Excellent. I'll start with these three so as not to overwhelm you.
Forgive me if I end up stealing a bit of your thunder. I think these are well-chosen questions and I'd like to endorse them and perhaps elaborate a bit.
- [...] Stated another way, how many of your stated conclusions were supported by proven competence within these specific fields of study, and do you still hold to them?
This is mostly where I was going. Certain judgments have probative value in the real world only if they come from suitable information and expertise. The position of this paper within Burns' overall claims (if any) to relevant expertise are still unclear in my mind. Simply waving a putatively relevant degree certificate does not establish a connection between the specific claims and relevant expertise, especially when obvious amateurisms appear in the text and other relevant experts disagree on both the method and the findings. While we accept certain tokens as emblematic of expertise -- academic or professional -- the true expression of expertise is the ability to "walk the walk," i.e., to have learned discussions at any time with other members of the field and hold one's own in them. That is what has been solicited here from him.
- You mention Arthur C. Clarke as one source when referring to orbital equations in your paper, crediting him with "working out the theory". Were his written works central in your research?
Now is probably the appropriate time to bring up again that I was contacted by Arthur C. Clarke's office to perform some Apollo-related research and analysis for him years ago, which I did and then discussed directly with him. So if Burns wants to invoke Clarke in his defense, he'll have to realize that at least one of his critics here is among the experts whom Clarke consulted, and that I know for a fact he considers the Moon landings to be absolute historical fact.
- [...] How do you reconcile his stated need for secrecy, with your earlier account of playing golf in full view of other witnesses, and flying with him and other passengers in an airliner on July 20th, 1969?
I did bring this up earlier in my review. Some of us decided to narrow the scope of our questioning to exclude it on the grounds that supernatural testimony was inherently not probative. But the point has been raised several times that the content of the testimony, regardless of its proposed provenance, can be tried separately.
The premise of Burns' book requires the supernatural testimony to be tantamount -- in all ways having to do with memory, senses, faculty, and reason -- to testimony given by a live person. That is, Burns' case stands only if the ghost of Armstrong is in all relevant ways to the mortal Armstrong and possess his memories, reason, and skill. Otherwise a critic could claim that some unknown supernatural factor acted to cause the postmortem Armstrong to invent, fabricate, or otherwise imagine all that, and even to plant into Burns' mind false memories of prior events.
But if the conversation with the ghost of Armstrong must be taken as equivalent in all material respects to the conversation with a real living person, for the purpose allegedly of providing probative eyewitness testimony, then it must be subject to the same standards of credibility as that of a living person.
The inconsistency cited here in this question is only one of the many we can cite. In one category, the story is alleged to be fact but is patently inconsistent with itself. Armstrong is first characterized as being greatly concerned with their being discovered by someone who would recognize them, then without explanation throws caution to the wind and goes out in public to a place he says he and his colleagues frequented often. That is, "hiding in plain sight" is invoked without any reference to what that typically is meant to convey, and the crew simply acts inexplicably in a way that increases the chances they will be discovered.
In a different category, the story alleges details and facts that are at odds with objectively determined fact. For example, the few quotations or paraphrases alleged to come from NASA procedure manuals are wholly inconsistent both in style and substance from the copious examples of such documents.
I hasten to add that I did not invent this test. This "local color" test is commonly used by archaeologists and document analysts to ascertain the validity of some alleged new testament. Every testimony purports to arise from some milieu, and how well it fits what is known about that milieu is oen test of its authenticity. So we're not just making up ways in which to dismiss this book. We're applying common, straightforward authenticity tests. Many of us here are intimately familiar with the tangible and intangible aspects of working with NASA, and of how NASA has historically operated. Unlike most of the intended readers of the book, we are well positioned to be able to determine whether some given specimen fits.
