back to article Apollo 17 Moon landing: Shock revelations

The recent release of Apollo landing sites snaps, captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), was a serious kick in the 'nads for the black helicopter brigade and their tiresome insistence that the good old US of A faked the Moon landings. American astronauts did indeed walk on the lunar surface, and that would seem …

COMMENTS

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  1. Armando 123
    Thumb Up

    This is fake as well

    Need proof?

    1) No member of the trilateral commission is there

    2) Al Gore created moon landings

    3) No evidence of Jackie Gleason, who was there first as seen in the documentary The Honeymooners.

    [All seriousness aside, well done]

    1. zen1
      Pint

      re: Armando

      Wait a sec... you had me sold on items 1 and 3, however, I have it on good authority Al Gore invented the moon, as well as the Saturn V, as well as most of the analog circuitry used in the LEM and Command Module.

      Lest we forget, Al Gore is to inventiveness as Chuck Norris is to. um.. being Chuck Norris.

      Lester: You are now my hero!

    2. BillG
      Thumb Up

      What is fake?

      You got one wrong:

      2) Al Gore faked the moon landings.

      1. alwarming
        Paris Hilton

        > 2) Al Gore faked the moon landings.

        Minor correction: That would be Tipper Gore.

  2. proto-robbie
    Pint

    Bravo!

    So many mysteries cracked in one short article. More beer for you.

  3. Natural7
    Happy

    Am i missing something?

    Surely nasa faked the photos in the first place, you'll never silence the conspiracy theories!

    (merely provide proof that mutates them...)

    1. Graham Marsden
      Coat

      Ah, but don't forget...

      ... there's the new documentary Apollo 18 which has just been released which blows all the old conspiracy theories away and substitutes entirely new ones!

      Of course they had to pretend it was all just a movie to get it past the censors, but now we know the truth!!!!!

      (Oh and tell the gentlemen in the white coats that mine's the one with the long canvas sleeves and the tinfoil hat in the pocket...)

  4. Paul Renault

    From the flawless outline of that B-52...

    ..I'd say it was Star-Trek Transported there.

    I'd recommend some the the World Weekly News photoshoppers. They're probably looking for work.

    1. Ian Michael Gumby
      WTF?

      What no skid marks?

      Even that faked lunar lander at least had blast marks when the supposedly top separated carrying away the astronauts ...

      Oh wait, that one was real. :-P

      1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

        Re:

        Anti-grav vertical landing capability, evidently.

        1. Trygve Henriksen
          FAIL

          Anti-grav wasn't working back then...

          They only had some 'controlled inertia' systems, and they didn't work as well for the larger planes; losing engines or wings as the part in question still had full inertia while the fuselage didn't and the pilot took a slightly too sharp turn...

          Worked well in the Spitfire, though.

          A fully-functioning anti-grav system for larger planes wasn't put into production until the advent of the B2 Stealth bomber.

  5. /dev/me
    Pint

    undated photograph

    Forensic analyses of your 'undated photograph' shows it's hidden timestamp set to the exact time my system clock was on when I downloaded it. Coincidence? I doubt it! Clearly, this is not a still photograph but an embedded live feed from the lunar surface.

    I'll quickly write a GUI interface in Visualbasic for a bi-directional transceiver and upload it to the Internet. Then you can open a two-way comms channel and interview the king before he leaves the building again.

  6. Dave Murray
    Happy

    YAY!

    Me luvs moon pictures.

    Good one Lester.

  7. Danington the Third
    Trollface

    It's not April, so....

    IT MUST BE TROOOOOO!

  8. All names Taken
    Facepalm

    I saw Elvis.

    I saw John.

    But no Jimi or Janis?

  9. Arctic fox
    WTF?

    Oh Reg please, for God's sake you do realise that some people will........

    ........take this seriously?

    1. Rodrigo Valenzuela
      Pint

      Excellent!

      If a lot of people take this seriously, then all of us, Lester included, will have more people to make fun of.

      Beer icon, because is friday night and I really need one

      R

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have no doubt at all that astronauts walked on the moon

    As a photographer myself, what is more dubious is the astonishing clarity of the photographic evidence - perfectly framed shots, all in focus - and all taken from chest mounted, manually focussed cameras, by blokes in space suits who couldn't see the viewfinder, in extreme conditions of heat and cold and dust. And with astonishing depth of focus - foreground, background all crisply in focus.

    Let's get real here - a lot of these images are not genuine. Try it yourself - go outside with a DSLR, hold and fire it at chest level, manually focus and see how many perfectly composed 'keepers' you get.

    Setting aside the various debates about shadows and lighting etc, there is very clear evidence of a lot (not all, but a lot) of these pictures having been taken in some kind of giant studio, with a 'set' and the backdrop of the mountains projected. There's frequently a clear line showing where the set ends and the backdrop starts. Look at any of the 'good' moon photos with the astronauts featured and see it for yourself....

    1. Graham Dawson Silver badge
      Facepalm

      oh. my. god.

      Seriously?

      pop quiz. how many photogr0hs were released for publicity puposes? how many were actually taken? IF you are a real photographer and not just an idiot with a camera you will know that they will have taken hundreds and used perhaps a dozen that turned out well enough. the "perfection" issue is only an issue to those ignorant about photography. I'm not even going to dignify the rest with a response.

      photographer. right.

    2. Yet Another Commentard

      Re: I have no doubt at all that astronauts walked on the moon

      Had you considered the possibility that not every photograph was published? Just a thought.

      Also, didn't Mr Crabbe also double as Flash Gordon?

    3. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      WTF?

      @I have no doubt at all that astronauts walked on the moon

      Honestly, you must be piss-poor with a camera!

      Firstly they had adapted Hasselbald medium format cameras, and they were capable of astonishing quality.

      Secondly I remember as a 12 year old getting a Christmas present of a FED-IV camera (a Russian copy of the Leica) and with low ASA B&W film developed at home I got amazing resolution out of a all-manual range-finder camera. Really, it was not until I got a D300s over 3 decades later that I felt a digital camera was worthy of replacing my moist process photos (and a lot of that reason is due to convenience).

    4. TeeCee Gold badge
      FAIL

      "chest mounted, manually focussed cameras"

      Less chest mounted, more held there being the typical Hasselblad medium frame type. Oddly enough, chosen as it's damned sight *easier* to compose with when in a spacesuit than yer more typical viewfinder.

      Strong sunlight (much stronger than anyhing you'll see down here) = high shutter speeds *and* large depth-of-field (enough to make manual focussing pretty much a non-issue) at the same time, especially when combined the larger lens and film frame size of the camera format which already capture more light than yer "bog" 35mm SLR. Thus it's waay more forgiving in use.

      The things were built specifically for the extreme environment on a money no object basis, so it's not surprising they worked in same.

      Of course, if you really were a photographer you'd know most of that. Were you faked by NASA?

    5. Poor Coco
      Facepalm

      An example of photographic ignorance on parade...

      ...since you claim to be simultaneously surprised by (a) things being in focus and (b) large depth of field. If you set up the camera for (b) then does (a) not happen pretty much automatically?

      For example, I took a film photo of a seagull flying at me in perfect focus less than 10 feet away, with DOF to infinity, 1/1000 sec exposure. How on Earth did I set that up as the seagull flew straight at me? I didn't; I set it up before and hey presto! the seagull flew past and an amazing photo resulted.

    6. Gordon 10

      Muppet

      You might also want to consider that the lack of atmosphere will only help the sharpness and focus.

      1. Goat Jam
        WTF?

        Really?

        Focus is improved due to lack of atmosphere? Are you sure?

    7. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      I've said it before

      But obviously someone who has just piloted a spacecraft across 300000 km of space and put it down safely at the designated landing site wouldn't have the technical ability to take an in-focus and properly-framed photograph.

    8. SoftFox
      FAIL

      Re: I have no doubt at all that astronauts walked on the moon

      Well gaging by the replies to your post it looks like back to photography school for you as seem to know a lot less on how your camera functions than you claim.

      Which about sums up all conspiracy theorists..a little knowledge is a dangerous thing...

      The fact we went to the moon is Indisputable, for on reason only. It was tracked all the way there and back by the Americans, British, Aussies, Russians and in fact anybody with a decent knowledge and access to relevant radio equipment.

      Unless you are suggesting we were all in on it as well...

  11. Dazed and Confused
    Coffee/keyboard

    New keyboard please

    Damn it I think you owe me a whole new laptop.

    We all knew these "new photos" from NASA were a fake. Photoshop is cheaper (but only slightly) than even low cost moon shots.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Slow news day?

    1. DanceMan
      IT Angle

      Oh right, it's Friday

      Comment is mandatory and must contain.................................

  13. Greg Williams
    Thumb Up

    And this is why I love the Reg...

    Pure class.

  14. Z 1
    Pint

    Brilliant. SImply brilliant!

    Have one on me!

  15. DJV Silver badge
    Happy

    Yay!

    It's Friday and we have Playmobile! What more can a commentard ask for! (well, ok, maybe some more BOFH, please)

  16. charlie-charlie-tango-alpha

    That photo reminds me of the classic Sunday Sport article of a few years back. When they first printed the picture (of a Lancaster iirc), it bore the headline "WWII Bomber found on moon." A week or so later, they published the same picture without the aircraft under the even better headline "WWII Bomber on moon disappears."

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lester, you're a genius.

  18. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
    Pint

    No BofH? No problem!

    "Yet another BOfH-less Friday morning?" I asked to myself today while taking the second coffee cup of the day... the soul crushing thought was almost unbearable.

    But then, a title in my RSS feed drew my attention, like a hobo to cheap beer...

    And just like that, 1800 x 635 pixels of pure win changed my mood, and kept me (relatively) sane till pub o'clock.

    True story

  19. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Alien

    It's right here on the Reg. therefore it MUST be true!

  20. Velv
    FAIL

    FAIL

    If I'd been driving on the moon, I'd have been writing my name !

  21. Solomon Grundy
    Joke

    Shopped!

    All of those images are obviously Photoshopped.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

      1. hplasm
        Joke

        Amazoned!

        No one uses 'shops' anymore!

  22. Blake St. Claire

    ...during a rendezvous in an underground car park in Basingstoke

    Let me guess, that's just wrong on so many levels.

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. SkippyBing

      You're new here aren't you stranger?

    2. hplasm
      Thumb Down

      PHB Alert!

      How did he get in here?

    3. Bill B
      Pint

      Dear andy

      You are obviously new here so first of all let me welcome you to the Reg, and secondly bring you up to speed.

      Friday is bootnotes day. Friday Bootnotes are not necessarily technical. They may involve BOFH, LOHAN, Playmobil or (oh be still my beating heart) all three.

      This is expected. If it doesn't happen then dozens, nay hundreds of beer starved/stuffed commentards will descend on elReg and demand what is theirs by rights.

      Clear now?

      1. BorkedAgain

        Uh, Bill?

        You forgot Verity. How could you?

        1. Bill B

          all four? everything in moderation, dear man, everything in moderation

        2. Colin Miller

          >snap!< >thud!< >splat!<

          As the BOFH drops a safe down a liftshaft onto you, for forgetting about him.

  24. Sir Runcible Spoon

    Sir

    "being entertained by none other The King himself."

    FAKE!!! His shadow is dancing in the wrong direction!

    Smashing stuff, I couldn't wait to get to the end of the article so I could post :D

  25. jai
    Coffee/keyboard

    bravo!!

    i always knew there was more than they were telling us

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    N'ah has to be fake

    For one the shadows don't match ;)

    And secondly, no sign that Wallace and Gromit got there first.

    1. Camilla Smythe

      Did you miss the reference to Pizza?

      What's with this crap new system? Post is in the title. FFS

  27. Monkey Bob
    Meh

    Obviously fake, the picture is in colour.

  28. Paul RND*1000
    Pint

    I'll have two of whatever it is Lester had for lunch today :)

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Lunchtime refreshment

      I'd strongly advise you against it. The doctor's here and he says it's 50/50 if I'll ever walk again.

  29. CmdrX3
    Alien

    Say it isn't so!!!

    Are chew fucking witch me. I'm sorry I don't buy it... there's something decidedly conspiratorial about those space explorers.

  30. Graham Wilson
    Boffin

    My new career move.

    Wow, revised laws of physics eh?

    Bernoulli, Newton, Einstein and mates--just piss off. Always said yous bastards got it wrong.

    Me?

    Well I'm happily and gainfully employed in my new career of revising and editing physics-101 textbooks.

  31. IceMage
    Trollface

    The trolcopter has landed!

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Typical

    "Ridicule is the first and last resort of fools"

    Yum kool aidz!!! - http://postimage.org/image/1ahk3ncqs/

  33. Pete 43
    Go

    Those are tyre tracks from a London Bus

    There said it

  34. nyelvmark
    Thumb Up

    +1, Lester.

  35. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Just had to run out of the pub...

    ..For pissing myself laughing, as the loo was in use. Thank God there was a nearby bush.

    Thanks, Lester, Friday's are never the same since I found El Reg!

  36. magnetik

    Scientology coverup

    Xenu first tried to use rocket ships disguised as B52's but after one crash landed on the moon he decided to go with a DC8 shaped model instead.

  37. Trainee grumpy old ****
    Boffin

    The capitalists have got to you comrade!

    "Russian equivalent - three-cent disposable paper cups readily available from Wal-Mart."

    Surely that's a 3 Kopec paper cup from GUM - and it's Soviet!

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: The capitalists have got to you comrade!

      No, the damn Russkies didn't have the same level of cheap paper cup capability. They bought 'em in Wal-Mart and smuggled them out in the diplomatic bag via Cuba.

      1. zen1

        Yanno Lester...

        I have to hand it to the russians and their inginuity... I remember reading where NASA spent millions on developing a pen that would write in 0 G... The russians used a pencil.

        1. jake Silver badge

          @zen1

          Will the "Space Pen cost NASA millions" myth never die?

          http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

          I remember growling at techs using lead pencils to toggle DIP switches. I can't begin to describe how much trouble that caused back in the day ...

  38. Captain DaFt

    My weekend is now officially off to a great start, thanks!

    Just one question; where was Bigfoot?

  39. Wookie
    Black Helicopters

    Whalers on the moon?

    A distinct lack of whalers on the moon, carrying a harpoon, singing a merry tune etc.

  40. Cowardly Animosity
    Childcatcher

    Good luck to anyone wanting to build anything near Frinton, being a mere Emperor of the Ocean won't be enough to persuade that mob within the Gates!

  41. BlackFlag
    FAIL

    very clever

    Keep believing your single-bullet theories, and keep believing that buildings fall straight down without explosives, and keep believing the government wouldn't lie to you.

    Most likely the limey stooge who wrote this has been the recipient of a few nickles and dimes out of the billions the pentagon has been spending on propaganda. I guess that sounds like a conspiracy theory too? Go google "pentagon money propaganda" No, you won't, because 5 seconds of typing and 2 minutes of reading is too much work for the flat-worlders.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      It must be bad trolling.

      Then again, this IS the Internet.

  42. Craig 28

    Re:Just had to run out of the pub...

    I'm sure our American brethren understand, though they're more used to being pissed on by a Bush... Sorry had to get that in there.

    I loved this article and I can't even see the pictures, pure classic. (Yes I have a visual impairment, want to make something of it?)

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    irrefutable proof called for

    Next time someone manages to land on the Moon, they need to carve out, in large letters, the words "I was here!" and sign it. It needs to be big enough that anyone on Earth with a sizeable telescope can see it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No, don't carve out 'I was here', but ..

      Klaatu barada nikto

      better still, the next astro/cosmo/Taikonauts that do eventually drop back there for a visit should find a good open stretch of flat lunar surface and do a crop circle.

      wait for conspiracy theories when one of the lunar probes photographs that.

  44. jake Silver badge

    Ah, Friday :-)

    I'd head for the cellar to sample my latest IPA (kegged 60,000 gallons of it 4 weeks ago; it should be ready to go), but Crush waits for no man ...

    1. jake Silver badge

      Typoes R us ...

      I hate replying to myself, but rather than withdrawing a post that tens of thousands[1] have undoubtedly already read, I'll correct it this way instead ... Make that 6,000 gallons.

      375x15.5 gallon "half barrels", the rest is in 12 and 22 ounce bottles (just under 155 cases; I had some loss due to my inexperience with the new system) ... It's the first "industrial sized" batch out of my fledgling micro-brewery.

      No, it's not new. I got it from an established micro brewer here in Northern California for the price of "if you can move it out of here within the next three weeks, you can have it" ... They were making space to expand their bottling line.

      [1] OK, maybe two people ... The moderator, and me ;-)

  45. Christoph
    Boffin

    That can't possibly be genuine

    All genuine conspiracy theories must by law have at least one reference to the Knights Templar.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not just pizza

    In fact, there was a whole American fast-food conspiracy going on back then. That's what really paid for the R&D to get to the moon. Notice how the rockets stopped going to the moon once McDonalds, Sub-Way, Pizza Hut and KFC started spreading out on every Earth street corner instead.

    This is the original image, before the Silence shaped human technology to develop Photoshop and doctor it:

    http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/1079/bucketp.jpg

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ahhhhh, Thank F**K it's Friday!

  48. Dave Barnhart

    You missed it

    It is true that Apollo 17 was on a secret mission and found something undisclosed to the public. It was the Nazi's secret moon base.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Holmes

      A known fact!

      This is why Gus Grissom was blackmailed into sinking his Mercury Capsule, the "Unsinkable Eva Braun", taking the proof of the things he found to the ocean bottom.

  49. Robert Jenkins
    Alien

    Already documented

    Come on guys, get serious - this is the Cheese-powered, spacegoing airliner told of by Harry Harrison in his book 'Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers' back in 1973!

  50. TSpoonEars
    Coat

    Who was the photographer?

    Glenn Miller?

  51. lostsheep
    Thumb Up

    so who was first on the moon?

    Brilliant article, however, it seems to deepen the mystery. Who was first on the Moon? Was it Neil and co? Were all the others caught in a time warp, or was the pizza factory there first?

    Pizza with green cheese topping, must get me some of that.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/thumb_up_32.png

  52. C Phillips

    Lunar Conspiracy?

    Whether this pic is a conspiracy or not I don't know. What surprised me when I went to the Nasa site to see it first hand was the hole where the Upper Lem engine bell sat appears to be round. I have seen a lunar module lower housing first hand from below with the upper engine bell missing and I can tell you, the hole is square,( and it is square in all of the engineering diagrams I have seen), and larger than the hole in the picture appears to be. Also parts of the picture appear to have the upper Lem portion there and the hole appears to be the size of the hole where the upper Lem joins the CM. This would not be possible since the astronaults flew that part back from the lunar surface. Is it an optical illusion? Could be. The pics are still so bad who can really tell. I never believed the lunar conspiracy theories but I know the lower Lem portion has a square hole, not round, where the upper Lem engine bell sat down inside the lower portion, and should appear larger.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'll just leave this here...

      http://www.stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm

  53. Francis Boyle Silver badge

    Obviously fake

    Where's Harold Holt?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One Question Left.

    I consider myself an armchair expert in so-called "conspiracy theories" and other such social folk-lore. Sometimes, I find the evidence interesting or compelling, other times it's clearly complete nonsense. Either way, I like to believe I investigate with an open mind and rationalism.

    My personal theory on the moon-landings is that we did indeed go there (after all, one of the measurements of time that we use internationally now involves bouncing a laser off a mirror that was left there by the Apollo missions!), but that several photos/videos were created "artificially"afterwards or dring the mission for propaganda purposes; bear in mind why the missions were so important at the time!

    These pictures just about put all of the "we never went at all" theories to bed once and for all, I think...

    Except for one remaining question, which perhaps someone here can finally resolve for me.

    Take some measurements of astronaut next to lunar lander. Measure the height and width of the backpack they wear. Compare to dimensions of lander hatch.

    How did they get in and out?

    1. Tim Jenkins

      How did they get in and out?

      Um; very, very carefully?

      "Armstrong initially had some difficulties squeezing through the hatch with his Portable Life Support System (PLSS). According to veteran moon-walker John Young, a redesign of the LM to incorporate a smaller hatch had not been followed by a redesign of the PLSS backpack, so some of the highest heart rates recorded from Apollo astronauts occurred during LM egress and ingress."

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11#Lunar_surface_operations

      There's more than you ever wanted to know about PLSS and LM hatch dimensions here:

      http://www.xmission.com/~jwindley/lmdoors.html

      Anyway, as any fule kno, the main problem with countering the Moon Landing Conspiracy theories is that by now the Clangers will have turned everything left behind into useful houeshold items, thus rendering verification impossible...

  55. Melanie Winiger
    Thumb Up

    Conspiracy or cock-up?

    I enjoy the X-Files. Really I do.

    But the US can't keep a break-in at the White House secret, they can't keep an intern visiting the President for a drink of milk (ahem!) secret.

    It's extremely unlikely then that multiple trips to the moon could be kept secret.

    And who left those mirrors there on the surface that can be viewed from earth - if you have a big enough telescope?

    Was that the Pixies or was it David Icke?

    I think we should be told.

  56. Olafthemighty
    Happy

    I do love you guys.

    Sooo much.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Don't see Jimmy Hoffa in that photo.

    Not sure it's authentic without him there.

  58. mattclarke1974

    Already been done.

    Sunday Sport, April 24, 1988.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/62440303@N04/5683785190/

  59. Sokolik

    What a mendacious outrage!

    Shame on you, El Reg, for wasting our time with what is a patently-obvious hoax. Were this authentic, we would see, in addition to Marcus Crassus' legions, the hapless 9th Legion. Your purported, obviously-manipulated, "photo" begs the question: where the deuce is Channing Tatum?

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