98% or 99% of NASA's employees - would have thought that the Moon landings were absolutely real.

It seems plausible that one hundred people might be able to keep a major secret like the Moon hoax, but the number of people "in on it" might be even smaller yet. How? Mind control.

Another common thread amongst conspiracy theorists suggests that the CIA thoroughly tested mind control. A Hollywood film exists (starring Frank Sinatra) that exploits the whole concept: The Manchurian Candidate.

CIA mind control experiments began after World War II, after the CIA was formed in 1947. Mind control experiments fell under the codename "project MK-ULTRA" or MKULTRA. The CIA went berserk testing MK-ULTRA, and numerous deaths are supposed to have been linked to the program. MKULTRA used various mind control methods, which included illegal drugs (such as the hallucinogen LSD), hypnosis, torture, electronics, visual sensory input, and other methods or combinations of methods. One paper statement mentioned that "chemical, biological, and radiological" means were studied. The result of this research? Complete control over a human being.

MK-ULTRA could erase someone's memory of an event, replacing those erased memories with other memories. MKULTRA could force people to do things. MKULTRA was complete control over people.

Now, back to those 100 people that may have been involved in a Moon hoax. We know that 24 Astronauts believe that they flew to the Moon, and 12 of them believe they landed on the Lunar surface. These Astronauts could have been persuaded into believing that they landed on the Moon through mind control techniques. The scientists and film crews that helped make the hoax might have had their memories erased through mind control techniques. This only leaves the government agents that performed the mind control remaining. We all know that these agents specialize in keeping secrets like the Moon hoax.

So, next time you ask Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong about their Moon trip, at least you'll know that they are telling the truth. That is to say, the truth that they know. The truth that they might have been brainwashed to believe. This could explain why, at their post-Apollo 11 press conference, Neil and Buzz were clueless when a reporter asked them about how "the stars looked?" In later missions, Astronauts explained that some stars were visible in the shadows and during certain times on the Lunar surface.

All of this is, of course, conjecture of the highest level. Mere speculation. Even still, it seems somewhat possible that only a handful of people were/are "in on" the Moon hoax. How many government agents would it take to brainwash the few NASA operatives that staged such a hoax? Five? Less? The Moon hoax could involve so few people that nobody will ever be able to prove that it exists beyond a shadow of a doubt.

JFK and the Moon: The Nature of Moon Exploration

Two gigantic topics in the minds of conspiracy theorists are surely the JFK assassination and the Moon hoax. It really should not seem surprising that these conspiracies are related.

When JFK took office in 1960, he did so with a warning from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In his farewell address to the American public, Eisenhower warned that "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex." Eisenhower, himself a five-star general and leader of the armed forces in Europe during WWII, knew that America's war machine was becoming dangerously powerful. This problem would fall squarely on John F. Kennedy's shoulders.

Kennedy immediately found himself being pressured to send troops into battle in places around the globe. The military pressed for action in Cuba, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Kennedy must have felt swamped. He refused to lend US support to the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba - a US CIA project (created by Eisenhower and staff) that would send Cuban exiles on a mission to destroy Fidel Castro and communist Cuba. Kennedy's lack of support for this and other projects of war put him at great odds with the military-industrial establishment. Say, what exactly is a military-industrial establishment, anyway?

To explain what the military-industrial establishment truly is, we have to begin with World War II. When America entered the war on December 7, 1941, the nation was still in the wake of the Great Depression. Yet, not more than 4 years later, America would emerge from the war as the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. How could that even be possible? The answer: military-industrial complex.

When America entered World War II, all production was immediately transformed into military production. Civilian factories were transformed into military factories, and loads of profit rolled in. Shipyards, aircraft factories, artillery factories, tank factories, coal and oil mining centers, infantry weapon factories, and an eye-popping host of subsidiary establishments began to take over American industry. All able-bodied individuals came out to produce America's weapons. A stream of money flowed into everyone's pocketbooks - factory owners, the government, and workers alike. World War II obliterated the Great Depression. The government and military would take notice of this. For the government, military, and factory owners, war created immense prosperity.

Enter a period of general prosperity - the 1950s. The military-industrial complex was churning out armaments like nobody's business (and selling them like hotcakes). Eventually, though, the sales would die out. By 1960, the establishment was hoping for the US to enter into more wars. They looked to Kennedy for the go-ahead.

Kennedy doesn't give the military establishment more wars, though. He cripples the Bay of Pigs invasion, and stalls missions to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. He brushes off the notion of the communist menace in favor of peace. He tells America that we will go to the Moon, not some far-off war in a far-off country.

Some say that Kennedy attempted to dismantle the military bureaucracy, and that he attempted to disintegrate the CIA. Instead of war, Kennedy wanted to give Americans peace. Instead of pouring government money into military ventures, Kennedy wanted to fund explorations to the Moon and beyond. All of this may have brought the powers that be against him.

Kennedy had struck a chord with Americans. Not only had he escalated the space race, but he had inspired Americans into believing that their country could do almost anything. Perhaps that last statement is the whole problem. America could do anything. America could assassinate JFK, install a leader who supported the military-industrial complex, and inspire the country with a faked Moon landing taped on a Hollywood-style set. Outlandish as all of this may seem, you have to admit that it would be possible.

Kennedy's successors, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, gave their full support to the Vietnam War. The allowed the military-industrial complex to flourish.

The idea of peaceful exploration was loathsome to military interests. Kennedy's thrust to "go to the moon" before the end of the 1960s shocked America's war apparatus. They believed that Kennedy would divert a majority of military funding toward peaceful endeavors like space exploration. The result was an assassination, and (possibly) a Moon hoax. Why the Moon hoax? Well, again, Kennedy's words inspired Americans. Near-Earth space could be used for missile stations and vital military purposes, but the Moon itself had no direct military usage. Ultimately, NASA may have used any extra funding to develop near-Earth space technology. In the end, a Moon hoax would have been necessary to satiate the desires of Americans and the world - and to beat the Russians.