Lunargate! Alex Burns Examines the Weird World of Moon Landing Conspiracies

Posted by Raymond on February 16, 2010

The recent cuts to NASA’s budget, including the axing of the upcoming lunar missions, the Ares Rocket System, and the Orion Spacecraft, have left many of us quite scared for the future of the U.S. space program. This classic article from Alex Burns examines those that question whether or not NASA even got to the moon in the first place.  Are we afraid to go back, or to go there at all?

Lunargate by Alex Burns

In a now infamous 1961 speech, US President John F. Kennedy pledged that America’s space program would “place a man on the moon before the decade’s close.” At the heart of cold war battles for geopolitical supremacy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs also became the vehicle for inculcating domestic populations with American values and belief systems.

NASA’s growing power, its protection by the Kennedy administration, and the rise of the Right Stuff astronaut as celebrity hid the steady growth of the Military-Industrial Complex that Eisenhower had warned about.

These anxieties — of monolithic social institutions controlling information, and the decline of US global empires — are the core of conspiracy theories claiming the historic Apollo moon landings were elaborately faked. The world was hoaxed.

Anatomy of a Faked Hoax?

Conspiracy theorists like Bill Kaysing and Ralph Rene claim that:

— The Nazis built a small moon base.

— Strange geological structures are evidence of alien life.

— NASA photos were ‘doctored’ and transmissions were censored.

— NASA “stage managed” astronaut interviews and press conferences.

— NASA “conditioned” astronauts by Nazi-derived mind control techniques.

— The Van Allen Belt’s high radiation levels prevented the astronauts from leaving Earth.

— Apollo 1 astronauts Grissom, Chaffee and White were going to reveal NASA’s conspiracy to the world, so they were murdered in a 1967 launchpad fire.

Perhaps the most believable part of Kaysing and Rene’s scenario is their analysis of the space industry as a political economy. The authors contend that, in a climate of lucrative multimillion dollar industrial contracts and public euphoria, the Military-Industrial Complex fueled the conspiratorial imperative for creating Lunargate.

The Medium is the Space Age

These hoax theories can teach us much about the Paranoid Style (Richard Hofstadter) of post-Watergate American politics. The fascination with decoding NASA photographs for clues and analysing suggestive scenes in films like Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Capricorn One (1978) echo Marshall McLuhan’s media models and postmodern theorists’ fascination with ambiguous texts and the limits of knowledge.

When Bill Kaysing claims that the Apollo 13 debacle was a “simulation within a simulation,” or anonymous theorists suggest that director Stanley Kubrick filmed the historic Apollo 11 moon landing (July 20, 1969) on a Nevada soundstage, they offer scenarios that closely resemble postmodernist Jean Baudrillard’s concept of American culture as hyperreal:

People’s imagination demands the real thing, but in order to get it, they have to create fakes.

A Dark History, Indeed

NASA’s verifiable history has had some questionable aspects:

— The use of Nazi V2 rocket scientists saved by Operation Paperclip.

— Several key Apollo astronauts were 33-Masons.

— The questionable management decisions by Morton Thiokol Inc that indirectly caused the Challenger space shuttle disaster.

The real concern of these conspiracy theorists, maybe, is the longterm fate of NASA’s space program. Resource allocation pressures have made it difficult over the past thirty years for a largescale population the Overview Effect (comprehending Earth as a single integrated system that is post nation-state/tribal band) consciousness change that astronauts experienced.

US Congress passed a bill in 1999, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing . . . and then cut NASA’s annual budget by over $1 billion.

Maybe the real conspiracy is one of institutional infighting and bureaucratic stupidity. We have faith in fakes after all.

Further Reading:

The Wrong Stuff
Very indepth article by Wired writer Rogier van Bakel surveying the ‘moon hoax’ theories prevalent on the Internet and as American folklore: Alternative 3, Bill Kaysing, Ralph Rene, movie portrayals of moon hoaxes and a reply from NASA officials.

NASA
Search the NASA network for the latest space news, scientific research, photos, archives . . . and maybe the truth about the Apollo program?

The Enterprise Mission
Richard Hoagland’s controversial but detailed site is more well known for the Martian Case for the Face, but he has assembled an enviable resource on Moon anomalies, and their role in The Plan, an intriguing memetic engineering hypothesis implicating NASA, the Hollywood-12 and possible future global catastrophes.

Narduar vs. Bill Kaysing
Narduar The Human Serviette gets the scoop from Bill Kaysing about the alleged murder of Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom; ex-Ghelen Nazis working for NASA under Operation: Paperclip; faked photos and Nevada desert soundstages; the Apollo 13 film as propaganda and the legendary TV confrontation with astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
We Never Went to the Moon!
Frederick ‘Fog’ Horne’s controversial site features basic introductory information on Lunargate conspiracy theories. Make sure you check out his other columns.

Aulis Publishers
Publishers of the excellent book Dark Moon: Apollo and The Whistle-Blowers, this site includes book excerpts, an online shop, reviews and links.

Apollo Oxygen and Two-Gas Environment Problems
David Wozney has compiled materials relating to the aftermath of the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire that killed astronauts Grissom, Chaffee and White. Other anomalies Wozney explores include exhaust, crosshair and photographic image inconsistencies.

Global Shadow Government Masonic New World Order Conspiracy
Excellent list of links to articles on the proposed Illuminati-Masonic-NASA hoaxed moon landing conspiracy. Topics include John Glenn, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and the Sirius-Orion-Giza connection.

The Groom Lake Desert Rat
NASA, Groom Lake, Alpha Draconis, Hungarian UFOs, Alien Hygiene and more. With an explosive cocktail of memes like this, who could resist?

NASA Masonic Conspiracy: Apollo Missions Masonic Symbols
Thoughts from controversial conspiracy theorist William Cooper on Masonic links with NASA and the Apollo moon missions. Never let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory!