Another Hoax site (discusses PaxTV show)

[Tomblvd]

Since I've been away for a while, I may have missed the discussion of this website. It mentions the PaxTV show that Phil was on, so it might have some new stuff.



The comment that got me was:



" Sibrel noted that NASA only kept 20 photos of the entire Apollo 11 lunar mission, yet PAX failed to point out that 100,000s of photos were admittedly taken by NASA in previous robotic lunar missions, both orbitals and landings"



Am I missing something? Or has our buddy Bart finally snapped?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tomblvd on 2002-03-24 08:37 ]</font>

[SpacedOut]

Another person that seems to be more Anit-Government than HB. (ie. Flight 77 didn't crash into the Pentagon but rather it was really destroyed by hte government to kill former US Solicitor-General Theodore "Ted" Olson's wife!)

Since he's asking for donations its no wonder he uses this quote on his site:

"There's one born every minute."
—P.T. Barnum, Barnum & Baily Circus

I'm sure he hopes its true!

(edited to fix Ted Olson's name and title)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SpacedOut on 2002-03-24 09:11 ]</font>

[Tomblvd]

I also noticed that he accuses the BA of being a former employee and shill of NASA.



The guy is really a fruitcake.

[The Bad Astronomer]

Heh. He writes a lot of stuff. Too bad so little of it is true. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

He doesn't understand (as a lot of people don't) that I was not a NASA employee. I was a contractor, which means I worked for an independent company that had NASA grants. The difference is substantial. NASA employees are civil servants; government employees. I have never been a gov't employee.

Even now I am not a civil servant. I am employed by a University. Again, we have NASA grants, but that does not make me either an employee of NASA or its shill.

[Donnie B.]

Hey, don't knock it... I wouldn't mind being a NASA shill...

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

[JayUtah]

I just wish the conspiracy theorists would make up their mind. Out of one side of the mouth they complain that NASA doesn't take their arguments seriously. And out of the other side they claim anything remotely attached to NASA can't be trusted. Either they want NASA to respond, or they don't.

[David Hall]

Actually, it's very easy.

They want NASA to respond, so that they can then claim that NASA is spinning falsehoods again.

Or, they don't want NASA to respond, so that they can then claim that NASA is hiding something.

Either way, the HB's can claim victory.

[jrkeller]

As a current NASA contract employee, I agree with Phil, I can tell you that there is a HUGH difference between being a civil servant and being a contract worker.

One noticeable difference is that when there are funding cuts, like right now, contractors take most of the hits, while the civil servants stay around. Also if you're not liked as a contractor, is good bye. That doesn't happen with the civil servants.

[jrkeller]

If

" Sibrel noted that NASA only kept 20 photos of the entire Apollo 11 lunar mission, yet PAX failed to point out that 100,000s of photos were admittedly taken by NASA in previous robotic lunar missions, both orbitals and landings"

He should read this article.

http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/...ed_000929.html

It clearly states that NASA has the photographs of all the missions in storage at the Johnson Space Center.

[ToSeek]

Heck the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal has more than 20 Apollo 11 photographs. Looks to me like at least a couple of hundred.

_________________
"... to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson, Ulysses

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ToSeek on 2002-03-26 09:28 ]</font>

[jrkeller]

My point here was to show that someone actually when to NASA, got to look and hold the actual photos. In other words, the photos do exist.

I guess the real question would be, how does Sibrel know that the photos have been destroyed? In general, what I've noticed is that these hoaxers have some inside information that know one else has. Of course when they are pressed, they say "My source is confidential"

[JayUtah]

... and if the secrecy behind the moon landing hoax has been historically guarded by murder and threat of murder, why haven't we found Bart Sibrel dead in a ditch somewhere? Everyone associated with Apollo who has died is universally claimed to have been murdered to keep the conspiracy secret.

[ToSeek]

On 2002-03-27 09:31, JayUtah wrote:
... and if the secrecy behind the moon landing hoax has been historically guarded by murder and threat of murder, why haven't we found Bart Sibrel dead in a ditch somewhere? Everyone associated with Apollo who has died is universally claimed to have been murdered to keep the conspiracy secret.

I've got it worked out: it's because Sibrel is such a bozo. He's actually left alive because he does more harm than good for the HB cause. In fact, isn't it interesting that all of the notable HBers make such stupid arguments over and over again? Obviously it's because all of the intelligent HBers have been MURDERED BY THE CIA. Conclusive proof of a government plot, in my opinion.

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[Andrew]

[quote]
On 2002-03-27 09:40, ToSeek wrote:

intelligent HBers

Isn't that an oxymoron?

[The Bad Astronomer]

[quote]
On 2002-03-27 09:53, Andrew wrote:

On 2002-03-27 09:40, ToSeek wrote:

intelligent HBers

Isn't that an oxymoron?

For the record, no. I know of many intelligent people who were swayed by the Fox program. You need not be stupid to be influenced by slickly packaged arguments. Bear in mind that if you don't think too much about it, much of the HB arguments have a veneer of believability. It's only when you really think about them that they show themselves for what they are: wrong.

[JayUtah]

I have to agree with the Bad Astronomer on this one. My site is aimed precisely at reasonable people who are simply taken in by the pseudoscience of the hoax believers.

Most people simply don't watch television critically, and we are accustomed to think that anyone who writes a book or produces a television program must necessarily be some kind of expert on the subject matter. Not so in this case.

There are lots of intelligent people out there who have never seen heiligenschein, or who never paid attention to it when they saw it or wondered what caused it. There are plenty of intelligent people who never paused to consider the difference between weight and mass, or who never had to manually set the exposure on their cameras. There are droves of people who don't know if 10,000 pounds of thrust is a lot or a little in the grand scheme of things.

Even if these people don't buy into the hoax theory simply because of the absurdity of its conclusion, they may have lingering questions about what they saw. Even if they reject Sibrel's ravings, they may wonder if something else might be amiss after all.

The hoax believers employ a propaganda technique as old as Aristotle. By eroding faith in the listener's comfortable view of the universe, throwing him off guard, and making doubting things he once believed in, the hoax believer prepares the listener to absorb whatever tripe he proposes, secure in the notion that the listener can't or won't do much to question it.

And then of course the second oldest trick is employed: making the listener believe that any refutation he might hear is the "real" propaganda.

[Ian R]

I guess that I'm a good example of an individual who was mislead by the television rantings of a Hoax-Believer.

Back in '97 I happened to watch a programme broadcast over here in the UK called "For The Love Of... Lunar Conspiracy." This was an hour long debate on the subject of whether the Moon landings really happened or not. The thing is that it WASN'T a debate, merely 4 HBs and a couple of Fence-sitter discussing the same old "evidence." Marcus Allen, David Percy and Mary Benett all featured.

The point that I am trying to make is that I was really taken in by their theories (and I refuse to belive that I'm gullible). What they were saying about VAB radiation was awfully plausible (at the time) and seemed to make common sense. The apparently over-lit Apollo 11 egress photographs were also touted as being highly suspicious.

Anyway, who was I to disagree with David Percy? After all, he is an EXPERT IN PHOTOGRAPHY..... isn't he?

Of course, when I connected to the Internet a few years later, I had a chance to examine the Apollo photographs in greater detail and also did some reading-up on photography. I realised that the programme that left me dumbfounded was so poorly balanced, and a real disgrace.

The moral of this story is - you'll never change the hardcore HBs, but there are plenty of intelligent and well-informed people out there who could be misled by these individuals. They need to be educate on this subject by websites like this one.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ian R on 2002-03-27 18:42 ]</font>

[Andrew]

I didn't mean to invoke a serious response by my comment.
But are you talking about being turned into true believers that the moon landings were hoaxed just from watching those prgrammes? Or are you talking about such programmes casting doubt in the minds of intelligent people who watched them? That's reasonable.
I'm sure most intelligent people who had doubts after watching the programme went and did some research of their own, particurlarly if they were connected to the internet.
I think there's quite a difference between the programmes causing some doubt in the minds of people, and people putting their faith in the programmes' conclusions.

[Ian R]

Good point. "For The Love Of..." cast doubt into my mind, but certainly didn't make me a true believer.