Friday 20 July 2012

A Bit of an Anniversary.

Today is the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, an event that spawned one of the biggest conspiracy theories of the 20th Century.

Well, I generally avoid conspiracy theories because there’s too much speculation and too little provable fact, and so they usually come down to nothing more than a choice of belief. Belief choices, as we all know, are based as much on a person’s state of mind, his inclination or otherwise to be cynical, and sometimes even elements of sub-cultural conditioning, as they are about anything actually knowable. A bit like religion, really, and best avoided I think – on both sides. I don’t know whether American astronauts landed on the moon in 1969 or not. What’s more, I don’t care; I don’t consider it important. We all know that politicians and other Establishment figures lie when it suits them, so what difference would one more make?

I can tell you this, though. I once saw a photograph that was purportedly taken on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission and it most certainly wasn’t, at least not under the conditions claimed by NASA. It had two shadows crossing, you see, and if the only source of illumination was the sun as NASA said, crossing shadows are simply impossible. Lines can appear to converge, but never cross.

And I still don’t care.

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