Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (2001 TV Movie) User Reviews

The explanations!!

[bond_i2 · 5/10 · 2 March 2006]

1. Crosshairs on some photos appear to be behind objects, rather than in front of them where they should be, as if the photos were altered.

* In photography, the light white color (the object behind the crosshair) makes the black object (the crosshair) invisible due to saturation effects in the film emulsion.

2. The quality of the photographs is implausibly high.

* NASA selected only the best photographs for release to the public, and some of the photos were cropped to improve their composition. There are many badly exposed, badly focused and poorly composed images amongst the thousands of photos that were taken by the Apollo Astronauts. Many can be seen at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. Photos were taken on high-quality Hasselblad cameras with Zeiss lenses, using 70 mm medium format film.

3. There are no stars in any of the photos, and astronauts never report seeing any stars from the capsule windows.

* There are also no stars seen in Space Shuttle, Mir, International Space Station and Earth observation photos. Cameras used for imaging these things are set for quick shutter speeds in order to prevent overexposing the film for the brightly lit daylight scenes. The dim light of the stars simply does not have a chance to expose the film.

* Believers in the hoax theory contend that the stars were removed from the photographs because they would have looked identical to the stars as seen from the Earth, i.e. no parallax view. However, the distance from the Earth to the Moon is very small compared to the distance to the stars, so no parallax would have been visible anyway. (The nearest star is over 100,000,000 times farther away than the Moon, and most stars are much farther away than that.)

4. The color and angle of shadows and light.

* Shadows on the Moon are complicated because there are several light sources; the Sun, Earth and the Moon itself. Light from these sources is scattered by lunar dust in many different directions, including into shadows. Additionally, the Moon's surface is not flat and shadows falling into craters and hills appear longer, shorter and distorted from the simple expectations of the hoax believers. More significantly, perspective comes into play. This effect leads to non-parallel shadows even on objects which are extremely close to each other, and can be observed easily on Earth wherever fences or trees are found. (Plait 2002:167-72).

5. Identical backgrounds in photos that are listed as taken miles apart.

* Detailed comparison of the backgrounds claimed to be identical in fact show significant changes in the relative positions of the hills that are consistent with the claimed locations that the images were taken from. Parallax effects clearly demonstrate that the images were taken from widely different locations around the landing sites. Claims that the appearance of the background is identical while the foreground changes (for example, from a boulder strewn crater to the Lunar Module) are trivially explained when the images were taken from nearby locations, akin to seeing distant mountains appearing the same on Earth from locations that are hundreds of feet apart showing different foreground items. Furthermore, as there is no atmosphere on the Moon, very distant objects will appear clearer and closer to the human eye. What appears as nearby hills in some photographs, are actually mountains several kilometers high and some 10-20 kilometers away.

6. The number of photographs taken is implausibly high. When the total number of official photographs taken during EVA of all Apollo missions is divided by the total amount of time of all EVAs, one arrives at 1.19 photos per minute. That is one photo per 50 seconds. Discounting time spent on other activities results in one photo per 15 seconds for Apollo 11.

* The astronauts were well trained before the mission in the use of photographic equipment. Since there were no weather effects to contend with and the bright sunlight scenes permitted the use of small apertures with consequent large depth of field, the equipment was generally kept at a single setting for the duration of the mission. All that was required of the astronauts was to open the shutter and wind the film to take a picture.

Quite entertaining...

[jackacz · 6/10 · 29 March 2001]

I find conspiracy theories, particularly well-researched ones, fascinating. This film makes you think about something that you perhaps never considered -- that man may actually have never landed on the moon. The thought surely had never crossed *my* mind before! It asks very interesting questions.....even a few I *have* wondered about, but never attributed it to being a hoax -- for example, why there seem to be no stars in the photographs from the moon. Some of the stuff they show is pretty convincing....such as two film clips supposedly showing two different locals on the moon, but when shown overlapped, they are the same location (however I agree this is a case of bad editing or a mislabel!) Though the questions brought up are interesting, the answers given are lame (though a few are somewhat convincing), and obviously biased, with almost no comment by 'the other side' (the scientists/researchers/ASTRONAUTS who believe we went to the moon). Overall, this will either freak you out, make you laugh or just remind you not to accept things without question.

An amazing work on FICTION.

[NewDivide1701 · 6/10 · 17 August 2006]

Even today, there are people who believe in the 5 second rule. Who believe that a badge or book can stop a bullet. Who believe the gravity is a push. And who believe, even today in the first world, the world if flat.

But even the greatest conspiracy theorist, Agent Fox Mulder from the then hit TV series X-Files, when looking at it would say "We landed on the moon." Three of the best evidence that proves the moon landing was a hoax can easily be explained by people with eyes and a brain.

#3 - No Stars: On a clear night in the city, look up into the sky and what do you see? You see the moon. Can you see stars? No, or at least hardly. Those stars are even being dampened out by "dimly" lit street lights, so image being on a bright surface of the moon.

Myth busted.

#2 - No Parallel Shadows: If you were to look on a hill or ground on Earth that isn't a road when the sun is relatively how in the horizon, either in the morning, evening, or in winter, how many of the shadows are parallel? Not many. Cause that conspiracy was based upon flat surfaces, and the moon has none.

Myth busted And the ultimate evidence: #1 - Waving Flag: That "evidence" is suppose to be the evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the lunar landings were hoaxed. Look again. When the astronauts are positioning the flag, it is true the flag is moving, but the astronauts are moving it when they are positioning it. And the flag isn't flapping, it is whipping. And when looking at other footage with the flag, the flag isn't flapping at all.

The ultimate evidence - myth busted.

Even though it is nothing more than pure and utter fiction, does show the gullibility of the average person. But even then it is very thought provoking. Even worse, not only all the evidence that favours the conspiracy can easily be used to prove the lunar landings did happen, there is even more evidence never addressed by the conspiracy theorists that proves that the lunar landings did happen.

Putrid

[BigTimeMovieFan · 1/10 · 13 April 2003]

Poor Mitch Pileggi. This must have been his contractually obligated "turkey" that Hollywood makes its "stars" do, just to prove who's in charge.

So you think we faked the moon landing?

So you saw the flag flapping in the "breeze" on the airless moon. No you didn't. The flag had a rod through the top and a weight at the bottom corner so that it would look fully deployed. And the "flapping" you saw was due to the astronaut TWISTING THE FLAGPOLE INTO THE LUNAR SOIL for better placement. As soon as the twisting stopped, guess what? The flapping stopped too!

And try this one on for size, airboy: Ever drop some flour in the kitchen and notice a cloud of dust hovering over the floor? Well if the astronauts were REALLY on a soundstage with a flag that was REALLY flapping in the breeze, you'd see dust flying all around too. But you didn't, because there wasn't, BECAUSE THEY WERE ON THE (AIRLESS) MOON!

So you thought the lighting of the Astronauts was too perfect, as if it was a studio job. Well, the lighting and the shadows would be a little wonky, considering that there are THREE sources of light in the photos: The sun (natch), the Earth (much the same way the full moon illuminates the night sky), and the moon itself. That's right, all that moonlight that we see here on earth was shining right up into the astronauts' faces and giving their spacesuits a nice, soft-light look.

Oh, that's also the reason you don't see any stars in the moon photos. The surrounding moonlight was so bright, the shutter speeds on the cameras were set very fast. It would be like taking a picture out your living room window at night and expecting to see stars in the photo. Ain't gonna happen.

So you think that there should be a great big crater under the LEM. Well I hate to break this to you, but the LEM didn't land at full power. Most of its fuel load was spent in deceleration from orbit, and in hovering over the landing site. They only needed a fraction of its power to make a nice, soft, 1/6th gravity landing. They didn't even "land" under power. Each of the landing "feet" had a thin rod that would signal the astronauts that they were just over the surface. They would then cut the engine and drop the final 18 inches unpowered. ("Contact light! OK, Engine Stop!" Remember that from the Apollo mission tapes?)

And then there's the matter of the ascent stage, popping off the moon as if it was on a cable. See, once again you're taking what you've seen (launches on earth) and projecting them onto what you THINK you've seen. It takes a ridiculous amount of thrust to start moving up. So when rockets launch from earth, they are held down for a few seconds. It's the same as starting your car when you're parked on a hill. Hold your foot on the brake and give it a little gas so you don't roll back. Well, you don't need to do that on the moon with its one-sixth gravity and when all you're moving is an ascent stage. Throw the switch and ((woosh!)) you're off.

Oh, and the reason you don't see any flame from the ascent rocket is simple: real rocket fuel doesn't burn, it's hypergolic. In a nutshell, 2 chemicals that are otherwise inert come together and expand rapidly. If you focus and channel it the right way, you get thrust. (It's not easy to do, but it can be done. That's why the phrase "Rocket Scientist" has such a mystique in our society.) But it doesn't produce a visible flame. The dramatic, flaming liftoff of the Saturn 5 rocket from Cape Kennedy came from the fuel mixture of the first stage, which used kerosene. And that WILL produce one heckuva flame, unlike the Eagle's ascent rocket.

There's more, but I think I've proved the point. Every so-called "Fact" on the show is easily refuted when you happen to know more than the average X-Phile about real science.

Embarrassed to call this a "documentary", but riddled with nice NASA footage.

[CarstenKlapp · 2/10 · 23 March 2003]

This so-called documentary does a poor job at presenting various possible viewpoints and misuses or ignores the applications of physical and optical laws. FOX could have done so much more with this interesting topic. This film only serves to hurt the credibility whether FOX is capable of producing a documentary.

Disjointed sequences of very short interview clips with only a handful of people present their opinions and analyses. No independent engineers or optical experts were consulted about the physics-related theories presented to provide additional insight.

The film tries and fails miserably to inspire the viewer to ask more questions than the film tries to answer. The intelligent viewer may learn that without a rudimentary understanding of physics, gravity, and optics one can easily "prove" just about anything.

There is lots of nice NASA footage, but nothing that can't be found in other well-written documentaries.

Absolute Crap

[dreamlessv · 14 January 2004]

In my astronomy class, we watched this movie and then went through why all the theories are wrong. There is an entire website dedicated to why everything in this movie is wrong Everything in this movie is taken out of context for sensationalism.

Conspiracy-theory-nutjobs should spend less time researching the Illuminati, the reverse-vampires, the Zionists, the saucer-people, and the Freemasons and instead take an introductory physics course.

made me a believer

[RabidCerebral · 7/10 · 9 December 2006]

i choose to believe we never landed on the moon, people are going insane trying to fight for an against the fact, and it really will never end unless the president himself admits that we never did, if he was to say we did land on the moon the fighting would still continue oddly enough because that ironically proves noting in the minds of many people since its whut they have already heard.

for the movie though it does a great job at "proving" we never landed on the moon, even if some of it is false it is defiantly a good documentary to check out, it should be watched.

as said before i personally do not believe whut so ever that we landed on the moon i mean come on there is way to much evidence supporting the fact we did not do it, and im not talking from this movie, but everywhere and if we really did we would be there right now, but were not, it seems odd enough that we have not been sending constant ships to the moon.

anyways if your looking for a good conspiracy movie check this one out, it is what originally got me going on the whole moon landing hoax, the movie does however leave out a lot of huge other facts that could help one rest their case a lot easier like for example the fact that in that time it would take a whole warehouse to hold a 256k computer, the Lem in fact only had only a 32k computer in it, to give you an idea this is the computing power of a simple calculator, so you expect me to believe that they were able to land, transmit and many other things with a freaking 32 k computer , i think not

anyways check it out its fun to get into these kinds of things and have your own say in it because really in the end it doesn't matter so much in our personal lives and in the overall scheme of things

It's the 'Jerry Springer' of space documentaries...

[distantearth · 1/10 · 10 August 2002]

It beggars belief as to why actor Mitch Pileggi, star of the X-Files and an apparently healthy and sane man, would lend his name to such hilariously uninformed trash as this.

The conspiracy theory that NASA faked all the Moon landings, has been trotted out for years by self-declared experts whose expertise often seems to cover a superhuman range of highly specialised fields - from Geology, Photography and Physics to Engineering.

One of them, Bill Kaysing - a king of conspiracies, claims amongst other things, that the reason why Astronauts who have been to the moon hang up on him and refuse to talk when he calls them incessantly, "proves" that they have something to hide.

He and others breathlessly point to everything from photos of unexpected shadows and reflections, to the 70s B-movie 'Capricorn One' (which tapped into the public's growing pre-XFiles interest in conspiracy-fantasy), to contradictions between NASA drawings and what THEY think would actually happen in space.

But by far the worst moment of this program comes during the unsavoury references to deceased astronauts, in a cheap attempt to link their tragic deaths to a wider NASA cover-up.

Before you ask yourself if any of this stuff proves we didn't go to the moon, ask yourself this: Is there anything that proves that we did?

Then consider, as one example, the hundreds of scientific staff from around the world, and from all walks of life, who for 30 years have had the pleasure of examining the many kilograms of moon materials that were collected and returned by the Apollo missions. These geological materials are well documented, and are so unique that there is no way they could be artificial.

Meanwhile, with it's dramatic and sinister voiceovers, multiple use of the words "could?" "might?" and "did?", and a complete lack of reasonable objectivity, this sort of crap will no doubt entertain a few more gullible souls, on a break from searching their bellybutton lint for microchips.

I worked for NASA, now I believe this movie

[ruff595 · 10/10 · 9 February 2006]

Always thought that we landed on the moon. Thought this movie was WAY off by saying it was a hoax. BUT...I have now worked for NASA and I can say I am 100% certain that there is NO WAY we went to the moon. Not only were the issues in the movie very compelling (whether you believe what you see or not), but left hand doesn't know what the left thumb is doing much less what the right hand is doing. Talk about the biggest lack of communication. No way we pulled off going to the moon--too many issues we are now trying to solve in order to "get back to the moon". If we had done it before, then there wouldn't be all of these issues that are still going to take YEARS and MILLIONS of $ to resolve!

decent but not perfect

[R_Hak · 6/10 · 3 February 2022]

Decent documentary with the first arguments that demonstrate that the moon-landings are a hoax.

Better arguments have been put forth by other documentaries like these below...

American Moon (2017) This documentary examines the authenticity of the photographic record of NASA's Apollo missions.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon (2001 Video)

Astronauts Gone Wild: An Investigation Into the Authenticity of the Moon Landings (2004 Video)

Kubrick's Odyssey: Secrets Hidden in the Films of Stanley Kubrick; Part One: Kubrick and Apollo (2011 Video)

Kubrick's Odyssey II: Secrets Hidden in the Films of Stanley Kubrick; Part Two: Beyond the Infinite (2012)

Same old garbage

[heresjay · 1/10 · 27 July 2001]

Most of the issues raised in this program have been around for many years and have been thoroughly debunked for just as long. Every so often someone gives them a new coat of paint and parades them around for a new generation of gullible patrons. That's what this program does. I am an engineer and well acquainted with most of the issues this program brings up. Their so-called anomalies are not anomalies at all, merely the producers' lack of understanding. This program aired on Fox, which shortly thereafter aired another program in which most of these charges were refuted.

Obviously a point-by-point rebuttal is inappropriate here, but take for example the charge that the lunar module's engine should have dug a huge crater. The LM engine produces 3,500 pounds of thrust at landing, while a Harrier jump jet's engines produce 27,000 pounds. Nobody expects craters under a Harrier, so why should they expect one under a lunar module?

This program is entertaining, but not for the reasons its producers intended. It's an exercise in how silly some people can be.

Brilliant!

[jsman-1 · 10/10 · 18 August 2007]

Haha! I love this little documentary. Its a brilliant case of gullibility and the ease of which the human mind can so easily be manipulated.

Of course no man has ever been on the moon! Are you kidding me? I can't believe anyone would believe that. To all of you out there who have actually seen this documentary and still believe man has been to moon - just one simple question - did you see the same thing I just saw?! My favorite part about the whole documentary is the awesome NASA spokesperson who gets paid 50 grand a year and probably a nice bonus to appear on the show. For EACH and EVERY argument, not just one, but EVERY argument put forward against the moon landing he offers absolutely no factual or evidential based rebuttal - just preferring to call any theories "crazy" or "ridiculous" - I mean what's more difficult than that! We never once get any information on his educational background,and how or why he is qualified to refute such claims. The only two guys to back-up NASA's story are both paid employees of NASA!

Meanwhile, hoards of physicists, engineers, photography experts - people with ACTUAL educational qualifications queue up to categorically laugh over the absurdity of NASA's claims. I love it! I love the rubbish camera work. I love the conflicting and multiple light sources. I love the moon lander with aluminum foil feet. I mean I actually laughed when watching it!

Of course the documentary is one-sided, but quite simply it is what it is. 1+1=2, there is no way around it. If it seems like it is slanted in a conspiracy theorists favor, then it is because the factual evidence points to a conspiracy theory!

A recommended documentary for anyone of intellectual substance.

No one knows the real facts!

[loleralacartelort7890 · 1/10 · 2 June 2007]

The fact is that USA DID go to the moon. Why: USA brought back moon-rocks. That is hundreds of pounds of rocks from the moon. And it is a fact that they all did not come from the moon: they all came from the same planet. This is because the internal isotopes of basic elements of the rocks are of a kind that could NOT have been created by the earths crust. Seriously: don't you CT's read, go to college and ask your professors?? I do. These rocks could not have come from Meteors, because they are of the same material and have no signs of recently been burned. All these rocks have after wards been distributed all over the world, for all sorts of independent scientists to have made analysts on them. Thousands of scientists, who all came to the same conclusion that they all came from the moon. So it is very unlikely that the Apollo-missions where faked. Because there is no other way NASA could have got hold of so many Moon-rocks. Prope-mission would only bring back too little, and people know what mission that every single rocket is sent to do. NASA landed on the Moon - deal with it.

Also: if the Americans faked the moon-landing, then why didn't the Russians reveal it?? That is the point that reveals that CT's don't think out of the box. They all make it seem that all things only happens in USA. But as a European i have a different perspective. Before every single launch into space, all space-agencies have to tell the military of the opposing site that it is not a missile fired against them. Because the Apollo-rocket would have the Radar-signature of a ICBM on the Russians Radar-screen. And here is the thing that reveals no moon hoax: The Russians monitored that a Rocket fired from USA, fired out of the Earths atmosphere, left the earth, and a smaller craft came back some days after. The same happened with all the missions. If the Apollo missions where faked, why didn't the Russians reveal it to the world?? It was the Cold War, for Petes sake!

Also: there were reporters in NASA's control-center, during the mission. The Astronauts did speak with the NASA-controllers Live, and did things live. Reports have said this since. So it could not have been a tape.

PS: Do you know how many people should have been involved in such a conspiracy?? Thousands!

What a disgusting film.

[Turambar-3 · 1/10 · 13 January 2003]

I rank the makers of this movie right down there with the people who allege that the holocaust is all a big hoax. Garbage like this relies on the ignorance of its viewers to convince them of something that is so patently and hideously false that one wonders from what kind of acute character disorder the makers are afflicted. Tens of thousands of people worked on the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, several thousand worked in the immediate vicinity of the launch stands at Kennedy Space Center, and at least a hundred worked in the launch control complex monitoring the telemetry as it came in from Apollo.

So many people dedicated their entire lives to making these achievements take place that those who have never achieved anything other to tear down the work of others might indeed see the Apollo Program as a target. Nonetheless it's one thing to imagine that it might happen, and another thing entirely to see it actually take place.

There are those who would argue that good journalism sometimes present controversial points of view. But unbalanced journalism, based on a deliberate misunderstanding of logic and science, serves no purpose other than to create confusion and distrust.

There remains one question for the criminal idiots who made this film. At what point did the conspiracy take place? It's easily provable that the rockets themselves went to the Moon and back. Several hundred people watched the astronauts walk to the gantry and get in the elevator. From down below the launch gantry one can watch people get into the spacecraft. There is only one elevator. So if people in spacesuits got into giant rockets that then themselves went to the Moon and performed their mission in a very visible way, at what point would these conspirators have gotten out? At what point did this conspiracy with thousands of members manage to pluck those would-be actors (never mind that not a one of them would consent to do it) out of the spacecraft and bring them back home to a sound stage?

It stands as testimony to the achievements of those who worked so hard and so long to put mankind on the Moon that there are some who see those hard fought goals as unachievable. One would hope instead that a completely different message might be taken from our few short trips to the Moon, that humanity in concert can achieve huge and wonderful things, and that those who, in their smallness, might only rise by making others fall can never compare to those who would work hard to educate themselves and combine their talents for something great.

I can only pray that if I am some day able to help achieve something great, some tiny-minded idiot will not immediately claim we didn't do it and, in so doing, feel somehow superior.

Responding to Ted

[heresjay · 1/10 · 8 August 2001]

People still go on about the expected crater under the lunar module without explaining why they think they should see one.

The contention that the people sympathetic to NASA weren't given much air time because they didn't have much to say is garbage. I know for a fact that astronaut Brian O'Leary is livid about how selectively the Fox program presented his comments. Dr. O'Leary is penning a rebuttal which will be published on my web site. I have been informed by friends of NASA spokesperson Brian Welch (now deceased) that his comments were also heavily and misleadingly edited. These people spoke at length to the producers of the "documentary".

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that when you grant an interview to the producers of a program, they -- not you -- control the final version. It's much more reasonable to believe that the NASA spokesmen, astronauts, and engineers weren't given much screen time because the producers of the program didn't want them to have much screen time. I have the luxury of knowing what Dr. O'Leary said to the producers, but which WASN'T included. I suspect Mr. Welch gave similarly detailed comments.

Where's the rebuttal? Fox aired it a few weeks after the second airing of this program. Considering that the Fox network thrives on sensationalist and controversial programming from which it typically does not flinch (e.g., "Temptation Island"), the fact that they would provide air time to retract the implications of this program tells us a great deal about the reliability of its conclusions.

There are also a number of web sites both in an out of NASA where these charges are rebutted point by point. I happen to run one.

Ted says that when he examines the examples of obscured fiducials (crosshairs) he concludes, along with the producers of the program, that the only reasonable explanation is a darkroom shenanigan. That's because the viewers were shown ONLY the examples of missing fiducials which support that contention. If you look at ALL the examples of missing fiducials you realize that the cut-and-paste argument falls completely flat. But most viewers won't double-check the producers to that extent, and that's what the producers are counting on.

Any photographer can explain in minute detail why the fiducials disappear "behind" bright objects. It's emulsion bleed. It's well understood and it accounts for ALL the evidence, not just the few the producers wanted you to see.

No, this program is not any kind of serious or credible investigation into anything. It's a load of fallacious arguments based on naive or factually incorrect assumptions, coupled with unbridled speculation and selectively chosen testimony and evidence.

FOX' fun for the feeble-minded

[Jim-500 · 1/10 · 11 June 2002]

I remember an interview I read with a FOX executive after the ill-fated "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" debacle. He said that from now on FOX would strive to provide better quality specials. And this is what they came up with.

This program not only scrapes the bottom of the barrel, it starts digging underneath. Despite announcing that viewers are encouraged to "decide for themselves" about whether or not we went to the moon after watching this video, the flick is clearly biased on the side of the moon-hoax believers.

Every bit of "evidence" presented by the prosecution could have been easily shot down by NASA (or anybody with half a brain). For example, one of the big questions is "Why were there no stars in the photographs", implying that NASA faked the photos and forgot to put stars in the black sky. As anybody who's ever used a camera could figure out, stars are a faint light source, and when you're photographing in a bright light (you don't get any brighter than the unfiltered sun on the moon), you have to close up the aperture, so any faint light source is not going to appear.

THAT's why there are no stars in the photos. But the producers didn't allow anybody to say that. So it gave the impression that NASA couldn't answer the question. And NASA is only allowed to counter a couple of the many questions that are raised.

Add to these sorts of tricks some flashy graphics and dramatic, "I Know What You Did" music, and you have a biased, idiotic schlockumentary designed to cater to people with an large abundance of arrogance and a severe absence of critical thinking skills.

I don't know if the dolts who put this together actually believe it, but whether or not they do, they should be ashamed. It just shows that people will do anything, including making fools of themselves, just for money. Not to mention slamming the honor of those who risked (and gave) their lives for their country to go to the moon.

Don't waste your money.

[grelat · 29 March 2001]

This is nothing more than a way to get your money. Everything in the film has been completely disproven. The Fox Network produced the show and they don't care what you think. They assume you're a moron, and they want your cash. Better to spend it on a good SciFi film, which this isn't.

Makes you think, if you have a brain!

[craigman · 10/10 · 1 June 2006]

It's funny and kind of sad how a lot of the reviews I skimmed through are people who are so outraged and disgusted by this! They write in such an angry and hateful way, one would think they were horribly hurt emotionally! They seem like religious fanatics who are told that god does not exist! One retard went so far as to compare people who doubt we went to the moon to Holocaust deniers! Shame on that idiot! For one thing, there is concrete, physical proof that the Holocaust happened, plus many people who experienced it firsthand! As far as the "lunar landing", we just have some grainy footage and questionable photographs. The kind of people who are so outraged by this TV special are the same people who blindly believe everything the government, media, and religious leaders tell them! They are very closed minded people who love to accuse people of being anti-American if they criticize or question anything about the government! I hate these kind of extremists! I love America, but I don't blindly believe everything authority figures tell or show me. To do that is beyond stupid! Most people don't really give much thought to whether or not we went to the moon. I just kind of took it for granted. Yet, the evidence in this special is very compelling, and like one guy said, it's not just one piece of evidence. It's a culmination of a lot of different things. Also, if we really went to the moon 37 years ago, we should have the technology by now to get they much more easily! Why have we never gone back in all of these years?

Pegged My Baloney Detector

[OlYankee · 1/10 · 20 August 2005]

An unmitigated piece of baloney that should be used in every school of journalism as an example of how to report with bias and predetermined conclusions.

Every "hoax point" made by this production had already been shown to be false. Yet FOX decided to present this material as if it were factual. Those who attempted to present facts were given short shrift. Are ethics completely a thing of the past re current journalism? It would appear so.

An irresponsible contribution by FOX to the coffers of the antiscience groups. And an insult to all the fine people who worked on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, and who gave a good chunk of their intellects, skills, and lives to ensure that a program succeeded in its goal: landing a man on the Moon and returning him safety to the Earth.

For those who found this program credible, I strongly recommend they visit this site:

http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html

where the details of setting up and operating one's own baloney detection kit are detailed.

I started to believe...

[chowdr · 8/10 · 2 May 2001]

I have to admit but after seeing this, I started to believe if humans did land on the moon. The evidence were pretty convincing and they are true, like one example, the american flag waves on the moon, but how can it be waving with no wind? This did pretty much scare me a little because of the government. They are so powerful and smart that they can just do anything to get your attention.

Yes, in fact, we did land on the moon

[Jim-500 · 1/10 · 13 December 2002]

One can't say enough bad things about this insipid, insulting piece of trash TV. I'll give just the short list of pet peeves: First, the main spokesperson and "whistleblower" for the show is Bill Kaysing, who's identified as a former engineer for Rocketdyne, a NASA contractor. That's a lie. Kaysing worked there only as a librarian, with a BA in English. He has no scientific training whatsoever.

And the contention that NASA murdered its own astronauts to keep them quiet is beyond contempt. It also demonstrates ignorance of the fact that being a test pilot or an astronaut is dangerous.

Compared to this video, Anna Nicole is a feast for the intellect.

The Most Biased "Documentary" Ever

[amartin04 · 1/10 · 26 May 2002]

For a documentary that claims it will provide information for you to decide what is true, they do a horrible job of presenting the two sides of the story. In fact, you hear only the conspiracy theorist's flawed and ridiculous point of views. NOTE: FOX did have a NASA representative speak, however he was given very little air time. Every "point" the show brings up can be destroyed by one of the many sites one can find on google.com. The worst part is how effectively they put this show together. To a naive person easily swayed by flashy graphics and sounds, this biased program is enough to convince them that we never landed on the moon. The majority of my chemistry class was convinced after watching this movie, thanks, in part, to my braindead teacher who did not think to question or research the topic. Some of the points brought up are so far fetched they are only laughable, but laughs turn to bitterness as one realizes people _fall for this_. This program is an atrocity.

a lame brained documentary produced by Inspector Clouseau

[villard · 1/10 · 20 July 2008]

An eclectic group of government conspiracy fanatics and self-proclaimed "rocket scientists" think they're smarter than the rest of world. These self-styled experts betrays an abysmal lack of understanding of astronomy, physics, and photographic science. What they can't explain away is the following evidence for the reality of the Apollo moon missions:

1. Impossible Cover-up

Absolutely not one person from the Apollo era's 35,000 NASA employees or 200,000 contractors has ever stepped forward with "whistle-blowing" testimony or "smoking gun" memos.

2. NASA's Own Actions Are Inconsistent With Pulling Off a Moon Hoax

If what actually happened during the Apollo program was scripted, the government showed an unbelievable penchant for gambling and brinksmanship. For example, NASA would have had to pretend to almost kill the crew of Apollo 13. For what? To boost TV ratings?

3. Cargo of Physical Evidence

The reality of the 842 pounds of rock samples from the moon is incontrovertible. For this to be otherwise all of the world's foremost planetary scientists are dead wrong (imagine the book: Moon Rock Analysis for Dummies).

4. Film Special Effects Technology Was Too Primitive in the 1960s

Today we all take cinema fantasy scenes for granted thanks to the rapid evolution of computer graphics and digital image processing fueled by the microcomputer revolution. Realistic footage of dinosaurs, space aliens and fantasy creatures can be completely fabricated with perfectly precise control of lighting, motion choreography, and 3D computer graphics effects. The hours of astronaut moonwalk video are far too complex to be faked with comparatively stone-age 1960s special effects technology. For example, all the effects in the 1968 landmark film 2001:A Space Odyssey required complex, time consuming, and cumbersome optical printing techniques costing the equivalent of $54 million today.

5. Space is Not Lethal to Humans

The radiation and micrometeorite hazards of space did not pose so lethal a threat to humans that they could not make a mere two-week cruise to the moon and back. The dosimeters worn by the Apollo astronauts showed they received about the same cumulative dosage as a chest X-ray while spending 30 minutes zipping though the Van Allen radiation belts at 25,000 miles per hour.

6. Direct Observational Evidence

. The first direct visual evidence was uncovered by the 1994 Clementine lunar orbiter images that reveal disturbed regolith (but no impact crater) around the exact location of the Apollo 15 landing site. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to be launched later this year will be able to photograph the left behind Apollo hardware. But of course that won't convince the skeptics because the photo came from – whom else -- NASA!

7. Could Not Be Filmed On a Soundstage Or In Area 51

If the moonwalks were filmed in the top secret Area 51 as some conspiracy folks assert, the shadows would have noticeably changed direction as the sun moved across the sky. And, somehow the blue desert sky would have had to been matted out to be black. NASA's use of gold-mirrored helmet faceplates for the Apollo astronauts also nails reality. The faceplates would have reflected everything if the footage was shot on a soundstage: lights, cameras and technicians (caution: cinematographer is closer than he appears).

8. Landing Site Picture are Photographically Accurate

The long list of claims about "studio lighting" of the moonwalks only betrays the critics' lack of understanding of fundamental photography. All the images are consistent with one single brilliant light source – the sun. Because of the bright sun and the lack of studio fill lighting the moonwalk image shadows are inky black. Moon surface photos have a much bigger contrast ratio (range of difference between brightest and darkest parts of the image) of at least 20:1. A Hollywood lighting technician would have used the standard lighting ratio of 3:1.

9. You Don't See Stars in the Daytime

The completely idiotic but highly publicize "gotcha" is that there are no stars in the lunar sky. Duh, It was lunar daytime during the moonwalks. Therefore, the cameras were set on the same exposure you would use for a sunny day at the beach on Earth. Try photographing stars at midnight with a simple box camera pre-set for a daytime exposure and see what develops. If stars did appear in the images it would have been proof the footage was faked.

10. You Can't Fake 1/6 Gravity

It was a surprise on Apollo 11 to see astronaut hopping around like kangaroos under the gently tug of 1/6 gravity. No one could have scripted this. It is never was as Hollywood ever imagined it. This cannot be realistically faked except through the use of sophisticated computer graphics. Conspiracy theorists can't dismiss hours and hours of Apollo footage that shows all lunar object following simple ballistic motion in 1/6 g that is completely differently than it would appear in Earth's gravitational environment.

Hideous.

[ThermallyYours · 1/10 · 14 September 2019]

The doubts this documentary tries to raise are so far fetched, and everyone associated with this must cry themselves to sleep every night from shame.

After all these years, it's still Hilarious!

[kadianpusher · 10 February 2018]

I still get a kick out of this "Documentary" that pretty much destroyed the reputations of anyone involved in its making. Deservingly so! Had they retitled this under "Comedy" it would probably still have a cult following.

I'm not going to cover the absolute lack of real science, free thinking, or common sense to the conspiracies broken down in this, as they have been covered quite well by other reviewers. What I will say is that I find it so interesting that when someone is sick or dying, or we need to come up with better, safer more convenient ways to live we look to scientists for pretty much every answer. Unless you still believe praying works??? But make a documentary that doesn't talk to even someone with a basic knowledge of science and you have figuratively hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people with zero ability to think on their own being Pied Pipered away into a life of being unable to think or research for ones self.

So, the entire Apollo project was nothing more than a Hollywood film set? Okay, let's say you are right (you are not right). There is such a long list of everyday products we take for granted and are using right this moment that came direct,y from the space program and NASA directly: 1) the microchip. Your using it right now to read this. Kind of makes you feel a little stupid right now, but let's go on. 2) the CAT scan. If you have ever had cancer, a head injury, etc you sure are thankful for this item that every hospital uses dozens of times daily. 3) the microwave. Are you eating a muffin you just heated up in one while reading this. 4) shoes. Yes shoes and the light fabrics, rubber and cushions for insoles all came from new technologies NASA invented for moon boots. Bet your wearing that technology right now. 5) memory foam. Yup that Tempurpedic mattress was developed by the space program because it returns to its natural shape and cushioned astronauts at launch and landing.

Really, I can go on and on.... Cordless tools, vacuums, fabric roofed domed stadiums like Reliant in Houston,Texas, firefighter suits, calculators, etc, etc, etc.... But let's not forget that it was all faked! If you are going to make the whole thing up on a Hollywood set, why spend so much time and effort on all these other things... Boggles the mind. But I guess a lot of minds can be boggled, or at least manipulated quite easily. Btw, you can' even get into orbit because the Earth is flat. It would have to be round and spinning for that to work. another conspiracy!!!

Sorry for misspellings and grammatical errors but an education is not important to watch this documentary..