| If you live in Afghanistan and you don't care for parts of historical reality, you may use chemical explosive charges to blow up the thing that bothers you. In fact, the Afghan government will provide you with the explosives and troops to carry out the desired destruction work. This is exactly what happened with the recent Taliban demolition of ancient and priceless Buddhist statues in that nation. If you live in the United States and you don't care for parts of historical reality, you may use wild, explosive conspiracy charges to blow up the thing that bothers you. In fact, the government provides you with the right to spread strident, unsubstantiated charges through our cherished First Amendment. In Afghanistan such destruction of cultural and historical heritage is carried out in the name of God. In the United States such destruction is frequently carried out in the name of "Conspiracy Theory". The Afghans based their destructive actions on extreme religious doctrine. The profit-seeking American extremist conspiracy theorists generally base their campaign of destructive innuendo and downright falsehoods on various combinations of misinterpretation, inadequate mastery of essential facts, defective logic, bias, prejudice, paranoia, emotion, superstition and bitterness. Such is the case with the recent FOX Television documentary, "Conspiracy Theory: Did We Go to the Moon?" This astounding and outrageous documentary claims that one of the largest and most successful civilian run endeavors in American history; the Apollo Program was a fraud. The Apollo voyages to the moon were one of the most thoroughly open and documented government programs in history. Miles of video tape, data graphs, and computer tape were generated during the Apollo flights and ALL of this data was and continues to be analyzed by renowned scientists, engineers, journalists, authors and interested parties from virtually every sector of society. You can still go to a university astronomical observatory and bounce laser beams off of the special reflectors left on the Apollo landing sites. Despite all of this, a Nashville based TV director looks at a "lost" piece of videotape from an old Apollo telecast and announces to the world that Neil Armstrong and NASA lied to us. His evidence to back these charges is beyond ludicrous and weak. It is pathetic. Numerous webmasters have posted web pages that authoritatively poke holes in all of the Apollo conspiracy charges. More on that specific issue later but first, a little historical background. OUR CONSPIRACY HERITAGE Conspiracy theories have a long and long and sad history in this country. In the "good old days" of the early 1900's, lynch mobs were still the prevalent and ultimate American method for destroying people who were "suspected" of high crimes or treasonous conspiracies without benefit of due process. In the latter part of the 20th century most American courts decided to finally start prosecuting lynch mob participants and leaders. Consequently, lynch mobs became smaller and much less popular. Conspiracy theorists (they don't really use theories in a scientific sense) have served to fill the slimy gap in our culture once filled by lynch mobs. The first major conspiracy theorist that most people are familiar with is the late Senator Joe McCarthy of the great state of Wisconsin . The consummate zealot, "Tail -gunner Joe" as the Senator was heroically known, relentlessly pursued communist operatives that he suspected to be planted in virtually every government agency and private industry in the country, Uncovering McCarthy's commie operatives-both real and imagined-came at a terrible human cost of destroyed lives, lost careers, and ruined reputations for many innocents. It took far too long for truth to catch up with McCarthy, but when it did many of his followers learned a painful lesson about blindly following strident yet charismatic public crusaders. The 1960's proved to be a rich decade for the philosophical descendants of Joe McCarthy. Some of the most profitable conspiracy theories of all time were born in that bittersweet decade. It was a decade for dreamers---JFK, Martin Luther King, Stanley Kubrick, Dylan, The Beatles, and the men and women who dreamed of going to the moon. Some achieved their dreams during the sixties. All too many did not. The assassination of President Kennedy is arguably the most lucrative conspiracy theory of all time. Everybody from Fidel Castro to Lyndon Johnson to the Mafia has been blamed for Kennedy's death. The cash register rings loudly every time a new "investigator" issues a book, video or Hollywood feature film that "solves" this murder mystery. The American public is suckered every time. Perhaps the sad and untimely death of Princess Diana of Windsor will ultimately overtake the JFK conspiracy in terms of profitability, but I rather doubt it. The same conspiracy scenario has also played out to a less profitable degree concerning Dr. King's assassination. For some reason, books and videos about the death of history's' greatest civil rights leader don't sell as well as the JFK plots. Those who buy into these conspiracy theories probably perceive the lack of MLK assassination theory interest as another manifestation of American racism. That may be true, but even if these 1960's assassinations were conspiracies all of the participants are probably either dead or battling senility at this time. Still, good fiction sells so will never see the end of this parade of authors who uncover "previously un-covered" evidence. Another major conspiracy theory that was born in the 1960's is still a major seller to a gullible, inadequately educated, TV screenwriter script gobbling public. A host of books, magazines, movies and ultimately the FOX TV show "X-Files" all owe their legacy to the official US government dismissal of UFO research with the statement that "further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby ". That unfortunate and arrogant sounding statement ultimately led to the rise of a major industry that offers books, magazines, clubs, videos, alien abduction therapy groups and seminars. Perhaps there is something more to UFOs than "swamp gas" or top-secret military craft but I doubt that we can learn very much from the wide-eyed collection of high-school educated "lay physicists" and real-estate developers that promote themselves as UFO "experts". My favorite 1960's conspiracy theorist was the fictional General Jack Ripper in the Stanley Kubrick Dr. Strangelove. Ripper was convinced that public water supply fluoridation was a communist plot designed to destroy the virility of American men. Several years after I first saw that movie on the late-late show, I recall watching a wildly animated citizen plead his own "tap-water fluoridation" conspiracy theory during the "open" portion of a city council meeting--- much to the chagrin of the local Water Works manager who grimaced in the corner of the meeting chamber. THE X-FILES GENERATION OF CONSPIRACY THEORISTS I recently met with the producer of the hot conspiracy video of the moment, Bart Winfield Sibrel of Nashville , Tennessee . His credits include award-winning work for NBC, CNN, The Nashville Network (TNN), The Learning Channel (TLC), and the Discovery Channel. Sibrel's gift to the conspiracy community is titled A FUNNY THING HAPPENED TO THE MOON. Bart was one of the conspiracy advocates who offered his "testimonial" on Fox's CONSPIRACY THEORY: DID WE GO TO THE MOON where he claimed to have "cried" when he saw the video tape that approves Apollo never left earth orbit. Of course, that claim is technically correct since the moon orbits the earth and therefore so do astronauts who walk on its surface. Bart is obviously a brilliant word craftsman. Apparently, these "moon hoaxers" have a somewhat symbiotic relationship since the closing credits on Sibrel's A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE MOON list a couple of the FOX CONSPIRACY THEORY self-proclaimed experts as "Research". Bart Sibrel is a really friendly and likeable guy. Good traits for a salesman. Sibrel's technical production skills are also excellent. His conspiracy DVD looks and sounds great. Too bad that it is full of falsehoods, innuendo, strident accusations, half-truths, flawed logic and premature conclusions. It has all of the hallmarks of tasty conspiracy theory material. It even ties itself to the most popular conspiracy of all time by playing the notorious Zapruder film of the JFK assassination. The documentary included somber violin music, heart-rending scenes of starving children in Africa, clips of napalmed Vietnamese villagers, wounded American soldiers in Vietnam and police beating protestors with nightsticks. Bart masterfully cranks up the viewers emotions and distrust of government leadership early in the show so that the viewer is primed for the "stunning" new evidence at the end. EVIDENCE SMEVIDENCE! As far as Bart's much ballyhooed "never-seen", secret NASA Apollo videotape was neither "never-seen" nor secret. It was all taped footage from the Apollo 11 CM Westinghouse three-color camera telecasts that were broadcast live on NBC, CBS, ABC, the BBC and every other decent network on the planet back in July of 1969. Many ordinary citizens have documentary videos that show the same broadcasts. The times and dates of those broadcasts have long been a matter of public record and the documentation can be viewed in the NASA Apollo 11 Post Launch Mission Operation Report (Number M-932-69-11. The video was so blurry and fuzzy that Houston had to prompt the characteristically un-talkative Apollo 11 commander, Neil Armstrong to describe what he was pointing the camera at so that NASA could correlate what he was shooting with what he was describing on later tape playbacks. Color TV cameras small enough to fit inside tiny spacecraft cabins were brand new and balky technology back in 1969. Global communications networks could not even synchronize the audio and video signals coming back to Houston from receiving antennas in Australia and Goldstone, California . The only thing new and weird revealed in Sibrel's A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE MOON is his bizarre personal interpretation that the video views of earth were shot through a small hole (template) to give the impression that Apollo 11 was not in low earth orbit. Sibrel insists that none of the Apollo spacecraft ever left low earth orbit because of the "radiation barrier" called the Van Allen Belts. This radiation barrier is greatly exaggerated by all of the "moon hoax" proponents. Sibrel's misinterpretation of the archival Apollo 11 video results from a combination of Bart's longing to see something awry and his lack of understanding about the Apollo cabin and TV camera configuration. Sibrel attempts to describe to the viewers of his documentary what is going on inside the darkened Command Module while the crew was attempting to give the TV viewers back the best possible view of earth with the primitive handheld color TV camera carried aboard Apollo 11. The problem with his explanation is basically that he does not know what he is talking about. Sibrel may know a lot about current video editing and production technology, but he does not have expertise about Apollo. In order provide 1969 TV viewers back on earth with the best possible view of our planet from space, it was necessary to eliminate the glaring reflected light and direct sunlight that was streaming into the spacecraft and interfering with the shot. The official Apollo 11 mission documentation from 1969 contains astronaut Michael Collins' own discussion of these lighting problems and the difficulties he experienced with the window shades in the Apollo spacecraft. Unfortunately for Bart Sibrel, he is obviously unaware of astronaut Mike Collins documented statements. The astronauts shuttered most of the capsule windows with special shades that blocked most of the glaring direct and reflected sunlight coming off of the bright, shiny Lunar Module which was docked in close proximity to the location of the windows. The earth was then clearly visible out of the other "unblocked" cabin window when the shades were closed. What one actually witnesses in the video are not cutouts or templates passing between the earth and the TV camera, it is the communications headset wiring, arms and body of astronaut Michael Collins as he reaches over to remove the shade blocking one of the spacecraft windows. As soon as the shade is removed, the video shows the cabin immediately illuminating with glaring reflected sunlight. We also see that Collins is the one opening the window shade and that another member of the crew is obviously handling the camera from the vicinity of the foot area of the crew couches. Sibrel expressed the mistaken impression that the hand-held Westinghouse TV camera was hard-mounted to the face of the cabin window. Sibrel, as well as his devoted followers are the victims of misinterpretation and apparent misinformation. Bart is far from what you would call a space expert (although he does have good TV editing and video production skills). He does not appear to possess an understanding of the basic layout and configuration of the Apollo Command Module or the procedures followed by NASA during the Apollo telecasts. Bart has misinterpreted things that are immediately obvious to anyone who has extensively read Apollo history and documentation or anyone who has ever been inside an Apollo Command Module or accurate mockup. THE HISTORICAL FACTS Apollo 11 left for the moon on July 16, 1969 . The crew consisted of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. Every single moment of the Apollo voyage was monitored by an international cadre of journalists, broadcasters, commentators, investigators, spies (from US "allies" as well as enemies) amateur and professional astronomers, amateur and professional radio engineers, television viewers and fifteen year-old me. Thousands stood outside in Hawaii to directly witness the third stage of the Saturn V moon rocket execute the long burn to raise its velocity from earth orbital speed to trans-lunar speed. Amateurs and professionals alike took time-lapse photos of the craft as it sped along the background of stars in the exact places where it was predicted to be by independent calculations. Bruno Stanek, a brilliant Swiss mathematician and space observer furnished me with the following eyewitness account: "In 1969/70, when I was an instructor at the Swiss Institute of Technology (pre-pre-PC era...), I solved the boundary value three body problem for my own personal enjoyment on our CDC 1604: fitting time of departure and arrival, orbital height and inclination of the respective lunar/earth parking orbits and approximate nodes (actually these were precisely determined mathematically because I did not get them from the usual NASA publications). Having x,y,z in five minute intervals, I transformed those to equatorial as well as topocentric astronomical coordinates and supplied the data to well equipped amateur astronomers. I remember mentioning my "project" during one of my live Apollo broadcasts on Swiss National TV and two promising responses reached me. One was a Mr. Seiler in neighboring Bavaria/Germany near Munich who took astro photographs through a 0.5-meter-telescope. He was successful: his long exposure not only showed the LM-CSM-combination at the right location - even the velocity vector proved itself by the right direction of the trace of the moving spacecraft on his film!" Perhaps the most overwhelming confirmation that Apollo happened (other than the lunar rocks and soil still being studied by scientists) is the actual Apollo money trail that some of these conspiracy theorists claim was "stolen" and used on something mysterious, evil and secret. We have hundreds of thousands of witnesses as well as family members who lived off of the paychecks cut by NASA and its Apollo contractors. All of the Apollo dollars were spent right here on earth and with Apollo as with all productive enterprises the greatest portion of the cost was people--- not hardware. I personally work with several of the former engineers who worked on Apollo, and just like all of the hundreds of thousand of others who worked on Apollo they used their paychecks to build homes, buy cars, television sets, groceries, insurance, pay utility bills and educate their children (one of whom also works with me). Those "Apollo Program dollars" did not go into space itself or into clandestine "secret" activities, they were spent right here on earth. Space appropriations built the modern cities of Houston and Huntsville . Space grants were fundamental to creating great university engineering and science departments. The computer and electronics industries were able to "spin-off" their NASA funded development of new materials, designs, techniques and methods into many of the consumer, business and healthcare enhancements that we enjoy today. Pick up your cell phone and make a call. You are using NASA/Apollo derived technology. It is that simple to see what an excellent investment of public tax dollars the Apollo program was. CONCLUSION The moon hoax conspiracy believer generally falls into one or more of the four general categories listed here: (1) People who believe that inter-dimensional beings intervene in daily life on our behalf with "invisible hands" ---I'm not joking. I was verbally attacked by one of these folks who fiercely defended Sibrel's contentions. (2) Those classic "angry white men" who absolutely distrust and despise the U.S. government and consequently believe every anti-US conspiracy that comes within their range of hearing. Timothy McVeigh is the extreme example of this philosophical hellhole. I do agree that our government is far, far from being always clean and honest but it requires a great deal of hate and logic-overwhelming emotions to ignore all of the documentation and evidence that Apollo happened. (3) Honest, average every day people who have viewed the conspiracy videos but do not possess the information and facts that so obviously undermine the false claims of moonhoax proponents. NASA Public Affairs really need to get the ball rolling with its public education and outreach efforts. (4) Angry recipients of our faulty and ineffective federal social welfare and benefit programs who are convinced that the Apollo program was a ploy to steal billions of tax dollars that should have gone to pay for even more ineffective social services and benefit checks. At last, these folks have found common ground with the ultra-right extremist "angry white men" described in case 2 above. (5) People who have other people who have invested $500,000 dollars in their conspiracy video and those investors expect a return for their dollars. In short, trying to reason with all of these types of people is like attempting to shovel smoke with a pitchfork in the wind. You cannot find common ground with a fanatic or a nut case and you cannot convince a hungry salesman that his wares are defective- ever. LONG LIVE THE FIRST AMENDMENT! TV VIEWER AND READERS EVERYWHERE ---BEWARE! | 
