Landing on the Moon: World's Greatest Propaganda Victory

I, like most Americans, grew up believing we put men on the moon. Afterall, everyone saw it! And our government would never lie about something like that! How could they?!

At some point, after years of researching government criminality and cover-ups, I started thinking about the moon landing. Propaganda wars. The cold war. And available technology back in the 50's and 60's.

At times, our government lies to us. For good and for ill. Having been in the military, I understand that sometimes these lies actually are working to protect our nation's best interests. Take the cold war, for example. We were racing the Soviets in many areas, such as experimenting in mind control and the space program. Propaganda was one of our biggest weapons. Mis-directing them was of great usefulness.

Our leaders decided that in the space race, we would never be second to anyone. So, one of our big objectives was to put men on the moon. FIRST. To do so, would be a huge cold war victory. A psychological blow to the Soviet Solar Plexis. The whole world would be watching and they would see that no one could rival our technology and supremacy in space.

What American wouldn't want that?

At this point, I've come to believe that we did not actually land on the moon. I believe that our Hollywood technology at the time was light years ahead of our enemies'. I think NASA and someone in Hollywood (Stanley Kubric) got together and put together the world's most effective psych-warfare plan ever dreamed of: The Moon Landing.

It was brilliant. And the world bought it hook, line and sinker. Score one for the home team!

I have no axe to grinde on this issue. I just think its fascinating. If it is what I have suggested, that's fine. We were fighting the cold war and psych warfare is a big part of that. I have no desire to kill Americans' belief in that great accomplishment. I just wanted to see if anyone around ATS has come to the same conclusion.

One good question: How come no other country has ever followed us to the moon? One would think, regardless of who got there first, there would be good enuf reasons for others to attempt it.

Alright look. To all the moon landing skepticists go to your local astronomy club and while looking at the stars ask the guy with the biggest telescope if he wouldn't mind focusing in on the Sea of Tranquility (easy to find by anyone with basic astronemy knowledge). You will, with a powerful enough telescope be able to see, faintly, the lunar lander that is still there.

I think you'll probably get a post saying there's already plenty of threads on the subject.

I for the longest time believed that the Moon Landing was also faked, but having seen people point out evidence to the opposite and debunk the theories that supposedly proved this I just don't know anymore...in fact I'm pretty much in the ball park of it being for real now. I think I just wanted to believe it was faked...

As for mentioning Kubrick, if it were faked then I also believe he was definately the one responsible for the footage. There was once meant to be a documentary about (maybe in France?) going into actual evidence that the US government actually employed Kubrick to do this, and that a few politicians actually owned up. If anyone knows of anyway to get ahold of this documentary I would greatly appreciate it...

However, other things I take into consideration is that the sattelite that received the Moon images and sent them back to Earth was actually in Australia. The story goes that they actually made a balls up of it and lost the shuttle, the only way they found it again was when they knew it was heading to the Moon and pointed it in that direction, thankfully finding it again.

If it were faked this wouldn't have happened would it? If they were in on it what would be the need to make up such a story? It wouldn't make much sense really...

You're right about propaganda victories though, when Sputnik went up the US was certainly in a major panic, strange really when you consider it couldn't do bugger all, but the psychological effect was imense.

[edit on 27-2-2005 by John Nada]

I would love to see pictures of such UnMature, that would pretty much put it to bed once and for all...

Hasn't this topic been thrashed to death by now? Who needs any more facts than below, you can even still use these mirrors
BTW is this fallacy even political?

www.madsci.org...

There are several mirrors on the Moon, mostly left there by NASA Apollo missions. They are actually designed for visible light (lasers), not radio. The basic design is called a "corner reflector".

If you arange 3 mirrors in a shape like the corner of a rectangular box, with the reflectors on the inside, then any light which hits the reflectors, at essentially any angle, will bounce off each mirror and end up heading back exactly the direction from which it came. This makes such a mirror arrangement very useful, because you always get a nice strong reflection. www.exploratorium.edu... is a good place to look for more about corner reflectors.

For descriptions of the reflectors left on the Moon by the Apollo 11, 14, and 15 missions, see nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...
and nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov...

For some information about how the reflectors were used to measure the distance to the Moon, see www.eso.org... www2.jpl.nasa.gov/files/universe/un940729.txt and www.ridgenet.net...

[edit on 27-2-2005 by Netchicken]

Yep. Good points, JN.

I just want to be clear on something. This thread thread is not about getting into a pissing match with anyone. We all have our own beliefs and we are entitled to them. I guess I was just interested in learning just how many people here believe it or don't believe it. The whys and why nots are welcome, too.

I've always been a supporter of Reagan's Missile Defense Shield. And I've always maintained, if we can send a man to the moon; we can certainly develop an effective missile defense. Is that not a reasonable assumption? Although, I now believe that the moon landing was faked, I still believe in pursuing star wars.

UnMature, you got a link? That would be great.

Originally posted by Netchicken
Hasn't this topic been thrashed to death by now? who needs any more facts? BTW is this fallacy even political?

I believe this was a psych-warfare victory. I have no proof; therefore, it falls under conspiracy. Although its been discussed, I doubt anyone's brought it up in this context. Let's talk about this. What's the harm?

You can't see the moon landing equipment from the earth. Its too dark to pick out the equipment, even with a big telescope,

curious.astro.cornell.edu...

The flag is 125 cm (4 feet) long, and you would need an optical wavelength telescope around 200 meters (~650 feet) in diameter to see it. The largest optical wavelength telescope that we have now is the Keck Telscope in Hawaii which is 10 meters in diameter. The Hubble Space Telescope is only 2.4 meters in diameter - much too small!

Resolving the larger lunar rover (which has a length of 3.1 meters) would still require a telescope 75 meters in diameter.

Even barely resolving the lunar lander base, which is 9.5 meters across (including landing gear), would require a telescope about 25 meters across..

[edit on 27-2-2005 by Netchicken]

Originally posted by Netchicken
You can't see the moon landing equipment from the earth. Its too dark to pick out the equipment, even with a big telescope, so I read.

Well that's what I thought until UnMature brought it up, so I was hoping he could enlighten us...

Originally posted by John Nada
I would love to see pictures of such UnMature, that would pretty much put it to bed once and for all...

Ta Da: From Apollo 16 landing's site:

Is it that big of a stretch to think the government may have actually punk'd us all? Why wouldn't they, having the technology? Afterall, like John Nada said... SPUTNIK! That must've really gotten to our leadership.

The Kubric angle is an interesting one to explore, as the French doc you mentioned.

Originally posted by UnMature
Ta Da: From Apollo 16 landing's site:

Thanks for the link. I don't see any equipment, though. (and for the record, I have excellent vision. )

Another picture, this one is from the Apollo 12 landing site.

No, those weren't the type of pictures I was after UnMature. I want to see amateur astronomer pictures liked you talked about, people with a half decent telescope who can see it...nothing official. Cheers.

that's not offical...i don't know where you got that notion...

who trusts offical stuff anymore after cruising this site for more than an hour

Oh sorry, I got it into my head these pics were from a satellite or something, where are they from then?

Also, as ECK said I really can't see anything other than little yellow dots telling me what I'm supposed to be seeing. Is there any bigger pictures than these?

Cheers for the pics anyway

[edit on 27-2-2005 by John Nada]

I'm very leery of official satellite imagery. Remember the satellite photos used pre-Gulf war to show that Iraqi tanks were lined up at the Saudi border? They wound up being fakes. An industrious journalist using her own source photos blew them out of the water. See how the government manipulates? Back then, I never would have believed the government would try such a bald-faced maneuvre. 'Course back then, I was still very naive in those matters.

Alright, these are not 'offical' photos. Here is the site they are from:

homepage.mac.com...

Right at the top it says this

"These pictures were taken with a Canon Powershot A70 and either a Meade ETX-125 telescope or a Meade 12" Starfinder Dobson."

Here is that part of that page where you can zoom in on the landing sites:

www.boulder.swri.edu...

P.S. It is not the lander you are looking at/for in these photos I have posted but the trails left by the buggy they used while on the moon.

Ok, so far we have one skeptic, one almost skeptic, and one true believer. Anyone else out there wanna throw their two cents in?
Thanks again for those links, unMature.

Originally posted by Terapin
I'll never understand why anyone would believe that we couldnt have landed on the moon. We had the knowhow and resourses. It seems much easyer to actualy go there than to get several thousand people who were involved in the mission to agree to fake it and then never tell a soul. Ever try and get a bunch of friends to keep a total secret about something realy big??

First, even though you criticize my basic premise, that's fine. I'm looking for all points of view. Second, would you answer these two questions?

How old were you when the cold war ended? (1990)

Why hasn't any other government followed us to the moon?