How moon landing conspiracy theories began and why they persist today – Professor Peter Knight
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Bill Kaysing was a former US Navy officer who worked as a technical writer for one of the rocket manufacturers for Nasa’s Apollo moon missions. He claimed that he had inside knowledge of a government conspiracy to fake the moon landings, and many conspiracy theories about the Apollo moon landings which persist to this day can be traced back to his 1976 book, We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle.
The basic template of the conspiracy theory is that Nasa couldn’t manage to safely land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s as President John F Kennedy had promised, so it only sent astronauts into Earth orbit. Conspiracy theorists then argue that Nasa staged the moon landings in a film studio and that there are tell-tale signs on the footage and the photos that give the game away. They claim that Nasa has covered up the elaborate hoax ever since.
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Hide AdMoon landing sceptics point to supposed clues such as photos that appear to show the astronauts in front of cross hairs that were etched on the camera glass, or a mysterious letter C visible on a moon rock.
These and many other seeming anomalies have been debunked