Moon Landings: Did They Happen or Not?

[Cosmos]

Only when on the 'lunar' surface. Here's a snip of an over exposed sun from the Gemini missions and with levels adjusted.
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The spiky sun appears, when the camera settings are applied correctly you get this no need to adjust any levels, 10 spikes and a chain pentagonal lens flares. Typical of 1960s camera tech and happens today with digital SLR cameras with a 5 blade aperture. Provided you have a single bright light, the result is the same.
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This image was taken by Gene Cernan during the Gemini missions, one purpose of these missions was to hone space photography skills. Cernan was also commander of Apollo 17 and below is an example of his work, levels adjusted AS17-136-20762, AS17-136-20764 and AS17-136-20819.
View attachment 95785View attachment 95786View attachment 95787
Seems that Commander Cernan solar photography skills had diminished somewhat since his Gemini days! Where is the sun in these photos? I can see a disc shaped flare of varying shades, very different to my previous example: Faint horizontal and vertical lines but no sun. There's a short chain of flares but they're circular, not pentagonal and they point to where the source of light is which which seems to lie beyond the image's edge. If these images were overexposed there should still be 10 spikes radiating from a bright center because these images were taken through a lens that had a 5 bladed aperture. An aperture that could be cranked down to f/45, making it essentially a pinhole camera that could negate any overexposure and provide a dazzling depth of field but Commander Cernan wasn't up to it. None of them were, despite having extensive training and the guidelines glued to the top of their cameras. All we have is one single image in over 20000 snaps taken on the moon and in orbit!

Notice that the original arguments you presented are still seriously (in fact, pretty much totally) undermined by the two simple and pretty obvious statements/sentences mkrnhr presented:

That's an over-saturated image of the sun, not an image of the sun.
Here's a non-saturated picture I took yesterday with a pocket digital camera (through binoculars..):
View attachment 95325
There is a center to limb darkening. It's not evenly illuminating.

When the image is over-exposed, the sun appears larger than it is as in this shot:
View attachment 95324

But now you are arguing that some pictures can't be overexposed images because of the spike forms of the overexposed sun and/or the lack there of. Then you continue further down the "there must be something wrong" "rabbit hole", by statements like this:

All we have is one single image in over 20000 snaps taken on the moon and in orbit!

Ok then, I guess we have to address that one as well:

Let's just stay on earth for a moment and notice what most people have done and still do if they take pictures of anything (especially with older cameras/equipment): They purposefully avoid having the sun in the photo, because, well, they want to avoid an overexposed image! In other words: Unless you want to purposefully make a picture of the sun, most likely, the overwhelming majority of pictures taken by anyone on earth purposefully avoid having the sun in the shot. Which means, that on average, we can assume that pretty much anyone who has ever taken pictures on earth has only a very tiny percentage of photos that have the sun in it (if at all). And people on earth are also likely to throw pictures out that have a sun in it, because well, the image is too overexposed.

Furthermore, if we now go out of earths atmosphere, people usually also want to make sure to not have the sun in any picture EVEN MORE SO, because of this pretty simple/obvious fact:

While the Apollo astronauts took many photos of the Earth and lunar surface, they took no images of the Sun. Without the Earth's atmosphere protecting their cameras from harmful solar radiation, our star is able to destroy any imaging equipment.

And, as it turns out, the Apollo guys did actually take a number of pictures with the sun in it, probably more by accident and carelessness than anything else. And, they and/or NASA did in fact not publish or maybe even destroy some of those images, not because of a "conspiracy", but because of exactly the same reason you do it on earth: the image is too overexposed.

Also, notice that the last quote above, by another simple and obvious deduction, strongly points to the possibility that the reason for why the sun (or rather, the overexposed image of it) appears "so big" in some of the pictures you presented, is also very simple:

If you take a picture of the sun in space and/or on the moon, the image is much more overexposed, and thus it is likely, that the overexposed image of the sun is much bigger compared to earth, where the intensity of the light is filtered through layers of earths atmosphere.

 

[XPan]

Seems that Commander Cernan solar photography skills had diminished somewhat since his Gemini days! Where is the sun in these photos? I can see a disc shaped flare of varying shades, very different to my previous example: Faint horizontal and vertical lines but no sun. There's a short chain of flares but they're circular, not pentagonal and they point to where the source of light is which which seems to lie beyond the image's edge. If these images were overexposed there should still be 10 spikes radiating from a bright center because these images were taken through a lens that had a 5 bladed aperture.

When the flare is like in the above photos (i mean the smaller light blobs), kind of slightly oval, (or roundish) - albeit usually gets more squished towards the edges of the frame) - it means that the aperture was wide open (so no aperture blades where in the light pathway and therefore no spikes can ever appear - no matter how many blades the lens has).

 

[Brewer]

Notice that the original arguments you presented are still seriously (in fact, pretty much totally) undermined by the two simple and pretty obvious statements/sentences mkrnhr presented:

Hardly, 2 images with barely any context. Anyway, was out deer hunting early yesterday morning and after a thrilling stalk and a clean kill I skinned and cleaned my prey. By the time I'd finished the sun was well and truly up I followed your advice and shot it as well.

With my phone of course, its 5.3MB. The field of view is 85 degrees, its 5100 pixels diagonally and the sun is about 150 pixels in diameter. One degree is 60 pixels so the sun covers 2.5 degrees of sky and is 5 times bigger than it should be. It's normal, the atmosphere refracts the light as will the lens but it's nowhere near the size of the lunar 'suns'! Today I snapped the sun through a dark green welding mask lens and you can see that much of the flaring has vanished as you can see in these before and after images.

Its shrunk from 150 to only 48 pixels or 0.8 of a degree so its almost its natural size. Zoom in on the sun and measure the inner circle. Its 30 pixels, 0.5 of one degree, its the sun! Impossible to achieve with Apollo 'suns' despite their high resolution!

But now you are arguing that some pictures can't be overexposed images because of the spike forms of the overexposed sun and/or the lack there of. Then you continue further down the "there must be something wrong" "rabbit hole", by statements like this:

It was the nature of the technology, provided examples. Here's a contemporary example of a nicely exposed sun and earth, 10 spikes and pentagonal shapes, 5 bladed aperture. Just like Gemini and nothing like Apollo!

Furthermore, if we now go out of earths atmosphere, people usually also want to make sure to not have the sun in any picture EVEN MORE SO, because of this pretty simple/obvious fact:

It's a TV camera, somewhat different to a film camera. One's electrical, the other chemical and the cameras had adjustable shutter speeds and apertures. Simply by adjusting these you can get decent exposures! Like they did in the Gemini missions.

Bean and mission commander Charles Conrad carried the first colour television camera to the lunar surface but within minutes the transmission was lost after Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the Sun.

Interestingly, watching the TV and film footage some astronauts were quite happy to walk around with their sun visors open and exposing their eyes and face to an unfiltered 'sun'!

And, as it turns out, the Apollo guys did actually take a number of pictures with the sun in it, probably more by accident and carelessness than anything else. And, they and/or NASA did in fact not publish or maybe even destroy some of those images, not because of a "conspiracy", but because of exactly the same reason you do it on earth: the image is too overexposed.

Yes as part of a pan but they completely avoided it during surface photography in Apollo 11. I've looked at most of them, that's how I know AS15-87-11745 is an outlier. Most have something indicating a bright spot in the center visible without enhancement. However some are positively psychedelic!

They often have wonky and duplicated fiducials within and adjacent to the discs and lines that only appear within the disc. Dirt and dust motes that only seem to contaminate the sun. Even found what looks like a cursive lower case 't'! As for NASA, they have published them, 40 years later, photoshopped. Some people wondered where these gems were and requested they be released.

If you take a picture of the sun in space and/or on the moon, the image is much more overexposed, and thus it is likely, that the overexposed image of the sun is much bigger compared to earth, where the intensity of the light is filtered through layers of earths atmosphere.

Earth's atmosphere causes much of the flaring, excellent medium for scattering light. That's why the sky is blue. Moon has none, the only flaring you see could only be caused by the cameras and of course, dirt on the lenses.
Quiz time, these two 'suns' are the same image, one's the 'original scan' and the other was photo shopped in 2015

Can you picked the shopped one? Anyone know why they did it?

 

[Brewer]

When the flare is like in the above photos (i mean the smaller light blobs), kind of slightly oval, (or roundish) - albeit usually gets more squished towards the edges of the frame) - it means that the aperture was wide open (so no aperture blades where in the light pathway and therefore no spikes can ever appear - no matter how many blades the lens has).

Thanks! Indeed, interesting that by A17 they hadn't learnt how to use the aperture setting! In your experience can the shape of the light influence the shape of the lens flare? Take this example here AS17-134-20413, this is a very common feature of Apollo lunar photography

We can see a Tesla logo shaped flare followed by squashed circle then a large faint pentagon, indicating that the aperture was in use. In the other example get the round flares, a larger but well defined pentagon and a huge pentagon to the latter's upper right. This indicates that the aperture is partially closed but there's no neat chain of pentagons. What causes the Tesla logo flare? I've asked elsewhere but I get conflicting answers, some say its natural, some say the large offset pentagons are earthshine or light reflecting off spacesuits or lunar terrain. Others say the Tesla logo copies the shape of the spotlight they used to define the shadows and the and the large offset pentagons are from the fill lights. Who knows? What I do know is that Apollo photography is brimming with weird artifacts and inconsistencies that were often shopped and cropped out.

 

[Brewer]

Whoever posted the Apollo images obviously saw a need to doctor some of them as demonstrated by these 2 snips.

They're two snips of two versions of the same photo but one's been documented as photoshopped on September 23 2015 at 23:18:54 GMT. The other is the 'original'. There is an obvious difference between the two and someone thought changes needed to be made. However they both share bizarre horizontally sliced lens flare around the 'sun'. Can you tell me which one is the original and which is the photoshop? Thanks.

If anyone's wondering, the image on the left is the 'original scan' and the other is the Flickr version photoshopped in September 2015. However the original shows evidence of being fiddled with. Note the neatly cut circular lens flare which has, thanks to the 2015 shopping has been nicely defined slicing through the lower quarter of the 'sun'. This is inconsistent with all the flares of this type in the Apollo record and should extend the border of the film, not neatly guillotined in 'mid air'.
The small circular flare nearest the 'sun', where did it go in the original, was it ever there in the first place or was it added later? Looking at the previous image it should be there and interestingly, without enhancement there's evidence they fiddled with this one too! Visible in the snip on the left, there's an obvious line and some mismatched flaring highlighted by the horizontal red oblong. There's also 2 duplicated and wonky crosshairs in the red circles. This is a very common feature of up 'sun' 'lunar' color photography, I've sought answers from Hasselblad, photography fora and 'experts'. The answers are varied and sometimes abusive. I think it's part of their sloppy faking techniques.

So where's that little flare gone? After adjusting the levels in GIMP it came to light! It was there all the time and sometime in the second quarter of 1971 some mischievous lab tech smothered it with a 'sun' that appears to be lifted from one of the Gemini photos! You'll also notice the duped crosshair and a misaligned edge not present in the previous and following photos. which is probably the edge of the overlay they used to enhance the 'sun'. It's obvious they weren't at all concerned about the dodgy edges and an even dodgier truncated lens flare because they could've easily cropped these out if the images were ever published. Airbrushing would've taken care of the crosshairs.
Thirty or so years later space enthusiasts were wondering where all those 1000s of unpublished photos were and as a public entity NASA had to deliver and deliver they did, after a vigorous photoshopping! In this image's case they altered it quite dramatically both times, a lot trouble for such a mediocre photo. Would've been better off just losing them like they did with other media, along with the technology to take them to the moon. Still I'm grateful to those who doctored these images so poorly, its enjoyable presenting them to the 'experts'!

 

[The Mechanic]

I see nothing wrong with that cut off lense flare to be honest. A lense flare can be cut off like that because it is basically a reflection of light that could be entering the lense at a steep angle where it can be easily cut off bij the lense housing or something like that, thus resulting in a cut off reflection as well.

 

[Brewer]

I see nothing wrong with that cut off lense flare to be honest. A lense flare can be cut off like that because it is basically a reflection of light that could be entering the lense at a steep angle where it can be easily cut off bij the lense housing or something like that, thus resulting in a cut off reflection as well.

Thanks for your input. If that's the case then it's an outlier. When it's not a massive bright orb the 'sun' can look somewhat normal and encircled by a pale gold flare, usually when it's close to an object. In almost every case the crosshairs a duplicated, often distorted. It even occurs once around the reflection off the hull of the CSM.

It should continue to the borders and most of the time they do and sometimes they go beyond. Which shouldn't happen, there's a frame within a traditional camera that sharply frames the image and blocks all but the brightest light from bleeding through but it seems rather inconsistent in Apollo lunar photography as these three consecutive images from Apollo 15 demonstrate.

It appears the 'sun' became problematic when it was close to the edge.
The one thing that may create this sliced flare is the reseau plate, a glass plate that's etched with small crosshairs and is in direct contact with the film. It may cause the stepped flaring you see in many 'sun' images.

The image on the right is an enhanced snip of AS12-46-6763. You can clearly see there's a lot going on, I'm not sure the glass plate would do this, it shouldn't because it was solely designed to imprint precise crosshairs on the film for the purpose of measurements etc. If it affected the images that much it could render the camera useless.
Anyway whatever causes those flares, fact remains, they were doctored back in the day and photoshopped several decades later and the lunar 'sun' looks nothing like the sun from earth or LEO! Further reading here.

 

[Evan]

I recall the Cs have said we did (not totally caught up with the thread…) but here’s a 45 minute video by Bart Sibrel(apparently Buzz Aldrin punched him in the face for asking him to swear on a bible) that purports to disprove that it happened. Have fun guys!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon

 

[Brewer]

Been chatting with AI about the Apollo missions. It's surprisingly balanced, of course it must adhere to the official narrative but it admits there are issues with the official story. I asked it about the "Grand Prix" the other day, I merely said it 'looks like a model to me' and to my surprise it agreed!



It removed these comments shortly after. There was a model, NASA had the military build it a radio controlled model for testing. It was 1/6 scale, 50cm long and 34cm wide. Its quite a detailed document, I wish they had such for the cameras and other equipment they flew to the moon but it's rather lacking. I can find technical documents for the 'Surveyor Lunar Roving Vehicle' a robot rover that was never deployed. The reports are highly detailed, electric motors, servos and transmissions in pressurized vessels to protect against the vacuum etc. A level of detail you won't get with the Hasselblad camera, in fact according to them.

Each and every shot was a historic treasure, a once in a lifetime opportunity that would never be able to be captured again. And time and time again, Hasselblad met the challenge.

The HDC had never been tested in space before, adding to the pressure of this once in a lifetime moment. Would the one Hasselblad camera used to shoot on the lunar surface capture the results everyone was hoping for? Working perfectly under the extreme conditions of the lunar surface, the HDC produced some of history’s most iconic photographs.

Never been tested in space, incredible! AI can't find any testing either! I bet the Goerz Optical Company was pissed off! After all they designed and built a complicated pressurized camera with radiation shielding. When all they had to do was add a lick of silver paint and some dry lube! On the plus side they got paid, one of the methods they used to get the 400000 involved to keep their mouths shut I'd imagine. Interestingly Goerz's involvement with NASA is almost non-existent online. Seems AI only knows about it because I told them. Back to the 'Grand Prix', is appears that every major prop in this movie wasn't tested in a thermal vacuum chamber prior to flight. The lunar module; the rover; the camera on Commander Young's chest; the cine camera used to film it. There's some documentation on suit testing and they did test rolls of film in vacuum chambers while exposing them to radiation but they never tested the film in an operating camera, not that I can find anyway. There were issues, the report even discusses the feasibility of on-board processing to mitigate radiation damage etc but as we all know none of this was an issue!

 

[Brewer]

The Apollo 1 fire was just an accident, NASA didn't realize just how dangerous oxygen atmospheres are. They didn't know, nor does AI.

Had a quick look on the NASA tech server found about a dozen studies on cabin fires. They're listed as related records here, Space-Cabin Atmospheres: Part II - Fire and Blast Hazards. A Literature Review. All are unavailable for download but the titles are descriptive enough. All were published on 1st January 1964, over 3 years before the Apollo 1 fire but NASA didn't know.

A search on YouTube will yield videos on the dangers of oxygen that predate the Apollo 1 fire by several years but NASA didn't know.

Were Grissom, White and Chaffee murdered?

 

[axj]

India just released their own orbiter photos of the Apollo landing sites:

https://www.backyardastronomyguy.com/apollo-isro

Dr Joseph Farrell speculates (just like us) that some secret technology was used in Apollo and that India may be aware of that too:

https://gizadeathstar.com/2025/02/india-snaps-some-interesting-photos-of-the-lunar-surface/

He thinks that a part of that technology may still be in the Apollo lunar landers, which is why NASA suggested a one mile quarantine zone around them and why India may be interested in getting a closer look.

One thing I didn't know that is kind of mind-blowing:

In my view, the landings on and liftoffs from the lunar surface were enabled by the use of some variation of the Bell technology, and that this would explain why Dr. Kurt Debus, the former Nazi actually in charge of the Cape Canaveral launch site and Apollo schedule, was in the position he was in, for he was not a rocket scientist at all, but a plasma and high voltage physicist, and in fact had been a member of the team working on the Nazi Bell.

 

[Brewer]

India just released their own orbiter photos of the Apollo landing sites:
https://www.backyardastronomyguy.com/apollo-isro
Dr Joseph Farrell speculates (just like us) that some secret technology was used in Apollo and that India may be aware of that too:
https://gizadeathstar.com/2025/02/india-snaps-some-interesting-photos-of-the-lunar-surface/
He thinks that a part of that technology may still be in the Apollo lunar landers, which is why NASA suggested a one mile quarantine zone around them and why India may be interested in getting a closer look.
One thing I didn't know that is kind of mind-blowing:

Hi resolution images? Here's the Worldview, 30cm resolution from 617km through a dense atmosphere. Chandrayaan 2, 32cm from 100km and no atmosphere.
Rio De Janeiro 2016

Palm trees, grooming marks on playing field; buses and cars; rooftop swimming pools; AC units; traffic lights and oil leaks in the car park.
Moon, 2021 from 100km, better than previous offerings. You can make out the shadows of the RCS deflectors, I'm surprised they're still there as they were directly impacted by the ascent stage's 3500 pound thrust. Appears that like the descent engine the ascent engine is rather selective in what it impacts.

In my view, the landings on and liftoffs from the lunar surface were enabled by the use of some variation of the (Nazi) Bell technology

However if they were using secret Nazi tech rather than chemical rockets that could account for the lack of exhaust impact on the regolith and so forth. However, if they did use Nazi tech doesn't that mean the Apollo narrative is a lie? A question worth asking.

 

[axj]

Hi resolution images?

I think India obviously has those too.

However, if they did use Nazi tech doesn't that mean the Apollo narrative is a lie?

Part of it is a lie (what technology was used), though the most important part (that Apollo went to the Moon) is not.

 

[Brewer]

I think India obviously has those too.

Be nice to see them!

Part of it is a lie (what technology was used), though the most important part (that Apollo went to the Moon) is not.

So all images and video are genuine? This is actually a Nazi Bell Tech (NBT) powered ascent stage enroute to dock with with a NBT propelled CSM?

Is this an NBT powered LM descending to the lunar surface? Does NBT 'pick up dust' at 100 feet or did they fake that part?

Is this a photo of Buzz standing next to the +Y strut and footpad of an NBT powered LM descent stage on the lunar surface?

 

[axj]

Be nice to see them!

Well, obviously.

So all images and video are genuine?

Maybe, maybe not. Apollo going to the Moon does not mean that all footage was genuine.