# Well, they found the landers! Hoax over. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 18, 2009, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401 "2009-07-18T02:12:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/41 "2009-07-22T05:29:14Z")
> [@SSG\_Schwartz](#): > > Proof that the landing was faked. This is the first attempt to film the moon “[landing](http://web.archive.org/web/20040103071003/www.moontruth.com/clips/moontruth.mpg).” 😃 > > SSG Schwartz 😛 Notice at the end he says “sorry Mr. Gorsky”. How many here get that reference? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/42 "2009-07-22T23:33:31Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Plenty of Shakespeare deniers believe in a cover-up that’s been going on for over four hundred years. > > That supposed cover-up wouldn’t require the knowledge and cooperation of multiple generations of conspiracists, would it? In some versions, yes. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/43 "2009-07-22T23:43:41Z")
> [@John\_W.Kennedy](#): > > In some versions, yes. Interesting. I wasn’t aware of that. Do you have a link or can you give a synopsis? (Not that I don’t believe you. It just sounds interesting.) ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/44 "2009-07-23T11:56:21Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > 😛 Notice at the end he says “sorry Mr. Gorsky”. How many here get that reference? Good Catch! I missed it on the first view! Nothing like propping up one urban legend with another!😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/45 "2009-07-24T03:49:44Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Interesting. I wasn’t aware of that. Do you have a link or can you give a synopsis? (Not that I don’t believe you. It just sounds interesting.) It’s all dreary rubbish involving Templars (doesn’t it always come down to Templars?) and/or immortality serums, and besides, the Earl of Oxford was not only Elizabeth’s illegitimate son, but the father of her _other_ illegitimate son, and if the “fact” that Oxford wrote Shakespeare’s plays were ever to come out, the very foundations of Western Civilization would totter, not to mention that the Academic Establishment knows the Real Truth, but they’re suppressing it at the behest of the Stratford-on-Avon Chamber of Commerce, and so on, and so on, and so on… No, I’m not making _any_ of that up. Excuse me. My brain has to take a shower now. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/46 "2009-07-24T04:16:42Z")
Another Photo of [Landers](http://retrorenovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ann-landers.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/47 "2009-07-24T04:24:28Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Another Photo of [Landers](http://retrorenovation.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/ann-landers.jpg). A lot more detail in that one! ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/48 "2009-07-24T14:34:29Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > A lot more detail in that one! But four decades exposed to the harsh lunar environment seems to have taken its toll. ☹ On a more serious note, here are a couple of images I put together comparing contemporary views of the Apollo 11 site with the new LRO image: [http://i29.tinypic.com/2qwnfk2.png](http://i29.tinypic.com/2qwnfk2.png) [http://i25.tinypic.com/2q2oe4z.jpg](http://i25.tinypic.com/2q2oe4z.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/49 "2009-07-25T14:31:58Z")
Strangely, these photos don’t look any more convincing than Hoagland’s images of bridges and domes on the moon. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/50 "2009-07-26T00:06:32Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Strangely, these photos don’t look any more convincing than Hoagland’s images of bridges and domes on the moon. How can you possibly think that? They show an object of exactly the right size and height, in exactly the right spot, in all of the Apollo landing sites imaged. By contrast, Hoagland’s rubbish shows stray pixels and JPEG artifacts, sharpened to within an inch of their lives, edge enhanced and converted to false colour. In any case, they’re not supposed to “convince” anyone of anything. There’s no doubt (at least in the mind of anyone with an IQ above room temperature) that the Apollo programme was real. It’s just indescribably neat to be able to see the hardware again. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/51 "2009-07-26T04:05:18Z")
Conspiracy theorists are amusing because they never realize the fundamental contradiction of their beliefs: that if so many people over such a long period of time have been able to keep (the fake moon landings, Shakespeare’s true identity, whatever) a secret, how is it that the sweaty guy with the mimeo’d manifestos stumbled upon the truth? And if he did really stumble across the truth, why doesn’t this vast conspiracy silence him? ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/52 "2009-07-27T16:35:30Z")
> [@fgasparini](#): > > Conspiracy theorists are amusing because they never realize the fundamental contradiction of their beliefs: that if so many people over such a long period of time have been able to keep (the fake moon landings, Shakespeare’s true identity, whatever) a secret, how is it that the sweaty guy with the mimeo’d manifestos stumbled upon the truth? There are some forms of enlightenment that you can only see from Mommy’s basement during adulthood. (If you can call it that!) > [@](#): > > And if he did really stumble across the truth, why doesn’t this vast conspiracy silence him? See? _Seeeee?_ See how sneaky the conspiracy is? They won’t even let themselves get caught silencing someone. ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/53 "2009-08-04T21:56:38Z")
Not the same with Shakespeare because it’s not really a conspiracy theory. Here you have an actor-producer when a lot of people are illiterate and there’s no law of copyright. Some of the earliest editions are pirated and there’s differences even in the official ones. So it’s not that impossible that a Shakespeare play could be like Kubrik film - sure he produced it and took the credit but he didn’t necessarily write the script. Shakespeare’s poems, I don’t think there’s much to doubt that he wrote _them_ but he could have produced plays for sponsors who didn’t want their name associated with something as low-life as the theatre, or at least tidied it up for them or handed some parts over to other writers. Most of the Great Master painters left the unimportant stuff to their students and there’s respectable support for at least his last play having a collaborator. Any educated gentleman was expected to bash out a few sonnets and madrigals and often in Latin so it wouldn’t be so strange if they fancied their hand at a play but it wouldn’t be respectable to admit it. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/54 "2009-08-05T04:19:26Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > [http://i29.tinypic.com/2qwnfk2.png](http://i29.tinypic.com/2qwnfk2.png) Hmmm, interesting. Are those impact craters immediately left of ‘Double crater’ new? ---
**Author:** ![signal11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@signal11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/signal11)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/55 "2009-08-05T07:06:52Z")
It doesn’t matter what evidence there is. It doesn’t matter how much evidence there ever will be. To a conspiracy theorist, every fact is evidence of the conspiracy. Visual proof? Forgery. Testimony from witnesses? They got to them, too. Some other corroborating evidence dated from that time period? Planted. It’s like these Obama birthers. It’s never going to end. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/56 "2009-08-05T15:50:26Z")
**PlainJain** said: > [@](#): > > Hmmm, interesting. Are those impact craters immediately left of ‘Double crater’ new? The first picture is Apollo, the second is the new photo. So it seems what you have discovered is that the smaller craters are _missing_. AHA! Or they’re just not visible at this resolution. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/57 "2009-08-05T17:02:38Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > **PlainJain** said: > The first picture is Apollo, the second is the new photo. So it seems what you have discovered is that the smaller craters are _missing_. AHA! > > Or they’re just not visible at this resolution. Or, more likely, with the sun in that relative location. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/58 "2009-08-05T18:22:37Z")
> [@Jerseyman](#): > > Not the same with Shakespeare because it’s not really a conspiracy theory. Yes it is. > [@](#): > > Here you have an actor-producer when a lot of people are illiterate Relevance? > [@](#): > > and there’s no law of copyright. Relevance? > [@](#): > > Some of the earliest editions are pirated Relevance? > [@](#): > > and there’s differences even in the official ones. Relevance? > [@](#): > > So it’s not that impossible It’s “not impossible” that the plays of Shakespeare were “written” by a time traveler who copied them down from a set of Folgers paperbacks. Where’s the evidence? (Not to mention that The Lord Chamberlain’s Men [aka The King’s Men, _etc._] did plenty of plays that were never credited to Shakespeare.) > [@](#): > > that a Shakespeare play could be like Kubrik film - sure he produced it No, he was one of several shareholders in a company that produced the plays. > [@](#): > > and took the credit but he didn’t necessarily write the script. > > Shakespeare’s poems, I don’t think there’s much to doubt that he wrote _them_ Why? The nutcases who deny that he wrote his plays all deny that he wrote the sonnets, too. > [@](#): > > but he could have produced plays for sponsors who didn’t want their name associated with something as low-life as the theatre, or at least tidied it up for them or handed some parts over to other writers. Evidence? > [@](#): > > Most of the Great Master painters left the unimportant stuff to their students and there’s respectable support for at least his last play having a collaborator. There’s more than “respectable support”. We _know_ that his last plays were collaborations, most often with John Fletcher, who took over for him when he retired. > [@](#): > > Any educated gentleman was expected to bash out a few sonnets and madrigals and often in Latin so it wouldn’t be so strange if they fancied their hand at a play but it wouldn’t be respectable to admit it. An urban myth, actually. It wouldn’t be respectable to be a professional actor, but that’s not the same thing. _Gorboduc_, for example, was co-written by a high-ranking politician and a Earl. Not to mention that Shakespeare _was_ an “educated gentleman”. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/59 "2009-08-06T06:01:48Z")
> [@signal11](#): > > It doesn’t matter what evidence there is. It doesn’t matter how much evidence there ever will be. > > To a conspiracy theorist, every fact is evidence of the conspiracy. Visual proof? Forgery. Testimony from witnesses? They got to them, too. Some other corroborating evidence dated from that time period? Planted. > > It’s like these Obama birthers. It’s never going to end. There’s a difference: If Obama is succeeded by a Republican the “conspiracy” will be promptly forgotten. Questiong said Republican president’s birth records? Get real. The right party is back in power. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401/60 "2009-08-09T03:39:38Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > I don’t believe the moon landing was faked, & \*\*I \*\*don’t find this picture convincing. In fact, in a, “they protest too much,” way, I now wonder if it was faked. Really? Now that NASA has taken a pic of the place they have been you decide they probably haven’t been there? When a friend shows you a picture they took on vacation do you reason they probably haven’t actually gone? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-they-found-the-landers-hoax-over/503401.md?page=4)