Where We Are Now
The response to Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers and its companion DVD What Happened on the Moon? has been, as expected, a mixture of sad agreement and furious dissent. NASA has elected not to respond directly, and NASA's cancellation of its specially commissioned book defending the Apollo record confirms this standpoint. Notably, while emerging pro-Apollo websites often present differing answers to any given problem, the principal theme of Dark Moon has been virtually ignored.
Our observations and discussions concerning the anomalies apparent in the Apollo record are only a prelude to examining the prime reasons for such hasty attempts to get out into space. From that standpoint we argue that despite politics, ambition, curiosity and fear, until mankind embraces the idea of total conceptual renewal for future space travel, scientists will make very little headway in manned exploration of deep space.
In our view, we will acquire little further understanding of the essentials of manned space travel until we free ourselves from the unyielding grip of Einstein, in particular the notion that the speed of light is a constant.
It was as early as 1993, within the pages of Two-Thirds: A History of our Galaxy that we first set out our principles for the total conceptual renewal of space craft and discussed the circumstances for probable variations in the speed of light. In 1999 we repeated in Dark Moon some of that material, including the possible relationship between gravity and light.
However, if the pro-Apollo faction has ignored the basic tenets of both these works, NASA has apparently not done so. Despite the agency's virtual silence on the question of Apollo, considerable effort is underway to find a viable new technology for manned space travel (and the second Shuttle disaster will only have accelerated the search). Since 1999 several popular books have been published that provide some insight into current research – Nick Cook's The Hunt for Zero Point (Century 2001) and Lynne McTaggart's The Field (HarperCollins 2001) are two examples.
Moreover, articles discussing variations in the speed of light are now appearing in journals and magazines. Most significantly, NewScientist says of Joao Magueijo's work Faster than the Speed of Light (William Heinemann 2003) 'Call it heresy, but all the cosmological problems will simply melt away if you break one rule-the rule that says the speed of light never varies'.
Without investing considerable effort into thinking differently about these matters, in our view, the human race will not be going very far. Until all of us have the courage to see space technology for what it was in the middle of the last century (and still is, as far as manned space travel is concerned) human beings may never be able to venture safely beyond the Van Allen radiation belts. The answer must surely be to develop a method of space travel that works harmoniously with the environment of space and the universe.
Multiple choice
Having received quantities of mail from both camps in the discussion over the veracity of the Apollo record, we must sympathise with our readers who do not have sufficient background to evaluate the reactions from the pro-Apollo lobby. These responses have been very impressive in their quantity but inconclusive in their quality: since for every question that has been asked, they have responded with several different, sometimes conflicting answers-when there can be only one correct answer.
Many major points raised by us have elicited responses that are supposed to explain serious anomalies, when in fact they have failed to do so. Answers that sound satisfactory on first hearing are often seriously in error, even irrelevant. While endeavouring to explain the shadow anomalies in some photographs, a variety of explanations have been thrown into the same pot, such as differing inappropriate aspects of perspective analysis and shadow analysis.
Attempts to define a light source have dismissed the relevant shadow angle of the Sun. In one particular scene an individual managed to demonstrate that the source of the light was indeed a single light source-but not that it was the Sun so fervently wished for!
With a sweep of the critic's hand the results of the detailed photographic analyses by Dr David Groves were dismissed-his qualifications and professional experience apparently inadequate. So where does all this argument leave the reader? This lack of consistency in the responses to our findings strongly suggests that there is indeed something seriously wrong with the Apollo record.
The same comments apply to UK's Focus magazine and the Fortean Times. Both have devoted bold covers and major articles to the subject-Apollo sells magazines-but the questions raised by the doubters have been given scant and sometimes irresponsibly incorrect answers. Others, such as Astronomy Now, have featured condescending and dismissive pieces about the 'lunar conspiracy theorists'.
On TV, in the astronomy programme The Sky at Night BBC presenter Sir Patrick Moore together with HJP "Douglas" Arnold (formerly of Kodak) treated us to another collection of inadequate and misleading retorts, particularly relating to radiation problems encountered in space. Again, there were poorly demonstrated and implausible justifications to 'explain' the lighting in deep shadow areas. See Devil's Advocate.
Drink time
As for awkward points such as the Apollo 11 Coca-Cola bottle incident recounted by Western Australian resident Una Ronald-according to our detractors this account cannot be true. Since the residents of Perth were able to see the live images on their TVs that Coke bottle is in this lady's imagination. She only saw a 'flare' on the screen that looked like a Coke bottle. Either that or we have invented her, since she seems to have too great an appreciation of lighting problems and no knowledge of the time differences between England and Australia.
Attempting to pin this story on us (it supports the Apollo hoax theory and our book sales, apparently!) is pointless, because the flare exists on all versions of this event. The Coca-Cola bottle was visible once-and once only. And its movement across the screen, as described by Una Ronald, did not in any way emulate that of the flare.
Apart from reading Una Ronald's statements very selectively, totally ignored are the facts that this lady lived nowhere near Perth or its environs. Her work and life did not permit her to see any TV during the daytime-even an event such as Apollo, and that when she did eventually sit down to see the TV, she believed (and rightly so) that the images she was seeing of the Apollo 11 moon walks were 'live'. Which means not doctored in any way whatsoever.
The fact that our information referring to the distribution of TV to Western Australia was considered incorrect by our detractors is now somewhat difficult for them, since the information we received when writing Dark Moon came from the same official source as their apparently correct data, namely CSIRO in Parkes Australia.
Rock on
And so it goes. The problem raised by the 'C rock' photo is easily explained by our critics: it is apparently a 'hair' that got onto the one and only print that is published on the web. It is not on any of the masters or dupe masters, according to these people. This claim is to ignore three points:
1. The Apollo material that we received from NASA in the mid 1990s was supplied either as 5x4 copy transparencies from the originals, or duplicate 70mm transparencies (Dark Moon p 10 & 39) are examples of some these from Apollo 11, magazine 40).
2. There are two examples of the letter 'C' on the image in question – not just one. This second 'C' has been totally missed by the detractors.
War and Pieces
One NASA protagonist, attempting to put things in perspective while demonstrating the weakness of the argument of the Apollo hoax theory, asked one of our readers, given the premise that Apollo was hoaxed, whether he thought that WWII was hoaxed? This question muddles the two principal arguments concerning Apollo:
A. That we never went to the Moon.
B. That the official record is not the true representation of manned lunar exploration.
We have never stated that human beings did not explore the lunar surface. Our hypothesis has always been that although research evidence suggests that the named Apollo astronauts did not venture beyond low Earth orbit, in all probability surrogates were sent to the Moon in the late 1960s.
Our research further suggests that some of the reasons for the disparities between events and their recording for posterity might be related to the technical and environmental problems that were insoluble in the 1960s. Indeed these have not even been overcome yet, as Sean O'Keefe, head of NASA (at the time of writing) confirmed in a speech delivered in Washington on March 26, 2002 to an audience of aerospace professionals. O'Keefe stated that NASA still faces two key obstacles in the exploration of space:
1. Power and propulsion in deep space.
2. The hazardous radiation environment for humans travelling beyond Earth. Indeed radiation was one of the greatest challenges faced by NASA.
Referring to the Apollo missions, Sean O'Keefe said its true success was not the choice of a destination but more the "demonstration of what we could do" (emphasis added). He also stated that if NASA couldn't conquer the problems he had set out, then "we are engaging in fantasy".
But this protagonist's question highlights a particularly interesting point. It is evident to all thinking beings, as he surely knows, that WWII happened. However, in March 2001 pro-Apollo reader Jay from Utah, perhaps inadvertently, supported our justifications for staged footage when he commented on a documentary he had seen on American TV. In this programme WWII combat cameramen stated that lots of the 'documentary' footage of combat actions was actually staged.
And that apparently war footage has been routinely staged as long as there have been cameras covering wars. Jay wrote that most people were aware that the famous photo of US Marines raising the flag over Iwo Jima was a staged shot. He subsequently pointed out that this staged photograph had then been translated into a "very large statue in Washington DC".
Thus the staged representation of an event takes on a life of its own. Whether, depending on the circumstances, that event actually occurred without record, or whether it was entirely staged for the cameras as a symbolic patriotic, victorious gesture, the fakery becomes reality. Over time the staged or faked version is solidified into the mind of the nation as the true and unquestionable representation of the event. Six decades after WWII it is now calmly acknowledged that considerable amounts of the historical record were staged. Four decades after the first mission to the Moon the authors ask if the same approach was adopted for Apollo.
The reaction is somewhat less calm.
It would seem that war and exploration are two different issues. Or maybe we have asked these questions about twenty years too early.
"But nobody has acknowledged that any single one of the images of Apollo were staged," we might hear you cry. Well, yes they have.
In the 1994 British hardback version of Moon Shot by Al Shepard and Deke Slayton there is a large photograph of Al Shepard playing golf on the lunar surface. In this picture is his companion astronaut. A total impossibility if this was a photograph taken on the Moon during the mission. It was not taken at the time. It is a composite of several other NASA pictures. Yet, this fact was not signalled as such within the pages of this particular edition of Moon Shot, it was presented as a photograph of the actual event. This picture does not appear in the 1995 UK paperback version-why not? Could this singularity be a whistle-blow?
In the 1975 Michael Collins biography Carrying the Fire a photograph appears of Collins on an EVA floating against a black sky. In fact (noted by Ralph René) this picture was originally taken within the confines of the zero-G aircraft. With the background blacked out and the photo reversed it purported to be an image from the Gemini X mission. Worse still, the picture sequence at the front of this book infers that Collins flew this arrangement out by the Moon-when we all know he did not. Nothing said, but plenty of hints. Indeed the blacking out process was so sloppy that one could reasonably ask if this handiwork was yet more whistle-blowing.
Our detractors have remained fairly silent on anything they cannot explain away. They have not adequately explained the fact that in the 'classic' photo of Aldrin alone, the large centre reticle is located too low, and not in the centre of the image (Dark Moon pages 37 & 68). The argument that the photo was cropped, and thus the centre reticle is no longer in the centre might work if the picture we analysed was downloaded from the web, but the fact that we have the full coverage 70mm duplicate transparency supplied directly from NASA annuls this vain attempt to defend a seriously anomalous photograph.
Contact
We received an anonymous communication suggesting we consider the interior of geodesic domes as the locations in which the Apollo photography and TV recordings were undertaken. This tip off was more than interesting since we are aware of the well-publicised statements by the Enterprise Mission (EM) concerning 'leaked' images showing various 'structures' in the background.
The EM has asserted that these images were taken on the lunar surface and that they possibly demonstrated the remains of alien artifacts. We can see that these Apollo lunar surface 360 degree sets might have been constructed by blacking out the glass of the upper structure, laying in a 'lunar surface' with backdrops and special lighting.
Should our anonymous caller be right – his information could go a long way to explaining these leaked images. Did these structural artifacts occur as a result of shooting within enormous geodesic domes? In an environment that would require total black in the 'sky' area of the image, if that area was not always totally black, any piece of the structure could become visible.
We have used Photoshop® to examine several Apollo images by over-brightening the black 'sky' area, and found what appears to be a very large dome in the background of an Apollo 14 photo. Is this perhaps the outline of an adjacent dome? Such an explanation would of course relegate these background structural artifacts to the realm of terrestrial activity and not lunar 'alien artifacts' at all.
Our informant also pointed us in the direction of Australia. It so happens that not far from Alice Springs, large geodesic domes can be found at Pine Gap, the US government's highly secure communications centre. That Coca-Cola incident takes on a new significance, especially so, now that other findings originally set out in Dark Moon have been validated. To name but three examples: by 2001 NASA was still topping the 'Worst Examples of Management' charts – fourth according to the Senate. The Russians confirmed in 2001 that Yuri Gagarin was NOT the first man into space, and in 2002 admitted that Laika died within hours, and not as originally stated. We confidently look forward to more of the same.
Big Boot sighting
The one-legged Big Boot is alive and well-and living on the Moon! Kevin Peacock pointed out to us that in the Apollo 11 photo AS11-40-5875 there is a single, clear boot print lying at 90 degrees across the boot tracks that lead out from the flag to the camera position (see close up). This extra large boot print has 12 rib marks. The other astronaut boot marks in this picture have 9 rib imprints. There is absolutely no sign of any other prints made by this lonesome boot.
AS11-40-5874 close up of boot print lying at 90 degrees to all the other boot tracks
And before anyone suggests that it is the result of two prints slightly overlapping, please consider the facts. Without a companion, or any other prints lying in the same direction and in the same vicinity, it is very difficult to see how this could possibly have come about. This occurrence is more consistent with the single imprint of a support of some kind introduced to carry out an adjustment on the set and placed in the 'wrong' direction, probably even intentionally.
Finally, regarding the spacing of footprints on the lunar soil, Chris Knowles informed us of a science documentary transmitted on UK TV concerning a future manned mission to Mars. It was predicted that in the Martian 1/3G, an astronaut's movement should be undertaken at a pace nearer to jogging. It does not take a genius to calculate that if so, in 1/6th gravity, perhaps the Apollo astronauts should have been moving at twice the speed of the Martian pace – not walking about in 'slow motion'.
So in their rush towards planning the future of manned space flight, the Mars analysts at least, seem to have well and truly forgotten the past.
However, by taking those first steps we have all chosen to embark upon this exciting and essential journey. So let us forgive ourselves any transgressions of the past, turn around and face the challenges of manned space exploration together.
Aulis Online, 2003
AULIS Online – Different Thinking