Author Topic: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove  (Read 8291 times)

Offline Everett

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I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« on: July 20, 2017, 04:26:33 PM »
First off, of course Apollo was real. Since I have too much time on my hands, I thought up a hoax theory that would be nearly impossible to disprove. (It also has to evidence for it either.) I don't believe a word of it, I just came up with it for fun, (and based on actually knowing a little bit about spaceflight), but I realized that it would probably be best not to post it publicly, so I don't wind up having to debunk my own fiction, intentionally written to be vary hard to do. PM me if anybody's interested. :)

One major feature - the current HB's are simply paranoid conspiracy theorist idiots, who happened to come to decide Apollo was hoaxed via "stopped clock being right twice a day," based on completely faulty arguments. Nearly all their arguments are easily disproved, because they are, in fact, wrong. There are non-parallel shadows because that's how reality works, there are no stars because there shouldn't be stars, etc.
« Last Edit: July 20, 2017, 04:36:01 PM by Everett »

Offline ka9q

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2017, 07:02:31 PM »
Thing is, it's nearly impossible to disprove any conspiracy theory. That's why they're so popular. Even if people responded to evidence and reason, it is famously impossible to prove most negatives in the real world. That's probably possible only in mathematics, and maybe not even then.

Offline bknight

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #2 on: July 20, 2017, 09:37:38 PM »
Thing is, it's nearly impossible to disprove any conspiracy theory. That's why they're so popular. Even if people responded to evidence and reason, it is famously impossible to prove most negatives in the real world. That's probably possible only in mathematics, and maybe not even then.

Yes that brings to mind an individual we both exchanged conversations on YTube, whose contention was everything about Apollo could be accomplished on Earth therefore no amount of debunking is accurate and in his mind Apollo was fake.  In reality most everything from the moon couldn't be accomplished on Earth, but he would have none of it.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
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Offline nomuse

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2017, 02:05:03 PM »
Yah --- it's another one of those many things that are so impossible to communicate to the hoaxies: the idea that if Apollo needed to be faked it would have been designed and done in a way to make it easier to fake.

The strongest evidence for most of us is the preponderance and consistency stuff; there is so much detail, it has an internal consistency, but more importantly it is consistent with the vast stores of material of a thousand other fields and exploits.

The hoaxies generally lack background in an appropriate technical field (or any technical field) and general science knowledge (particularly, an understanding of the historic and cultural context of science; who does it, how many are they, how do they communicate ideas, etc.) So their list -- when they chose to flip their line of reasoning to look at it in that direction -- is of small individual "tricks" that NASA stuck in.

Like the hammer and feather. The hoaxie idea is that NASA would realize not everyone would fall for the hoax, so they cobbled up a couple of extra proofs. Stunts, essentially. But never a stunt that would be largely convincing (and difficult to fake), like setting off a nuke on the nightside.

Oddly, they ignore the subtler "stunting" of hours of video in long, nearly contiguous sequences. The sort of thing that is celebrated today when all a director needs to provide is actors and some hallway, not simultaneously fake low gravity and vacuum.

In any case, a "real" hoax would construct an Apollo program done in secrecy, with most of the technical elements left unexplained, and only very tiny controllable bits of "proof" provided. (And it still wouldn't convince a technical audience, because they know what's technologically feasible; it would be like ISIS declaring they had their own bomb project and had constructed their first thermonuclear warheads.)



(Well, there is one sort of way around. Getting to the Moon is at the base of it energy-intensive. If you could solve the energy needs the rest is relatively easy. With enough energy, for instance, navigation is just point and burn and adjust when you get closer. The flip side being Apollo didn't have that energy surplus and had to engineer very, very carefully, with everything from course planning to the weight of the toothbrushes. So our hypothetical "real fake" might be based around an unknown energy source -- or a way to sidestep the rules, like antigravity. And naturally no detail of this technology can possibly be made public.)

Offline Everett

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2017, 04:01:19 PM »
Well, in that case then, here goes...

Both NASA and the Soviet Union discovered an additional, far more dangerous Van Allen belt say, 60,000 miles away from earth, in the mid-60's. Since it's so far out, satellites, sounding rockets etc. never reach it, and don't have to worry about it, so it can be kept secret. The Apollo program under Eisenhower was unaware of its existence, the same was true at the time of Kennedy's speech. The Apollo hardware was, of course, perfectly capable of going to the moon, if it weren't for said secret radiation belt, they would have. Grumman etc. wouldn't have been in on it, because they did build hardware capable of doing the job. When the belt was discovered, Johnson was so enamored in the idea of man leaving earth he decided to have it hoaxed.

So, since there was no way to fool all the tracking of the spacecraft, once the hardware was delivered, NASA (through the CIA and Air Force) secretly rigged it for autonomous operation. (Which is possible; the Soviet Lunar plans called for that to be a requirement, although based on a beacon for the lander soft-landed on the moon by a rover. And after all, everybody knows soviet electronics are junk, and American ones are far superior... :)  ) The Saturn V was launched without any crew aboard, and was sent to the moon exactly as if it were manned. It autonomously entered orbit, landed, took off, etc. The footage of docking, decent, ascent etc was filmed on location by said spacecraft! The footage of the astronauts in the spacecraft was actually filmed in zero gravity. A classified rocket designed to be launched from the ocean, (of which there actually were a series of successful ones; the Sea Dragon was a much larger proposal), perhaps about the size/performance of the Soviet R-7, was launched from the extreme North Pacific, with a spacecraft  somewhat larger then a CSM and an interior mockup of the CSM inside, designed for filming footage on the way to the moon, was launched on a suborbital, nearly orbital trajectory south across the vast pacific, over Antarctica, and into the Atlantic (where it was recovered); I suppose it''s possible that it's most of an orbit was entirely on the day side of earth. The Soviets wrote it off as missile tests. The footage supposedly from the CSM on the way to/from the moon was actually filmed ahead of time on these flights!
The theory runs into problems here. The supposedly returning CSM was actually launched on a brief suborbital flight across the pacific by said rocket above, with the astronauts aboard. The problem is what happens to the one launched toward the moon. Plus we wind up with the wrong number of CM's. Perhaps the real one was used for this, and a replica was sent toward the moon, and it didn't have a heat shield and burned up on reentry and impacted the Pacific.

So NASA films the Apollo 8 hoax under Johnson. The transmissions from the spacecraft were actually re-transmitted from transmission just prior transmitted to the spacecraft - after all, there's no way to monitor transmissions outbound. Nixon takes office, learns of the hoax, and is furious, but decided to go ahead and hoax just to Apollo 11. Meanwhile the Soviets call him up, and blackmail the US for keeping quit, (after all, the US can prove the existence of the Soviet program they were going to fake), by getting the US to withdraw from Vietnam and then allowed the north to win in a few years, (and occasionally more since then).

NASA wanted to stop while they were ahead (The Apollo 11 EVA was filmed in a massive vacuum chamber built for that purpose, ahead of time, and were in black and white and poor quality in an attempt to hide it), but Congress/somebody insisted they go on. So for 12' they supposedly "burn out the TV camera" so they don't have to fake the footage. With continued instantce to continue, NASA decides to fake a "failure" of 13 (with a spacecraft rigged, and that in reality was working exactly as designed the entire time - no real failure), in the hope it would get the Apollo program cancelled, and without supposedly having a dead crew on an endless orbit. But they still insisted they go on, so, using the break provided by the investigation provided, they prepared to fake 14-17 in a set of vacuum chambers. Knowing it wouldn't be broadcast live since the public had lost interest, they faked it over a period of several years, with much of the "continuous" shots containing a hidden cut. (They had maybe 3 vacuum chambers, and would modify the terrain in each, rotating through them in turn.)

With the Soviet Union fell, the new Russia decided to continue to blackmail the US - after all, why didn't the US do something in Ukraine? :) The only other countries to know are the ones that have sent spacecraft well past earth orbit (which are secretly hardened against the radiation there) are European and either approve of the hoax, or were blackmailed into keeping quiet by the threat being kicked out of NATO, while the only other country was Japan, which was blackmailed by the threat of the US pulling its military out of Japan.

THE ABOVE IS ENTIRELY FICTION. NONE OF IT IS TRUE.

Offline bknight

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2017, 04:19:37 PM »
Well, in that case then, here goes...

...
Another failure, how did these unmanned spacecraft return with +/-800 pounds of Lunar material?
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
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Offline Northern Lurker

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2017, 05:30:23 PM »
"Couple" of questions came to mind:

-Did the "fake LM"  have enough internal volume, spare electrical power and mass budget for automatic landing system and communication relay? Because Grumman wasn't "in" it would have all furnishings for astronauts intact.
-What if the "fake LM" would land in bad terrain and be destroyed? Without pilot it couldn't see and avoid.
-Did the "fake CSM" have enough internal volume, spare electical power and mass budget for communication relay? Because North American wasn't "in" CSM would have all furnishing for astronauts intact.
-Could CSM be flown to Moon and back on ground control?
-How conspirators hid modifications to LM and CSM from contractor staff at payload integration?
-How did conspirators extract astronauts from launch pad?
-Why there isn't any evidence of secret launch pad in Pacific NW?
-Why there isn't any evidence of huge vacuum chambers? Those would be useful even today and conspirators could have "invented" "huge vacuum chamber technology" after Apollo.
-How huge the vacuum chambers actually were?
-How "secret Van Allen belt was found"
-Why heavier/thicker shielding wouldn't have helped?

Sorry, Lurky  :D

Offline Everett

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2017, 06:48:24 PM »
Well, in that case then, here goes...

...
Another failure, how did these unmanned spacecraft return with +/-800 pounds of Lunar material?

Well, that's pretty much where my idea falls apart. You could likely return significantly more material than the soviets did per rocket if you use a significantly heavier and more capable craft. It would likely have to use a rover too. But yah, it would take a bunch of flights, which at least the "sea launch" idea means could be hidden from people on the ground, along with the old "NASA only has maybe 80-100 pounds in reality" argument, but that wouldn't explain core samples, the ALSP, and above all the photograph of said rock that is sitting in front of you on earth on the moon with an astronaut in the frame (or shadow, or it being retrieved on video/film/ etc.)

It's worth pointing out I don't actually believe any of this; all this was idle speculation on how a "moon hoax" could come closest to actually working i real life, based in large part on the stuff on this forum.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2017, 06:50:35 PM by Everett »

Offline Everett

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2017, 07:32:28 PM »
"Couple" of questions came to mind:

-Did the "fake LM"  have enough internal volume, spare electrical power and mass budget for automatic landing system and communication relay? Because Grumman wasn't "in" it would have all furnishings for astronauts intact.
Sorry, Lurky  :D

Is this theory, Grumman delivered the LM with full fittings; there should be room, since the entire crew compartment can be filled with equipment. Not having any crew on board should save at least 400 pounds (including weight of suits) Power - that's a problem. Additional batteries could likely be installed in the now-empty crew compartment, and there was likely space for them; I don't know about weight.

Quote
-What if the "fake LM" would land in bad terrain and be destroyed? Without pilot it couldn't see and avoid.

The real-life Soviet lunar program had the requirement that everything must be done automatically. The way to achieve it was intended via soft landing a rover with a landing beacon prior to launch, which after the rover landed would be used to explore and dive to a suitable landing spot. The attached beacon would then guide the lander to said safe spot. At least in theory. In reality, it wouldn't produce the observed flight of Apollo 11, so theory fails again.
In theory, using the "sea launch" concept; it could be launched without anybody on the ground noticing. Of course, it would be observed in Earth orbit and on the way to the moon, so pretty much not possible. Another place where my theory fails.

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-Did the "fake CSM" have enough internal volume, spare electical power and mass budget for communication relay? Because North American wasn't "in" CSM would have all furnishing for astronauts intact.
The extra internal volume would be in the CM, not the SM. The transmitting antena would be the exact same one North American supplied, since after all they worked correctly for transmitting, that was their point. The receiver would likely have to come out of the extra ~600 lb saved by offloading the crew. I 'think' the SM fuel cells could provide more power than the minimum needed, and I doubt the receiver would use much power.

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-Could CSM be flown to Moon and back on ground control?
Possible at least in theory, although not with the AGC supplied. So, in other words, no.

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-How conspirators hid modifications to LM and CSM from contractor staff at payload integration?
Why, there were in on it, of course! :) (Along with at least half of NASA upper management, and a considerable number of people who were working on classified equipment needed to do it automatically anyway, and likely mission control as well.)

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-How did conspirators extract astronauts from launch pad?
Actually, in all honesty this wouldn't be all that hard, even outside of conspiracy-land. Have them change into pad worker outfits, and go down the elevator, etc. For more convincing, have 3 pad workers go up the night before, and secretly smuggle them back down before dawn so the numbers add up.


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-Why there isn't any evidence of secret launch pad in Pacific NW?
Actually near Alaska, and in the west pacific as well for the returning capsule. And there wasn't one, the rocket would be offloaded from some CIA ship, towed a short distance away, and launched from the water. This was actually done in real life. See:

http://www.astronautix.com/s/seahorse.html
http://www.astronautix.com/s/seadragon.html
(The latter being as major possibility for low cost space access that nobody will ever use - it's "the chicken or the egg." It can launch 500 tons into LEO, but without anything that heavy to put there, there's no point. And without a rocket that can do that, there won't be anything that heavy to be launched in the first place.

Plus can you say "combustion instability" when looking at that enormous nozzle. And pressure fed with chamber pressure decreasing during launch to boot. If anybody actually went as far as cutting metal, I've got a feeling a dozen or two smaller engines of a practical size would have to be used instead. )

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-Why there isn't any evidence of huge vacuum chambers? Those would be useful even today and conspirators could have "invented" "huge vacuum chamber technology" after Apollo.
-How huge the vacuum chambers actually were?

Why, as big as they needed to be, of course.  :) (At least big enough for the entire Apollo 11 EVA.) And there's no evidence for them because, of course, I simply made them up. I also suspect there's not much use for a vacuum chamber that size that can't be done with ones that actually exist.

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-How "secret Van Allen belt was found"
When I made them up, of course.  :) Supposedly on some early spacecraft, Ranger or Pioneer series maybe. After all, nobody in conspiracy theory land knows enough about them to even realize they exist, and it's not like they'd actually do any research or anything.


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-Why heavier/thicker shielding wouldn't have helped?

In real life, of course it would have worked. But we're in CT land, where "OMG there's radiation there we're all gonna die."

It's worth pointing out, again, I do not actually believe any of this, I just made it up as a thought experiment to produce a hoax theory most likely to actually work in real life, and that accounts for as much evidence and violates as little of reality as possible. It wouldn't work, of course, but at least in comes closer. ;D

Offline Northern Lurker

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #9 on: July 23, 2017, 04:26:14 PM »

-Did the "fake CSM" have enough internal volume, spare electical power and mass budget for communication relay? Because North American wasn't "in" CSM would have all furnishing for astronauts intact.
The extra internal volume would be in the CM, not the SM. The transmitting antena would be the exact same one North American supplied, since after all they worked correctly for transmitting, that was their point. The receiver would likely have to come out of the extra ~600 lb saved by offloading the crew. I 'think' the SM fuel cells could provide more power than the minimum needed, and I doubt the receiver would use much power.

I included SM because it had stuff for life support like tanks for water and oxygen for crew consumption which may or may would be modified by conspirators.

-Why there isn't any evidence of huge vacuum chambers? Those would be useful even today and conspirators could have "invented" "huge vacuum chamber technology" after Apollo.
-How huge the vacuum chambers actually were?

Why, as big as they needed to be, of course.  :) (At least big enough for the entire Apollo 11 EVA.) And there's no evidence for them because, of course, I simply made them up. I also suspect there's not much use for a vacuum chamber that size that can't be done with ones that actually exist.

I think the size of current vacuum chambers are limited by engineering and financial constraints. If one could make vacuum chambers of arbitrary sizes there would be lots of applications. Like vacuum testing the whole rockets or at least bigger assemblies.

It's worth pointing out, again, I do not actually believe any of this, I just made it up as a thought experiment to produce a hoax theory most likely to actually work in real life, and that accounts for as much evidence and violates as little of reality as possible. It wouldn't work, of course, but at least in comes closer. ;D

I know  :) I'm just curious and would be happy if someone familiar with 60's and 70's technology would comment would that be even theoretically possible within volume, power and payload constraints. I remember seeing someone (KA9Q?) calculating link budget for comminications relay in Apollo module (in place of astronauts). I'll have to look that thread up.

Lurky

PS. Effortlessy reading posts and other texts in English gives me illusions of adequacy which shatter quickly when I have to produce a text in English. I know what I want to say in Finnish but due the lack of good grasp of grammar and limited vocabulary I just can't express my self as well as I would like to. Dictionaries help only with vocabulary...

Offline smartcooky

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2017, 01:31:30 AM »
Thing is, it's nearly impossible to disprove any conspiracy theory. That's why they're so popular. Even if people responded to evidence and reason, it is famously impossible to prove most negatives in the real world. That's probably possible only in mathematics, and maybe not even then.


Yep. This is why the Blunders and Weisbeckers of this world are always trying to shift the burden of proof from themselves onto the skeptic/debunker.

Its like the "I have a dragon in my woodshed" argument. Like all good conspiracy theories, it is impossible to disprove  I can simply add layer upon layer of claim and detail to counter every debunk you can come up with, culminating  in "the dragon is invisible, only I can see it"
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline smartcooky

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2017, 01:52:05 AM »
Any theory which contends that Apollo spacecraft were sent to the moon unmanned and that the lunar surface operations were carried out and filmed on Earth has to explain how it was that several ham radio operators actually monitored the Apollo broadcasts, and on at least one occasion, they monitored the EVA suit radios on the surface of the moon from their ham shacks on earth confirmed by the fact that their directional antennas were pointed at the moon and had to be readjusted to compensate for the rotation of the Earth.

http://www.southgatearc.org/news/august2012/apollo_11_heard_by_ham_radio_operator.htm


This is one aspect that people like The Blunder simply handwave away or ignore completely...because NO hoax theory can explain how this happened.
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2017, 05:15:19 AM »
The hoax under discussion here also falls down when you broadcast live image of Earth on TV with astronauts also in the footage. Yes you can obtain images of Earth remotely, but not the live TV.

I've seen the blunder dismiss the meteorological evidence by claiming they would just produce forecasts and put those in, completely ignoring the fact that forecasts are just not that accurate - particularly when satellite imagery in relation to ground and atmosphere based instrumentation was still in its infancy.

It's almost verging on the Mitchell & Webb sketch where the best way to fake is to build a rocket and send it :D

Offline gillianren

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2017, 12:20:53 PM »
PS. Effortlessy reading posts and other texts in English gives me illusions of adequacy which shatter quickly when I have to produce a text in English. I know what I want to say in Finnish but due the lack of good grasp of grammar and limited vocabulary I just can't express my self as well as I would like to. Dictionaries help only with vocabulary...

For what it's worth, I didn't realize English wasn't your first language.  Your English is considerably better than that of an Australian university student in my film group, whom I'm considering blocking soon.  Her posts are hard to read and almost never worth it anyway.  Yours are well-written and interesting.
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Offline Luke Pemberton

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Re: I have a hoax theory that's near impossible to disprove
« Reply #14 on: July 24, 2017, 12:25:24 PM »
Both NASA and the Soviet Union discovered an additional, far more dangerous Van Allen belt say, 60,000 miles away from earth, in the mid-60's. [/size]

Why would there be a more dangerous radiation belt further out? That would be my first question.
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