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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Idiocy in Rural Texas (Moon Hoax in Brownwood Paper) |
| 2005-07-02 |
| Op Ed: Columnist What's the real story of Roswell aliens, moon landings and the common cold? -- Britt Towery The real story, there's one born every minute out there in media land and conspira-loons are raking in millions from their gullibility. I visited Roswell, N.M., a few weeks ago and found the local culture amazingly different from west Texas. Since June, 1947, Roswell has been the home base for all UFO (unidentified flying objects) and conspiracy theorists of extraterrestrial intrigue. Is it possible that aliens landed on our planet, in particular at Roswell? Sure it's possible, but the evidence offered is a mountain of horse manure and commercial con-artistry. For others there is a wider question. People who say, "I severely doubt man has yet walked on the moon but I'd like to know for certain." There are still people who doubt there were any moon landings such as the one I saw on television in 1969. I believed it. The whole world saw it "live" and seemed impressed. Neil Armstrong has kept a low profile since being the first human to step or bounce on the lunar surface. But some folks want conclusive proof regarding this supposed moon landings. What would be conclusive? The Soviet Union, Red China, and North Vietnam all would have known for sure, and all said it really happened. Why would the NVA lie for us when we couldn't persuade them to stop shooting at our troops in the South? Once a movie was made about a fake moon landing. Actually, this was a Fox Shlockumentary called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? often referred to as "the Loathesome Moon Hoax Show" among the scientifically literate. Going to Google under "fake moon landing," Google unearthed 22,700 web sites proclaiming the moon landings as hoaxes. Discernment is vital to researching any subject on the web. It is, but Britt has exercised none of it or he would know that not all of those 22,700 sites endorse the vile Moon Hoax lie, a great many of them, like Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy, debunk it. Bill Kaysing wrote a book titled "We Never Went to the Moon." He is alleged to be the ghost writer of the movie "Capricorn One" in which a mission to Mars was faked. For once, he had it right, even NASA admits that nobody has yet set foot on the planet Mars. Kaysing, who died last March, once claimed that someone dropped napalm on a California radio transmitter to shut off a broadcast while he was being interviewed. On the basis of his work as a librarian at Rocketdyne in the early 60s, he also claimed that the Apollo lander would have gouged a huge crater in the Lunar surface. The LM motor was developing only about 3000 pounds of thrust at the time of the landing. That would require about 10 pounds of propellant per second. If a motor of that power could gouge a huge crater in a few seconds of contact, every excavating company in the world would long since have replaced their backhoes and such with surplus rocket motors, or, better yet, jet engines, which have a higher mass flow per unit thrust and would therefore be even better for moving dirt. A guy named Ralph Rene wrote a similar book with the title "Was It Only a Paper Moon?" (Trivia from "Capricorn One" is that Barbara Streisand's two husbands, Elliott Gould and James Brolin, both star in this 1978 movie.) Ralph Rene is a fat, lying pig, a "self-educated" physicist and former carpenter who claims he can disprove Newton's laws of gravitation without resort to relativity and that pi can be determined precisely after just a few decimal points. Among other things, Rene claims that every radiation reading reported by every Earth satellite since 1958 is in error and that the radiation in the van Allen belts is so intense it would take a meter of lead to protect the astronauts during their passage through it. That much lead would stop the radiation from a hydrogen bomb exploding 10 feet away (though the lead shield would be blown backward at hypersonic speed.) Beyond that, microelectronics are even more sensitive to radiation than human tissue and communications satellites have to transit the van Allen belts to reach their stations. Ergo, we would not have been able to see the Loathesome Moon Hoax Show if its claims were right. Some of the more serious naysayers ask why, in these last 30 years of technology advances, more trips to the moon or Mars were not completed? Eegad, the old boy believes that there really was a claim of humans going to Mars. As for the Moon, the chief reason there have been no more flights is that Project Apollo cost some 40 Billion 1960s dollars and subsequent administrations have decided that it just wasn't worth it. Naysayers, luddites and media dupes who don't claim the flights were faked claim instead that they were a waste of money, so how can they complain if their stance and political power were accepted for once?One of my questions has been answered. Those who claim the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure visible from the Moon are wrong. But the rumor continues. If these hoaxes and rumors do not stimulate your curiosity, look at these: Is there a cure for the common cold that is being withheld from the public to promote the sale of cold and flu medicines? Over-the-counter medications never work if taken after you get sick. And he knows this because?They merely keep the cash register ringing. And if the common cold cure were released all the ineffective "medicines" even down to cough drops would no longer be necessary. Follow the money. It's not like anyone would profit from the development of a common cold cure. This conspiracy requires the participation of most of the micro-biologists and all the pharmaceutical developers in the world. Another mystery to me is will there ever be an explanation for why otherwise sane and seemingly intelligent people watch soap operas? Ok, a broken clock, etc. Until eternity steps in we will never know if Shakespeare wrote all or any of his plays. But there is a cottage industry of books claiming to know the truth about the bard or whoever happened to be the real writer. There is indeed. Once again, the old fool proposes that the mere existence of a claim is evidence of its truth. I have never been able to stay with any of his plays, but I do like the pithy excerpts such as "All the world is a stage..." Among other things, the leading suspect, Sir Francis Bacon, was from East Anglia and spoke a very different dialect from that of Shakespeare's native Warwickshire. The Bard's plays are riddled with terms that were (and in some cases still are) peculiar to his roots around Stratford: "ballow" (cudgel), "geck" (fool), "mobled" (muffled), "potch" (to thrust), and many, many others. See The Story of English by Robert McCrum, William Cran, and Robert McNeil. The Shakespeare conspiracy theory originated among brain-dead aristocrats who could not accept that a commoner of humble origin could produce such works of genius. Brain-dead hinterland elitists obviously follow suit. See you along the way. Britt Towery's column appears Fridays on the Viewpoints Page of the Brownwood Bulletin. His e-mail: britt.towery@cox.net. |
| Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy |
| #5 yeah, ima herd chainey and rest of em lizard peples haver base on marz in prepare for em polar shift in 2012. teh clintons suposed to be their to. so ima thinkerin hilary wont run agayn in 12'. be shure an investor muney in compass manufaksherers before tehn. |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2005-07-02 22:43 |
#4 Ya' know, Mucky, there are conspira-loons who claim that people have secretly landed on Mars for various nefarious reasons, and even that there are regular flights back and forth to secret bases located there. This is a typical example, from a 1989 speech by Ufo proponent Milton Cooper:Regrettably, the next question was totally unintelligible, Another proponent of secret Mars landings was the late British ufologist Brinsley LePoer Trench, Lord Clancarty. Clancarty once asserted that the Space Shuttle was a kind of human cattle-car for transporting prisoners to a secret gulag on Mars, a kind of extra-terrestrial Guantanamo. With their usual penchant for citing authority ("he seems credible") ufools liked to tout Clancarty's membership in the House of Lords without mentioning that this position was inherited and carries nothing like the same weight as being, say, mayor of Boron, CA. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2005-07-02 21:31 |
| #3 we aint landend on marz? Is it possible that aliens landed on our planet, in particular at Roswell? thisn sily. evryone knoes em lizard peples flyin they ufos outta em hollow earth. greys wenter bak home in 1989. |
| Posted by: muck4doo 2005-07-02 20:03 |
| #2 Excellent post, phil_b. Conspiracy theories are a staple of both the Arab and the fifth column media. They lie at the very heart of the media-authoritarian worldview and have characterized every successful totalitarian propaganda effort of the past 100 years. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2005-07-02 19:28 |
| #1 I could write a book on conspiracist thinking. Its amazingly widespread and IMO deeply pernicious. Its not just out-there stuff like the examples here which are easy to disprove, it pervades much political discourse. A topical example is 'Africa is poor because the West conspires to keep it indebted.' |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-07-02 19:15 |