|
Editor's note: Jim Oberg has been invited to discuss the Moon hoax myth and his new book project on this topic on Fox News today (23 Dec) at 3:50 PM EST - 20:50 GMT. Since Fox News is one of the main culprits in perpetuating this Moon Hoax nonsense (details), I hope Jim lets them have it.
"The issue of trying to do a targeted response to this is just lending credibility to something that is, on its face, asinine,'' NASA chief Sean O'Keefe said in late November after the dust settled."
Jim Oberg (ex-NASA moon-hoax-rebuttal-book contractor, www.jamesoberg.com) and Phil Plait (badastronomy.com) will be on National Public Radio's talk show, 'The Connection', with host Dick Gordon, on Wednesday, Nov 20, from 11 to 12 EST. Call-ins are welcome at 800-423-8255 to discuss why some people believe that the Apollo lunar program was a fake and moon-walking astronauts are only a myth. The program is live in about 80 cities and can be heard via streaming-audio, and later from the NPR audio archives."
"The nation's space agency sent men to the moon 33 years ago, but its plan to sponsor a mini-book documenting that those Apollo landings really happened blew up on liftoff. Its mission was aborted this week by bad publicity." Editor's note: It is too bad this project fell apart. Perhaps the most damning bad PR came from ABC's Peter Jennings' vapid commentary at the end of ABC's 'World News Tonight'. Jennings did not even attempt to have a balanced commentary on the issue but, instead, used the topic as an opportunity to score a little chuckle with the viewers.
"Stubborn conspiracy theorists claim that NASA's six Apollo-program moon landings were faked. After decades of belittling and ignoring them, NASA has decided to fight back. It hired James Oberg, a Houston-based former aerospace engineer and award-winning author of 10 books on space, to confront skeptics point by point. Many scientists already have done that on the Internet, but skeptics remain unconvinced."
"It was perhaps NASA's crowning achievement in 1969 when Neil Armstrong said "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," while bouncing to the surface of the moon. But a recent Zogby International poll says that some Americans believe Apollo 11 never made it off the ground - staged in order to beat the Russians in the space race. Most Americans polled - 87 percent - are certain that mankindıs first visit to the moon did happen. A small percentage - 7 percent - think it was all staged for television while 4 percent aren't sure what happened." Editor's note: every time a TV network heaves this idiocy on the air they cause more people to have doubts. The poll they refer to says that 7% think this is a hoax. Yet despite the small portion of the populace that would seem to agree with this nonsense, NBC puts a story on the air. As such, you almost have to conclude that someone at NBC thinks there is the chance that this hoax might actually be true. You can conduct a poll on almost any topic and find a 7% kook factor. If this is how they pick topics for a "news" show, I wonder what's going to appear next on NBC?
"Buzz Aldrin, Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmate and the second man to walk on the moon, recently was besieged at a teachers conference in St. Louis after the Fox special aired. Teachers were stunned that students had begun earnestly questioning whether the space program was all a big lie."
"According to Fox and its respectfully interviewed "experts" - a constellation of ludicrously marginal and utterly uncredentialed "investigative journalists" - the United States grew so eager to defeat the Soviets in the intensely competitive 1960s space race that it faked all six Apollo missions that purportedly landed on the moon. Instead of exploring the lunar surface, the American astronauts only tromped around a crude movie set that was created by the plotters in the legendary Area 51 of the Nevada desert."
"NASAWATCH: Thank you for your very frank and truthful comments about Fox TV's disgusting moon hoax show. I wrote to our local affiliate (KJTV-34, Lubbock TX) after the first broadcast of Conspiracy Theory etc. They largely agreed with my views on the show and offered to do a brief news segment, featuring local hoax debunkers, after the rerun."
Jim McDade has a debate set up with Fox Moon Hoax show's creator Bart Sibrel this Saturday in Huntsville to discuss the merits of the Apollo Hoax Theory. It will be at the Picadilly meeting room in Huntsville's Madison Square Mall at 5:00 PM Saturday.
Here's how Fox promoted their show: "MOON LANDING QUESTIONED ON THE ALL-NEW SPECIAL 'CONSPIRACY THEORY: DID WE LAND ON THE MOON' FEB. 15 ON FOX" NASA put a man on the moon for the first time in 1969 -- or did it? Could the entire moon program have been an elaborate deception staged to fool the public? The conspiracy theories are investigated in the all-new one-hour special" Editor's rant: I can't even begin to find the right sentences to describe this TV show - but I will try. Individual words such as "idiotic", "ridiculous", "scandalous", "irresponsible", "stupid", "fraudulent", "sloppy", and just plain "wrong" come to mind. Among the most ridiculous claims in this program was that astronauts were killed (by NASA) to keep them silent "because they knew too much" and that the Apollo landings on the moon were faked. The only counterpoint to these baseless claims presented on-air were several short clips featuring the late Brian Welch from NASA PAO. This was all packaged together and promoted as a serious inquiry into a possible conspiracy on the part of NASA. Congratulations Fox. Now millions of school-aged children have been exposed to your nonsense - and it is going to take the hard work of their parents (whom you've also misinformed) and their teachers to fix the damage. If Fox executives had any sense of fairness and civic responsibility they'd offer an hour of prime time to representatives from NASA and the scientific community to refute this one hour collection of rumors, unsubstantiated innuendo, and wanton conspiracy mongering - and undo the damage that has been done. You can send your comments to Fox TV at askfox@foxinc.com
Editor's note: Homer and Bart said it best during an episode of "The Simpsons" called "The Springfield Files." The plot: Homer thinks he saw a space alien, a claim which brought Scully and Mulder from the "X-Files" to investigate. (Both shows are on the FOX Network.)
HOMER: This Friday, we're going back to the woods and we're going to find that alien! "A recent TV program resurfaced old questions -- including several dozen e-mails to the NASA Web site -- about whether or not NASA really sent astronauts to the Moon between 1969 and 1972. We did." Editor's note: NASA is now responding to Fox's program - and the errors it contains.
Editor's note: this site seems to have the most detailed, point by point, rebuttal for the nonsense Fox put in their program.
"Some of the teachers in my school are going nuts with kids talking about this dumb FOX special on the "Moon Landing Hoax". Does anyone know of any good, skeptical websites to which I can refer my colleagues so that they can have some ammunition to refute the claims of these conspiracy theorists."
"One sad part of the show for astronomers involves the production's use of Brian Welch, a well-liked NASA spokesman, who died unexpectedly in November at age 42. Welch rebuts some of the coverup allegations. Show producers confessed total ignorance of his death " Editor's note: The show's producers should have just been honest and confessed to be totally ignorant - about everything they put in their program.
|
