Apollo 16 Flag Anomaly

[BDL]

In the footage of the Apollo 16 EVA, a very odd flag movement has come to my attention.
Here:

The flag movement happens at around 17:12, where the flag suddenly takes a sharp stressed turn upwards and I'm not totally sure why. Currently, I think it's possible the flag movement may have something to do with the astronaut's right hand as he looks like he may be touching it; but I think that's a little iffy. At home I own a small nylon flag that I can use to find out possible explanations, so I'll try to use that if I need to. Unfortunately, my nylon flag is probably insufficient for testing since it wasn't designed like the lunar flags.
And before we get into the actual explanation, I think we can rule out the notion that it was caused by a fan for at least 2 reasons: 1. There's no valid reason NASA would use a fan on a hypothetical moon set, and 2. Even if they tried, the sharp movement that we see couldn't be caused by wind simply because wind can't really create such a line of stress. If we blow any fan at a nylon flag of that size, the reaction of that flag would be completely different.
Anyways, does anyone have any explanation for this anomaly? I might have been correct the first time with my theory that the astronaut's right hand is the primary cause, but I'd like to talk about it with those with more knowledge than me. Thank you.

[MBDK]

IMHO, you can see the flag start to "flap" in the direction you noted at about 17:10.  I think it did that due to twisting of the pole by the left hand, which happens to be covered by the right hand/arm from the camera's point of view.  Then, additional twisting caused a "rogue wave" of a "flap", as seen at 17:12, due to a build up of kinetic energy and the sudden stop.  That is my opinion, anyway, and I am absolutely no expert.  I am curious to see what others think.

[onebigmonkey]

If you look at 17:00 you see the astronaut reach up to the flag as that corner is folded over. The pronounced upward movement later occurs as he twists his hand on the pole. My suggestion is a long thread that has got caught on his hand that pulls on that corner has he twists.

[BDL]

Thank you for the possible explanations.
I’ll go through some other flag footage in a bit that might help us come to a conclusion.

[raven]

It certainly looks like no flag I've seen on Earth, even with the horizontal pole taken into account.

[bknight]

It certainly looks like the corner of the flag is moving because of the movement of john's hand/arm.
Nothing anomalists to me.

[Kiwi]

Watch John Young's right hand against the bottom stripes on the flag right by the pole. To me it looks as if he sharply moves his hand up to about the top of the second red stripe from the bottom - three stripes total.

How would you expect a folded nylon flag to behave in low gravity and with no atmosphere?  Is there any chance that static electricity plays any part? I don't know the answers and I guess most of us wouldn't know either. And I don't really care. Why call what happened an "anomaly"?  Isn't that overdoing it?

I don't understand this weird obsession with things behaving differently on the moon compared with how they do on Earth. I expect things to be different, so just don't see the "anomalies" that some people do. I enjoy seeing something unexpected and there's plenty of it.

Have you ever watched Jack Schmitt's magnificent arse-up at the Apollo 17 Alsep site? He tries in vain to prevent himself tumbling over and kicks a drill-stand up off the surface, possibly with the back of his foot.  It's well-worth a look on a big screen.

121:01:05 Cernan: No, go ahead. (Laughter)
[Jack looses his balance and spins to the ground; he kicks the rack again on the way down.]
121:01:11 Cernan: (Both laughing) Okay, okay, okay.
[Cernan - "This part - where Jack spins around and falls ass-over teakettle - was the funniest thing in the world."]
121:01:14 Cernan: Stay there. Stay there.
[Jack is on his hands and knees. Gene grabs hold of the back of his PLSS and tells him to rock back onto his feet.]
121:01:17 Cernan: Okay, back.
[Jack rocks back on his knees and pushes up with his legs onto his feet, with Gene helping him balance.]
121:01:20 Schmitt: Thank you. (Pause) Oh, my UHT (is on the ground); among other things. Okay. Let's try that again.

It's also worth studying pages before that part of the ALSJ to see the work that Gene Cernan put into drilling the holes, and the care he took to see that they didn't reproduce John Young's accident when he tripped over the heat flow cable and wrecked it.

[BDL]

It certainly looks like the corner of the flag is moving because of the movement of john's hand/arm.
Nothing anomalists to me.

Yeah, this was initially what I had thought too. I just wanted to make sure and get others' opinion on this.

[EngineerSteve]

I just stumbled onto this and had to watch and comment. I'm not worried about it, just figured I could figure it out, but its strange...
FWIW:
It does NOT look like anything he could have done by moving / twisting the pole, to me.  it looks like the very lower corner is jerked up almost by a string.
He was fiddling with that corner of the flag a short time before it flips up, as though somethign may have been caught/attached...
I don't know who is talking.

He says "I just slung that little carry bar on the alsep package 200 ..... meters." He seems to grunt out the word "meters" as though he is throwing the other one.

Then he seems to comment as the flag is jumping as he pauses just before saying "meters" when he then says: "  There goes the other one."  As if he threw the other one.  It seems almost as though the second one somehow tugged on that corner of the flag, but I can't see his arm moving as though he throws anything....
Regards, Steve
P.S.
Listening earlier and later  it's clear we are looking at "John" doing the flag, but the other guy is doing the talking and the throwing which is what may have hit the flag corner...

[Kiwi]

It's best to always see what the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/
says about any astronaut activity on the moon. This part is in the section ALSEP Off-Load. There is no mention or discussion of the particular flag motion being discussed here, so it probably didn't merit any. The following is from the DVD-ROM version of the ALSJ, so the online version might have later updates.

120:21:35 Duke: Stealing your thunder back here, John. I'm taking all the ALSEP stuff out. (Pause)

[Normally, John would have helped Charlie with the ALSEP off-load as per CDR-14. However, because of the various changes in procedures, Charlie is doing all of the work himself. On LMP-11, note that Charlie does not have copies of John's procedures in his checklist. After Charlie removed the experiment package, John would have removed the RTG (Radioisotope Thermo-electric Generator) package. The RTG provides electric power to the ALSEP experiments and must be fueled with a plutonium source which, at the moment, is sealed in a graphite cask mounted on the side of the spacecraft to the left of the SEQ Bay.]

[At the MESA, John has assembled the two-part flag staff and has removed a cover from the flag. The flag has a two-part, hinged stiffing rod embedded along the top and John has to unfold that rod and lock it into place.]

120:21:49 Young: Never seen it fail.
120:21:51 Duke: What happened?
120:21:52 Young: (Garbled) (Long Pause)

[Apparently, the bottom of the flag detached from the staff, but John quickly re-attaches it. He plants the flag staff in the ground and takes a few minutes to shape the stiffened flag properly. In the process, the upper section of the flagstaff comes out of the lower section that is sticking in the ground.]

120:22:23 Duke: Tony, I'm going out for the Olympics. I just slung that little carry bar on the ALSEP package - the crooked one - about 200 meters, it looked like. There goes the other one. I'm a real winner on the hammer throw. Look at that beauty go! Just created my own secondary (crater). How are you doing with the flag, John?
120:22:55 England: Outstanding, Charlie. I'm sure you'll hold the record now.
120:23:04 Duke: I doubt that. (Pause) Maybe for the Cayley Plains Saturday afternoon (grunts) shindig. (Long Pause)

[While Charlie was talking, John tries to retrieve the lower staff section by bobbing down to his knees but can't grab it. He then kneels without apparent difficulty. using the bottom of the upper staff section for support. He then rises with ease and does a little hop to get his feet under him, all without tipping forward as happens to many of the other astronauts in similar situations. Finally, he re-attaches the staff sections and moves off-camera to the left. After the usual delay, Fendell starts to follow but quickly realizes that he probably won't find John before reaching the counterclockwise stop.]

[Young, from the 1972 Technical Debrief - "I can honestly say I had as much trouble putting the flag together in one-sixth-gravity as I did in one gravity. My main concern was with the TV sitting there watching us: that we'd end up with the flag in the dirt and us standing on it. As soon as I picked up the lower leg of the flag, I dropped it and I was in the dirt. So, I was bent over holding the flag up with one hand and I picked the thing up and put it together.]

[Fendell reverses direction and starts a clockwise pan.]

120:23:35 Young: You really should set the flag up on a hill, Charlie, but there just ain't one (near the LM).

[BDL]

Revisiting this one for a bit, I’d like to mention that his right hand is exactly where the line of stress in the nylon flag starts. I think it’s defintely his hand that creates this “unexpected” flap. It’s a little hard to see likely because of the perspective of the camera, but his hand goes a little bit forward touching the flag (where, as I said before, the line of stress starts) and when he moves his hand a different direction, the flag comes back down.

Also, if you speed up the footage like HBs say you should, you get a flag speed that is inconsistent with both lunar and earth gravity. The only way the flag physics checks out would be on the moon going normal speed.

[Willoughby]

The only context in which I would say this is an odd movement is here.....on Earth....in air.  These kinds of arguments bother me the most.  Hoaxers will find something which doesn't make sense TO THEM, and assert it is support for their claim that the missions were faked - - when the movement is equally unexplained within the context of a faked mission.  Consider for the sake of argument that the missions were entirely faked.  Does this now explain the motion of the flag?  No.  Because of this, the fact that you can't explain it is not at all related to the validity of the mission.