Apollo Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory

The Apollo moon landing conspiracy theory has a strong connection with what is happening today. You might say it fits a repeating pattern:

• How big of a lie can you shove down the public’s throat?
• How can you generate a lucrative recurring stream of income to fund other projects?
• How can you achieve full spectrum dominance and a comprehensive surveillance state?

The moon landing hoax was very successful in answering all three of these questions and provided a nice building block for future totalitarian efforts. 

NASA Budget

The United States federal government has allotted NASA $650 billion in funding since its inception in 1958 “to pursue programs in aeronautics research, robotic spaceflight, technology development, and human space exploration programs.”

After President John F. Kennedy proclaimed that “We choose to go to the moon” in a speech on September 12, 1962, the NASA budget crossed the billion-dollar per year threshold and never looked back.

The agency’s 2021 budget is $23 billion. That’s a lot of money. 

Moon Landing Conspiracy Essay: Wagging the Moon Doggie

Wagging the Moon Doggie is a 13-part series of articles written by the late David McGowan between October 2009 and February 2010.

McGowan’s work on the burgeoning 1960s music scene in Southern California, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon, is excellent, so I figured his material on the Apollo space missions would be worth a read.

McGowan makes a great case that the moon landings were a hoax. He doesn’t examine every photographic detail ad nauseam, but he presents enough big-picture logic to crush the official narrative while maintaining his trademark sardonic sense of humor.

I recommend you read his material, but for those short on time here are the key points.

Was the Moon Landing Fake?

McGowan concludes that, yes, the moon landing was fake. There is a preponderance of the evidence that makes this clear when put together, and you don’t need to be a science whiz or have an engineering degree to figure it out.

The Motive For Moon Landing Fakery

As with most conspiracies, those in charge hope to accomplish multiple objectives with one series of events. Why settle for one when you can grab three major wins?

Space Race Win #1

The Soviet Union was kicking the United States’ ass in space exploration. Kennedy thought the country needed a boost in the Cold War to prove our capitalist ideology was superior to their communist ideology. Thus, he issued an ultimatum for NASA to get a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Space Race Win #2

McGowan explores a more conspiratorial line of reasoning from which he derived the title of his article series: Wagging the Moondoggie. 

Richard Nixon promised to get the US out of Vietnam while campaigning for President. As with most promises made on the presidential campaign trail, he had no plan to follow through. 

Typically, when presidents renege on their promises (all of them do) they start a war to distract the people (a la the movie Wag the Dog). Nixon didn’t have that option since it was a war he was trying to distract people from. So, he resorted to the next best thing, a breathtaking succession of Apollo moon missions. I’m sure he was thankful to JFK for laying the narrative groundwork. 

The space race news cycle became a very handy go-to for the Nixon administration whenever more horrific news came out from Southeast Asia.

Seymour Hersh published his story about the My Lai Massacre, better rev up the PR machine and hype up the next moonwalk.

By the way, after the Vietnam War ended the Apollo program shut down for good. Hmmm?

Space Race Win #3

There’s also a dark money bait and switch to consider. But, I’ll get to that later.

How Many Years Before Man Walks on the Moon Again?

It has been over 52 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their giant leaps for mankind on Apollo 11. The last time man walked on the moon was Apollo 17 in December 1972. 

Why haven’t we gone back? The Apollo astronauts traveled 234,000 miles (or 237,000 depending on who you ask) from Earth to the Moon. No manned craft has traveled more than 400 miles since. What? 

As Bart Sibrel notes in the description of his moon landing hoax video:

“The alleged moon landings are the only technological claim in the entire history of the world, such as the first automobile, airplane, or nuclear power, which was not far surpassed in capability 50 YEARS later, much less not even able to be duplicated by any nation on earth 50 YEARS later.”

Some debunkers of the moon landing conspiracy say we got all the scientific samples we needed on the Apollo missions and there’s no reason to go back. That’s ridiculous. You’re telling me other countries like the Soviet Union back during the Cold War or China today don’t want to get their astronauts to plant a flag on the moon to demonstrate their scientific, engineering, and technical prowess? Absurd. 

There are stories about water on the moon. You don’t think scientists want to investigate that further? What about all of the minerals that unmanned lunar missions have reported. No nation or corporate entity wants to cash in on that mining opportunity? Nonsense.

Even academics like Jack Burns, director of the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research, said we never went to the most interesting places on the moon, and that “we have so much more to learn.” 

Missing Moon Rocks

Many of the moon rocks are missing. The Nixon Administration sent moon rocks to most of the nations on Earth, so they could have a visual reminder of American superiority.

A Dutch museum discovered that their sample was petrified wood. Not to say there weren’t real moon rocks circulating on Earth. After all our planet gets hit with moon debris (meteorites) often, especially in Antarctica.

There are also reports of video footage and telemetry data from Apollo 11. Is it really missing? Are they hiding something. It’s another mysterious fact highlighting things might not be as they appeared decades ago.

Moon Landing Video Footage

In the 1990s we had trouble broadcasting live footage from the deserts of the Middle East, but in 1969 we had no problem beaming footage from the moon.

NASA admitted that the footage wasn’t live. They recorded it off a black-and-white monitor because the NASA equipment wasn’t compatible with the TV technology of the day. Sketchy, but a great way to give desert footage that ghostly, grainy, 237,000 miles away look.

For fun play walking on the moon footage at twice the speed. At that speed much of the footage looks like men in bulky spacesuits tooling around on Earth. Others speculate wires and pulleys gave extra hang time for footfalls and hops, and that anti-gravity look in the spacecraft. This is a plausible explanation.

McGowan wonders why these red-blooded men never tried to see how high or far they can jump with 1/6th the gravity of Earth? Nope, instead, we get little bunny hops in zero gravity for these boys. What about a 10-foot vertical jump? A 30-foot standing long jump? A 130-yard football pass? Something obvious?

The only athletic feat they could muster was a golf shot by Alan Shephard. You can barely see the ball, and he hits it out of frame, so we have to take his word that he connected with the sweet spot on one and it went for miles and miles. I’ll buy that. 

The Fragile Looking Lunar Excursion Module (LEM)

Look at the picture of the lunar module. I can’t help but laugh every time I examine that marvel of machinery that no one has ever been able to top. It’s hilarious. It looks like a 6th-grade science project, using stuff they grabbed out of the alley:

• Tent poles
• Ductwork
• Aluminum foil
• Mylar balloons
• Construction paper

That thing had to lift off from the moon 69 miles into lunar orbit, then dock onto the command module flying around at 4,000 miles per hour around the moon. And they did it six times without a hitch after never testing in the exact lunar conditions. Amazing!

“Whenever I saw a model of the lunar module, it had these rigid sides, and [it] really looked strong. Turns out that external portions of the lunar module are made up of Mylar and cellophane and it’s put together with Scotch tape and staples. We had to have pads on the floor ‘cause if you dropped a screwdriver, it would go right through the floor.” – Jim Lovell, Astronaut (Gemini 7, Gemini 12, Apollo 8, Apollo 13)  

To add to the absurdity, the much-celebrated Apollo 13 mission had to use the lunar module as the lifeboat to return the crew. 

Moon Landing Pictures Conspiracy

Lots of “hoaxers” break down the photographic anomalies from the Apollo missions. Makes sense because there are a lot of head scratchers in the images from the halcyon days of space travel. 

McGowan was a photographer but didn’t get too deep into the analysis.

He found it remarkable how composed a lot of the shots were considering the awkward suits and placements of the cameras on the astronaut’s chests. He suggested an experiment to see if you can take a picture and get the exposure, focus, and framing right under similar circumstances.

“For those who don’t find that at all unusual, here is an experiment that you can try at home: grab the nearest 35MM SLR camera and strap it around your neck. It is probably an automatic camera so you will have to set it for manual focus and manual exposure. 

Now you will need to put on the thickest pair of winter gloves that you can find, as well as a motorcycle helmet with a visor. Once you have done all that, here is your assignment: walk around your neighborhood with the camera pressed firmly to your chest and snap a bunch of photos. You will need to fiddle with the focus and exposure settings, of course, which is going to be a real bitch since you won’t be able to see or feel what you are doing. Also, needless to say, you’ll just have to guess on the framing of all the shots.”

Oh, and another issue with the photographic evidence: if the massive radiation from the sun didn’t destroy the film, the 540-degree temperature fluctuation on the moon sure would have.

McGowan ponders why none of the 17 astronauts who walked on the moon tried to capture an image of the stars, which would have been brilliant because the moon has no atmosphere like the Earth. They would have needed a longer exposure shot to capture them in all their magnificence. Nah, let’s get that 93rd shot of the footprints in the moon dust.

There are images where it’s obvious they are using fill lights. NASA claimed only the sunlight was available to the astronauts. 

The moon has no atmosphere so sunlight doesn’t disperse as it does on Earth. That means an object in a photo is either lit by the sun or in absolute darkness. There’s no in-between. This is very problematic for the legitimacy of many of the NASA photos.

Also, under those sunlit conditions with no atmosphere, shadows should be parallel. There’s only one light source. That’s not the case in these photos, making it obvious there are additional light sources.

The Van Allen Radiation Belts

In 2005, NASA published an article (no longer on the site – had to grab it from the Wayback machine) talking about radiation as a “showstopper” for returning to the moon.

Beyond low-Earth orbit, space is full of intense radiation from the sun and supernovas. Since we can’t build spaceships with four-foot thick lead walls, there’s a problem. They proposed electrostatic shields. Hope it works for future astronauts. Guess it didn’t matter for those cowboys in the 60s though. They went right through the Van Allen belts with no protection.

The Van Allen Radiation Belts begin at an altitude of 1,000 miles and extend an additional 25,000 miles. They are full of lethal radiation. Every space mission with human’s on board in history stayed well below the radiation field, except for Apollo missions.

In 1998 the Space Shuttle flew to 350 miles altitude. Even 650 miles below the nearest Van Allen Belt the astronauts saw flashes of light with their eyes shut due to high levels of radiation.

After that mission CNN reported that scientists determined that the Van Allen Belts were more dangerous than previously believed.

Moon Dust Requires Cleanroom Conditions

NASA feels like it now must maintain cleanroom conditions for any mission that involves extravehicular activity (EVA) (i.e. walking on the moon). Moondust can cause major issues for the delicate instrumentation as well as the lungs of the astronauts, so under no circumstances should astronauts drag dust into the module.

NASA has designed suitports to solve this problem if we ever get back.

Not needed in 1969 though. Drink from the hose. Ride in the car without a seatbelt. Cavort on the moon without dust or radiation protection. Ah, those were the days of freedom!

Did They Ever Intend To Get to the Moon?

It’s a good question. No one knows for sure. Perhaps they gave it a good effort, realized there was no way they were going to make the deadline, so they utilized a resource no other country on Earth had access to. Hollywood production facilities.

The Father of the Apollo program, Werhner Von Braun, an elite Nazi and member of the Black Order of the SS, who the U.S. plucked from the Germans along with many other scientists in Operation Paperclip, was against a docking station in the lunar orbit plan. He said there was no way it would work. However, late in the game, he changed his tune.

McGowan speculates that someone in a black suit finally got through to him, letting him know the secret … the plan wasn’t to go to the Moon, rather it was to sell the story of Americans walking on the moon to the world.

Even the Patriotic American Public Was Skeptical

One-third of Americans polled after the first successful moon landing didn’t believe we landed on the moon.

Did they read Wernher Von Braun’s book, Conquest of the Moon, published in 1953, in which he wrote:

“It is commonly believed that man will fly directly from the earth to the moon, but to do this, we would require a vehicle of such gigantic proportions that it would prove an economic impossibility. It would have to develop sufficient speed to penetrate the atmosphere and overcome the earth’s gravity and, having traveled to the moon, it must still have enough fuel to land safely and make the return trip to earth. 

Furthermore, to give the expedition a margin of safety, we would not use one ship alone, but a minimum of three … each rocket ship would be taller than New York’s Empire State Building [almost ¼ mile high] and weigh about ten times the tonnage of the Queen Mary, or some 800,000 tons.”

Guess it’s just a story of triumphing against all odds with the help of Nazi scientists. Heartwarming.

Full Spectrum Dominance: Where the Moon Money Went

It’s cheaper to fake a moon landing than it is to land people on the moon. You can do many other “space-related” projects with those savings.

McGowan sums it up:

“In truth, the entire space program has largely been, from its inception, little more than an elaborate cover for the research, development, and deployment of space-based weaponry and surveillance systems. The media never talk about such things, of course, but government documents make clear that the goals being pursued through space research are largely military in nature.”

There are many federal budget line items earmarked for one thing but spent on another. Cooking books, obfuscation, kickbacks, and sleight of hand … that’s governmental business. 

For decades they pumped billions of tax dollars into shady space weapons and full-spectrum surveillance systems, so now they can see your face from space. As we slip further into a one-world totalitarian regime, these capabilities combined with all of the personal data garnered from the Internet of Things, smartphones, and all of our activities on the Web will soon be gathered in your own personal dossier.

That’s terrifying and we haven’t even mentioned space weapons.

In 1958 Lyndon Johnson (not a man I would trust with this type of power) honed in on that angle: 

“Control of space means control of the world. From space, the masters of infinity would have the power to control Earth’s weather, to cause drought and flood, to change the tides and raise the levels of the sea, to divert the gulf stream and change the climates …”

I want to dive deeper into the surveillance state, along with Space Force, and the privatization of space exploration with billionaire boys like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson. 

Stay tuned.

Lunar Temperature Fluctuations

It’s hard to believe those spacesuits protected the astronauts in extreme lunar weather. When the sun is up the temperature is 250 degrees Fahrenheit. When the sun is down the temperature is -250 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s quite advanced material to protect our boys from those extremes. Let’s not forget the fantastic climate control units on their backs. Amazing technology. Never duplicated. Almost unbelievable. 

Silencing Dissent

As with most conspiracies, suspicious deaths surrounding the Apollo space program. As usual, it’s the whistleblowers or outspoken insiders not following the script, who wind up dead. 

Thomas Baron, a safety inspector for North American Aviation (NAA), the company that built the safety capsule, reported on numerous safety lapses to his supervisors. They fired him on Jan. 5, 1967. Baron delivered a 55-page report filled with his concerns to NASA immediately afterward.

On January 27, 1967, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in a fire on the Apollo 1 space capsule. Grissom had also been a harsh critic of the Apollo 1 craft.

Baron offered the congressional sub-committee a copy of his report, which had grown to 500 pages as NAA employees kept feeding their former colleague information. The committee declined and pulled a fast one to discredit him.

Baron and his wife and child died in a train crash not long after. Many researchers suspect foul play.

Bill Kaysing Doesn’t Believe We Went to the Moon

 “In the late ’50s, when I was at Rocketdyne, they did a feasibility study on astronauts landing on the moon. They found that the chance of success was something like .0017 percent. In other words, it was hopeless.”

Rocketdyne was the engine contractor for Apollo. Bill Kaysing was head of technical publications for the Rocketdyne Research Department.

“They – both NASA and Rocketdyne – wanted the money to keep pouring in. I’ve worked in aerospace long enough to know that’s their goal.” 

Read the late Bill Kaysing’s book, We Never Went to the Moon, which inspired Peter Hyams to write and direct the Hollywood movie Capricorn One.

More Resources: Apollo Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory

Bart Sibrel is a filmmaker and journalist with major cajones. He confronted many of the Apollo astronauts about the validity of their space exploration claims. Some of guerilla journalism is over the top (e.g. demanding that the astronauts swear on the Bible that they went to the moon), but overall it’s fascinating footage and worth a look. Plus, he can take a punch.

Sibrel’s best moon hoax videos:

• Astronauts Gone Wild
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon

Jay Weidner explains Kubrick’s secret confession in The Shining in this clip from the documentary Room 237 if you really want to get esoteric.

McGowan recommended Aulis for further research. They go deep, including feature length documentaries that are worth watching: What Happened on the Moon Part 1 and What Happened on the Moon Part 2.