Fetzer/Burton Moon Landing Debate Finale

[Peter Dawson]

Excuse me for suggesting that at times Jim's academic talk
needs an interpreter. Let me try:

Jim's logic is impeccable. It may be too difficult for some to understand,
BUT WHETHER THE FILM IS REAL OR FAKE IS NOT IMPORTANT under
Jim's analysis. If it is real it proves Apollo fakery. If it is fake it proves Apollo
fakery. Am I right, Jim?

Sometimes Jim's theses are too academic. He sometimes needs his thoughts
translated into SIMPLE TALK for ordinary people like some of us. (see above)

So either way, in simple talk, Jim's argument is correct.

Jack

The footage is an acknowledged spoof, so it has very little to do with the actual Apollo program, and can say nothing conclusive about whether the moon landings were faked or not.

[James H. Fetzer]

Well, your (h4) is my (h3). I don't see how you could possibly miss that.
Of course you are not only denying that (h2) is the case but also denying
that the missing tracks in moon rover photos, the shadows cast yielding
a close-at-hand source, the use of front-screen projection, the reflections
off the wires and the use of wires to lift an astronaut to his feet and other
evidence I have adduced have logical force, not by offering any arguments
but by simply asserting they are not persuasive to you! But unless you are
a rational agent in respect to the goal of seeking the truth (which I doubt)
or the formation of rational beliefs that are not overridden by rationality
of action (in posing as disbelieving beliefs that are more likely than any
of their alternatives), your opinion is of no consequence, which appears
to be the case. The clincher, I submit, is that you can't even admit that,
if you were right, this fakery shows how faking the moon landing could
have been done. Each time you show up, you add more nonsense to the
thread. If you have any other purpose, I doubt any of us can discern it.

Presumably, there are only three hypotheses:

(h1) this is actual footage of the moon landing;

(h2) this is actual footage of the faking of the moon landing;

(h3) this is actual footage of the faking of the faking of the moon landing.

Given that moon hoax theories find little support in the scientific establishment, I would have thought that including the hypothesis which the scientific establishment does support would have been a sensible idea - the hypothesis (which you fail to include as a possibility) that it is faked footage of a real landing.

(I see where I went wrong – not recognising that none of your three hypotheses is one the scientific establishment would favour. So (h4) is that this is mock footage of the “faking” of the real moon landing – i.e. (h4) this footage is a spoof.)

I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that the moon landings were faked – I find none of the evidence you refer to – “wires,” missing rover tracks, “faulty” shadows, etc, to be persuasive.

[James H. Fetzer]

Words are cheap. To "acknowledge a spoof" is not the same
as proving that a spoof occurred. As I have explained, there
is no good reason to suppose anyone would make a spoof of
the moon landings (given the time, effort, and expense that
would have been involved, not to mention the lack of motive).

Assume the moon landings are real. What possible motive
could drive someone, years later, to recreate the setting on
the moon with a replica of the lander, the astronaut suit, the
angles, the lighting, and all that, with a director and a crew?
Does anyone think that is a reasonable thing to have done?

But if the faking of the landing got out (because of a glitch
that could not be denied), the obvious move would be for it
to be declared to be "a spoof"! It might even be said to be
a spoof that was created on the very set where the faking of
the moon landing took place! That's an explanation I can buy.

Excuse me for suggesting that at times Jim's academic talk
needs an interpreter. Let me try:

Jim's logic is impeccable. It may be too difficult for some to understand,
BUT WHETHER THE FILM IS REAL OR FAKE IS NOT IMPORTANT under
Jim's analysis. If it is real it proves Apollo fakery. If it is fake it proves Apollo
fakery. Am I right, Jim?

Sometimes Jim's theses are too academic. He sometimes needs his thoughts
translated into SIMPLE TALK for ordinary people like some of us. (see above)

So either way, in simple talk, Jim's argument is correct.

Jack

The footage is an acknowledged spoof, so it has very little to do with the actual Apollo program, and can say nothing conclusive about whether the moon landings were faked or not.

[Peter Dawson]

Well, your (h4) is my (h3). I don't see how you could possibly miss that.
Of course you are not only denying that (h2) is the case but also denying
that the missing tracks in moon rover photos, the shadows cast yielding
a close-at-hand source, the use of front-screen projection, the reflections
off the wires and the use of wires to lift an astronaut to his feet and other
evidence I have adduced have logical force, not by offering any arguments but by asserting they are not persuasive to you! But unless you are a
rational agent in respect to the goal of seeking the truth (which I doubt)
or the formation of rational beliefs that are not overridden by rationality
of action (in posing as disbelieving beliefs that are more likely than any
of their alternatives), your opinion is of no consequence, which appears
to be the case. The clincher, I submit, is that you can't even admit that,
if you were right, this fakery shows how faking the moon landing could
have been done. Each time you show up, you add more nonsense to the
thread. If you have any other purpose, I doubt any of us can discern it.

Words are cheap. To "acknowledge a spoof" is not the same
as proving that a spoof occurred. As I have explained, there
is no good reason to suppose anyone would make a spoof of
the moon landings (given the time, effort, and expense that
would have been involved, not to mention the lack of motive).

But if the faking of the landing got out (because of a glitch
that could not be denied), the obvious move would be for it
to be declared to be "a spoof"! It might even be said to be
a spoof that was created on the very set where the faking of
the moon landings took place! That's an explanation I can buy.

You are using footage, which was produced in order to mock people who believe the moon landings were faked, to argue that the moon landings could have been faked. You apparently can't grasp that the argument you are making would be considered preposterous by the scientific establishment, and almost hilarious by most everyone else who has the facts of the matter set forth before them.

Regarding the evidence you refer to, you owe Evan Burton a few responses over at the other forum before you have me repeating the same kind of responses he has made there.

[James H. Fetzer]

You are so eager to try to demonstrate that you are not an idiot that you
post without reading. I elaborated a few points, where the word "simply"
is missing from the first quote and the entire second paragraph from the
second. I don't know where you grew up or what kind of mind you think
you possess, but anyone who would not regard THE VIDEO YOU CLAIM
TO BE FAKED as evidence that A VIDEO OF THE LANDING COULD BE
FAKED must be missing a few screws. I am sure that you and Burton
are doing your best to try to figure out how to deceive those who are
following these threads with more of your nonsense. No one's buying.

Well, your (h4) is my (h3). I don't see how you could possibly miss that.
Of course you are not only denying that (h2) is the case but also denying
that the missing tracks in moon rover photos, the shadows cast yielding
a close-at-hand source, the use of front-screen projection, the reflections
off the wires and the use of wires to lift an astronaut to his feet and other
evidence I have adduced have logical force, not by offering any arguments
but by SIMPLY asserting they are not persuasive to you! But unless you are
a rational agent in respect to the goal of seeking the truth (which I doubt)
or the formation of rational beliefs that are not overridden by rationality
of action (in posing as disbelieving beliefs that are more likely than any
of their alternatives), your opinion is of no consequence, which appears
to be the case. The clincher, I submit, is that you can't even admit that,
if you were right, this fakery shows how faking the moon landing could
have been done. Each time you show up, you add more nonsense to the
thread. If you have any other purpose, I doubt any of us can discern it.

Words are cheap. To "acknowledge a spoof" is not the same
as proving that a spoof occurred. As I have explained, there
is no good reason to suppose anyone would make a spoof of
the moon landings (given the time, effort, and expense that
would have been involved, not to mention the lack of motive).

Assume the moon landings are real. What possible motive
could drive someone, years later, to recreate the setting on
the moon with a replica of the lander, the astronaut suit, the
angles, the lighting, and all that, with a director and a crew?
Does anyone think that is a reasonable thing to have done?

But if the faking of the landing got out (because of a glitch
that could not be denied), the obvious move would be for it
to be declared to be "a spoof"! It might even be said to be
a spoof that was created on the very set where the faking of
the moon landings took place! That's an explanation I can buy.

You are using footage, which was produced in order to mock people who believe the moon landings were faked, to argue that the moon landings could have been faked. You apparently can't grasp that the argument you are making would be considered preposterous by the scientific establishment, and almost hilarious by most everyone else who has the facts of the matter set forth before them.

Regarding the evidence you refer to, you owe Evan Burton a few responses over at the other forum before you have me repeating the same kind of responses he has made there.

[Peter Dawson]

You are so eager to try to demonstrate that you are not an idiot that you
post without reading. I elaborated a few points, where the word "simply"
is missing from the first quote and the entire second paragraph from the
second. I don't know where you grew up or what kind of mind you think
you possess, but anyone who would not regard THE VIDEO YOU CLAIM
TO BE FAKED as evidence that A VIDEO OF THE LANDING COULD BE
FAKED must be missing a few screws. I am sure that you and Burton
are doing your best to try to figure out how to deceive those who are
following these threads with more of your nonsense. No one's buying.

Obviously you edited your posts after I had copied them to use in my own post.

Regarding your entire second paragraph:
Assume the moon landings are real. What possible motive
could drive someone, years later, to recreate the setting on
the moon with a replica of the lander, the astronaut suit, the
angles, the lighting, and all that, with a director and a crew?
Does anyone think that is a reasonable thing to have done?

As I said above, the footage was produced in large part to mock those who believe that the moon landings were faked. And no doubt to sucker in a few others who had never thought the moon landings might have been faked. For people who like to mock, succeeding to convince people that their mock footage is real is reason enough to attempt such a thing.

As for your claim that the spoof footage is evidence that the footage of the moon landings could have been faked, even without the spoof footage, I'd be willing to concede that it would be possible to fake the footage of the moon landings. But the footage of the landings is one small part of the whole of the Apollo moon missions, and a very small part, so there is still a lot of ground to cover in terms of proving that everything else about he missions could have been faked. And then there is the large gulf between demonstrating that something could have been faked, and demonstrating that something actually was faked.

[James H. Fetzer]

Your explanation of why it was faked (even though it would have had to
have been at incredible time, effort, and expense) is not going to impress
anyone who is not seriously retarded, but it's no doubt the best you can do.

Here's an earlier study of which I have only learned tonight (thanks to Duane
Daman) which goes most of the distance toward bridging the gap between
what could have been done by way of fakery and what actually was done:

http://www.rense.com/general79/rehar.htm

If this had been some kind of rehearsal, then no doubt NASA would have
announced that it had been a "rehearsal" when this footage was found,
rather than coming up with ridiculous stories such as Peter peddles here.

[Charles Drago]

I'm going to regret this.

HYPOTHESIS: Detectable fakery of moon landing photography was created and disseminated to launch (pun intended) conspiracy theories designed to A) reinforce the "nothing can be known for certain" foundation upon which contemporary socio-political power and academic inquiry is partially but significantly based; B) further Balkanize an already fractured deep political research community; and C) assault American exceptionalism and thus taint all other inquiries into historical conspiracies in general and the JFK conspiracy in particular.

ALL-IMPORTANT STIPULATION: The hypothetical fakery and larger operation of which it is the key component would be effective whether or not actual Apollo moon landings happened.

SCENARIO I -- The Apollo landings took place as advertised. A number of legitimate photos are quickly doctored so as to indicate fakery and thus support the "uncertainty conspiracy" herein hypothesized.

SCENARIO II -- The Apollo landings never took place. Flawless AND detectable faked photographs were created to support the "uncertainty conspiracy" herein hypothesized.

PRECEDENTS: The Zapruder Film; the so-called (by me, at any rate) Doppelganger Gambit.

DISCLAIMIER: I'm not prepared to go to the wall with the hypothesis herein presented. Yet.

[James H. Fetzer]

As another example of Evan Burton's abuse of his position as moderator and participant, this post belongs on
the discussion thread, not the debate thread. He continues to demonstrate his fanaticism and lack of ethics to
the bitter end. We all know Burton has buddies like David Greer who will support him regardless of the evidence.

The points that are made in comparing them, including the edge of the images, which is seen from the same angle
in both the footage broadcast and the "rehearsal" footage, are extremely improbable and would have been virtually
impossible to replicate. Both have a similar look and a similar feel and were probably shot on the very same stage.

They are obviously not the same take, since the collapse of the light bar required a second take. But the author,
Ted Twietmeyer, makes many other extremely interesting observations about the crew wearing what appear to be
military uniforms and behaving in ways that would not be expected of a crew working on some kind of "spoof":

What's also interesting about this video is that during this entire rehearsal disaster, not one man who ran in to assist
the astronaut/ actor ever turned his face toward the camera. None of them ever looked back in that direction, which
anyone would certainly do when taking instructions from the director who usually sits beside the camera.

If this entire video is a fake, it's an extremely well made fake. Including the authentic spacesuit the actor playing the
astronaut wears. And down to the tiniest detail, including a barely audible "Cut!" yelled by a director off-camera
moments later after the light bar came crashing down.

As he also observes, "This rehearsal required a large crew of people and a substantial budget. Only a small portion of
the production crew was visible in this video." Having recently rented a room for a symposium in London held on 14
July 2010, http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/ I know, unlike Greer's remarks, space there does not come cheap.

Here are specific replies to David Greer's attempted rebuttals of several of my points, which I will introduce in bold.

[quote name='Dave Greer' date='11 November 2010 - 09:58 AM' timestamp='1289465899' post='211544']
[quote name='James H. Fetzer' date='09 November 2010 - 09:11 PM' timestamp='1289337066' post='211407']
Notice, however, that creating a fake moon landing stage scenario would require tremendous attention to detail, which
seems to be the case here. If we ignore the collapsing scaffolding, the crew's response, and the director's question, it looks
exactly like the footage we were presented of the actual moon landing, when it was broadcast world-wide by television. So
let's ask what would be involved in creating a fake video of the (actually false) faking of the moon landing as resources.

First, you would need to have exact information about the set, including the Moon Lander, the astronaut's suits, etcetera.

Second, you would have to find a suitable location, hire a crew and director, which is going to take time and lots of money.

Third, you would have to have a powerful motive for devoting the painstaking time and expense to create a fake, fake video.[/quote]

First, the only information you need is a copy of the Apollo 11 footage where Armstrong steps off the lander. You only need to make it look good enough to fool the layperson who won't compare it to the actual footage. If you had taken time to examine the suit detail for example, you'd realise it's not an Apollo suit. What's that ruddy great box on the front of the suit? It's not visible in any photos of Apollo suits from any Apollo missions. You only have to create a small part of the lander, which could easily and cheaply be done with materials available from any hardware store.

None of this could be "easily and cheaply done with materials available from any hardware store." The production has a
highly professional quality about it. The idea of "reverse engineering" from some footage that was broadcast is absurd.
The only way that could be done would be if you had inside information, such as access to the stage and the props, etc.

Second. Suitable location? Studio for hire? Friends barn? Hire a crew and director. Well, maybe you're the director so you're doing it for free. Maybe you have to pay half a dozen people's wages for a couple of days. Few hundred dollars/pounds at most.

This is equally ridiculous. The crew appears to be in uniform, acts as if it knows what it is doing, and none of the crew
looks toward the director, which cannot be by chance. If this were some friends or homeless hired off the street, then
they would not be wearing uniforms, they would not know what they were doing, and some would look at the camera.

Third. We can only guess at the producers motives. Unless you want to contact him directly and ask him?

That may be difficult to arrange. I gather that Adam Stewart, who claimed to have created the video at the Viral Factory,
died less than a year after making his moontruth video, allegedly due to food poisoning. That sounds a lot like tidying
up "loose ends". That he may have actually been involved in faking the moon landing receives further support from this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugHRLWf46Ck

Suppose it would run $100,000, which is a conservative estimate. (I would bet it would cost many times that.) How many are
going to have the time and money to devote to creating a fake video of the (actually false) faking of the moon landing? And
why would anyone do this? We are not talking about Photoshop or other easily utilized photo faking techniques. This is on a
large scale and very detailed and precise. Moreover, why would anyone who had the time and the resources do something like
this? If you believe the moon landings are genuine, why would you create a fake video to suggest that they were really faked?

You guess at £100,000 as a very low estimate. I'm going to guess $500.

Notice that the point of mine he quotes concerns motivation, but his comment addresses cost instead. My estimate was not in
pounds but in dollars. He clearly does not know what he is talking about. Unless his estimate of $500 is itself meant as a spoof,
he is far off the mark. It cost me more than £1,000 just to rent the room for a few hours. My estimate was clearly conservative.

But here is the clincher. Suppose (h3) were true and this is the faking of a video showing the faking of the moon landing? The
production values are so exceptional and indistinguishable from those of the footage that was televised around the world that it
demonstrates--conclusively, in my view--that the moon landing could have been faked!

You clearly haven't compared the two footages side-by-side. You also seem to be falling into the trap of "could have been faked" implies "actually was faked". In order to do that, you are deliberately taking a few seconds of poor quality video and ignoring the huge amount of other evidence, including much higher quality video and film footage.
[/quote]

Notice that Greer never explains why anyone who believes the moon landings are genuine would create a fake to suggest that they
were really faked. He doesn't explain why, if this was a cheap production "off the cuff" using friends or the homeless, it has such a
professional quality. It has exactly the right feel and exactly the right look to have been shot on the same stage with the same crew.

Consider the two hypotheses: (h1) this is an outtake from the original faking; (h2) this is the faking of someone faking the original.

If (h1) is true and this is an outtake from the original faking, which was conducting at great expense using an experienced crew and
a professional director, what is the probability that the edge of the images would match, that the crew would be in uniform, that they
would know what they were doing, that they would avoid looking at the director and the camera? Obviously, it would be very high.

If (h2) is true and this is the faking of someone faking the original, which was conducting on a low budget using friends or hires by
Adam Stewart, what is the probability that the edge of the images would match, that the crew would be in uniform, that they would
know what they were doing, that they would avoid looking at the director and the camera? Obviously, it would be extremely low.

In scientific reasoning, one hypothesis is preferable to another when the likelihood of the first -- which is equal to the probability
of the evidence, if that hypothesis were true -- is greater than the likelihood of the second, given the available evidence. Since the
likelihood of (h1) is very high, while that of (h2) is extremely low, as I have shown, there can be no doubt that (h1) is preferable to (h2).

The kinds of arguments that Greer is offering would be laughable but for the protective covering of Evan Burton, who continues to
abuse his position in grossly unethical and unprofessional ways. Why am I not surprised? My point remains undefeated: If it's on the
original set, as I suspect, it blows the cover on the faking of the moon landing. If not, it shows how easy it was to have faked it. QED

[Jack White]

Excuse me for suggesting that at times Jim's academic talk
needs an interpreter. Let me try:

Jim's logic is impeccable. It may be too difficult for some to understand,
BUT WHETHER THE FILM IS REAL OR FAKE IS NOT IMPORTANT under
Jim's analysis. If it is real it proves Apollo fakery. If it is fake it proves Apollo
fakery. Am I right, Jim?

Sometimes Jim's theses are too academic. He sometimes needs his thoughts
translated into SIMPLE TALK for ordinary people like some of us. (see above)

So either way, in simple talk, Jim's argument is correct.

Jack

The footage is an acknowledged spoof, so it has very little to do with the actual Apollo program, and can say nothing conclusive about whether the moon landings were faked or not.

I have seen no definitive acknowledged proof of spoofery. Even if
true, it might be disinformation. Your saying something does not
make it true.

Jack