Author Topic: Is there a standard claim about Apollo crew taking "faked" pictures of the Earth  (Read 16425 times)

Offline Cat Not Included

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I had a rather frustrating conversation today with an internet acquaintance who apparently thinks a flat-Earth nut has some "interesting points". In the course of the discussion, he mentioned that NASA had faked photos before. Specifically, something about some of the crew on a moon mission taking deliberately "messed-with" photographs out of the spacecraft.

Now, I wanted more detail on this, but he couldn't come up with anything else. However, I then got to thinking...HB types regurgitate the same thing over and over. Somebody here has probably seen this claim before.

I think the original source is Eric Dubay, who is apparently a flat Earth nut.

I'm still trying to figure out how "astronauts could take photos FROM SPACE" is compatible with "Earth is flat", but hey, my mind just doesn't work the "right" way.
The quote "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" very clearly predates personal computers.

Offline Chew

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Specifically, something about some of the crew on a moon mission taking deliberately "messed-with" photographs out of the spacecraft.

He might be referring to the original hoaxer claim that all of the pictures taken by the moon walkers were perfectly framed; something the hoaxers believe was impossible for a chest-mounted camera. The Apollo proponents simply pointed them to the photo archive and showed them many pictures that were not perfectly framed. If that is the case, your acquaintance fell for a myth created by the hoaxers trying to cover up their past shoddy research skills.

Offline bknight

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Specifically, something about some of the crew on a moon mission taking deliberately "messed-with" photographs out of the spacecraft.

He might be referring to the original hoaxer claim that all of the pictures taken by the moon walkers were perfectly framed; something the hoaxers believe was impossible for a chest-mounted camera. The Apollo proponents simply pointed them to the photo archive and showed them many pictures that were not perfectly framed. If that is the case, your acquaintance fell for a myth created by the hoaxers trying to cover up their past shoddy research skills.

Or he may voicing Allen/Percy/Sibrel claims that the Earth photos were on a transparency against one of the windows.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline onebigmonkey

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Well, there's the 'they were taken in LEO' argument, made by people who have obviously never seen a a photo taken from LEO.

There are those who claim they are just a real photo taken through some sort of circular tube, usually by people who have never seen a map of the Earth.

There is the 'they are just plain faked' arguments, and they must be paintings or composite photos of some sort. Also demonstrably false thanks to the power of live TV and satellite meteorology.

The blunder has obviously been alerted to the satellite photos that exist in parallel with pictures of Earth from Apollo and he actually claims this in one of the texts accompanying his youtube nonsense:

Quote
“...these videos have been compared with photos of earth taken by weather satellites in orbit at the time. Naturally, the pro-NASA side has been quick to call this "evidence". This trait is typical among propagandists: they present a piece of data or video that they don't know how to fake, and they assume that anything they don't know how to fake must be evidence that Apollo was real. Considering that NASA had many weather satellites in orbit long before and during Apollo, and that meteorologists had been using such satellite photographs to predict cloud formations and thus make forecasts for the week's weather, I'd say that's how NASA was able to get the cloud positions right in these videos.”

So there you go, NASA looked at weather photos, had a good old guess about what the weather would do, faked a photo of Earth and took it from there. As I point out on my page at the time of Apollo satellite meteorology was in its infancy and they were still in the process of trying to reconcile ground or atmospheric observations with satellite images. Even today forecasts are not made purely on the basis of visual observation of clouds from space, and there is no way at all that anyone could predict the change in Hurricane Bernice from they day before Apollo 11's launch to what was filmed and photographed from space.

Then there are those who claim that the clouds don't change at all on sequences of photos (totally untrue), that Earth doesn't change (totally untrue), it's in the wrong position or angle in the lunar sky (totally untrue), it's too small/big [delete as applicable], and that it doesn't rotate when it's filmed over long periods (again, totally untrue).

All the astronauts I have heard speak say that the best thing, or the most important discovery, about going to the moon was Earth. Likewise the hoax lovers can poke around all they like in pictures of the moon trying to prove their gibberish, but it's pictures of Earth that really skewer them.

Offline bknight

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One of the aspects of "fakery" was the images of the Earth in cislunar was no the "fakery" itself, but when the TV was pulled back from the window, the comment all followed "look at the blue haze, obviously from LEO".  That bothered me because I couldn't explain the phenomena.  I read on one of the forum threads that the construction of the windows actually produced a blue haze when viewed at an angle, not straight at the window.  "Anomaly" explained, good things happen when one has an open mind and looks for reasons for behavior, not just looking for any questionable occurrences that proves the missions were "faked".
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline twik

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There are a lot of arguments hoax proponents have brought up about the photographs. I don't think any can be considered "standard." Even if there were, it would be hard to debunk the points to someone whose only argument is "I heard there was something messed up about the photographs." You could debunk point after point all day, and he'd just say after each, "Well, yes, but that probably wasn't what they were talking about when they said there was something wrong."

"I heard there was something suspicious - no, I don't know what it was, but I believe it entirely" is one of those arguments you simply can't win.

Offline Cat Not Included

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Thanks for the answers. Sorry, as it turns out, all indications are the guy was just trolling. He picked some common vague "screwball conspiracy" statements to mess with people and get them annoyed. At least, I think that's the case. Really hard to tell.

I tend to be of the mindset that there's not really much difference between "pretending" to be a jerk and just being a jerk.
The quote "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" very clearly predates personal computers.

Offline DonQuixote

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I tend to be of the mindset that there's not really much difference between "pretending" to be a jerk and just being a jerk.

A fair assessment.  :P
You can lead a fool to knowledge, but you can not make him think.

Offline bknight

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Thanks for the answers. Sorry, as it turns out, all indications are the guy was just trolling. He picked some common vague "screwball conspiracy" statements to mess with people and get them annoyed. At least, I think that's the case. Really hard to tell.

I tend to be of the mindset that there's not really much difference between "pretending" to be a jerk and just being a jerk.

Judging from many responses in YT that may be the modus operandi, just jerks.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline Gazpar

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After seeing some videos of Eric Dubay, I dont know how someone would take him seriously.

Offline bknight

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Yes, flat-headed, Eric Dubay, perhaps one of the stupidest theory on the planet.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline raven

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Some guy burnt down the Temple of Artemis to get attention. Acting like an idiot on youtube is practically par for the course!

Offline bknight

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Some guy burnt down the Temple of Artemis to get attention. Acting like an idiot on youtube is practically par for the course!

I missed that one is world history, but it seems you are correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis
Herostratus was his name, I learn something new everyday.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline raven

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Some guy burnt down the Temple of Artemis to get attention. Acting like an idiot on youtube is practically par for the course!

I missed that one is world history, but it seems you are correct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis
Herostratus was his name, I learn something new everyday.
The biggest irony is we know his name! Which means he got exactly what he wanted!

Offline smartcooky

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He might be referring to the original hoaxer claim that all of the pictures taken by the moon walkers were perfectly framed; something the hoaxers believe was impossible for a chest-mounted camera. The Apollo proponents simply pointed them to the photo archive and showed them many pictures that were not perfectly framed. If that is the case, your acquaintance fell for a myth created by the hoaxers trying to cover up their past shoddy research skills.

"Curiosity Rover Conspiracy Theorists" (yes folks, they really do exist)....

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&site=&source=hp&q=curiosity+rover+conspiracy&oq=Curiosity+rover+con&gs_l=hp.1.1.0l2j0i22i30l8.2115.8965.0.11448.19.15.0.2.2.0.386.2244.2-6j2.8.0....0...1c.1.64.hp..9.10.2268.7v8dI2vS4uU

...keep claiming that NASA is hiding most of the pictures being sent back by MSL (at least, those who acknowledge that MSL is indeed on Mars and not at a secret film studio at Groom Lake, Nevada)

The thing is, all the images taken on every day of  MSL's 1077 days (and counting) on Mars, from all five imaging instruments, are available to anyone for free download.

http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?s=#/?slide=1077

There are over 260,000 images so far... about 250 images each day. Counting only daylight hours for photo taking, that's about one image every two and a half minutes
If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.