Author Topic: A hoax theory...  (Read 29588 times)

Offline Ishkabibble

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A hoax theory...
« on: October 10, 2015, 01:49:21 AM »
Maybe it's really only interesting from the mental gymnastics and the realistic-sounding terminology. It references Jarrah and Percy. I'd be interested in seeing the forum members dissect it, and what the factual, non-misrepresented information is.

Call it an intellectual exercise.

Here it is:

Q: Weren’t there independent parties tracking Apollo all the way to the moon and back?

A: No. There are some known Ham radio operators who attest to having picked up signals from Apollo (Paul Wilson, Richard Knadle, Larry Baysinger, Sven Grahn), but none of them can attest to having tracked these probes all the way to the moon and back. Grahn for example only testifies to having picked up signals from Apollo 17 when it was in earth orbit, when it was on the moon and in lunar orbit. He openly admits to not tracking it the whole way there and back. Baysinger only received communications from Apollo 11 during the alleged moonwalk, again not the way to the moon and back. Wilson & Knadle received signals from a diversity of Apollo missions2, but again only when the crafts were in lunar orbit – an exception being Apollo 15 in which they received a handful of signals on the alleged flight home. The two were quoted to saying: “The moon is always in view of two of NASA's primary tracking stations in Spain, Australia and California, but not so for the amateur. Some of the most exciting events and transmissions from the Apollo mission always seem to occur when the moon is below the horizon for the continental United States astronomer!”

Recently, Jarrah met with CSIRO professor Ray Morris, who as a kid received signals from Apollo 13 – but only during the time they were said to be in earth orbit.  In the nineties, David Percy contacted Jodrell Bank Observatory technician Robert Pitchard. He stated that they too only tracked Apollo when it was close to the moon, not the trip there and back: “The Moon probes were observed with a 50ft radio telescope which at the frequency used (2300MHz) had a beam width of 5/8ths degrees In round terms this allowed us to pick up signals from up signals from up to about 1,000 miles above the moon’s surface, although small corrections had to be made to pointing as the probes orbited the Moon.

Voice signals (of good quality) were received from both the orbiting spacecraft and the Lunar Lander but television signals were only picked up from the spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. As we were not actively involved in the tracking of these spacecraft, we did not track them after they had left the Moon. And with regard to Apollo 10, I have no details of any observations, after all this time – the reason escapes me.”  And on the Russian side, for the most part the Soviets had relied heavily on Jodrell Bank just to track their own moon-bound spacecrafts because they lacked the capability to do it themselves (this was discussed in the BBC series, The Planets).
 Although later in the early 60s they were able to build deep space network tracking facilities with a 100million kilometre range, none of these radio telescopes were tuneable to the 2.3GHz (2300MHz) signals used by Apollo. This is clear evidence that NASA selected those frequencies so that no one could prove they were faking the whole thing. Only at the last minute in November 1968 did they manage to equip their TNA-400 facility in Crimea with suitable receiving equipment. And even then, because NASA did not supply them with the ballistics data, the Soviets were limited to listening to it during the time Apollo 8, 10, 11 and 12 were supposedly in lunar orbit.



This is something I have only read about on a limited basis, and is way beyond my academic field. Let me state clearly, and for the record, anything that references Jarrah or Percy is automatically viewed by me as total bollocks.
You don't "believe" that the lunar landings happened. You either understand the science or you don't.

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Offline darren r

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2015, 07:30:29 AM »

none of them can attest to having tracked these probes all the way to the moon and back. Grahn for example only testifies to having picked up signals from Apollo 17 when it was in earth orbit, when it was on the moon and in lunar orbit.


television signals were only picked up from the spacecraft on the surface of the Moon.

So various spacecraft were independently tracked in Earth orbit, then in Lunar orbit, and TV signals were picked up from the Moon's surface. Hard to see how this is an argument against the reality of Apollo!

" I went to the God D**n Moon!" Byng Gordon, 8th man on the Moon.

Offline Allan F

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2015, 09:50:16 AM »
Of course ham operators didn't track the spacecraft all the way. As the Earth turns, they lost line-of-sight. Only with a world-wide tracking net could the spacecraft be tracked. This is just a bad argument against amateur tracking.
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Offline gwiz

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2015, 11:53:38 AM »
Certainly untrue about Russian capability.  They tracked their own lunar missions and they tracked Apollo.  NASA announced the Apollo frequencies to the world well in advance of the missions.
« Last Edit: October 10, 2015, 11:55:58 AM by gwiz »
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Offline JayUtah

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2015, 01:59:47 PM »
I agree that Jarrah and Percy are not good sources.  Neither one has a reputation for reliably and accurately reporting their sources, or of asking pertinent sources.  Neither understands the relevant sciences.

One salient technical omission is that the VHF reception during the Moon walks was still directional.  The signals were still coming unmistakably from the direction of the Moon.  Another important aspect is that these were signals called for in the mission plan but not intended to be picked up from Earth.  These were the low-power radios used by the astronauts to communicate with each other and with the LM while nearby.  If you're faking a Moon mission, why would you fake signals that no one is expected to eavesdrop upon?

Don't be too hasty to declare this outside your field.  Yes, the technical details require expertise -- which, incidentally, are to be had neither by White nor Percy.  But in your field people need to discuss in particular what makes a reasonable standard of proof amid a sporadic (and sometimes nearly barren) landscape of evidence.  The insidious error in the snippet you've quoted is the hidden assumption that tracking would need to be continuous from a single station in order to be probative.  That suggested standard of proof is physically impossible (or absurdly impractical, let's say).  Because the Earth turns, no one Earth-based system can do it.  At best you'd have overlapping periods of, well, periodic coverage.  That limitation informs what we might consider reasonable proof.

NASA created the Manned Space Flight Network to aggregate discrete monitoring stations into the best coverage it could manage.  But still made from discrete elements.  Because others' ad hoc efforts do not fly under a single banner, the author here has examined each element in isolation.  And the examination cherry-picks simply the portions of the overall proof-by-tracking problem that aren't met by that individual.  That method sidesteps the persuasive consilience created by having different people work in different ways and operate at different times in order to test the claim broadly and unusually, if not continuously.

This approach smacks of that class of fallacies that work on the composition and division of elements, laying expectations proper to the whole at the feet of some improper part, or vice versa.  And the body of reason from which that class is drawn forms the abstract bedrock of every intellectual activity humankind pursues.  The satisfaction of debunking comes in part from knowing the details in evidence, but in larger part from seeing what error of reason or interpretation led to a belief.  That can't be learned from narrowed study, nor does such insight live in only one place in our body of wisdom.  That's why this debate, and others, attracts generalists or specialists in other area.  The appeal runs deep.

While a full rebuttal necessarily involves technical detail, a persuasive and meaningful rebuttal looks at basic questions such as, "What is this person trying to prove?  Are his expectations reasonable?  Are his methods fair?"
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline smartcooky

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2015, 03:05:35 PM »
In the case of Baysinger, he used a home-made horizontal "corner reflector" antenna like the one on the right



This type of antenna is directional, that is to say, it has to be pointed in the direction of the signals that you want to pick up, otherwise you won't hear them.

From the ARRL Article "Eavesdropping on Apollo 11" by Chris Graney
"Baysinger says that on the night of the Apollo 11 landing, he and Rutherford had to essentially aim the antenna at the Moon by getting behind it and sighting it like a gun. This was difficult since the weather was cloudy and the Moon not easily visible. The antenna, which was originally built for Baysinger’s radio astronomy work, had a motorized steering mechanism but it had to be manually guided.

Its “beam” or “field of view” was such that, once pointed at the Moon, it could be let go for a little while, but pretty soon it would have to be reaimed because the motions of the Earth and Moon caused the Moon to drift out of the antenna’s field and the signal to be lost. In fact, this was one piece of evidence that the Apollo 11 signals the receiver picked up were indeed from the Moon — if the antenna was not kept aimed at the Moon, the signal disappeared. Baysinger’s wife and daughter watched the Apollo 11 landing on TV while Baysinger and Rutherford listened via Baysinger’s equipment. The signal on the home-built equipment came through approximately 5-10 seconds earlier than the signal on TV. It was noisy, but you could hear what was going on."


From the Otter Creek-South Harrison Observatory home page...
Of course we can ask, did Baysinger really pick up signals from the moon? Is it possible that he was merely detecting spurious transmissions from a local radio or TV station that was broadcasting the moon landing?  Baysinger has asked himself these same questions. However, several lines of evidence indicate that these signals were not spurious:

· The antenna had to be aimed at the moon in order to receive the signals, and the signal was lost when the moon set.
· The audio could be heard through Baysinger's receiver a few seconds before it was heard over TV.
· The audio Baysinger recorded is different from the audio provided by NASA in that Aldrin and Armstrong are can be heard, while Collins, CAPCOM, and the PAO voice-over cannot. Were Baysinger picking up the local TV or radio station, he should have recorded the same audio that everyone heard on TV.

It is also worth noting that no quindar tones (the beep between transmisions) seem to be audible on any of the recordings. If this had been a spurious transmission from a local station, the qundar tones would have been heard.

More information as well as MP3 and WMA files of Baysinger's recordings are available here

http://legacy.jefferson.kctcs.edu/observatory/apollo11/




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 molesworth

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2015, 03:22:10 PM »
And on the Russian side, for the most part the Soviets had relied heavily on Jodrell Bank just to track their own moon-bound spacecrafts because they lacked the capability to do it themselves (this was discussed in the BBC series, The Planets).
I find this part very hard to believe.

Given the situation at the time, with the ongoing cold war, there wasn't much in the way of cooperation between the UK and the Soviet Union.  I remember they were a bit miffed when Jodrell Bank managed to get pictures from Luna 9 into the British press before the Soviet scientists even got a look at them.

"...relied heavily on Jodrell Bank..." - I don't think so.
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Offline onebigmonkey

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2015, 03:27:16 PM »
And on the Russian side, for the most part the Soviets had relied heavily on Jodrell Bank just to track their own moon-bound spacecrafts because they lacked the capability to do it themselves (this was discussed in the BBC series, The Planets).
I find this part very hard to believe.

Given the situation at the time, with the ongoing cold war, there wasn't much in the way of cooperation between the UK and the Soviet Union.  I remember they were a bit miffed when Jodrell Bank managed to get pictures from Luna 9 into the British press before the Soviet scientists even got a look at them.

"...relied heavily on Jodrell Bank..." - I don't think so.

It's true:

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/jodrell/jodrole1.htm

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/history/tracking/part1.html


Offline molesworth

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2015, 03:57:38 PM »
It's true:

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/jodrell/jodrole1.htm

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/history/tracking/part1.html

Ach!  First post and I manage to get it wrong.  Must do more research...  :-[

Oh well, better luck next time...
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Offline Mag40

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2015, 07:11:51 PM »
And on the Russian side, for the most part the Soviets had relied heavily on Jodrell Bank just to track their own moon-bound spacecrafts because they lacked the capability to do it themselves (this was discussed in the BBC series, The Planets).
I find this part very hard to believe.

Given the situation at the time, with the ongoing cold war, there wasn't much in the way of cooperation between the UK and the Soviet Union.  I remember they were a bit miffed when Jodrell Bank managed to get pictures from Luna 9 into the British press before the Soviet scientists even got a look at them.

"...relied heavily on Jodrell Bank..." - I don't think so.

It's true:

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/jodrell/jodrole1.htm

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/history/tracking/part1.html

I am not so sure about this. From what I have read, Jodrell Bank tracked Soviet craft as a means to verify their achievements, after they were given tracking frequencies for this very purpose. The Soviet Union had a massive assembly of radio telescopes that put JB to shame.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/kik.html

This video by the superb debunker Phil Webb elaborates on the subject:


Offline bknight

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #10 on: October 11, 2015, 01:34:27 AM »
Why is it necessary to track Apollo all the way to the moon to prove they went?  As many have indicated radio waves are directional and everybody that wanted to track them full time would need a network of tracking stations.  The Soviets built theirs in in the early 60's.  I believe that I watched a history of their space program and the Soviets "Used the Jodrell bank observatory as an independent source to verify their moon missions, but did not "need" them for control. Broadcasts were intercepted from a direction towards the moon.  Speaking of Jodrell they monitored A11's descent, notiting that the LM had vertical motions collaborating Armstrong's taking control and "flying over a boulder area before landing.
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Offline BazBear

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #11 on: October 11, 2015, 01:51:51 AM »
IIRC some of the Luna 9 team members were pissed because Jodrell realized the transmission from the lander was using the international Radiofax standard, after which the Daily Express newspaper rushed over the right fax receiver to download the images, which the Express then published and distributed internationally, before the Soviets were ready to release them.
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Offline JayUtah

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #12 on: October 11, 2015, 02:34:16 AM »
Why is it necessary to track Apollo all the way to the moon to prove they went?

Because we cite the continuity of a mission as evidence of its authenticity.  We ask for explanations of how a mission could be hoaxed end to end.  Inspecting the mission only at discrete points opens up the possibility that different methods were used to hoax each segment. That makes the job easier.

Quote
...but did not "need" them for control.

Indeed the Apollo program was designed with the possibility of more than one mission in operation at a time. It was assumed each mission could proceed autonomously, without explicit tracking and control from the ground.  Even with line-of-sight established, ground controllers might be concentration on other missions.  The original Apollo design was for a fleet of general-purpose spacecraft.
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Offline Dalhousie

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #13 on: October 11, 2015, 03:24:22 AM »
And on the Russian side, for the most part the Soviets had relied heavily on Jodrell Bank just to track their own moon-bound spacecrafts because they lacked the capability to do it themselves (this was discussed in the BBC series, The Planets).
I find this part very hard to believe.

Given the situation at the time, with the ongoing cold war, there wasn't much in the way of cooperation between the UK and the Soviet Union.  I remember they were a bit miffed when Jodrell Bank managed to get pictures from Luna 9 into the British press before the Soviet scientists even got a look at them.

"...relied heavily on Jodrell Bank..." - I don't think so.

It's true:

http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/jodrell/jodrole1.htm

http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/history/tracking/part1.html

I don't think it is true to say they relied on Jodrell bank.  Although on a couple of occasions they did call on it's services as the then largest steerable radio telescope in the world. As others in the era They had their own tracking network on their own territory for routine work (12 time zones) plus a fleet of tracking ships.

The issue with Luna 9 was not that Jodrell bank got the images first but that they released them first

Offline ka9q

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Re: A hoax theory...
« Reply #14 on: October 11, 2015, 05:19:48 AM »
if the antenna was not kept aimed at the Moon, the signal disappeared.
The signal also exhibited a rather esoteric behavior that would be fully expected by radio hams and others familiar with space communications: before the moon set in Kentucky, Baysinger's received signal slowly oscillated in signal strength, sometimes disappearing and sometimes becoming louder than when the moon was higher in the sky.

This was caused by the moon slowly setting through the Fresnel zones of Baysinger's antenna. It's an example of multipath in action. When the moon was low on his western horizon, his antenna wasn't directional enough to exclude the signal from Armstrong's transmitter that bounced off the earth before arriving at Baysinger's antenna. As the moon slowly set, the difference in length between the direct and reflected paths slowly changed. At times it was a multiple of a wavelength, and the two components reinforced each other; that's when the signal became stronger than it had been with the moon high in the sky. At other times the difference in path length was an odd multiple of a half wavelength so the two components arrived out of phase, cancelled each other and caused Armstrong's signal to fade out.

I don't think I'd seen this mentioned anywhere in the articles about Baysinger's recording, but I recognized it right away when I listened. Along with the other lines of evidence -- arriving before the TV, no Quindar tones, hearing both Armstrong and Aldrin but not Capcom, disappearing at moonset, the average signal strength matching my link budget -- I knew Baysinger had recorded the real thing.