Freedoms Kill Switch - The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy

Who says Congress never gets anything done?

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.”

COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and the big media companies to stem the tidal wave of internet file sharing that has upended those industries and, they claim, cost them tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.

The content companies have tried suing college students. They’ve tried suing internet startups. Now they want the federal government to act as their private security agents, policing the internet for suspected pirates before making them walk the digital plank.

Many people opposed to the bill agree in principle with its aims: Illegal music piracy is, well, illegal, and should be stopped. Musicians, artists and content creators should be compensated for their work. But the law’s critics do not believe that giving the federal government the right to shut down websites at will based upon a vague and arbitrary standard of evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved, is a particularly good idea. COICA must still be approved by the full House and Senate before becoming law. A vote is unlikely before the new year.

Among the sites that could go dark if the law passes: Dropbox, RapidShare, SoundCloud, Hype Machine and any other site for which the Attorney General deems copyright infringement to be “central to the activity” of the site, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group that opposes the bill. There need not even be illegal content on a site — links alone will qualify a site for digital death. Websites at risk could also theoretically include p2pnet and pirate-party.us or any other website that advocates for peer-to-peer file sharing or rejects copyright law, according to the group.

In short, COICA would allow the federal government to censor the internet without due process.

The mechanism by which the government would do this, according to the bill, is the internet’s Domain Name System (DNS), which translates web addresses into IP addresses. The bill would give the Attorney General the power to simply obtain a court order requiring internet service providers to pull the plug on suspected websites.

Scholars, lawyers, technologists, human rights groups and public interest groups have denounced the bill. Forty-nine prominent law professors called it “dangerous.” (pdf.) The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch warned the bill could have “grave repercussions for global human rights.” (pdf.) Several dozen of the most prominent internet engineers in the country — many of whom were instrumental in the creation of the internet — said the bill will “create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation.” (pdf.) Several prominent conservative bloggers, including representatives from RedState.com, HotAir.com, The Next Right and Publius Forum, issued a call to help stop this “serious threat to the Internet.”

And Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the world wide web, said, “Neither governments nor corporations should be allowed to use disconnection from the internet as a way of arbitrarily furthering their own aims.” He added: “In the spirit going back to Magna Carta, we require a principle that no person or organization shall be deprived of their ability to connect to others at will without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty.”

Critics of the bill object to it on a number of grounds, starting with this one: “The Act is an unconstitutional abridgment of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,” the 49 law professors wrote. “The Act permits the issuance of speech suppressing injunctions without any meaningful opportunity for any party to contest the Attorney General’s allegations of unlawful content.” (original emphasis.)

Because it is so ill-conceived and poorly written, the law professors wrote, “the Act, if enacted into law, will not survive judicial scrutiny, and will, therefore, never be used to address the problem (online copyright and trademark infringement) that it is designed to address. Its significance, therefore, is entirely symbolic — and the symbolism it presents is ugly and insidious. For the first time, the United States would be requiring Internet Service Providers to block speech because of its content.”

The law professors noted that the bill would actually undermine United States policy, enunciated forcefully by Secretary of State Clinton, which calls for global internet freedom and opposes web censorship. “Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company anywhere,” Clinton said in her landmark speech on global internet freedom earlier this year. She was referring to China. Apparently some of Mrs. Clinton’s former colleagues in the U.S. Senate approve of internet censorship in the United States.

To be fair, COICA does have some supporters in addition to sponsor Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vermont) and his 17 co-sponsors including Schumer, Specter, Grassley, Gillibrand, Hatch, Klobuchar, Coburn, Durbin, Feinstein, Menendez and Whitehouse. Mark Corallo, who served as chief spokesperson for former Attorney General John Ashcroft and as spokesman for Karl Rove during the Valerie Plame affair, wrote Thursday on The Daily Caller: “The Internet is not at risk of being censored. But without robust protections that match technological advances making online theft easy, the creators of American products will continue to suffer.”

“Counterfeiting and online theft of intellectual property is having devastating effects on industries where millions of Americans make a living,” wrote Corallo, who now runs a Virginia-based public relations firm and freely admits that he has “represented copyright and patent-based businesses for years.” “Their futures are at risk due to Internet-based theft.”

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record labels, praised Leahy for his work, “to insure [sic] that the Internet is a civilized medium instead of a lawless one where foreign sites that put Americans at risk are allowed to flourish.”

Over the course of his career, Leahy has received $885,216 from the TV, movie and music industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politic

Who? - Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board’s Recovery Independent Advisory Panel

The operative descriptor of the Obama Administration and how it interacts with the American people from Presidential aloofness and perceived ambivalence to TSA airport intrusive gropery is tone deafness. The newest example of our ruling elite’s tone deafness is the venue for the upcoming meeting of the “Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board’s Recovery Independent Advisory Panel.”

The Panel has quite a mandate.

“…make recommendations … prevent fraud, waste, and abuse of Recovery Act funds.”

The Recovery funds referenced are stimulus fund monies. This group appears to have an important and beneficial purpose. After all, who could argue with uncovering fraud, waste or abuse in any government program?
The next meeting of the Panel will be held at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. If you are in the area, you might want to consider attending as a portion of the meeting will be open to the public.

It is a good thing that our government holds meetings that the public can attend and voice their opinions to “the man.” This is certainly one of the benefits of our democracy; we can “speak truth to power.”
Wait a minute. A panel meeting to root out abuse of government funds to be held at… The Ritz-Carlton? In Phoenix?

Screen capture... in case the venue is changed.

After all the official disapproval and anger (and legal action) directed at the state of Arizona for its efforts to secure its borders and implement immigration controls (all things that the federal government has failed to do though it is mandated to do them all), why choose an Arizona venue for an official federal event of this, or any, nature? Does this mean that all is forgiven? Don’t count on it.
By reputation The Ritz-Carlton is known as one of the highest quality and priciest hotels in the country. The fact that one of the action items for the upcoming Recovery fraud investigator meeting is to get input on “actions the Board can take to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse” should not cause excessive dismay and consternation. The model for this kind of indulgence, short-sightedness, and over-spending is set at the very highest levels. So, let’s not be too upset with the Panel members as they enjoy their meeting at The Ritz in Phoenix; they’re just following the model of excess set by the White House.
In his recent sojourn in India the President and his “party” stayed at the finest hotel in Mumbai. It should be noted that the President and his cortege booked the entire hotel. This is the very same hotel attacked by Islamic jihadists in 2008 as they tore a bloody path of horrific murder through that city killing hundreds of innocents including the Rabbi and his wife at the Mumbai Chabad Center.
Somehow the message of his hotel stay at the site of an horrific jihad attack was lost on the President as only several days later the President soft-pedaled the concept of jihad and stated that Islam was about “peace and justice and fairness and tolerance.”
There is no record at this time of Mr. Obama responding to a recent call by an Iraqi Bishop instructing all Christians to flee Iraq for their lives. Nor is there any comment from Mr. Obama on the ongoing brutal violence directed at Christians in that new Islamic country by adherents of the “peaceful and tolerant” ideology mentioned by the President during his recent travels.

As the cathedral was being readied for its first service since the attack, a senior Iraqi cleric in London, Archbishop Athanasios Dawood, called on Iraqi Christians on November 7th to flee the country because it was so dangerous.
“If we stay, they will kill us,” he told the BBC after addressing a congregation of Iraqi Orthodox Christians at a service in London.
“Which is better, to flee or to stay? To be killed or to be alive? But when I say ‘leave’, my heart is injured inside.” (Source: BBC)

When the Archbishop says “they will kill us,” he is referring to the adherents of the religion/ideology the President describes as being about “peace and justice and fairness and tolerance.” The doctrine of Islam is clear on this point; it is full of tolerance for adherents, but nobody else.
Yesterday an article appeared in Yahoo News on the subject of Christians in Iraq being terrorized by those who follow the ideology of “peace and justice and tolerance.” The title of the article is “Iraq’s Christians terrorized by wave of bombs.” It is understood by scholars of Islamic doctrine (both Muslim and Non-Muslim/Kafir) that the purpose of jihad is to terrorize the unbelievers so that Islam can expand and unbelief be eradicated. The very existence of unbelievers is considered an affront both to the prophet and to Allah – jihad is the method by which Islam expands and the affront of unbelief is removed.
As of this writing, there are 57,465 comments on the Yahoo News article. This is extraordinary, and an unprecedented number in my many years of internet use.

There is a serious disconnect happening in our country – a dangerous disconnect between the leaders and the citizenry. While the President praises Islam at home and abroad the American people see something entirely different.
Those who listen to Islamic leaders (MEMRI posts many inflammatory and hate-filled calls to jihad and war from Islamic religious and political leaders and similar rhetoric found in popular Arab/Islamic media), read the doctrine of Islam (Koran, Sira, and Hadith) and follow the words of the jihadists themselves, see that what the President and apologists for Islam say of Islam is not supported in fact (or in Islamic doctrine). Both in the barbaric Mumbai jihad attack of 2008 and recently in an interdicted terror attack in New York, the attackers clearly stated that they were killing people or planning to kill people (non-Muslims) because they were followers of Islam doing jihad because this was their obligation as Muslims.
The traitor/killer Hassan said the same thing prior to and during his mass murder spree at Fort Hood (he shouted, “Allahu Akbar” again and again as he fired his weapon at defenseless fellow American soldiers). We had ample warnings from Hassan himself about what he would likely do; nobody listened.
There must be a reason why there are 57,000+ comments on the Yahoo News article about the terrorizing of Christians in the Islamic state of Iraq.

Constitution of Iraq: Article 2:
First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:
A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.

The glowing and excusatory statements of our leadership relative to Islam, its character and its purposes are no longer believed by a growing number of the American people.
There is no denying that ours is a country with a strong Christian heritage. Our Christian communities here are extensive and they are finally becoming alarmed at the brutality of our “allies” to their fellow Christians. This dismay and anger in the American Christian community is long overdue.
On November 22nd a dedicated group of public servants will do their duty in Phoenix. They will serve the people of the United States in their capacity as investigators and advisors. They will certainly do their duty in finding ways to root out fraud and abuse of funds distributed in the recent so-called “Stimulus package”. They will do this selfless service at a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona called The Ritz-Carlton.
The term “ritzy” is derived from the name of the hotel at which the investigatory Panel will meet. This should not cause alarm, though.
A recent analysis by Charles Krauthammer suggested that the GOP successes in the mid-term elections was indicative of the correct functioning of our American democratic system – that it signaled “a return to the norm.”
It is reasonable that the ideological and political pendulum is swinging back to the middle after being forced hard to the left by the current resident of the White House and his followers. The signals in the culture reflect the results of the mid-term elections, but in a much more serious way than are suggested by the erudite Mr. Krauthammer.
The defeat of the Democrats in the House is a reflection of a growing rejection of the American Left in the culture due to the fact that the daily life experience of the electorate is so utterly at odds with the rhetoric and behavior of the leadership class currently in power. The massive response to the Yahoo News article on the terrorizing of Christians in Iraq is indicative of this shift.
The opulence and excess (and general disconnect) of the highest officials in the Obama administration in the midst of the most devestating American economic crisis since the Great Depression has not gone entirely unnoticed at home or abroad.

Probably not since the days of the Pharaohs or the more ludicrous Roman Emperors has a head of state travelled in such pomp and expensive grandeur as the President of the United States of America.

The “brilliance” of the current President, prior to recent days, had often been remarked upon. This idea is held now by few though apparently most markedly by the President himself.

The pool report at the time said that “We are told Bloomberg and Obama talked in the clubhouse for about 15 mins about the economy. They then went to the driving range.”
…
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch says “Bloomberg [Mayor of New York City] said it was a pleasant day. In conversation he put a few ideas … He said it was like verbal ping pong.”
Bloomberg, according to Murdoch, “came back and said ‘I never met in my life such an arrogant man’.” (Source: ABCNews)

There are unpleasant examples in history in which national leadership is disconnected, disinterested, arrogant, and aloof. These things, in conjunction with cultural changes, economic crisis, joblessness, war, falling confidence, and rising doubt have caused catastrophic changes. The clearest example is the French Revolution.
There is likely a perfectly legitimate explanation for the use of a fancy and expensive hotel for federal investigatory business. It is ironic that the purpose of the meeting is to root out abuse of funds. Perhaps the irony will suddenly dawn upon the participants. It may be a short meeting, so get there early before cake is served.

I love being treated like a criminal - Should members of congress be forced to wait in line and go through TSA screenings - Yes!

How did an agency created to protect the public become the target of so much public scorn? After nine years of funneling travelers into ever longer lines with orders to have shoes off, sippy cups empty and laptops out for inspection, the most surprising thing about increasingly heated frustration with the federal Transportation Security Administration may be that it took so long to boil over.

Even Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is not subjected to security pat-downs when she travels, understands the public's irritation. She, for one, wouldn't want to go through such scrutiny.
"Not if I could avoid it. No. I mean, who would?" Clinton told CBS' "Face the Nation" in an interview broadcast Sunday.
The agency, a marvel of nearly instant government when it was launched in the fearful months following the 9/11 terror attacks, started out with a strong measure of public goodwill. Americans wanted the assurance of safety when they boarded planes and entrusted the government with the responsibility.
But in episode after episode since then, the TSA has demonstrated a knack for ignoring the basics of customer relations, while struggling with what experts say is an all but impossible task. It must stand as the last line against unknown terror, yet somehow do so without treating everyone from frequent business travelers to the family heading home to visit grandma as a potential terrorist.
The TSA "is not a flier-centered system. It's a terrorist-centered system and the travelers get caught in it," said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University who has tracked the agency's effectiveness since it's creation.
That built-in conflict is at the heart of a growing backlash against the TSA for ordering travelers to step before a full-body scanner that sees through their clothing, undergo a potentially invasive pat-down or not fly at all.
"After 9/11 people were scared and when people are scared they'll do anything for someone who will make them less scared," said Bruce Schneier, a Minneapolis security technology expert who has long been critical of the TSA. "But ... this is particularly invasive. It's strip-searching. It's body groping. As abhorrent goes, this pegs it."
A traveler in San Diego, John Tyner, has become an Internet hero after resisting both the scan and the pat-down, telling a TSA screener: "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested." That has helped ignite a campaign urging people to refuse such searches on Nov. 24, which immediately precedes Thanksgiving and is one of the year's busiest travel days.
The outcry, though, "is symptomatic of a bigger issue," said Geoff Freeman, executive vice president of the U.S. Travel Association, an industry group that says it has received nearly 1,000 calls and e-mails from consumers about the new policy in the last week.
"It's almost as if it's a tipping point," Freeman said. "What we've heard from travelers time and again is that there must be a better way."
Indeed, TSA has a history of stirring public irritation. There was the time in 2004 when Sen. Ted Kennedy complained after being stopped five times while trying to board planes because a name similar to his appeared on the agency's no-fly list. And the time in 2006 when a Maine woman went public with her tale of being ordered by a TSA agent to dump the gel packs she was using to cool bags of breast milk. And the time in 2007, when a Washington, D.C. woman charged that another TSA agent threatened to have her arrested for spilling water out of her child's sippy cup.
TSA denied the last, releasing security camera footage to try and prove its point. But that did little to offset the agency's longtime struggle to explain itself and win traveler cooperation.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. After Congress approved creation of the agency in late 2001, the TSA grew quickly from just 13 employees in January 2002 to 65,000 a year later. In the first year, agency workers confiscated more than 4.8 million firearms, knives and other prohibited items, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
But even as the new agency mushroomed, officials at the top, pressured by airlines worried that tighter security would discourage people from flying, looked to the business world for lessons on systems, efficiency and service.
TSA set up "go teams" pairing government employees with executives from companies including Marriott International Inc., The Walt Disney Co., and Intel Corp., to figure out how to move lines of people through checkpoints efficiently and how to deal with angry travelers.
But the agency was working under what Freeman calls "an unachievable mandate." Congress demanded an agency that eliminated risk. But the risks are always changing, as terrorists devise new methods and government parries. That has led to an agency that is always in crisis mode, constantly adding new policies designed to respond to the last terror plot.
President Barack Obama says he has pushed the TSA to make sure that it is always reviewing screening processes with actual people in mind. "You have to constantly refine and measure whether what we're doing is the only way to assure the American people's safety," Obama said Saturday. "And you also have to think through, are there ways of doing it that are less intrusive."
Clinton, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," said Sunday she thought "everyone, including our security experts, are looking for ways to diminish the impact on the traveling public."
But John Pistole of the Transportation Security Administration said on CNN's "State of the Union" that the current threat level is too high to lessen the use of full body scans and intimate pat-downs. He said the ingenuity and determination of terrorists trying to bring down an airplane ruled out changes in screening policies.
TSA operates on the belief that a key to foiling terrorists is to keep them guessing, agency watchers say. But it has never really explained that to a flying public that sees never-ending changes in policies covering carry-on liquids, shoes, and printer cartridges as maddening and pointless inconsistency.
"If you ask what its procedures are, how you screen people, its 'I can't tell you that because if the bad guys find out they'll be able to work around the system'," said Christopher Elliott, an Orlando, Fla.-based consumer advocate specializing in travel. "That's why a lot of what they've done has not really gone over well with air travelers. They perceive it as being heavy-handed and often the screeners come across as being very authoritarian."
Over time, TSA has settled into a pattern of issuing directives with little explanation and expecting they be followed. But increasingly fed-up travelers don't understand the agency's sense of urgency and aren't buying it.
"I don't think the law enforcement approach is going to work with the American public. You've got to explain yourself and reassure people. And they're not doing it," Light said.
That goes beyond public relations, experts say. As more and more layers are added to air travel security efforts, it creates difficult and potentially unpopular choices. But the TSA has been unwilling to openly discuss how it arrives at policies or to justify the trade-offs, highlighted by its insistence over the need for the scanners.
"They're very expensive and what they (TSA officials) should be able to do is answer if it does reduce the risk, how much does it reduce the risk and is it worth it?" said John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State, who has researched the way society reacts to terrorism.
The pushback against the body scanners and pat-downs shows the agency at its worst, Elliott said, issuing a policy that wasn't properly vetted or explained, but determined to defend it.
Growing dissatisfaction with TSA has even led some airports to consider replacing the agency with private screeners. Such a change is allowed by law, but the contractor must follow all the security procedures mandated by the TSA, including body scans and pat-downs.
But frustration with the TSA was building even before the latest furor. In a December 2007 Associated Press-Ipsos poll asking Americans to rank government agencies, it was as unpopular as the Internal Revenue Service. Even so, a poll earlier this month by CBS News found 81 percent of Americans support the TSA's use of full-body scanners at airports. The poll, conducted Nov. 7-10, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Elliott said that better communication would probably win the TSA more cooperation. But the public irritation suggests that a growing number of consumers, particularly frequent travelers, are questioning the premise at the heart of the agency's existence.
"I think at some point Americans said to themselves, maybe in their collective subconscious...there's a line here where it's not just worth it anymore," he said. "There's a growing sense that that line has been crossed."

The 'Mystery Missile': Plane, Secret Test, and a UFO?

 Was this a launch of the Military version of America's Space shuttle the new X- 37 ??


One other interesting note to this on the first video below you see for about 10 seconds a large  object heading towards the missile with a blinking light on it's bottom side . No one has talked about the UFO in the video??? What this means is there might be other footage of this launch. The second object was a very large slow moving with no wings?? I was a least 75 yards long and 50 yards wide. No blimbs were reported flying that day??


Now it is being said the missile was launched from a super secret Chinese submarine from a super secret underwater base. The reason we did not know it was launched is we can't track these submarines from this super secret base.

If this was a missile launched from a Chinese submarine where did it crash down? Our spy satellites can read a license plate  from space but can't track an object heading towards them at a high rate of speed in a fiery blaze?



It had the military scrambling today to explain where a trail  of vapor 35 miles off the Los Angeles coast came from. Still, after a week of statements, no one -- not the Pentagon, not the FAA and not NORAD, the organization in charge of missile defense -- was able to state, simply, what it was. So tonight we ask you: airplane, amateur missile, secret military test or close encounter of the first kind? What was that thing?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8_0JvyaYE&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6JipNHsUNE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AMdHBgHtNE

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7040407n&tag=related;photovideo

If there is nothing there than why hide the data?? !There is also a relevant need to press the Pentagon into releasing all 1.5 million Clementine photographs immediately and without censorship.

Now the biggest question is this, Why? Why was the pentagon sending a probe to the moon?? Why would the pentagon send the clementine satellite to map the surface of the moon. Is this not why we have NASA???? What were they looking for from a military point of view on the surface of the moon?? What did they find??? We have never been told...


Did this recent launch of the coast of California of a large pay load rocket from Vandenberg air force  base have something to do with what they found???



From: Dr. Bruce Cornetgeologist and paleontologist27 Tower Hill Ave.Red Bank, NJ 07701RE: Interpretation of anomalous structures on the moon, based on evidence shown to me by Richard C. Hoagland on 24 April, 28 April, 7 May, and 11 May, 1994, and discussions of said evidence with Hoagland.

Areas of interest: Central area and southwestern area og Sinus Medii, center of moon disk; Mare Crisium, northwest area of moon disk.

DATA: All photographs at same scale.

Lunar Orbiter, February 1967

Original negative from National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD: III-84M of "Shard" and "Tower" on southwest side of Sinus Medii from 30 miles altitude, taken by 3" camera objective (film developed on board satellite; scanned with 6.5 mu dot scanner;images transmitted, reconstructed, and reassembled at NASA). Horizon at 256 miles; "Shard" and "Tower" about 230 and 200 miles distance from camera, respectively; resolution of Shard and Tower calculated at about 70 and 60 meters, respectively. Orientation of this photograph 45 degrees south of Apollo 10; photographs AS10-32-4854, AS10-32-4855, and AS10-32-4856.

Surveyor 6, November 1967

One of seven photographs published in NASA Technical Report 32-1262 (NAS7-100), entitled: Surveyor 6 Mission Report, part III. television data; published by JPL at Cal. Tech., August 15, 1968. View angle of photograph westfrom western part of Sinus Medii, showing refraction of intense light from Sun(beads are image of photosphere) by surface material on horizon.

Apollo 10, May 1969

NASA catalog SP-232: AS10-32-4822, AS10-32-4854, AS10-32-4855, and AS10-32-4856of Sinus Medii from 70 miles in orbit, taken by hand held Hasselblad camera. Photographs 4854-56 looking west at terminator (lunar surface sunrise line)from above eastern side of Sinus Medii; photograph 4822 looking northeastacross Ukert crater in the most intensively photographed northern edge of Sinus Medii (this photograph intentionally blacked out on catalog).

The Lunar Orbiter photograph and the three sequential photographs AS10-32-4854 - 56 taken from the Apollo spacecraft all show the "Tower" (and "Shard") in the southwestern area of Sinus Medii from different angles and different perspectives. The Surveyor 6 photograph shows anomalous geometric structures above the ground, like those associated with the tower extending north of the "Tower" for about a hundred miles. The censored Apollo 10 photograph near Ukert crater shows anomalous geometric structures extending on the ground extending for tens of miles over an area the size of the Los Angeles basin. All of these unnatural structures appear to have sustained varying degrees of damage from meteorite and micrometeorite impact. Small impact craters (1-2miles), for example, exist within the anomalous area near Ukert, and clearly post-date the anomalies. Recognition of such damage is important in understanding and interpreting the nature and time sequence in the origin of these structures.

Apollo 16, June 1972

NASA photograph AS16-121-19438, looking northwest from above the eastern edge of Mare Crisium and across Mare Tranquilitatus form 70 miles altitude.

UKERT

Ukert is a crater-like feature that displays a circumscribed equilateral triangle at full Moon (Noon local time) in its center. I agree with Hoagland's interpretation that this triangle is not natural, because the sides of the "crater" are much brighter only opposite the sides of this triangle. The apices or angles of the triangle intersect the darkest three areas of the "crater" rim, while the brightest three areas of the rim are opposite the sides of the triangle. In addition, the brightest parts of the rim are midway between the apices of the triangle, and are at 120 degrees orientation from one another. If a line is drawn from the centers of each bright area across the triangle to the opposing angle, the lines will exactly bisect each angle. Such regular geometry is not a natural feature of any terrain, either on Earth or on the Moon. Furthermore, the symbolism of an equilateral triangle within a circle is a two dimensional representation of atetrahedral pyramid within a sphere. Tetrahedral geometry is the primary message encoded in the geometry of the Cydonia complex on Mars (Hoagland, 1992; McDaniel, 1993).

THE SHARD

The Shard is an obvious structure which rises above the Moon's surfaceby more than a mile. Its overall irregular spindly shape (containing a regulargeometric pattern) with constricted nodes and swollen internodes, if natural,has got to be a wonder of the Universe. No known natural process can explain such a structure. Computer enhancement with about 190 feet (60 meters) resolution shows an irregular outline with more reflective and less reflective surfaces. The amount of sunlight reflecting from parts of the Shard indicates a composition inconsistent with that of most natural substances. Only crystal facets and glass can reflect that much light (polished metallic surfaces are unnatural). Single crystals the size of city blocks are currently unknown. I concur with Hoagland that the Shard may be a highly eroded remnant of some sort of artificial structure made of glass-like material. Other larger structures and their reflectivity in the area support this theory.

THE TOWER

The Tower represents an enigma of the highest magnitude because it rises more than five miles above the surface of the Moon, and has been photographed from five different angles and two different altitudes (from 30 miles altitude, and from 70 miles altitude at three different distances). In all four photographs the same structure is visible and can be viewed from two different sides. The Tower exists in front of and to the left of the Shard in the Lunar Orbiter III-84M photograph. The distance from the Tower and the camera is estimated at about 200 miles, while the distance of the Shard beyond the Tower is estimated at about 230 miles. The top of the Tower has a very ordered cubic geometry, and appears to be composed of regular cubes (similar in size) joined together to form a very large cube with an estimated width of over one mile! There is apparent damage to the outline and surface of this megacube, because many cubic spaces or indentations occur over its surface (these spaces are 50 to 60 times larger than pixel size, and their shapes are not controlled by the rectangular shape of the pixel). A narrow columnar structure connects this cube with the surface of the Moon. The columnar support is at least three miles tall, and tapers towards its base. The taper may be in part due to perspective, if the Tower is oriented at an angle and is leaning towards the camera. The leaning Tower may be part of a larger more transparent structure, which is also inclined.

Surrounding the Tower are faint indications of additional light-reflecting material. The amount of light coming from this material is very small compared with the amount of light reflected off the lunar surface. In order to make it visible, the surface of the Moon has to be over-exposed on the photograph. The pattern that becomes visible above the moon's surface is not caused by the scan lines that make up the Lunar Orbiter photography. The scan lines can be seen clearly, and are oriented at different angles from the orientation of patterns in the sky. The regular cubic and/or rectangular nature of this pattern, and indications of radiating structures that connect the Tower with the surface indicate that material of low light reflectivity exists above the Moon's surface over a large area measured in hundreds of miles. The irregular splotchy reflection from some of this aerial material may be due to meteorite and projectile damage over millions of years. Its highly transparent nature (bright stars can be seen behind and through this material)indicates either an open grid with cubic spaces or glass-like material held together by some sort of structural grid or a combination of both. Other photographs described below confirm the size and extent of this grid-like construction.

THE SKY GRID

The Surveyor 6 photograph of the Sun's corona at the horizon (Photograph published in NASA Technical Report 32-1262) is a view just to the north of the Tower (less than 100 miles). Total image was recorded in primary data, and variations in image reproduction are due to processing differences.Two major anomalies are apparent in this photograph: 1) sunlight at the surface of the Moon is refracted towards the camera and appears as elongate beads of bright light on top of the horizon (JPL measurements indicate light saturation for the camera was reached in these beads); 2) a regular cubic pattern of horizontal benches appears above the surface, and extends nearly as high as the view in the photograph to an altitude of several miles. Due to the angle of incidence of backlit sunlight from the Sun, which was located below the horizon, the visibility of the pattern above the surface decreases with increasing angular reflection from the center of the Sun. This means that whatever was causing the reflection and refraction above the Moon's surface is geometrically dependent on the Sun's position below the Moon's horizon, and is therefore not likely an artifact of imaging, reproduction, or processing. Six additional pictures of this horizon were taken within 90 minutes, and if available (obtainable) will provide additional data for further analysis.

The bright beads of light on the surface decrease or become non-continuous laterally along the horizon. This anomalous beading was explained by NASA as diffraction by fine dust suspended above the surface. No such suspended dust was found by the Apollo astronauts, and an alternative hypothesis is warranted. I agree with Hoagland's interpretation that:a) the light is refraction, and b) the intense concentration of light is likely caused by glass imaging the Sun from beyond the horizon. It is unlikely that the material causing this phenomenon is natural dust or glass tectites on the surface, which are largely opaque to only partly transparent. The glass refracting the light has to be nearly transparent to transmit so much light to such a height above the surface, particularly if the refracting material has any depth to it. It may represent the basal more intact part of a superstructure that is apparent above the surface. Because of less damage, and more massive glass support structures at the base (visible in some photographsas a hierarchy of stacked glass arches, each with expanded bases), more light is conducted and focussed there as a series of glass lenses. Simple reflection can be ruled out as an explanation for the beads because of the position of the Sun below the horizon.

The three Apollo 10 photographs showing the Tower in the distance also show the grid structure from above. These photographs were taken at three different distances from the Tower as the Apollo spacecraft moved towards the Tower. Within the sky above the horizon and around the Tower a regular grid pattern emerges with proper contrast control. This grid pattern appears to bethree-dimensional, and is expressed as dark lines with random points of reflection around those lines. The grid appears to be some sort of support structure, perhaps formed from a metallic rebar. The reflective material associated with it is cubic and hexagonal in design, but incomplete. With different attitudes or angles of sight, different areas of the grid structure become illuminated or reflective, implying that angle of incidence is important. I agree with Hoagland's interpretation of this material as remnant portions of the glass structure, which still remains attached and suspended above the Moon's surface on a metallic cross support structure. The Tower, by contrast, is visible in all three photographs, because there is much more glass remaining than on the suspended grid structure around the Tower. Even from different angles and distances in these photographs, the top of the Tower appears as a giant cube made up of smaller cubic and hexagonal objects.

There is no way to get around this evidence once it becomes apparent.Altering the contrast of the Moon's surface can make this faint structure disappear, but such photographic manipulation (of NASA catalogs) will not invalidate it. The evidence that Hoagland has brought to light may assail one's sensibilities because of its magnitude and artificial implication, but it cannot be dismissed or ignored. It is there and it must be explained.

THE CITY COMPLEX NEAR UKERT

Photograph AS10-32-4822 in NASA catalog SP-232 is blacked out, along with several other photographs. When it was ordered, the image was of high quality, contrary to what was implied by it being blacked out in the catalog. Instead of a poor photograph, the image shows features near Ukert crater that defy conventional explanation. A linear dome-shaped hill runs diagonally across the photograph. To the north of that hill a large area exists with regularly aligned rows of structure. Within this anomalous area more than a dozen small craters can be seen that modify the landscape. From a distance the regular rows appear like benches. On Earth such a feature would be interpreted as the pattern produced by the eroded edges of layered rocks that dip below the surface. But on the Moon there have been no physical processes that can account for such a regular geologic structure. Furthermore, rills and wrinkles on the surface of a cooling magma outflow do not form such a regular pattern, as is evident in so many mare on the Moon. And this anomalous pattern has definite boundaries beyond which it is absent.

Upon magnification, this anomalous pattern begins to take on a different character: Rectangular features exist along the rows, with many having gaps between them. In addition, thin spires project up from the surface in several places along some rows. Upon further magnification some of the rectangular structures take on a form like buildings and skyscrapers. Resolution at high magnification (for the image I saw) is not good enough to resolve more than the outlines of possible buildings. The whole area resembles what one might expect for a city the size of Los Angeles that had been abandoned and left to decay for centuries. The crater impacts and constant barrage from micrometeorites over millions of years would have provided an abrasive force as damaging as our weather and earthquakes on Earth over centuries or even decades.

I agree with Hoagland that someone or some group within NASA deliberately concealed this picture in the catalog because of its content, and that this area may contain one of several city complexes that were built under an enormous glass dome within Sinus Medi. The sheer implications of such massive structures on the Moon, if verified by an open and honest visit by astronauts to the Moon, would cause man to rethink many ideas and question many beliefs about other intelligent life in the Universe. Clearly, such structures are well beyond our current technologies, and rank with the Pyramids and Sphinx on Earth, and with the Cydonia complex and its humanoid face on Mars, as major mysteries of our Solar System.

THE DOME OVER MARE CRISIUM

Further evidence for such massive constructs on the Moon can be found in Mare Crisium. The photograph that Hoagland showed me of that area (NASA photograph 1) has a strange set of large, concentric, circular light patterns within the mare. To one side an enormous spire or tower rises from the surface within the perimeter of these light circles. Magnification of thearea around this spire shows cubic patterns like those around the Tower in Sinus Medii. Numerous holes of various size can be detected within this cubic pattern, probably caused by meteorites. Around the edges of these holes I can see layers of light-reflecting cubic glass-like material and suggestions of strands of rebar support. Below this cover on the ground there is more structure, which can be detected under some of the larger holes. There is an unusual interference pattern below the cubic pattern as well. None of these patterns can be explained as normal or natural. I interpret the major cubic pattern as reflections off rebar and micrometeorite-frosted glass of the dome that covers most of Mare Crisium. I interpret the pattern below the dome as possibly caused by artificial structures on the surface of the Moon, such as the city-like construct near Ukert, and the concentric circles of light over the surface of Mare Crisium as light reflection and refraction through the remaining portions of the glass dome.

I support Hoagland's interpretation that the anomalous patterns in photographs from Sinus Medii and Mare Crisium cannot be explained as natural. I further support his interpretation that these patterns above the surface are caused by enormous structures of artificial origin, structures that may represent the remains of glass domes that were built to cover, protect, and provide a life-support environment for habitable structures on the surface.

Clearly, further independent investigation and analysis by experts is warranted. There is also a relevant need to press the Pentagon into releasingall 1.5 million Clementine photographs immediately and without censorship.

Dr. Bruce Cornet

May 15, 1994

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Dr. Bruce Cornet has a B.A. in biology, M.S. in botany, and Ph.D. in geology and palynology. He has 17 referred publications in international journals and two coauthored books on Mesozoic plant evolution and geology. He has over 15 years experience in the oil industry, which includes basin analysis from geologic, gravity, magnetic, and topographic maps and aerial photographs, and extensive experience in structural analysis and subsurface mapping using seismic data and well logs; and 22 years experience in analyzing the relative age and geothermal maturity of palynomorphs and kerogen extracted from rocks.In 1981-1982 as president of Geminoil, Inc. he lead the first exploration effort to find commercial hydrocarbons in rift basins of Virginia and Maryland. He is also an integral part of a geologic team at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Columbia Univ.) which has recovered and analyzed for Milankovich cyclicity over 22,000 feet of core from the Newark basin of new Jersey.

Listen to Gene no big deal, oh well there missing

The information from the moon is missing, But Gene Kranz says even if we had it we don't have the machines to play it back anyway. It's almost like we never planed to look at the information at any time in the future.

You might wonder why these "machines" or at least one of them would be in the Smithsonian, or at least in a storage units in area 51  with the body's from the Roswell crash.. Just kidding!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0hsMJj9Q-A

We never went to the Moon By Bill Kaysing - A must read

 Is the above photo taken from the moon landing's or shot in "practice" In New Mexico? If you black out the background the answer may be the moon?

The first book dedicated to the subject, Bill Kaysing's self-published We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle, was released in 1974, two years after the Apollo Moon flights had ceased. Folklorist Linda Degh suggests that writer-director Peter Hyams's 1978 film Capricorn One, which depicts a hoaxed journey to Mars in a spacecraft that looks identical to the Apollo craft, may have given a boost to the hoax theory's popularity in the post-Vietnam War era. She notes that this occurred during the post-Watergate era, when segments of the American public were inclined to distrust official accounts. Degh writes: "The mass media catapult these half-truths into a kind of twilight zone where people can make their guesses sound as truths. Mass media have a terrible impact on people who lack guidance."^[2] In A Man on the Moon, published in 1994, Andrew Chaikin mentions that at the time of Apollo 8's lunar-orbit mission in December 1968 similar conspiracy ideas were already in circulation.

[edit] Public opinion

See also: Apollo hoax in popular culture

There are subcultures worldwide which advocate the belief that the Moon landings were faked. James Oberg of ABC News stated that claims made that the Moon landings were faked are actively taught in Cuban schools and wherever Cuban teachers are sent.^[3][4] A 1999 Gallup poll found that 6% of the American public doubted that the Moon landings had occurred and that 5% had no opinion on the subject,^[5][6][7][8] which roughly matches the findings of a similar 1995 Time/CNN poll.^[5] Officials of Fox television stated that such skepticism increased to about 20% after the February 15, 2001 airing of that network's TV show entitled Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Seen by approximately 15 million viewers,^[6] the 2001 Fox special is viewed as having promoted the hoax claims.^[9][10]
A 2000 poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Fund found that 28% do not believe that American astronauts have been on the Moon, and this percentage is roughly equal in all social-demographic groups.^[11] In 2009, a poll conducted by the British Engineering & Technology magazine found that 25% of Britons do not believe that humans have walked on the Moon.^[12] Similarly, 25% of Americans between the age of 18 and 25 are not sure the landings happened.^[13]

[edit] Predominant hoax claims

Numerous conspiracy theories have been advanced that outline concerted action by NASA employees (and sometimes others) to perpetuate false information about landings that never occurred, or to cover up accurate information about the landings that occurred in a different manner than have been publicized. Believers have focused on perceived gaps or inconsistencies in the historical record of the missions. The Flat Earth Society was one of the first organizations to accuse NASA of faking the landings, arguing that they were staged by Hollywood with Walt Disney sponsorship and based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.^[14]
The most predominant idea is that the entire human landing program was a complete hoax from start to finish. Some claim that the technology to send men to the Moon was insufficient or that the Van Allen radiation belts, solar flares, solar wind, coronal mass ejections and cosmic rays made such a trip impossible.^[15]
Bart Sibrel has claimed that the crew of Apollo 11 and subsequent astronauts had faked their orbit around the Moon and their walk on its surface by trick photography and that they never got more than halfway to the Moon. A subset of this proposal is advocated by those who concede the existence of retroreflectors and other observable human-made objects on the Moon. British publisher Marcus Allen represented this argument when he said "I would be the first to accept what [telescope images of the landing site] find as powerful evidence that something was placed on the Moon by man". He goes on to say that photographs of the lander would not prove that the United States put men on the Moon. "Getting to the Moon really isn't much of a problem – the Russians did that in 1959, the big problem is getting people there". He suggests that NASA sent robot missions because radiation levels in space would be lethal to humans. Another variant on this is the idea that NASA and its contractors did not recover quickly enough from the Apollo 1 fire, and so all the early Apollo missions were faked, with Apollo 14 or 15 being the first authentic mission.^[16]
Philippe Lheureux, French author of Moon Landings: Did NASA Lie? and Lights on the Moon: Did NASA Lie? (Lumières sur la Lune: La NASA a-t-elle menti?), said that astronauts did land on the Moon but in order to prevent other nations from benefiting from scientific information in the real photos, NASA published fake images.^[17]

[edit] Motives

Proponents of the view that the Moon landings were faked give several differing theories about the motivation for the U.S. government to fake the Moon landings. Cold War prestige, monetary gain and providing a distraction are some of the more notable motives given.
The U.S. government considered it vital that the U.S. win the Space Race against the Soviet Union. Going to the Moon would be risky and expensive, as exemplified by John F. Kennedy famously stating that the U.S. chose to go because it was hard.^[18] Proponents also claim that the U.S. government benefited from a popular distraction from the Vietnam War; and so lunar activities suddenly stopped, with planned missions canceled, around the same time that the U.S. ceased its involvement in the Vietnam War.^[19]
Bill Kaysing maintains that, despite close monitoring by the Soviet Union, it would have been easier for the U.S. to fake the Moon landing, thereby guaranteeing success, than for the U.S. to actually go there. Kaysing claimed that the chance of a successful landing on the Moon was calculated to be 0.017%.^[20] NASA raised approximately US$30 billion in order to go to the Moon as well, and Kaysing claims that this amount could have been used to pay off a large number of people, providing significant motivation for complicity.^[21] The issue of delivering on the promise is often brought up as well. Since most proponents believe that the technical issues involved in getting people to the Moon either were insurmountable at the time or remain insurmountable, the Moon landings had to be faked in order to fulfill President Kennedy's 1961 promise "to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."^[18]
Others have made the claim that, with all the known and unknown hazards of traveling into deep space,^[22] NASA would not have risked the public humiliation of astronauts crashing to their deaths on the lunar surface, broadcast on live TV. So, with time running out, instead of risking a national fiasco and embarrassment and a cut-off of funding of billions of dollars should some catastrophe happen, it is argued that NASA had to stage and fake the Moon landing to avoid such a major risk.^[23]

[edit] Involvement of the Soviet Union

Main article: Soviet space program conspiracy accusations

A primary reason for the race to the Moon was the Cold War. Philip Plait states in Bad Astronomy that the Soviets, with their own competing Moon program and a formidable scientific community able to analyze NASA data, could be expected to have cried foul if the United States tried to fake a Moon landing,^[24] especially since their own program had failed. Successfully pointing out a hoax would have been a major propaganda coup. Bart Sibrel has responded, "the Soviets did not have the capability to track deep spacecraft until late in 1972, immediately after which, the last three Apollo missions were abruptly canceled."^[25]
However, the Soviet Union had been sending unmanned spacecraft to the Moon since 1959,^[26] and "during 1962, deep space tracking facilities were introduced at IP-15 in Ussuriisk and IP-16 in Evpatoria (Crimean Peninsula), while Saturn communication stations were added to IP-3, 4 and 14",^[27] the latter having a 100 million km range.^[28] The Soviet Union monitored the missions at the Space Transmissions Corps, which was "fully equipped with the latest intelligence-gathering and surveillance equipment".^[29] Vasily Mishin, in an interview for the article "The Moon Programme That Faltered" (Spaceflight, March 1991, vol. 33, 2-3), describes how the Soviet Moon programme lost energy after the Apollo landing.

[edit] Hoax proponents and their proposals

• Bill Kaysing (1922–2005) an ex-employee of Rocketdyne,^[30] the company which built the F-1 engines used on the Saturn V rocket. Kaysing was not technically qualified, and worked at Rocketdyne as a librarian. Kaysing's self published book, We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle,^[15][31] made many allegations, effectively beginning the discussion of the Moon landings possibly being hoaxed. NASA and others have debunked the claims made in the book.
• Bart Sibrel, a filmmaker, produced and directed four films for his company AFTH,^[32] including a film in 2001 called A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon,^[33] examining the evidence of a hoax. The arguments that Sibrel puts forward in this film have been debunked by numerous sources, including Svector's video series Lunar Legacy,^[34] which disproves the documentary's primary argument that the Apollo crew faked their distance from the Earth command module, while in low orbit. Sibrel has stated that the effect on the shot covered in his film was produced through the use of a transparency of the Earth. Some parts of the original footage, according to Sibrel, were not able to be included on the official releases for the media. On such allegedly censored parts, the correlation between Earth and Moon Phases can be clearly confirmed, refuting Sibrel's claim that these shots were faked. Sibrel was also punched in the face by Buzz Aldrin after Sibrel confronted Aldrin with his theories about the moon hoax^[35] while accusing the former astronaut of being "a coward, and a liar, and a thief". Sibrel attempted to press charges against Aldrin but the case was thrown out of court when the judge ruled that Aldrin was within his rights given Sibrel's invasive and aggressive behavior.^[36]
• William L. Brian, a nuclear engineer who self-published a book in 1982 called Moongate: Suppressed Findings of the U.S. Space Program, in which he disputes the Moon's surface gravity.
• David Percy, TV producer and expert in audiovisual technologies and member of the Royal Photographic Society, is co-author, along with Mary Bennett of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers (ISBN 1-898541-10-8) and co-producer of What Happened On the Moon?. He is the main proponent of the "whistle-blower" accusation, arguing that the errors in the NASA photos in particular are so obvious that they are evidence that insiders are trying to 'blow the whistle' on the hoax by deliberately inserting errors that they know will be seen.^[37]
• Ralph Rene - An inventor and 'self taught' engineering buff. Author of NASA Mooned America (second edition OCLC 36317224).
• James M. Collier (d. 1998) - American journalist and author, producer of the video Was It Only a Paper Moon ? in 1997.
• Jack White - American photo historian known for his attempt to prove forgery in photos related to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
• Marcus Allen - British publisher of Nexus who said that photographs of the lander would not prove that the U.S. put men on the Moon. "Getting to the Moon really isn't much of a problem - the Russians did that in 1959 - the big problem is getting people there".^[38]
• Aron Ranen states in his documentary film Did We Go? (2005) "at this point right now I'm about 75% believing we went". On July 20, 2009, Ranen appeared on Geraldo at Large (Fox News Channel) to argue that no one has landed on the moon.
• Clyde Lewis - Radio talk show host.^[39]
• David Groves - Works for Quantech Image Processing and worked on some of the NASA photos. Notably he has examined the photo of Aldrin emerging from the LM. He said he can pinpoint the exact point at which an artificial light was used. Using the focal length of the camera's lens and an actual boot, he has calculated, using ray-tracing, that the artificial light source is between 24 to 36 centimetres (9.4 to 14 in) to the right of the camera.^[40] This corresponds with the sunlit part of Armstrong's spacesuit.^[41]
• Yuri Mukhin - Russian opposition politician, publicist and writer and author of the book The Moon affair of the USA (2006) in which he denies all Moon landing evidence and accuses the U.S. establishment of plundering the money paid by the American taxpayers for the Moon program and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and some Soviet scientists for helping NASA commit the hoax without being denounced.^[42]
• Alexander Popov - Russian doctor of physical-mathematical sciences and author of the book Americans on the Moon - a great breakthrough or a space affair? (Moscow, 2009, ISBN 978-5-9533-3315-3) in which he aims to prove that Saturn V was in fact a camouflaged Saturn 1B^[43] and denies all Moon landing evidence.^[44]
• Stanislav Pokrovsky - Russian candidate of technical sciences and General Director of a scientific-manufacturing enterprise Project-D-MSK who calculated that the real speed of the Saturn V rocket at S-IC staging time was only half of what was declared. His analysis appears to assume that the solid rocket plumes from the fusellage and retro rockets on the two stages came to an instant halt in the surrounding air so they can be used to estimate the velocity of the rocket. He ignored high altitude winds and the altitude at staging, 67 km, where air is about 1/10,000 as dense as at sea level, and claimed that only a loop around the Moon was possible, not a manned landing on the Moon with return to the Earth. He also determined the reason for this - problems with the Inconel superalloy used in the F-1 engine.^[45][46][47]

[edit] Critical examination of hoax accusations

Main article: Third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings

According to James Longuski, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering at Purdue University, the size and complexity of the alleged conspiracy theory scenarios make their veracity an impossibility. More than 400,000 people worked on the Apollo project for nearly ten years, and a dozen men who walked on the Moon returned to Earth to recount their experiences. Hundreds of thousands of people, including astronauts, scientists, engineers, technicians, and skilled laborers, would have had to keep the secret. Longuski also contends that it would have been significantly easier to actually land on the Moon than to generate such a massive conspiracy to fake such a landing.^[48][49]
Vince Calder and Andrew Johnson provided a detailed rebuttal to the conspiracy theorists' claims, in a question and answer format, on the Argonne National Laboratory web site.^[50] They show that NASA's portrayal of the Moon landing is fundamentally accurate, allowing for such common errors as mislabeled photos and imperfect personal recollections. Through application of the scientific process, any hypothesis that is contradicted by the observable facts may be rejected. The lack of narrative consistency in the hoax hypothesis occurs because hoax accounts vary from proponent to proponent. The 'real landing' hypothesis is a single story, since it comes from a single source, but there are many hoax hypotheses, each of which addresses a specific aspect of the Moon landing, and this variation is considered a key indicator that the hoax hypothesis actually constitutes a conspiracy theory.^[51]

[edit] Imaging the landing sites

A later LRO photo of the Apollo 14 landing site

Another component of the Moon hoax theory is based on the argument that professional observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope should be able to take pictures of the lunar landing sites. The argument runs that if telescopes can "see to the edge of the universe" then they ought to be able to take pictures of the lunar landing sites, implying that the world's major observatories (as well as the Hubble Program) are complicit in the Moon landing hoax by refusing to take pictures of the landing sites. Images of the moon have been taken by Hubble, including at least two Apollo landing sites; but the Hubble resolution limits viewing of lunar objects to sizes no smaller than 60-75 yards (55–69 meters), which is insufficient to see any landing site features.^[52]
Leonard David published an article on space.com,^[53][54] on April 27, 2001 which displayed a picture taken by the Clementine mission showing a diffuse dark spot at the location that NASA says is the Apollo 15 Lunar Module Falcon. The evidence was noticed by Misha Kreslavsky, of the Department of Geological Sciences at Brown University, and Yuri Shkuratov of the Kharkov Astronomical Observatory in Ukraine. The European Space Agency's SMART-1 unmanned probe sent back imagery of the Apollo Moon landing sites, according to Bernard Foing, Chief Scientist of the ESA Science Program.^[55] "Given SMART-1’s initial high orbit, however, it may prove difficult to see artifacts", said Foing in an interview on space.com.

Apollo 17 landing site

The Daily Telegraph (London) published a story in 2002 saying that European astronomers at the Very Large Telescope would use it to view the remains of the Apollo lunar landers. According to the article, Dr Richard West said that his team would take "a high-resolution image of one of the Apollo landing sites". Marcus Allen, a Moon hoax proponent, pointed out in the story that no images of hardware on the Moon would convince him that manned landings had taken place.^[56] As the VLT is capable of resolving equivalent to the distance between the headlights of a car as seen from the Moon,^[57] it may be able to directly image some features of the Apollo landing site. Such photos, if and when they become available, would be the first non-NASA produced images of the site at that definition.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched their SELENE lunar orbiter on September 14, 2007 (JST) from Tanegashima Space Center. SELENE orbited the Moon at about 100 kilometres (62 mi) altitude. In May 2008 JAXA reported detecting the "halo" generated by the Apollo 15 lunar module engine exhaust from a Terrain Camera image.^[58] A 3-D reconstructed photo also matched the terrain of an Apollo 15 photograph taken from the surface.

Apollo 11 landing site - "There the lunar module sits, parked just where it landed 40 years ago, as if it still really were 40 years ago and all the time since merely imaginary." –The New York Times^[59]

Map of the Apollo 11 landing site. Arrows indicate location and direction of photos shot during EVA

On July 17, 2009 NASA released low-resolution engineering test photographs of the Apollo 11, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 landing sites that have been imaged by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter as part of the process of starting its primary mission.^[60] The photographs show the descent stage of the lunar module from each mission on the surface of the Moon. The picture of the Apollo 14 landing site also shows tracks created by an astronaut between a science experiment (ALSEP) and the lunar lander.^[61] Photographs of the Apollo 12 landing site were released by NASA on September 3, 2009.^[62] The Intrepid lunar module descent stage, experiment package (ALSEP), Surveyor 3 spacecraft, and astronaut footpaths are all visible.
While the LRO images have been enjoyed by the scientific community as a whole, they have not done anything to convince conspiracy theorists that the landings took place.^[63] The main reason for this doubt is because the LRO is a NASA project, and is therefore assumed to be biased.

[edit] Academic work