HBs, CTs, Deniers, Alien Apologists...

[Ishkabibble]

I'm following that thread (and have absolutely zilch to contribute...) and I'm waiting with rapt anticipation for Baker to come in and say, "you got me"...

Somehow, I doubt he will.

[LunarOrbit]

Perhaps LunarOrbit and/or Dr.Acula might like to give us an idea what it was that made them rethink their positions; was it a gradual realisation or was there a "watershed moment"?

As others have already mentioned, I'm not the original owner of the forum and I've always believed Apollo really happened. I'm actually the third owner of ApolloHoax, believe it or not. I've been a member of the forum from the beginning, but I was not very active so I might be remembering some of the details incorrectly.

The original owner, whose name was Jonathan if I remember correctly, was a hoax believer but eventually converted.  I think not long after 9/11 he lost interest in running the website and more or less abandoned it.

The second owner (whose name was John Witts, I think) inherited the admin role of the forum but wasn't given the information he needed to properly maintain the website. I remember there was one time when the forum was hacked or damaged in some way and I helped restore it. Eventually the domain name expired. John didn't know how to recover it, and we had no way to contact Jonathan. So I registered the .net domain and created a ProBoards forum as a temporary measure which ended up becoming permanent.

[bknight]

Oh yes, Dave Cosnette (Cosmic Dave as he liked to be known, or Comic Dave as we called him) has a long and amusing history among HBs. For a long time, along with the article you linked, he also had an article about the alien encounters Apollo astronauts had when they went to the Moon. So, yes, he simultaneously promoted the ideas that the astronauts couldn't go to the Moon, and found aliens when they went there. I can't see the astronaut-alien encounter page there with a quick search, so he may have finally realised the two theories were mutually incompatible.

IIRC he visited Cosmoquest and this board, both in earlier incarnations, and generally had his arguments torn to shreds by people like JayUtah.

ETA: I remember debunking most of the 33 questions in around 2002...

I just finished reading one of the threads in CosmoQuest:
http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?1573-The-artful-dodges-of-Cosmic-Dave-Cosnette
In which Jay and a lot of the members, including you if your have the same handle at both locations.  His arguments seemed rather common to the likes of White, Fetzer, Blunder.  Being a rather newbie I surmise it must be common to a lot of the HB's.  Namely making accusations without fundamental knowledge of what they speak about, following someone else's ideas without checking  the validity of the claims and finally not being able to concede to failure.

If Jay reads this congratulations on taking him down, whether or not he changed his web site.
Peter now I know who read the microfiche of the newspaper, kudos to you.

[Bob B.]

I'm actually the third owner of ApolloHoax, believe it or not.

I thought there might have been another owner between you and the original, but I couldn't remember for sure.  I joined when it was under the second owner, which at the time I thought was the original owner.  I think latter I learned that he was actually the second owner.  I definitely remember when you took it over.  That's been a long time now, do you remember what year that was?

[Bob B.]

Being a rather newbie I surmise it must be common to a lot of the HB's.  Namely making accusations without fundamental knowledge of what they speak about, following someone else's ideas without checking  the validity of the claims and finally not being able to concede to failure.

That description sums it up pretty well.

[LunarOrbit]

I'm actually the third owner of ApolloHoax, believe it or not.

I thought there might have been another owner between you and the original, but I couldn't remember for sure.  I joined when it was under the second owner, which at the time I thought was the original owner.  I think latter I learned that he was actually the second owner.  I definitely remember when you took it over.  That's been a long time now, do you remember what year that was?

I created the ProBoards forum in May 2005, so it's been over 10 years. Yikes! Time flies!

[JayUtah]

Jonathan (the original owner) sent me an email some years after he abandoned the site.  He wanted us to know he was doing well, dating a nice girl, studying at college, and how grateful he was for our assistance during what, for him, was a a difficult point in his life.

[LunarOrbit]

That's good to hear, Jay. I know 9/11 hit pretty close to home for him, so I'm glad he found happiness.

[Peter B]

Oh yes, Dave Cosnette (Cosmic Dave as he liked to be known, or Comic Dave as we called him) has a long and amusing history among HBs. For a long time, along with the article you linked, he also had an article about the alien encounters Apollo astronauts had when they went to the Moon. So, yes, he simultaneously promoted the ideas that the astronauts couldn't go to the Moon, and found aliens when they went there. I can't see the astronaut-alien encounter page there with a quick search, so he may have finally realised the two theories were mutually incompatible.

IIRC he visited Cosmoquest and this board, both in earlier incarnations, and generally had his arguments torn to shreds by people like JayUtah.

ETA: I remember debunking most of the 33 questions in around 2002...

I just finished reading one of the threads in CosmoQuest:
http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?1573-The-artful-dodges-of-Cosmic-Dave-Cosnette
In which Jay and a lot of the members, including you if your have the same handle at both locations.  His arguments seemed rather common to the likes of White, Fetzer, Blunder.  Being a rather newbie I surmise it must be common to a lot of the HB's.  Namely making accusations without fundamental knowledge of what they speak about, following someone else's ideas without checking  the validity of the claims and finally not being able to concede to failure.

If Jay reads this congratulations on taking him down, whether or not he changed his web site.
Peter now I know who read the microfiche of the newspaper, kudos to you.

Yep, that's me.

I live in Canberra, which is home to the National Library. It has an extensive collection of Australian and overseas newspapers on microfilm (and increasingly digitised these days). In my single days I actually spent quite a few Saturdays reading old newspapers - anything from Apollo, to the World Wars, to the American Civil War, and even the Napoleonic Wars. So it was nothing for me to spend a few hours looking through back issues of the West Australian for mention of Coke bottles.

[Obviousman]

Yep - Peter sent me details so that I could refine my search for original copies at the Western Australia State Reference Library.

[Kiwi]

To back up Peter B's work and to satisfy my own curiosity, I ordered the July and August 1969 microfilms of the West Australian at my local library in Palmerston North on 28 March 2007.

They arrived from Australia on 11 April and cost NZ$21 to hire. On 13 April I spent three hours at the library photocopying 102 articles from 7 July to 18 August 1969. Most were about Apollo 11 and a few were of general interest, such as the last one, a negative article about the Woodstock festival, titled 2,000 sick as hippies turn festival to disaster (shock, horror!).

For the rest of April 2007, I scanned, edited and typed all the articles as necessary. Could post them here sometime if LunarOrbit approves, and I have more from my local paper.

One amusing thing about this was knowing that Bennett and Percy wrote in their magnum dopus Dark Moon, page 320, regarding "Una Ronald" and the non-existent letters about her "Coke bottle," that they "contacted this newspaper requesting information on the subject of the Coke bottle letters but despite several enquiries they have declined to respond..."

Was there any other way they could have ascertained the facts?  Yes.  They could have hired the microfilms just like I did, and maybe they didn't have to get them sent from Australia either, because on both of the boxes the films came in, was written:--
The British Library, Newspaper Library, Colindale Avenue, London, NW9 5HE

[Kiwi]

I've followed the hoax debate for a long time in lurk mode, on YT, on various fora, here, Clavius, Cosmoquest, and other places, and it suddenly occurred to me...

All of the threads I've read, (and some of them were huge!) all of the arguments I've witnessed, all of the "debates" (I use that term loosely) all seem to end up with the HBs, CTs, Deniers, etc.. all saying some variations of the same thing: "There is nothing you can tell me that will change my mind! I know it was a hoax!"...

Welcome to membership of ApolloHoax, Ishkabibble.  An excellent first post and a likeable username. Where does it come from? It seems to ring a bell somewhere deep in my memory, but my recall is getting faulty due to Oldfartitis.

An excellent saying about what you posted came from UFO buff Stanton Friedman.  Interestingly, it was directed at sceptics of his claims about UFOs, but it applies to any dogmatists like those you mentioned:--

Don't bother me with the facts; my mind is already made up. — Dr Stanton T. Friedman, Nuclear Physicist — Nexus Vol. 6, No. 2, page 5.

[bknight]

To back up Peter B's work and to satisfy my own curiosity, I ordered the July and August 1969 microfilms of the West Australian at my local library in Palmerston North on 28 March 2007.

They arrived from Australia on 11 April and cost NZ$21 to hire. On 13 April I spent three hours at the library photocopying 102 articles from 7 July to 18 August 1969. Most were about Apollo 11 and a few were of general interest, such as the last one, a negative article about the Woodstock festival, titled 2,000 sick as hippies turn festival to disaster (shock, horror!).

For the rest of April 2007, I scanned, edited and typed all the articles as necessary. Could post them here sometime if LunarOrbit approves, and I have more from my local paper.

One amusing thing about this was knowing that Bennett and Percy wrote in their magnum dopus Dark Moon, page 320, regarding "Una Ronald" and the non-existent letters about her "Coke bottle," that they "contacted this newspaper requesting information on the subject of the Coke bottle letters but despite several enquiries they have declined to respond..."

Was there any other way they could have ascertained the facts?  Yes.  They could have hired the microfilms just like I did, and maybe they didn't have to get them sent from Australia either, because on both of the boxes the films came in, was written:--
The British Library, Newspaper Library, Colindale Avenue, London, NW9 5HE

This statement seems to be fairly common among HB's, I contacted them with this preposterous proposition and they never reported back.  You did the reasonable direction, purchasing the material which the newspapers were more than happy to do.

[Luke Pemberton]

The British Library, Newspaper Library, Colindale Avenue, London, NW9 5HE

Between the British Library, Bodleian Library and the many libraries of the Oxbridge colleges and their schools/departments, there is probably little that Percy and Bennett could not get their hands on. What really grates is that they have had plenty of chance to revise their claims with the advent of the interweb. Another body of knowledge that when used correctly provides a wonder depository of information.

Helll, Apollo has its own online journal, there is little one that cannot find there. In fact, either/both Jay and ka9q have both commented that there is more than a lifetime's reading at the ALSJ for a single person (my memory).

I always found the coke bottle story quite amusing. On one hand the CTs invoke its argument, on the other they bemoan the grainy images with their better technology claims. My question is this, how do you know it's a coke bottle from such grainy images? There's an anomaly with their argument.

[bknight]

The British Library, Newspaper Library, Colindale Avenue, London, NW9 5HE

Between the British Library, Bodleian Library and the many libraries of the Oxbridge colleges and their schools/departments, there is probably little that Percy and Bennett could not get their hands on. What really grates is that they have had plenty of chance to revise their claims with the advent of the interweb. Another body of knowledge that when used correctly provides a wonder depository of information.

Helll, Apollo has its own online journal, there is little one that cannot find there. In fact, either/both Jay and ka9q have both commented that there is more than a lifetime's reading at the ALSJ for a single person (my memory).

I always found the coke bottle story quite amusing. On one hand the CTs invoke its argument, on the other they bemoan the grainy images with their better technology claims. My question is this, how do you know it's a coke bottle from such grainy images? There's an anomaly with their argument.

Revising/deleting parts of AULIS would hurt sales and I really don't believe they will do that.  Profit incentive is a powerful motivator.