Try abovetopsecret.com.
Specifically this enormous thread: Disclosure of the moon landing hoax., page 1
Which continues here after it reached 400 pages: Disclosure of the Moon Landing Hoax: Part 2, page 1
Also this one: Why I believe the Moon landings may have been faked, page 1
Also try the Cosmoquest (formerly Bad Astronomy/Universe Today) conspiracy theory section - it’s mostly debunking but there is some good discussion: http://cosmoquest.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?19-Conspiracy-Theories&
According to a recent study, the moon landing hoax (if real) would have been revealed in 3.7 years. BBC story on the study here.
The SDMB is admittedly not the best place for this question, but I have to applaud Socratic for his broad and open minded curiosity, which I share. I for one am very interested in the anthropologic, sociologic and psychologic aspects of such phenomena. I even went so far as to check out how holocaust deniers come to their conclusions.
One thing I figured out pretty quickly - the general way of working toward the it’s-a-hoax conclusion:
What I never could figure out why there are always so many people willing or wanting to believe that the weirdest explanation must be the correct one. OK, there will always be the occasional crackpot and/or failed ‘scientist’, but it surprises me how large their gullable following is.
ANyway, let us know if you find anything interesting or (more likely) a nice theory so far out there you find yourself rofling.
And if you ever get bored with the Apollo hoax, check out chemtrails for some creative reasoning …
I have become mildly obsessed with the chemtrail crowd of late. It’s a truly fascinating delusion, and it seems to be growing fast.
That’s what I mean. By the time I heard about it and started googling, it had already taken off like a rocket. Must be connected to the fact that we see more and more airplane trails lately - which of course is in no way related tot the fact that the number of flights grew tenfold in a few decades … :smack:
On the other hand, having experienced the full range of stupid, nasty and delusional beliefs associated with numerous conspiracy theories, I am mostly into pointing and laughing.
It’s idiotic. Living next to a SAC base as a kid, I saw some impressive things in the sky. They were called “vapor trails” then–now “contrails.” (Yes, I asked.) Depending on atmospheric conditions, some of the very high ones stayed for a while.
Have all these folks never looked up?
I think a big part of it is down to observation bias. Most people don’t really bother to look at the sky very much. But then they hear about “chemtrails” and suddenly they notice contrails all the time.
Obviously I was aware of them in the sky, but I only really started taking notice of them seriously two or three years ago, and now I can’t help seeing the “ominous” grids and patterns. But of course, when I look back at my old photos, they were there all along, long before I really paid attention to them.
(I also think part of it is that modern cameras are much better at dealing with the dynamic range whereas old film cameras often just washed the sky out to white - that and the massive increase in photography, of course. Nobody would waste rolls of film taking photos of contrails.)
I believe a lot of it has to do with narcissism, either in the way of “I know better than the sheeple” or “I can’t conceive how those people, who I hold in low regard, could have done it, therefore they must have faked it”.
Contrails (or vapor trails) have been around for a long time. There are plenty of photos & films. Explanations here–along with some nutcase “comments.”
Looking up occasionally to see how clouds (water vapor!) behave can also be fruitful. But some people never look up.
Could be. Which makes me wonder if my own narcissism has anything to do with my fascination. Nothing beats reading posts by dumb people to make you feel super smart if not a better human being than the rest…
That’s why I hang out on this board! 
This video explains in detail how the moon landings could not have been faked simply because film/video technology in the 60’s wasn’t advanced enough yet.
What they’re missing is that aliens gave us the technology to help fake the moon-landings. Buzz Aldrin is hiding the fact that he and Neal met these aliens when they landed on the moon.
In a lot of cases, I suspect that’s literally true. I’ve lost count of the number of examples of some idiot noticing something for the first time, despite that “something” being exceedingly common, and then going off the deep end about how “They are hiding something!” or “Why wasn’t I told about this?” or “Why is this everywhere all of a sudden?” or other such similar nonsense.
For instance:
SHEEPLE, WAKE UP!!!
Don’t you realize that this just shows HOW LONG they have been MESSING with OUR AIR and keeping us in the DARK!!! How would you feel if Hitler killed you???!!!
When I was a kid I used to love to watch contrails, especially at sunset.
The trouble I had with it was that it didn’t allow that the footage could have been faked and edited way before hand. For instance: Film loads only runs for (I forget but let’s say 30 min). OK - run three loads and splice them together and you have 1.5 hours of film. Hitchcock did it in Rope. Or using video to slow down the apparent speed. Tape 2 minutes => record on kinescope, lather rinse repeat. Splice together at end.
I mean isn’t interesting that the original tapes were erased “accidentally”? Hey, I’m just asking questions.
No.
Sadly, footage of historical events and old broadcasts are routinely lost, destroyed, or erased by accident, neglect, or a need to reuse media or clear up storage. It’s why some old TV shows can’t be found on DVD. Full coverage of the first Super Bowl was just recently made available, they’ve been trying to find it for years. Previously they could only show highlight reels from what they had available.
This happens with photos too. I don’t think you need to suspect a conspiracy about something sadly commonplace.
Also I forgot to add that old film can be highly flammable, something being lost in a fire is a cliche at this point.