Did We Land on the Moon UK Channel 5 Conspiracy UFO Documentary

The most extraordinary event of the 20th century... That's one small step for man. ...was man landing on the moon. One giant leap for mankind. But believe it or not, some people say it never happened.

This whole thing was a fake. Decide for yourself as we explore the evidence. The angle has landed. Analyze official photos.

Examine the films. The flag flaps on the moon where there's no atmosphere. it and hear the testimony of one former astronaut who's not afraid to speak his mind nasa could have covered it up could the united states government be responsible for the deception of the century nasa could have pulled off the greatest hoax of all time you be the judge is this conspiracy did we land on the moon on july 16 1969 the world held its breath Ignition sequence start. Six. All engine running.

We have a liftoff. 11 blasted into space, beginning its 250,000-mile journey to the moon. During their eight-day voyage, the Apollo 11 astronauts saw spectacular views of the Earth, floated in a weightless environment, and supposedly went where no man had gone before. It's looking good, down from dust.

We're drifting to the right a little. Backlight. Okay, engine stop. We copy you down, Eagle.

Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. But did it? Did they really land on the moon?

Most of us think so. Millions of people watched on television as the lunar lander touched down, and these unforgettable words were spoken. That's one small step for man. But even today, there are those who claim that believing in man's one small step requires one giant leap of faith.

Bill Kaysing was an analyst and engineer at Rocketdyne, the company that designed the Apollo rockets. There were many problems that evolved during the 60s that led people to believe that we're never going to make it to the moon. When the world watched Apollo's lunar landings, Bill Kaysing was watching, too. But what he saw on television, combined with his experiences at Rocketdyne, made him a skeptic.

The whole thing then seemed phony to me. I think it was an intuitive feeling that what was being shown was not real. As he studied the footage more closely, he was shocked to find several inconsistencies. inconsistencies. Kaysing observed that despite the clarity of deep space, the stars were missing from the black lunar sky.

He saw the American flag waving, even though there is no air on the moon. And he discovered that there was no blast crater beneath the lunar lander, where its powerful rocket engine had fired. This evidence convinced Kaysing that we never sent a man to the moon. NASA dismissed these charges.

There are always going to be people who believe some outlandish theories and the notion that we that we somehow were able to fake the lunar missions is pretty outlandish as outlandish as it might seem it has been estimated that as many as 20 percent of americans believe we never went to the moon but how could anyone think that one of the greatest moments in human history is a hoax is it really possible that nasa deceived the world? According to a former astronaut, it's entirely possible. Regarding the Apollo mission, I can't say 100% for sure whether these men walked on the moon. Brian O'Leary was a NASA astronaut in the 1960s and served as a science advisor during the Apollo moon missions.

It's possible that NASA could have covered it up just in order to cut corners and to be the first to allegedly go to the moon. Was getting to the moon first so important that the U.S. government would consider faking it? To find the answer, we have to go back 40 years to a time when America and the Soviets were locked in a struggle for world domination. People assumed that the nation that won the space race would win the Cold War.

We defined that as being first to the moon. It was a time of more or less national hysteria. On October the 4th, 1957, the Soviets terrified America when they sent Sputnik, the world's first satellite, into orbit. The New York Times had to publish an article explaining to Americans that it did not carry nuclear bombs that could be dropped on the city from that altitude.

The American public's fear of nuclear annihilation intensified as Russia took the lead in the space race. House Speaker announced in Congress that we may be headed for extinction. many feared that the Soviet Union's ultimate goal was to put a missile base on the moon meanwhile America's space program was having difficulty even getting off the ground the chances of getting to the moon and returning safely to Earth or something like point zero zero one seven percent in other words virtually an impossibility what actually happened in In my mind, is that during the 60s, they said, if you can't make it, fake it. But if the Apollo missions were fake, how was this monumental hoax accomplished? According to Kaysing, the launch of Apollo's Saturn V rocket was real.

It just never sent astronauts to the moon. The astronauts were launched with the Saturn V. Then, in order to account for their disappearance, they simply orbited the Earth for eight days. And in the interim, they showed these fake pictures of the astronauts on the moon.

But on the eighth day, the command capsule separated from the vehicle and descended to Earth, as, of course, was shown in films. This theory inspired the 1978 movie Capricorn One, in which the government attempts to fool the world by faking a mission to Mars. Apollo footage is strikingly similar to the scenes in Capricorn One. Producer Paul Lazarus suggests that the film's plotline could be more fact than fiction.

I believe, had they wanted to, that NASA could indeed have pulled off the greatest hoax of all time, never sent anyone to the moon, and recreated it in a television studio. And I believe it could have been done at that time. The technology was in place. The footing is solid.

The surface seems powdery. The surface is fine and powdery. I can pick it up loosely with my toe. What we put up on the screen was our own simulated version of whatever we could do within a $4.8 million budget.

But with NASA's $40 billion budget, Kaysing believes they had the resources to pull off a hoax if they couldn't make it to the moon. The reason I believe that NASA and the government faked the moon landing was basically it was technically impossible to do it. And they simply had to come up with some sort of alternative that they felt the public would believe. Kaysing theorizes that the lunar landings were actually filmed in Nevada's high desert at the top secret military base known as Area 51.

Area 51 is one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the United States. If you went in and tried to get some information, you could be shot and killed without any warning. Russian spy satellite photos of Area 51 reveal not only a series of hangars that resemble movie sound stages, but also barren moon-like areas, which, coincidentally, are covered with craters. Compare this photo of a lunar crater, allegedly taken from the moon's orbit by Apollo 10 with this satellite photo of a crater at Area 51.

Even astronauts acknowledge the similarity of the terrain. It has a stark beauty all its own. It's like much of the high desert of the United States. Could billions of people really have been fooled into thinking the Nevada desert was the moon?

Kaysing believes it's possible and maybe the real reason Area 51 is so heavily guarded. This is a very secret base, and with good reason, because undoubtedly the moon sets are still there. And if they are, no one's getting a look at them anytime soon. Up next...

Tranquility base here. If the lunar module landed with 10,000 pounds of thrust, why is there no blast crater? Plus, was this footprint really made on the moon? And later, ten astronauts die under strange circumstances. how far could the conspiracy reach we've all been led to believe that on july the 20th 1969 the lunar excursion module also known as the lem carried american astronauts to the surface of the moon but could it have simply been a prop lowered by wires onto a movie set bill casing says that this may explain the absence of engine noise in the official nasa footage of a rocket engine is up into the 140 150 decibel range in other words enormously loud how would it be possible to hear astronauts voices against the background of a running rocket engine picking up some dust forward drifting to the right level backlight is this evidence that the footage is actually fake a sequence shot in a controlled environment here on earth just months before this historic landing A prototype LEM was flight tested at Ellington Air Force Base.

While NASA cameras record the test flight, Neil Armstrong struggles to control the unwieldy craft. Then, at approximately 300 feet, the lander flies wildly out of control. At the last second, Armstrong ejects and floats to safety. If the lander was so unstable and difficult to fly in the controlled environment of Earth, then how could the LEM land six times flawlessly in the alien environment of the moon?

The LEM had a single engine mounted dead center and then they had little push jets, thruster jets a couple of them up on top. This was supposed to control their attitude as they came down. Well, I'll tell you a secret. The instant you moved your tail in that cabin an inch you would change the load pattern. it would begin to tilt and it would start that thing spinning the arguments that have been arrayed on the side of those who believe that the lunar landings were a hoax are very elaborate and they have to be to support a theory like this in the end there's there's one set of evidence that is irrefutable and that is that there are footprints boot prints still on the lunar surface.

But conspiracy theorists say that the footprints themselves are suspicious. It appears to be very fine-grained as you get close. To have a powerful rocket engine blast the surface of the moon, blasting away all of the dust, and then find footprints surrounding the lunar lander, that to me would be an impossibility. Photo after photo reveals that the lunar surface surrounding the LEM is covered with footprints.

But Kaysing says there's something even more difficult to explain. The fact that there's no blast crater under the LEM is one of the most conclusive pieces of evidence that I find supporting the hopes. In fact, no sign of a blast crater is visible for any of the six lunar landings. But LEM specialist Paul Feal says he he can explain why the lunar module left no crater when landing on the Moon.

The amount of thrust that you need coming out of the bottom of the descent engine is about 1,500, 2,000 pounds of thrust. And all that does is just push dust away. There's no burning or anything like that. Yet NASA's own scientific illustrations clearly depict a blast crater.

Then there's one other point. If they had truly landed on the Moon, this dust would have then descended on the lunar lander, on the footpads, and we find not a trace of dust on the footpads. When I discovered that alone, I said, no way am I looking at a lunar lander that landed on the moon. Could it be that the LEM was just a prop on a giant lunar movie set?

When Armstrong said, that's one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind, the footprint that he made could have easily been made in Area 51. Kaysing points out that the LEM's departure from the lunar surface is even more suspicious. In the footage of the ascent stage going up, what you don't see is an exhaust plume coming out of the rocket engine nozzle. But what do we see?

We see the ascent stage suddenly pop up without any exhaust plume whatsoever, as though it were jerked up by a cable. Is this evidence of a conspiracy? was the government capable of such a massive cover-up to propose that this was all faked and a hoax they have to say that every piece of evidence that that every physical scientific tests that one could offer to support the reality of the lunar landings they have to say that all of those are fake I would say that my conviction that Apollo was a fake was really not according to one specific piece of evidence but it was cumulative this whole thing was a fake if the moon landings were actually filmed on a movie set then where's the evidence according to David Percy an award-winning filmmaker and photographer proof is in NASA's own lunar photos and video our research suggests that images of the Apollo landings are not a true and accurate record in our view the Apollo pictures were faked many of the images are replete with inconsistencies and anomalies in fact percy claims that when examined these images suggest that man never went to the moon at all this famous scene of a man taking his first steps on the lunar surface is one of the most recognizable in history but why are such important images so grainy and hard to see we're getting a picture on the tv nasa claim this is the result of 1960s technology if you go back and look at it the apollo 11 mission uh was some some pretty awful video by today's standards these were ghostly images it just did not look very real at all and that was a function of the transmitter at the time the camera at the time that we had available to us to fly on apollo 11. but investigative journalist bart subrell believes that nasa intentionally made the images hard to see.

NASA orchestrated the hoax in a very unique way through television. They had one picture which they completely controlled, black and white, grainy, that convinced everybody we were on the moon. We had no reason to doubt it. They had complete reins over the pictures, over the sound.

I mean, sad to say it was easier than people believe. But despite the lack of clarity, conspiracy theorists see evidence suggesting that these images were staged. Although it appears that the astronauts were moving in the moon's gravity, which is one sixth that of the earth, Percy notes that when the speed of the film is doubled, the astronauts appear to be running as if in earth's gravity. Also, when the footage of the lunar rover is doubled in speed, it looks as if it's driving here on earth.

But there's another reason some believe the Apollo missions were shot on earth. If there's no air or wind on moon why is this american flag waving the fact that the flag flaps on the moon where there's no atmosphere means that there must have been a little blast of wind out in area 51 where they shot this could these questionable images simply be the result of the astronauts struggling to plant the flag in the lunar surface or is there more going on than meets the eye what about the still photography some say the designs of the bulky spacesuits would have made it extremely difficult for the astronauts to operate their chest mounted cameras the man who designed these cameras is yawn lundberg once on the moon on the lunar surface in the dress in the life support system you couldn't see the camera they couldn't bend their head that far down they had no view finder they had to aim by moving the body if the cameras were so difficult to manipulate how were thousands of photos taken with crystal clarity and precise framing the pictures that we see that allegedly were taken on the moon are absolutely perfect but with close examination casing says flaws begin to emerge coming up next tragedy strikes the apollo program the program It could be stopped dead in its tracks.

Three astronauts die in a pre-launch simulation. But was it an accident? He was going to blow the whistle on the whole project. And later, could the astronauts have survived a trip into deep space?

Before they got one half way to the moon, they would have picked up a death dose of radiation. If the moon landings were actually filmed on a movie set, then where's the evidence? According to David Percy, the proof is in NASA's own lunar photos and video. Our research suggests that images of the Apollo landings are not a true and accurate record.

In our view, the Apollo pictures were faked. Many of the images are replete with inconsistencies and anomalies. Unfortunately, errors were made which are now being discovered. Conspiracy theorists point out that lighting is a major flaw in the lunar photos.

Case in point, on the moon, the astronauts' only source of light was the sun. They had no extra lighting, no flashes or things like that. Yet in this photograph from Apollo 14, the shadows are cast in different directions, suggesting multiple light sources. The shadows cast by the rocks in the foreground should have been east-west, like the LEM shadow.

And in this photo from Apollo 17, again, the shadows are pointing in different directions. Outside in sunlight, shadows always run parallel with one another, so the shadows will never intersect. Conspiracy theorists say it's not just the shadows that indicate the use of additional lights, but what has been photographed in the shadows. For example, here's an astronaut who descends into a huge shadow cast by the lunar module.

Yet his entire body is still visible. How is it that he has not been shrouded in darkness? Here is the same manoeuvre from another Apollo mission. Again, the astronaut is brightly lit in what is obviously dark shadow.

And in this picture, the sun is directly behind the astronaut. His figure should be a silhouette. Yet even the smallest characteristics of his suit are recognisable. It seems like he's standing in the spotlight.

And I can't explain that. That escapes me. Why? And finally, in this picture, with the sun behind the lunar module, the front of the craft is clearly visible.

The words, United States, are crisp and clear. How could these backlit pictures be so detailed? It's because there's more than one light source, which means they're not on the moon. But NASA simply dismissed these arguments.

There are a number of claims that the pictures taken by Apollo astronauts were faked. And there are so many, it would be an exercise in futility to go off and try to answer all of those. But the questions continue. Why do some of these images shot at different times and different places appear to have identical backgrounds?

These two photos seem to have the same mountain backdrop. Yet the lunar module is only present in one of them. Seemingly impossible, since the LEM never moved and its base remained even after the mission. Some suggest the same artificial background was used when shooting two entirely separate pictures.

Background discrepancies are also apparent in the lunar video. The best evidence are some pictorial anomalies in the photographic record of the trip to the moon. There is one for Apollo 16 where the same shot, the same hill, appears in two different days. This tape was shot on what was reported to be the first of Apollo 16's lunar excursions.

And this video was from the next day, at a different location. That is the most beautiful sight. NASA claims the second location was two and a half miles away. But when one video is superimposed over the other, the locations appear identical the conspiracy theorists see that as evidence that we didn't go to the moon that it was staged and the opposite point of view is that it's a case of bad editing conspiracy theorists claim that even closer examination of the photos suggest evidence of doctoring for reference crosshairs were permanently etched into the lunar cameras so they would have to appear on top of every image but in this photo a crosshair is behind a part of the lunar rover this situation is impossible and has to be the result of technical manipulation and doctoring of the image and in this photo from apollo 11 the equipment in the foreground is covering the crosshair not behind it and in another from apollo 12 the american flag is covering one crosshair and the astronaut is covering the other when presented with these questionable photos and videos nasa refutes the conspiracy theories some range from incredibly complicated to incredibly goofy there are arguments that are wrong optically they're wrong physically they're wrong scientifically they're wrong historically there's uh you know a great a great deal of claptrap that is sort of woven in to these arguments but despite what NASA says conspiracy theorists still insist that Apollo was a hoax when I looked at all the pictures and all the footage I'm absolutely convinced I bet my life on it that we didn't go to the moon I know for a fact that we didn't if what conspiracy theorists say is true how could NASA perpetrate a widespread hoax without someone from the inside blowing the whistle virgil gus grissom was selected as one of the original seven astronauts a family man and veteran of several space flights he was a national hero and was likely to be the first man to walk on the moon but grissom was also an outspoken critic of the space program and was quoted as saying someone's going to get killed Unfortunately, Grissom's worst fears were soon realized.

On January 27th, 1967, two years before the first moon landing, Grissom and his crew boarded the Apollo 1 capsule for a full-scale simulation. Problems began almost immediately. First, the capsule's communication systems failed. I didn't reach it, sir, at all.

I can't reach it, sir. Do you want to try the phone? Suddenly, the capsule burst into flames with the astronauts sealed inside. Tragically, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives before ever leaving the launch pad.

Gus Grissom's family believes the Apollo 1 fire was no accident. I think it was intentionally sabotaged by someone. It's been a question in my mind what was found in the accident investigation and how was that handled. Was the CIA involved or whoever?

But it was done intentionally. Grissom's family doesn't know who was responsible for his death or why it happened, but they say NASA knows the truth. Gus gave his life for this program, and I feel like that it is up to NASA to come forward and give us a direct answer to what really happened. Were Gus Grissom and the Apollo 1 astronauts victims of a tragic accident?

Or were they intentionally silenced because they knew too much? We may never know. The cause of the fire is still a mystery and the capsule remains locked away at a military base But Grissom wasn't the only Apollo critic to meet with a suspicious and untimely death Thomas Ronald Barron was a safety inspector during Apollo 1's construction After the fire, Barron testified before Congress that the Apollo program was in such disarray that the United States would never make it to the moon He claimed his opinions made him a target Has there been any pressure on you by NASA? As part of his testimony, Barron submitted a 500-page report detailing his findings.

Then, exactly one week after he testified, Barron's car was struck by a train. Barron, his wife and stepdaughter were killed instantly. I believe that Thomas Ronald Barron was murdered because he had the truth to tell about the Apollo project. Barron's report mysteriously disappeared, and to this day it has never been found.

But the Apollo program continued, and so did the string of untimely deaths. Between 1964 and 1967, a total of ten astronauts lost their lives in freak accidents. These deaths accounted for an astonishing 15% of NASA's astronaut corps. To keep something that's alive wrapped up and covered over, you've got to eliminate all the people that can talk about it.

Could the government have gone this far to pull off such an elaborate hoax? NASA says it's impossible. There were probably a quarter of a million people who were directly involved in the Apollo program and another half a million people beyond that. three-quarters of a million people can't keep a secret like that. That's just not going to happen.

But Bart Sobrell insists that most NASA employees knew nothing of the deception. Very few people at NASA knew. The thing is so departmentalized, you've got the person building the bolts in Houston or doing this in Seattle or doing this in Florida. No one knows the full picture.

So, you know, you had no one seeing the full picture of anything except a handful of people. If the conspiracy theorists are right, and only a few people knew the whole story, then the truth may remain buried forever. When we return, could the astronauts have survived the deadly radiation of space? Getting them past the radiation belt would have been impossible.

And a Russian cosmonaut breaks his silence. Suspicious deaths. Evidence of doctored photos. and flags waving in the airless vacuum of space are not the only reasons to doubt that we ever went to the moon. Some say the astronauts could never have survived the trip.

The reason why they couldn't go to the moon is because of a phenomenon that few people know about called the Van Allen radiation belts. 500 miles above the Earth, these bands of intensive radiation surround our planet and are thousands of miles thick. Any human being traveling through the Van Allen Belt would have been rendered either extremely ill or actually killed by the radiation within a short time thereafter. Other than the Apollo missions, no other manned space flight has attempted to pass through this deadly radiation.

Every manned mission in history, Gemini, Mercury, Skylab, the Spatial, has been below the radiation belt, all except going to the moon. To protect the astronauts, the capsule would have needed six feet of lead shielding, according to physicist Ralph Rene. Obviously, the only shielding they had was the literally paper-thin outer hull of aluminum, and their suits consisting of glass fiber, some aluminum fibers, and silicon rubber. It's very interesting concerning radiation that the astronauts were protected by a thin film of aluminum when here on Earth they put a lead shield on us when they take a dental X-ray.

Some theorize that if the Van Allen belts didn't kill the astronauts, even deadlier doses of radiation deeper in space would have. Violent explosions on the sun, called magnetic storms, flood space with intense radioactivity. A magnetic storm will come along, and that can increase the intensity of the radiation belts by maybe a thousand times above what it was before. According to Rene, the Apollo 16 missions coincided with one of the sun's most intense storms ever recorded.

Around the rotating sun came this immense flare, the biggest one of the 20th century. It went on for three or four days, all the while it's slowly rotating around. Although the effects of radiation are horrific, ranging from hair loss to cancer to death, the solar flares had no adverse effect on the Apollo 16 crew. NASA had another problem, and one is that the moon's surface is totally inhospitable to man.

If you do it in the dark, and that includes any part of the shadow of the spacecraft itself, the temperatures go down to 250 degrees below zero. In the sun, the temperatures go up to 250 degrees above zero. Rene also theorizes that the astronauts' liquid-cooled spacesuits could not have provided sufficient protection from the intense heat and radiation. But NASA maintains that this hypothesis is wrong.

The claim that the radiation on the lunar surface would have incapacitated or hurt the astronauts, and it's equal parts bad science and a bad understanding of how we went about designing the equipment. The spacesuits that they wore were incredibly tough and very resilient to lots of different things. If those suits do what NASA says they can do, then I want to see them suit up a guy or two, put him into Three Mile Island, the pit there that's still hot, and have them clean up the mess. But they can't and they don't.

The fact remains that no Apollo astronaut has ever suffered a serious illness from a trip to the moon. Could this be because they never left the safety of Earth's atmosphere in the first place? This is the main reason why the Russians never really intended to send the men to the moon. Was it the fear of lethal radiation that caused the Russians to abandon their plans to go to the moon?

According to one of their chief cosmonauts, it was certainly a factor. Of course, we were worried to go out into the unknown of space. Of course, we were fearful. We had no idea how a human would be affected by the radiation.

We suspected that possibly the radiation could even penetrate through the craft itself. Are the deadly perils of space proof that NASA faked the Apollo missions? To this day, the Russians have never sent a man to the moon. But now other space nations have it in their plans.

Now that you have heard the various theories and explanations, do you believe it's possible for the US government to perpetrate such an incredible hoax? Is it conceivable that, with its $40 billion price tag, the Apollo program was nothing more than the most expensive movie ever made? It is my personal belief, and I totally believe this after all the years of research I've done on this, that NASA never landed a man on the moon. I would say that anybody who believes that we did not go to the moon is an absolute nut.

Anyone that wants to call me a kook or a nut or a crackpot, they're welcome to do that, but they're also welcome to go examine the evidence, which is everywhere. Bottom line, the United States went to the moon in the 1960s and the 1970s. End of story. Is there any way to put this controversy to rest once and for all?

The only thing experts agree upon is that the answer is a quarter of a million miles away. If NASA truly landed on the moon, remnants of the six successful Apollo missions would have been left behind. The base structures of the LEMS. The abandoned lunar rovers.

Even the American flags would still be standing at each landing site. I would like to invite NASA and all of their supporters to simply take the most powerful telescope on Earth and see if there's a lunar lander there. If there's a lunar lander there, I'll never say another word about an Apollo hoax. If there's no lunar lander there, I'll rest my case.

And the conspiracy theorists may soon have an answer. In recent years, Japan, India and China, amongst others, have entered what some believe to be a new space race sending orbiters and probes to the moon and men into space if the moon landings are a hoax it is likely someone will find out soon in 2009 nasa also sent a lunar reconnaissance orbiter known as the lro to the moon its primary objective to conduct investigations that prepare for future lunar exploration following this and as recently as 2011 nasa released the clearest images yet of what they say are the apollo 12 14 and 17 landing sites in all pictures the base structures of the limbs the abandoned lunar rovers and the discarded equipment of surface experiments can be seen but will these new images silence the detractors do objects from the apollo missions linger on the moon in silent testimony or is the conspiracy theory true with such renewed interest in moon exploration the indisputable truth may soon be out but until such time the question remains did we land on the moon well the new series of burn notice continues over on five star next tonight whilst next here on channel five chris tarrant meets another wealth of colorful characters in new extreme railways.