NASA’s Apollo 11 Mission landed on the moon on the 20th of July in 1969. A massive feat for the time, and according to many people, too massive to be true. It all started with a man called Bill Kaysing. He claimed that NASA faked it all. Since then many theories arose about how the landing was a big hoax.

1) The Flag

A popular myth about the moon landing is that the flag in the images appears to be flapping, however, there is no wind on the moon. Does this prove anything? No. No, it doesn’t.

If observed carefully in the above image, there is a thin metal beam on the top of the flag, adjacent to the pole. Yes, NASA considered the no air situation and added the beam such that the flag doesn’t droop. The beam wouldn’t open a full 90 degrees for some reason, due to which the bottom of the flag wasn’t absolutely straight. moreover, throughout the flight, the flag had been rolled up and hence it wrinkled quite a bit.

2) Shadow business

What’s wrong with this picture:

The flag and Neil Armstrong’s shadows aren’t parallel! logically, on the moon, the only source of light would be the sun. They should be parallel right? No.Think of it this way: a drawing of a 3d cube, when flattened out, would make it seem as though the sides are slanted. the cube in its actual dimension, 3D, would be straight. In the same way, a 3D flag and a 3D human would appear to be unparallel in certain lighting situations.

Go outside when the Sun is low in the sky and see this effect for yourself. You and the flag won’t be parallel.

3) The Van Allen Belt

The Van Allen Belt is a region of high concentrations of electromagnetically charged particles. Any form of organic matter passing through it would be exposed to high amounts of radiation. However, going to the moon meant flying at an extremely high speed, which allowed the Apollo 11 to fly through the belt without any damage, similar to the way touching an extremely hot object for a brief period of time won’t harm you.

4) Missing Stars

In all the pictures of the moon landing, no stars are visible. In the thin atmosphere of the moon, millions should be visible right? Not necessarily. 

The moon, just like earth always has a part of it facing the sun and the other opposing it. As the photos were likely to be taken during moon day, the sun’s light would reflect off the moon’s surface and make it too bright for stars to be visible. Just the way stars can’t be seen on earth during the day.

5) Crosshairs on pictures

The cameras used by the Apollo 11 Mission had a clear glass frame with reticules on the lense. optically, all the reticules should cover the parts of the photos. In certain pictures, however, the objects covered up the reticules.

This is just an effect of over-exposure. the photos were given longer exposure in the low light of the moon, and hence the white parts of the photos reflected light such that the thin crosshairs over the white parts were covered up. recent enhanced and desaturated images show the corrected versions.

6) Other than all this

2 years after the landing, promoting the popular myth of the ‘fake landings’, The blockbuster James Bond movie “Diamonds are forever” showed a scene with Bond running through a studio where the landings were being faked. Many other Hollywood films enhanced the claims of Bill Kaysing.