Merged Apollo "hoax" discussion / Lick observatory laser saga

[R.A.F.]

If that turns out to be true, why can't that image data be bogus?

Please present evidence that the images were faked, or retract that claim. Anything else will only "expose" your unwillingness to discuss this topic rationally.

If something lame is said in an authoritative patronizing way, it's still lame.

Such as disregarding evidence because it is "inconvenient"??...such as making a claim of "bogusness" without any evidence whatsoever??

Is that what you are talking about??

 

[R.A.F.]

With today's technology those pictures are fakable so they don't prove anything.

They prove that hoax believers will go to ANY LENGTHS to "protect" their irrational ideas. You've demonstrated beyond any doubt that you are a rather "typical" hoax believer...nothing more...

They also don't make the mountain of hoax proof go away.

Irrational...there is no evidence of a hoax, no matter how many times you repeat, rinse, wash.

 

[FatFreddy88]

Please present evidence that the images were faked, or retract that claim.

If you think fakable pictures are proof there were people on the moon, you're simply not mentally equipped to deal with this topic. This is really pretty basic.

Do all of you pro-Apollo people consider those pictures to be proof that there were people on the moon? Do any of you think those pictures were fakable?

 

[R.A.F.]

I've addressed this all before...

No sir...you are being untruthful, and we can all see that.

...and you're pretending I haven't.

I detect no pretense...you haven't addressed those 3 questions, and you are being "called" on it.

That you would continue to deny this reflects poorly on your credibility, and your character.

...I've addressed this and you have the attitude that haven't.

Repetition does not make your claim any more true...lying about something so easily confirmed is not rational.

we can conclude that its having been touched didn't make it move.

So tired of this crap....NO ONE HERE AGREES WITH YOU so just who is this "we" you speak of????

Anyone who watches the above clip can see that this is simply not what happened.

Same as above....no one here agrees with you so stop with the "anyone" crap.

You seem to be trying to sway those viewers who don't take the time to look at the footage as it obviously belies what you say.

???? You can't possibily be THAT delusional.

...and here's Jarrah's video...

If Jarrah has the "balls" to come here to debate, then allow him to do so, but I REFUSE to debate his "proxy".

In other words, stop posting Jarrah vids...

Jarrah said in his video...

Jarrah is not here....you are. Can't you form your own arguments?, or must you be Jarrah's "puppet"?

It's pretty clear that you know as well as hoax-believers that the moon missions were faked...

Stopm misrepresenting the opinions of others, AND STOP IT NOW. You either need to prove that claim, or stop making that claim...

Do you understand?...or do I need to repeat?...no oine here agrees with you, so stop saying that we do...
Prove that claim or shut the hell up

 

[R.A.F.]

If you think fakable pictures are proof there were people on the moon, you're simply not mentally equipped to deal with this topic.

This makes no sense whatsoever...what in the hell are you talking about??? No one here agrees that the images were faked, so your premise is outrageously irrational.

This is really pretty basic.

Yes it is...Apollo happened "as advertized", and the hoax "community" hasn't been able to provide ANY evidence for fraud...

Do all of you pro-Apollo people consider those pictures to be proof that there were people on the moon? Do any of you think those pictures were fakable?

Why bother asking when you MISREPRESENT other posters opinions ON A REGULAR BASIS.

 

[Stellafane]

If you think fakable pictures are proof there were people on the moon, you're simply not mentally equipped to deal with this topic. This is really pretty basic.

Do all of you pro-Apollo people consider those pictures to be proof that there were people on the moon? Do any of you think those pictures were fakable?

You're missing an important point, I think. The issue isn't whether or not the picture are fakable. It's whether or not you have proof that they were. If you believe the pictures were faked, it's up to you to provide the proof. It isn't up to us to prove that they weren't -- it simply doesn't work like that. You made the claim, you therefore must back it up.

But it the end, it hardly matters any more, because the whole moon hoax thing is coming to the end of its shelf life. Even the most modest space power has within its grasp the ability to prove or disprove whether or not we've been to the moon. This includes the Russians and Chinese -- especially the Russians and Chinese, who have high motivation for proving us liars and gaining massive geopolitical capital in the process.

You see, the problem with viewing the Apollo hardware left behind on the lunar surface isn't that the moon is so far away, it's that Earth's atmosphere blurs all incoming light so that there's a lower limit to how small a detail we can see. It's kind of like pixels on a TV -- no matter how powerful the telescope, sooner or later you hit this limit. However, from space this problem goes away. This means that anyone so inclined can go into space and with even a moderately sized telescope prove once and for all whether or not the U.S.A. has been to the moon. It actually would be quite trivial technologically -- hell, with new advances in image processing, we're coming very close to be able to do this from the earth, atmosphere and all. And yet, no one has done so, not even our bitterest rivals. Why not?

As I said, if this is an ongoing hoax, it's an exceedingly stupid one.

 

[JayUtah]

He doesn't respond to the blindingly obvious debunks for that [matter] either.

Agreed, usually because the debunker has failed one of his litmus tests and therefore doesn't deserve his attention. He constantly appeals to a gallery that steadfastly refuses to endorse him, and endorsements for his critics are simply dismissed as having "no credibility" for the fact that they disagree! You're right: it doesn't get much more circular than that.

And as you've seen, FatFreddy88 tries to criticize me for placing conditions on debate when he does worse. Unless you pass his litmus tests and agree with his claims, he won't listen to you. If you disagree with him on any grounds, that's automatic proof to him that you're a disinformation agent. What kind of rational debate can be entertained with someone who argues that his own claims are so self-evidently correct that disagreement with them automatically disqualifies that disagreement from consideration?

My conditions for debate are primarily that a third party moderate for civility, and that it occur in public. Those apply to everyone. Jarrah was the motivation for the civility condition, based largely on his infamous meltdown on Yahoo! in 2004, but it applies equally to everyone. The public debate requirement was initially so that I wouldn't have to answer the same emails over and over, and later because things said in private get mutilated when reproduced later by one of the parties. Jarrah wanted special treatment. He wanted private debate, or failing that, a debate where he controlled the content. I stipulated to neither. So he accepted the terms and chosen the venue. He was ultimately unwilling to continue that debate, and that is a fact not even remotely in dispute by either party. Beginning with his banning from Yahoo! in 2004 and continuing to his departure from IMDb, he has tried to say that I or someone else has censored him. He has, to date, provided not one shred of evidence for any of those claims; it is simply his lame excuse to hide out at YouTube and control what is said to and about him there.

Both FatFreddy88 and Jarrah White seem to have an unhealthy personal fixation on me, so for that reason I don't generally consider them worth my attention.

 

[R.A.F.]

What happens when we "eventually" return to the Moon and observe DIRECTLY that the Apollo landing sites exist as recently imaged?

Will you just deny, deny, deny, freddy? Are you actually that willing to make yourself a laughing stock??

 

[Stellafane]

What happens when we "eventually" return to the Moon and observe DIRECTLY that the Apollo landing sites exist as recently imaged?

Will you just deny, deny, deny, freddy? Are you actually that willing to make yourself a laughing stock??

I've actually given that a bit of thought. I think at that point, the Apollo Hoaxer crowd will insist the evidence was recently planted there, just moments before the confirmatory pictures were taken. Thus the conspiracy will morph into "Oh sure, we've gone to the moon now -- but we faked in in 1969!!" and thus be undisprovable forever.

 

[R.A.F.]

What kind of rational debate can be entertained with someone who argues that his own claims are so self-evidently correct that disagreement with them automatically disqualifies that disagreement from consideration?

That is a major problem trying to discuss this topic...those that believe in a hoax simply can not debate rationally...and when they are "forced" to do so (like on BAUT), they fail miserabily, and inevitably end up being banned for not following (fairly straightforward) board rules.

Both FatFreddy88 and Jarrah White seem to have an unhealthy personal fixation on me, so for that reason I don't generally consider them worth my attention.

Yeah...no sense "fueling" that fixation by engaging it.

 

[R.A.F.]

I've actually given that a bit of thought. I think at that point, the Apollo Hoaxer crowd will insist the evidence was recently planted there, just moments before the confirmatory pictures were taken. Thus the conspiracy will morph into "Oh sure, we've gone to the moon now -- but we faked in in 1969!!" and thus be undisprovable forever.

Unfortunately, I completely agree. You could rub their collective noses in the Lunar regolith, and they would just deny, deny, deny.

 

[JayUtah]

You're missing an important point, I think. The issue isn't whether or not the picture are fakable. It's whether or not you have proof that they were.

No, he hasn't missed that point. His assertion, made a few pages ago, is that evidence isn't evidence unless its proponents can prove it's absolutely unfakable. Which, of course, is not a usable standard of proof. But it's why he doesn't accept any refutory evidence from his critics.

It isn't up to us to prove that they weren't -- it simply doesn't work like that.

Indeed it doesn't, but conspiracy theorists never think that way.

It's not possible to prove something is authentic. You can ever only prove that it hasn't been faked by any means you know how to detect. Affirmative proof can only ever exist for fakery, not for authenticity, so that's where the burden of proof always lies.

The argument, "But X is fakable, and if it's fakable it can't be used as proof," simply doesn't wash. It applies universally to every object, and in any case represents an entirely unreasonable standard of proof. "Fakable," as you clearly not, is not at all the same concept as "was faked."

 

[Erock]

In a scenario in which air moved the flag, the rod wouldn't noticably move unless there were a bigger gust which would cause a bigger flag movement by which the flag would cause the rod to move.

Arrrghh, are you claiming expert status on how rods and supports move on a flag now?!

Any movement of material connected to a movable support would cause movement in the movable support. This is just so basic, so brain shatteringly basic.

In a scenario in which ground vibration moved the flag, there would certainly be both noticable pole and rod movement–not only pole movement with no rod movement as your doctored video shows–and the rod movement is what would cause the flag to move.

Bovine excrement. Your claim for expert flag moving status is even worse than your persistent avoidance of the issues that debunk your own argument.

If the pole moves, the rod moves, they are CONNECTED! Get it?

This is simply wrong.

And now you claim expert status on flag billowing!

As I've said a few time before, it would take a bigger wind than the one created by the astronaut to make it billow; he was at a forty five degree angle to the flag when he trotted by it. He would have to trot by parallel to it at a slightly greater speed to make it billow.

The flag didn't billow because it was in a vacuum. As for your utterly ridiculous assertion that air is less likely to move something when it is square on, than something angled away, you obviously "don't believe your own argument"^TM.

It's not billowing doesn't mean it was in a vacuum.

On the initial movement where the ground vibration was small, I would agree with this. But it was in a vacuum, we have ground disturbances showing the soil moving quickly that when speeded up look too fast, we also have a flag moving 3-4 times longer than White's Earth flag and with gently reducing pendulum motion.

I'm betting that you think this whole Apollo 15 flag ceremony is one small isolated clip, when it occurs during an EVA continuosly running for a few hours - replete with hundreds of examples where speeded up even 150% the footage looks very odd and the astronauts are not returning to the surface fast enough.

Plus, we have Jarrah White going beserk next to his bedsheet and with his jumping and walking failed to make his sheet move AT ALL. Kindly explain that.

It just means that the astronaut was moving fast enough to make the corner move slightly but not moving fast enough to make it billow. Any sixth-grader could see this.

Any sixth grader could see the vertical rod moving when they do a frame grab, and any troll could deny this movement and make unfounded claims of doctoring the video. So go on, prove I doctored my animated gif - not only will you not do this, even if you did and it showed that I haven't doctored it, you lack the integrity to admit it.

This video shows that it wasn't a video artifact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFMpmjEv9o0

It only shows a close up of the corner, there is the same movement in the vertical rod and the flag itself.

 

[BazBear]

I have a plan we all get together and pay for a manned moon landing crewed by freddy and another hoax cter of their choice and land them right next to the Apollo 11 landing site....

Hopefully, there will be enough left in the budget to bring them back, but if we have to cut costs somewhere...

 

[frenat]

With today's technology those pictures are fakable so they don't prove anything.

With today's technology ALL of the posting you do is fakable. I've said it before on another forum and I'll say it again. I think you're really a program responding and not a real person. You repeat the same nonsense too often and ignore too much with the same unhealthy obsession with Jay. Prove me wrong.

They also don't make the mountain of hoax proof my biased opinion go away.

You had a typo there. Good thing I was here to fix it.

 

[twinstead]

What a novel approach--refusing to accept ANY evidence contrary to ones position on the premise it could have been faked. A conspiracy theorist has never attempted that one before

 

[frenat]

I think you are lying about your home "experiment" - prove it!

I think he's lying too. He was asked repeatedly to prove it years ago. A simple video would suffice. He never did I'll bet he never will.

 

[frenat]

I've actually given that a bit of thought. I think at that point, the Apollo Hoaxer crowd will insist the evidence was recently planted there, just moments before the confirmatory pictures were taken. Thus the conspiracy will morph into "Oh sure, we've gone to the moon now -- but we faked in in 1969!!" and thus be undisprovable forever.

Many of them already think that Apollo was just a cover for the secret tech that really got us there and allowed us to supposedly have bases there and elsewhere. Of course they can never provide any evidence for this supposed secret tech (how do they know about it?) but they don't need to because it's secret!

 

[sts60]

Right, we have nothing better to do than search the Web and spread misinformation. How do you know that the ones selling the hoax aren't shills?

An excellent point. I think I can make a very good case that FatFreddy88/DavidC/rocky/cosmored is a paid disinformation agent:

...an ability to persevere and persist even in the face of overwhelming criticism and non-acceptance.

This fits FF88/etc. to a T: He has been posting the same thing for years.
Everywhere he goes (at least on the five forums that I have checked) he is told he is wrong - even "lurkers" he claimed supported him have directly questioned his sanity, and have overwhelmingly rejected his arguments. But he persists in repeating himself and spamming the same links over and over again.

This likely stems from intelligence community training that, no matter how condemning the evidence, deny everything,...

"We can't know that." "That evidence could be faked." "It never went there." "We don't know that." "Everything they say is a lie." "You can't say that you believe that with a straight face." All in the face of detailed explanations by informed laymen - which he is not - and by actual experts with hands-on space flight experience.

Yup, check that one on the list too.

...no amount of criticism will deter them from doing their job, and they will generally continue their old disinfo patterns without any adjustments to criticisms of how obvious it is that they play that game -- where a more rational individual who truly cares what others think might seek to improve their communications style, substance, and so forth.

rocky has been doing the exact same thing for years: link-spamming to sites unrelated to Apollo, appealing to general conspiracy, accusing everyone who disagrees with him of being liars, saying that "we can't know" about things we certainly can know about, and worst of all he has absolutely refused to actually learn anything about space flight in general or Apollo in particular.

He can't even use his sources consistently: he endorses a video whose maker believes Apollo went to the Moon, or cites as support a geology forum poster who calls Apollo hoax claims "crazy" and says rocky is "putting words in [his] mouth", he happily cites Holocaust deniers... you get the idea. Needless to say, the quality of his sources is also execrable, like the one that claimed no images of stars or planets had been taken by spacecraft - that was pretty funny.

[ETA:] So much for "making adjustments to criticisms". Of course, there's another thing that DavidC keeps saying is a disinfo tactic:

You people have authoritative patronizing attitudes...

"... they have no credibility."
"If I were in your place, I'd probably use the same avoidance tactic as it attracts less attention. It's pretty clear that you know as well as hoax-believers that the moon missions were faked, or you wouldn't avoid these clear impossible-to-obfuscate-without-looking-silly issues."
"None of you has any credibility. All of you obviously know that the moon missions were faked as well as the hoax-believers do."
"Any sixth-grader could see this."

Yep, that's Disinfo David alright.
[End edit]

I regret that I must also remind everyone that FatFreddy88 continually employs that tool used by repressive regimes and anti-free thought thugs everywhere to stifle dissent and demonize the opposition: the loyalty test. "If you don't believe this video is a fraud, you are a liar". That is shamefully hpocritical of Mr. Rage-Against-the-Machine.

We can therefore reasonably conclude, based on his own history, and his own sources, that FatFreddy88/David C/rocky/cosmored is a paid disinformation agent. The "paid" part comes from the simple fact that anyone who spends so much time posting the same stuff on so many forums must be paid to do so.

***

Actually, FatFreddy88, I don't believe you're a "disinformation agent". I think you really believe this stuff, which is much more depressing.

But do you see how easy such a cheap and vacuous exercise is? Can you grasp how poor a substitute it is for actually engaging with people who genuinely disagree with you, and for reevaluating your convictions in light of your history of failure - instead of clinging ever more tightly to them?


Please read my post 8312 and ask yourself what it means. Can you free your mind from you religious denialism long enough to do that? Are you willing to think, not just repeat the same cliches again? If not, what are you afraid of?

 

[abaddon]

It's not avoidance. I've addressed this all before and you're pretending I haven't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymwE1sNm82Y

Yootuube malarky is precisely that. You have addressed nothing. Lo-res videos are worse than useless.

It isn't more favorable to air movement.

Another low-res fail.

I tried running by a flag at a 45 degee angle and it move exactly the same way the Apollo flag moved.

And failed, because that was not the angle of incidence of the astronaut in the video you posted.

Again, I've addressed this and you have the attitude that haven't.

You have not addressed it, otherwise you would post it.

If the flag obviously starts moving before the astronaut is close enough to touch it, we can conclude that its having been touched didn't make it move.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9qcL4LiUg

You didn't recognise the word "If". You bear sole responsibility to prove that "If". It is your claim.

Anyone who watches the above clip can see that this is simply not what happened. The direct distance between the astronaut's arm and the flag is more than a foot when the flag starts moving. You seem to be trying to sway those viewers who don't take the time to look at the footage as it obviously belies what you say.

Yet no one does.

No, it isn't possible as the footage clearly shows that the flag starts moving before he gets close enough to touch it.

Unsopported opinion.

I'm referring to the direct distance between the astronaut's arm and the
flag. I'm not talking about the distance between his arm and the flag when the astronaut is directly between the flag and the camera. The flag started moving before he arrived to that point. You seem to be trying to muddy the waters with these two different distances and confuse the viewers.

Another unsupported opinion.

In a scenario in which air moved the flag, the rod wouldn't noticably move unless there were a bigger gust which would cause a bigger flag movement by which the flag would cause the rod to move.

Another unsupported opinion

In a scenario in which ground vibration moved the flag, there would certainly be both noticable pole and rod movement–not only pole movement with no rod movement as your doctored video shows–and the rod movement is what would cause the flag to move.

Clearly, paralax is opaque to you. Please provide proof of the "doctoring".

(from post #8153)

Yeah, Right.

This is simply wrong.

At last, truth.

As I've said a few time before, it would take a bigger wind than the one created by the astronaut to make it billow; he was at a forty five degree angle to the flag when he trotted by it. He would have to trot by parallel to it at a slightly greater speed to make it billow. It's not billowing doesn't mean it was in a vacuum. It just means that the astronaut was moving fast enough to make the corner move slightly but not moving fast enough to make it billow. Any sixth-grader could see this.

Provide your qualifications in fluid dynamics, please.

This video shows that it wasn't a video artifact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFMpmjEv9o0

Please give it up with your argumentum ad yootuubem.

You people have authoritative patronizing attitudes but your actual arguments would get you laughed out of the debating hall.

They wouldn't entertain such arguments in the debating hall.

Here it is...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446557/board/thread/133905495?p=1

Really, the one where Jarrah got toasted?

...and here's Jarrah's video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK9TXFQLjg4
And all the way back to argumentum ad yootuubem.

The people who say they read it and that he gave a foul-mouthed rant also agree with you on this issue...
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8135606&postcount=7907
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8144391&postcount=7990

...so they have no credibility.


Jarrah said in his video that you put conditions on your answering his questions. That's a good way to avoid issues that are too clear to be obfuscated. Some issues are so clear that sophistry becomes ineffective and, if people try to obfuscate them anyway, they just end up looking silly. If I were in your place, I'd probably use the same avoidance tactic as it attracts less attention. It's pretty clear that you know as well as hoax-believers that the moon missions were faked, or you wouldn't avoid these clear impossible-to-obfuscate-without-looking-silly issues.

Which part of me saying that I will not waste my bandwidth on an idiot like Jarrah?
If you have a case to make, then make it. Otherwise, you do not have a case.