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mysteries |
NASA Conspiracies |
Other Information |
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If the Apollo photographs were faked, what were NASA’s reasons? After President John F. Kennedy announced to Congress in May 1961 that the US should ‘commit itself, before this decade is out, to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth,’ the race to the moon began. The Cold War was at its height and NASA was one of the leading weapons in that battle. But it was the Soviet Union who made all the early advances. They launched the first man into space in 1961, and the first woman two years later. They were also the first to orbit the earth. The US had their successes, too, when, less than a year after Kennedy’s speech, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. Triumph turned to tragedy in January 1967, however, when Apollo 1 exploded in flames during testing, killing the three astronauts on board. The many flaws that had led to the fire meant that a complete design overhaul was required. Many at NASA felt that the end of the decade deadline would prove unfeasible. Impossible Dream. It was the need to fulfil Kennedy’s promise which Californian author Bill Kaysing believes sparked the NASA conspiracy. Between 1956 and 1963, Kaysing worked as a technical writer for a company involved in the Apollo missions. During this time, Kaysing claims, NASA carried out a feasibility test which found that they had only a 0.0017% chance of landing a man on the moon and returning him to earth. Kaysing believes it was impossible for NASA to go from 0.0017 to 100% by 1969. Some people believe Kaysing has a point. The technology used to fly Apollo 11 to the moon was extremely primitive compared with today’s standards. In fact, the on-board computer had less memory than a modern washing machine. Staged Performance. In his book, We Never Went To The Moon, Kaysing claims that NASA and the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) worked together on faking the Apollo 11 moon landing. An empty Saturn V rocket was launched, but fell back to earth when it was out of sight of the public. NASA also allegedly created a lunar landscape in an underground cavern at a remote Nevada site. Meanwhile, the astronauts and Mission Control were taking part in a meticulously staged performance designed to fool the public - and especially the Russians - into thinking they had landed on the moon. Fake photographs and film were taken and the astronauts’ return to earth staged by dropping a dummy space capsule from an army plane into the ocean. Kaysing goes on to suggest that the astronauts were brainwashed to guarantee their co-operation with the hoax. Another American author, Ralph Rene, also believes that astronauts could not have made it to the moon. In his book, NASA Mooned America!, Rene claims that the Apollo spacecraft would have needed to be at least two metres thick to prevent cosmic radiation from cooking the astronauts inside. The hoax theorists believe that when NASA realized they did not have the technology to take men safely to the moon by the end of the 1960's, they resorted to faking the lunar landings. This ensured that they would score a propaganda coup against the Soviets and keep the dollars rolling in for funding their real space projects. Joint Conspiracy. Another hoax theory claims that the Americans and Soviets secretly developed their space technology together. NASA faked the Apollo photos because they and the Soviets were building bases on the moon to use as a staging post for a full-blown base on Mars. This theory was triggered by a spoof documentary called Alternative Three, made by Anglia TV’s Science Report series. Originally scheduled for All Fool’s Day, the programme was actually broadcast on 20th June 1977. It caused a deluge of response from worried viewers. The documentary declared that the world was heading for an ecological Armageddon. Subsequently, a team of international scientists and government advisors came up with three alternatives to save the human race. The first was to detonate controlled nuclear warheads in the atmosphere to allow pollution to disperse into space. The second was to build huge subterranean bunkers to house the rich, intelligent and powerful elite. But number three was chosen. Alternative Three. In this scenario, humans would colonize the nearest planet capable of sustaining life - Mars. According to the programme, a joint American and Soviet space probe had already been sent to explore the far side of the moon in the late 1950's. As a joint lunar base would be built as a launching post for a proper Martian base. Once the Mars bases were in place, the rich and powerful would abandon Earth for Mars, leaving the rest f humanity to fend for themselves on a doomed Earth. As unlikely as all this may seem, many viewers were taken in by the documentary, despite the fact that it was advertised in many newspapers as a spoof. It also had a cast list of actors at the end of the programme and a copyright notice reading 1st April 1977. The programme was not shown in the US, which fuelled conspiracy theories that the ‘truth’ was being kept from them. Suspicions grew when people claimed that copies of the book Alternative Three were hard to find, and that they were being withheld by the government. There is another theory that is gaining momentum. An American research group called The Mars Mission (TMM) have spent nearly 20 years analysing pictures of Mars and believe they have proof that alien ruins exist there. The most compelling evidence they claim, is the famous ‘face on Mars’ photo. NASA say the picture is just a trick of the light. The head of TMM, Richard Hoagland, changed the group’s name to the Enterprise Mission in March 1996 because he believes he has found evidence of artificial structures on the moon. Hoagland says he has reached these conclusions by using simple geometrical calculations. Lost Civilisation. Images of the earth taken from satellite photo’s at 100 metre resolution show straight lines, circle and squares representing roads, houses and cities. Hoagland was aware of this and, when he looked at the moon, he claims to have found geometrical shapes at 100 metre resolution on its surface. He believes that they are the remains of huge glass structures built to protect lunar cities. Without the constraints of gravity, Hoagland argues, these structures are much larger than anything we could build on earth. He estimates that one of them, which he calls ‘The Tower’, could be up to 12km high. He believes they covered the lunar surface and are still visible from earth as the darker patches on the moon. Hoagland says they point to a lost interplanetary civilization, and believes the Apollo astronauts were aware of their existence. Alien on the Moon. Leading British UFO researcher, Timothy Good, goes on step further. In his book, Beyond Top Secret, Good reports that the astronauts actually saw aliens on the moon. The evidence for this extraordinary claim is an alleged secret conversation between Mission Control and Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, which was monitored by Soviet scientists. Dr Vladimir Azhazha, a Russian physicist and Professor of Mathematics, says that the encounter occurred shortly after the lunar module landed, but that the astronauts’ report was never heard by the public because NASA censored it. Maurice Chatelain, a communications specialist who worked for NASA at the time, stated that the Apollo 11 encounter with aliens was ‘common knowledge in NASA’, and that all the Apollo mission had been observed by UFO’s. This suggests that NASA not wanting the world to know that UFO’s were closely monitoring their astronauts, staged the moon landing photo’s so that the earth wouldn’t panic at what was happening in space. One of the strangest questions about the moon is why NASA has not sent astronauts there since the Apollo missions, and has no intentions to in the near future? |
Sources: The X Factor |