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Agence France-Presse

It was the biggest piece of supposed fake news before the term “fake news” was even invented.
Millions of people across the world still believe that no one has ever walked on the moon, and that the images that Nasa broadcast in July 1969 were shot in a Hollywood studio.
Thousands of internet sites are devoted to “proving” that the landing never happened, or calling into question the whole Apollo 11 mission.
Some claim that Nasa did not have the technological know-how to pull off such a coup, or that if it did that it wasn’t done with a human crew – who would surely have been fried alive by cosmic rays.
Others tout possible alien involvement, which of course has been covered up – as has the lunar civilisation the astronauts discovered.
Denver international airport trolls conspiracy theorists who believe it is secret headquarters for Illuminati and ‘lizard people’
But almost all the conspiracy theories focus on supposed anomalies in the grainy photos and videos which Nasa sent back to Earth.
Shadows in the footage show they were suspect, as is the absence of stars in the sky in some images -theories which have long since been refuted by scientists.


Yet theories live on regardless of proof from the Lunar Orbiter in 2009 which showed the abandoned modules from Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17 still on the moon’s surface.
When Apollo 11’s lunar module touched down on the Sea of Tranquility in 1969, less than one in 20 Americans doubted what they were seeing on their television screens.
By the turn of the century a Gallup poll found scepticism has only spread to 6 per cent of the population.
In contrast, more than half of Russians – the old cold war enemy – still refuse to believe that the Americans got there first.

But surprisingly serious doubt is also rampant among some of Washington’s closest allies, with a 2009 TNS survey showing a quarter of British people did not believe the landings happened, while 9 per cent of French people were also unconvinced, according to pollsters Ifop.
Academic Didier Desormeaux, who has written widely on conspiracy theories, said the more important an event the more likely it is to attract outrageous counter narratives.
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“Conquering space was a major event for humanity. Undermining that can shake the very foundations of science and man’s mastery of nature,” he said, making it a huge target for conspiracists.

While earlier conspiracy theories also involved images – such as the assassination of US President John F Kennedy in 1963, and the so-called Roswell UFO incident – “what is new about these rumours is that they are based on a minute deconstruction of the images sent back by Nasa,” the French specialist insisted.
For Desormeaux it is the first time a “conspiracy theory was built entirely around the visual interpretation of a media event – which they denounce entirely as a set-up.”
The same logic has been used repeatedly to dismiss school massacres in the US as fake, he added, with hard core conspiracists claiming that the dead “are played by actors”.

“Images can anaesthetise our capacity to think” when deployed with ever more twisted leaps of logic, Desormeaux warned.
“The power of such theories is that no matter what they survive, because they become a belief which comes with a kind of evangelism and so they can go on forever.”
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For Nasa’s former official historian Roger Launius, “the fact that the denials of the moon landings would not go away should not surprise anyone”.
Launius – who has devoted a large part of his career to fighting them – said in his latest book, Apollo’s Legacy, that deniers “do not accept the same rules of investigation and knowledge that all others live by.

“They have tapped into a rich vein of distrust of government, populists critiques of society and questions about the fundamentals of (scientific method) and knowledge creation,” he added.
For decades they have played on “our deepest and most secret fears”, fed by America’s defeat in the Vietnam war at home and by anti-Americanism abroad, he said.
But Launius also blames the media for adding fuel to flames of paranoia.
“Moon landings denials were fanned by … competition for a new and different perspective on the events,” he said.


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Space

Apollo 11 moon landing conspiracy … the truth is out there

Astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin walks on the moon, or in a Hollywood studio, depending who you ask. Photo: EPA

epa07672252 An undated handout photo made available by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows the 'Apollo 11 lunar landing mission crew with (L-R) mission commander Neil A. Armstrong, command module pilot Michael Collins and lunar module pilot Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. posing in their space suits (issued 25 June 2019). The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, an event seen as the peak of the United States' space program of the 1960s which put an end to the so-called 'Race to Space' between the Cold War rivals the US and the Soviet Union, that once was triggered by the USSR's 04 October 1957 launch of the 'Sputnik 1' satellite. NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong made history when he stepped out of the Apollo 11's 'Eagle' landing module on 21 July 1969 and left the first human footprints on the moon. EPA-EFE/NASA HANDOUT ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa07672247 HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

epa07672253 A handout photo made available by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows Launch Control Center personnel watching as the 'Saturn V' rocket carrying the 'Apollo 11' astronauts lifts off the launch pad in Cape Canavarel on 16 July 1969 (issued 25 June 2019). The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, an event seen as the peak of the United States' space program of the 1960s which put an end to the so-called 'Race to Space' between the Cold War rivals the US and the Soviet Union, that once was triggered by the USSR's 04 October 1957 launch of the 'Sputnik 1' satellite. NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong made history when he stepped out of the Apollo 11's 'Eagle' landing module on 21 July 1969 and left the first human footprints on the moon. EPA-EFE/NASA HANDOUT BLACK/WHITE ONLY * ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa07672247 HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

epa07672262 (FILE) - A handout photo made available by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows 'Apollo 11' astronaut Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin's boot and footprint in lunar soil on 20 July 1969 (issued 25 June 2019). The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, an event seen as the peak of the United States' space program of the 1960s which put an end to the so-called 'Race to Space' between the Cold War rivals the US and the Soviet Union, that once was triggered by the USSR's 04 October 1957 launch of the 'Sputnik 1' satellite. NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong made history when he stepped out of the Apollo 11's 'Eagle' landing module on 21 July 1969 and left the first human footprints on the moon. EPA-EFE/EDWIN ALDRIN/NASA HANDOUT ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa07672247 HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES *** Local Caption *** 01797767

epa07672259 (FILE) - A handout photo made available by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows Earthrise viewed from the 'Apollo 11' mission's lunar landing module 'Eagle' prior to its landing on 20 July 1969 (issued 25 June 2019). The year 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, an event seen as the peak of the United States' space program of the 1960s which put an end to the so-called 'Race to Space' between the Cold War rivals the US and the Soviet Union, that once was triggered by the USSR's 04 October 1957 launch of the 'Sputnik 1' satellite. NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong made history when he stepped out of the Apollo 11's 'Eagle' landing module on 21 July 1969 and left the first human footprints on the moon. EPA-EFE/NASA HANDOUT ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa07672247 HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES *** Local Caption *** 01797773

Astronaut Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin walks on the moon, or in a Hollywood studio, depending who you ask. Photo: AP

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Adolf Hitler in a May 1937 file photo. Photo: AP

Not just MH370: four other baffling aviation mysteries and the conspiracy theories they spawned

Family members hold candles during the fifth annual remembrance event for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 3. Photo: Reuters

FOR USE WITH "WORLD IN REVIEW"--FILE--Suhair Hathout cries after receiving the news that her sister and brother-in-law who lived in Ohio were travelling on EgyptAir Flight 990, which crashed in the Atlantic ocean after taking off from New York Oct. 31, 1999. The crash killed all 217 aboard. (AP Photo/Enric Marti, file)

American woman pilot Amelia Earhart who has vanished with her navigator Fred Noonan in the Pacific, July 2, 1937, during an attempt to circumnavegate the globe, stands in front of her plane, 1937. REUTERS

The US government admits it studies UFOs. So about those Area 51 conspiracy theories …

A woman looks at the model of an alien from the debunked 1995 “Alien Autopsy” video, at an exhibition in Beijing in 2012. Photo: EPA

Video grab shows a 2004 encounter near San Diego between two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets and an unknown object. Photo: US Department of Defence

Workers with the Nevada Department of Transportation sign shop start to install one of the first "Extraterrestrial Highway" signs along state route 375 in Rachel, Nev., Thursday, April 18, 1996, after the official dedication ceremonies by Nevada officials. The E.T. Highway stretches for 98 miles in Lincoln and Nye counties, connecting U.S. Highways 93 and 6. The move is an effort by the Nevada Commission on Tourism to draw tourists to an area known for tales of frequent UFO sightings. (AP Photo/Lennox McLendon)

News

World

United States & Canada

Many people still believe the Apollo 11 lunar landing was faked, 50 years after the historic event


It was the biggest piece of supposed fake news before the term ‘fake news’ was even invented ... the Apollo 11 moon landing.


Offbeat

UFOs and Extraterrestrial Life