Astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong in NASA's training mockup of the Moon and lander module. Conspiracy theorists say that the film of the missions was made using similar sets to this training mockup.

Jim Lovell training for Apollo 13

Photo of Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan with the Earth in the background

The Moon landing conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo program and the associated Moon landingswere hoaxes staged by NASA and members of other organizations. Hoax theories, saying Apollo astronauts had never walked on the Moon, began during the six manned landings (1969–1972). Various groups and individuals have continued to make conspiracy claims since the end of the Apollo program in 1975. Conspiracy theorists (henceforth conspiracists) consistently base their claims on the notion NASA and others knowingly misled the public into believing the landings happened by manufacturing, destroying, or tampering with evidence; including photos, telemetry tapes, transmissions, rock samples, and even some key witnesses.

Conspiracists have managed to sustain public interest in their theories for more than 40 years despite there being much third-party evidence for Apollo Moon landings and detailed rebuttals to the hoax claims.^[1] Polls taken in various locations have shown that between 6% and 20% of Americans surveyed believe that the manned landings were faked, rising to 28% in Russia. Even as late as 2001, FOX TV broadcast a documentary entitled Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? claiming NASA faked the first landing in 1969 in order to win the Space Race.^[2]

Since the late 2000s, numerous high-definition photos taken by the LROC spacecraft of the Apollo landing sites have captured the lander modules and the tracks left by the astronauts.^[3][4] In 2012, images were released showing the Apollo flags still standing on the lunar surface.^[5]

[edit]Origins

The first book about 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 ended. 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, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke and directed by Stanley Kubrick.^[6] 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 happened during the post-Watergate era, when American citizens 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".^[7] 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

There are subcultures worldwide which advocate the belief that the Moon landings were faked. By 1977 the Hare Krishna magazine Back to Godhead called the landings a hoax. The reason they gave is that the Sun is 93,000,000 miles away and according to Vedas the Moon is 800,000 miles farther away than that, making the Moon nearly 94,000,000 miles away. To travel that distance in 91 hours would require a speed of more than a million miles per hour, "a patently impossible feat even by the scientists' calculations."^[8]

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.^[9][10] A poll conducted in the 1970s by the U.S. Information Agency in several countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa found that most respondents were unaware of the Moon landings, many of the others dismissed them as propaganda or science fiction, and many thought that it had been the Russians that landed on the Moon.^[11]

A 1999 Gallup poll found that 6% of the Americans surveyed doubted that the Moon landings happened and that 5% of those surveyed had no opinion,^{[12][13][14][15]} which roughly matches the findings of a similar 1995 Time/CNN poll.^[12] Officials of Fox television stated that such skepticism increased to about 20% after the February 2001 airing of that network's TV show Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? seen by approximately 15 million viewers.^[13] This 2001 Fox special is viewed as having promoted the hoax claims.^[16][17]

A 2000 poll held by the Russian Public Opinion Fund found that 28% of those surveyed did not believe that American astronauts landed on the Moon, and this percentage is roughly equal in all social-demographic groups.^[18] In 2009, a poll held by the United Kingdom's Engineering & Technology magazine found that 25% of those surveyed did not believe that men landed on the Moon.^[19] Another poll gives that 25% of 18–25-year-olds surveyed were unsure that the landings happened.^[20]

[edit]Motives More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories

FAKED MOON LANDINGS ?

Last Updated 1-26-99

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My conspiracy theory for this report is that we never went to the moon. The whole dang thing was faked. When I had first heard of this idea, I though to my self that it was a load of rubbish. "Of course we went to the moon" Kept going through my mind.

I had first heard of this Idea from a local Radio Talk Show, Ground Zero, which plays every Sunday night on KBER 101.1 
They had brought up some interesting points, but I was not quite sure that I believed them, so I have taken this opportunity to study this Idea further. I am now convinced that we never landed on the moon, and it is my hope, that I can make you question it yourself. One thing that I would like to call to attention, is that I am not an expert on anything that is written in this report. I don't know much about camera's, or non-atmospheric conditions, or physics or anything. I am just a senior in high school, and about the only thing that I know professionally is how to run movie projectors. I challenge all that read this page to find something wrong with it, and tell me about it, so I can more accurately disprove one of the most historical events of the century..... The Landing on the Moon.

Lets Start off with the pictures

Lets face it, there isn't really a heapload of evidence that we didn't go to the moon. Why would there be? NASA doesn't WANT evidence that we went to the moon. NASA wants people not to ask questions, and keep living their happy little lives. But here is some evidence that you cannot argue with. My theory is that the moon landing were set on a sound stage, not in space. (Perhaps an Air Force base near San Bernardino, called Norton Air Force Base, where they have the world's largest sound stages under tremendously efficient security).

More info Here http://batesmotel.8m.com/

                                                                                        

Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked

AUGUST 31, 2009 | ISSUE 45•36

A 1969 photo showing Armstrong, or anyone, really, standing on the surface of the "moon."

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LEBANON, OHIO—Apollo 11 mission commander and famed astronaut Neil Armstrong shocked reporters at a press conference Monday, announcing he had been convinced that his historic first step on the moon was part of an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the United States government.

According to Armstrong, he was forced to reconsider every single detail of the monumental journey after watching a few persuasive YouTube videos, and reading several blog posts on conspiracy theorist Ralph Coleman's website, OmissionControl.org.

"It only took a few hastily written paragraphs published by this passionate denier of mankind's so-called 'greatest technological achievement' for me to realize I had been living a lie, " said a visibly emotional Armstrong, addressing reporters at his home. "It has become painfully clear to me that on July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module under the control of my crew did not in fact travel 250,000 miles over eight days, touch down on the moon, and perform various experiments, ushering in a new era for humanity. Instead, the entire thing was filmed on a soundstage, most likely in New Mexico."

"This is the only logical interpretation of the numerous inconsistencies in the grainy, 40-year-old footage," Armstrong added. more More info here http://www.theonion.com/articles/conspiracy-theorist-convinces-neil...