The moon landing hoax, or the idea that NASA and the American government somehow faked the Moon landing, is one of the most pervasive conspiracy theories ever coined. Which is kind of stupid when you think about it because virtually all of the theories people like to spout can be debunked by doing nothing more than looking at the original photos NASA released to the public 50 fucking years ago.
We should point out right away that we in no way endorse any theory that suggests man didn’t land on the Moon back in 1969 because the amount of evidence to the contrary is so staggeringly overwhelming you could throw it at a prison wall and pardon three people inside. It’s for this reason that we’re not going to link to any website detailing these theories, because they can go fuck a duck. Not to mention that one time Buzz Aldrin punched that one guy right in his stupid face for questioning the legitimacy of the Moon landings in front of him, a man doesn’t get that angry unless he legit walked on the face of the frickin’ Moon and is sick of people asking him about it.
Now we’ve got that out of the way and found a way to shoehorn in that glorious GIF, we want to talk about the supposed evidence that theorists like to point to as “proof” we didn’t land on the Moon, before you wonder, no, this article will not be getting any less sarcastic ever until these people get the message.
One of the more famous examples is the so-called “C-Rock”, a rock which theorists allege is proof the whole thing was staged because it kind of looks like the letter C is drawn on it. The theorists like to argue that this isn’t dissimilar to how movie studios like to arrange props, therefore, the rock is a prop some ass-hat put down the wrong way.
As damning as that “evidence” is, experts have repeatedly pointed out that the “C” theorists claim as ultimate proof of how right they are, doesn’t appear in the original print, which we actually used as the header image for this piece. If you’re having trouble making out the rock, here it is again with it circled.
By all means feel free to click that image to zoom right the hell in for yourself to check, but we’ll save you the trouble and just show you the same rock, from the original photo.
So where did that C come from? Well nobody really knows, the best guess is that it was just a stray hair that made it onto the film when copies were being made that no one ever bothered to remove because who’d really notice it, right?
Another image theorists like to point to is this one of Buzz Aldrin being an utter badass, which they say is unrealistically lit, to the point it looks like there’s a giant-ass spotlight just off camera.
In this case the conspiracy theorist got one right, the image above isn’t lit realistically, because the contrast has been turned way up to make it look better. This is what the original image looked like before the news got hold of it and made their improvements.
However, perhaps the most damning evidence of all, the 11th hour trump card theorists like to bring up to put people in their place is the fact that the American flag that partied on the Moon appeared to “wave” in a non-existent breeze.
Looking past the fact that the people behind a literal billion dollar hoax would overlook something so trivial, the actual explanation is that the flag was just “crinkly as shit” because it had been vacuum sealed for 80 hours. Which we can prove because the astronauts just so happened to have taken two photos from the exact same place a few seconds apart. If you put these images side by side, you can clearly see that although Aldrin’s hand clearly moves as he goes to salute, the flag itself doesn’t.
Just so we’re all clear, 3 of the most “compelling” pieces of evidence that man didn’t really land on the Moon can literally be debunked by looking at the original images NASA released into the public domain 50 fucking years ago. Wait, shouldn’t that have been like the first things the conspiracy theorists did? It seems like that should have really been their first port of call.
Image credits, the badasses at NASA.
