THE CONSPIRACY OF THE LOST CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

O.K., let’s file this one under …

THE CONSPIRACY OF THE LOST CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

It’s simply amazing all of the mischief that gets done with iconic historical documents. 

Were these documents not locked up and kept under armed guard, people would be forever stealing, hiding them, or subjecting them to forgery.

Some people would even draw treasure maps on the back of some of them, taunting the Indiana Joneses among us to search for a mythical hidden treasure trove of knowledge salvaged from the library of Alexandria.

But conspiracy theorists would really rather have a map that might lead them to that diabolical top-secret government warehouse which is the elusive repository of all those missing documents that conspiracy theorists obsess about.

Stashed away inside that warehouse, I understand, are the real Roswell files, the original map of Antarctica, made by the cartographers of Atlantis, and later copied by Piri Reis, and the original specs to the nuclear warhead that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

There are also several copies of the stricken Amendment to The United States Constitution. 

Wait. 

The old yellowed parchment that starts with the three tall words We the People…

Jeff and I didn’t take and history classes at NYU, so I was surprised this morning when Jeff was droning on about how the ratification of a Constitutional Amendment requires a two thirds vote of both houses of Congress and approval of three quarters of the states. 

My ears certainly perked up when Jeff got to the part about the altered and incomplete copies of The United States Constitution which now appear in all of the history books.

The critical part of Jeff’s conspiracy theory goes something like this:

Jeff:  There’s a part of the Constitution, which no one knows about, which gives the Federal Government the power to take away citizenship for any on of a number of reasons.

O.K.  Usually I can just dismiss these sorts of things with a smile and a keyboard, and maybe a few random lines drawn between logical bullet points.

After all, there would have to be a paper trail the length of Pennsylvania Avenue concerning any sort of actual Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

So it should be pretty easy to dismiss this one…

But as I started to search for the truth, I began to see actual evidence that there was an Amendment to the Constitution that appeared in several easily tracked down19th century copies. 

This same Amendment is in none of the copies available from contemporary sources.

Now, how can this be?  The U.S. Constitution is, after all, one of the most well-researched and widely published documents in human history.

Prior to 1865, this Amendment appears in several copies of the document.  After 1865, is appears in none that I could find.

Conspiracy?  Certainly an anomaly.  So, Jeff was at least right about some of the basic facts. 

There was once an Amendment that was in copies of the Constitution.  Now there is not.

So, witness the following, and follow along as a witness.

The mysterious Amendment reads:

Article XIII

If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive, or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office, or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince, or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.

Go ahead, look for yourself.  It’s actually not that hard to find copies of it in print.  And they are not forgeries.  The paper trail is way too long. 

The meaning and purpose of the Amendment is difficult for a non-historian blogger to discern.  On it’s face the Amendment seems to indicate that if you accept or receive one item among a list of fairly harmless items from a foreign head of state, or foreign nation, then zap!, no more United States citizenship.  You become an instant person without a country.  No trial, no due process, no recourse.

Seems pretty anti-American, and rather harsh.  Add to that the case of the Amendment’s mysterious disappearance, and perhaps Jeff has got the makings of a future “I told you so moment.”

Will I now have to check the return address of every gift I ever receive? 

Can any member of the British Parliament now send me an iPod and thereby instantly take away my right to vote?

So, this morning I left the confines of the apartment for some good old-fashioned dusty research in the 42nd Street Library.  I was careful not to accept any gifts from anyone with diplomatic plates on the way.

There, in rarely visited stacks, I found some question as to whether or not this original 13th Amendment was actually ever really officially part of the Constitution. 

It might not have ever really passed the ratification threshold, and if that was the case, it’s not missing, it was a mistake to ever include it in official copies.  A mistake which was compounded across scores of printed copies.

According to Congressional documents, this original proposed 13th Amendment was passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the year 1810, by the two-thirds majority of each chamber required by the Constitution. 

That’s the first part of the Amendment process.

According to the Constitutional ratification rule, in order to become part of the Constitution, then three-quarters of the state legislatures have to say yes to the Amendment.

In the year 1810 there were seventeen states.  Three-quarters of seventeen is thirteen, so to make the Amendment the law of the land required yes votes from thirteen states.

It was very close.

Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Virginia and New Hampshire all clearly ratified the Amendment.

The Virginia Legislature became the thirteenth yes in 1819.

New York, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Rhode Island clearly did not ratify.

But that’s thirteen sates in the yes column.

So, as 1819, there was officially a Thirteenth Amendment.

Or was there?

Remember, Virginia did not ratify the Amendment until 1819.  In 1819 there were not seventeen states, but twenty one.

Louisiana, New Hampshire. Indiana, Illinois and Mississippi had all been admitted to the union by that point.  So now, sixteen states were required for ratification.

None of those four state legislatures left any record of voting on the issue.

It’s at the moment that the requisite threshold of the percentage of states is reached that the state count becomes crucial.  This was clearly the precedent in the Amendment process in the first ten, and the eleven and twelve.

So it seems that the 13th Amendment simply never passed the Constitutional threshold.

There is no secret Amendment lying in wait in a secret warehouse until a mass of citizenry rises up in a wave of treasonous activity.

It simply seems that over time the mistake was caught, though it’s still there in dozens of early copies of the Constitution.  Rather than a conspiracy, it was more likely just a case incorrect understanding of the process, a case of news traveling slowly.  

It gives me great comfort to know, all these years later, thata law that would seemingly be adopted because of fear of foreigners and foreign nations never made the ratification threshold. 

Kind of gives you confidence in the system.

Of course, the real 13th Amendment was adopted and ratified, in the mid-1800s, and has been included in all copies of the United States Constitution for over one hundred and fifty years. 

I encourage you to read up on that Amendment, as it was an extension of freedom and rights.

So the next time that you hear a conspiracy theorist talk about a missing part of the United States Constitution, steer him or her to the history books for a good old-fashioned civics lesson. 

The truth, hopefully, in time, will stop the spread of misinformation.

However, Jeff, I’ll meet you have way on this.  There was indeed some truth to the missing Amendment. 

But there is absolutely no truth to the conspiracy theory.

Until next time, e-mails are always welcome.

THE NORTH AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

O.K., let’s file this one under …

THE CONSPIRACY OF THE NAU

You know their names.

Conspiracy theorists have assured that you would.

The Trilateral Commission

The Council on Foreign Relations.

The Bilderberg Group

These and any one of a number of other secret groups are out there trying to slowly move the nations of the world into a single unified government, to be run by a group of powerful and wealthy elite.

This morning, over Starbucks, Jeff went down a new path, though with Jeff all roads tend to lead toward Rome.

The first step though will not be a one world government, but a series of smaller combination of countries.

Jeff:  The consequences of the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and the World Bank has reached critical mass.  Listen to me, Canada, the United States, and Mexico will soon be fused into a single economic, political and military unit. They will have the power to nullify the laws of its member states including the Constitution. The Dollar, the Canadian Dollar, and with the Peso, will be phased out and replaced by a North American currency.

I paid for my Starbucks with a good old fashioned American greenback.

But welcome to the world of The Amero – A single unified currency for the entire North American continent in anticipation of Canada, the United States and Mexico becoming an entity akin to the European Union.

Conspiracy theorists assure us that borders will eventually fall, and the currency will not only be devalued, but the cheap labor force will decimate the American economy.

To be fair, the theory does have its precedence in the Euro, and therefore deserves serious investigation.

In 2005, President Bush, President Vicente Fox of Mexico, and Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada, held a summit in Waco, Texas, and announced the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a framework for greater continental cooperation on trade and security issues among the three nations.

However, the fact that the United States had entered into the arrangement without congressional approval, and a lack of public detail about the meetings, was a huge red flag to conspiracy theorists.

According to Jeff, this was the beginning of a secret plan to dissolve the three nations into one continental unit, with open borders and a single currency. 

A proposed flag even showed up on the internet.

NAU Flag -

Two months later, a working group at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank long viewed with suspicion by the conspiratorial fringe, published a report called "Building a North American Community."  The report recommended the establishment of a common North American security perimeter, the development of biometric North American border passes, and the adoption of a common North American tariff.

All of this in secret.

In reality the public doesn't know about all of this because it doesn't exist. Government officials say a continental union is out of the question, and economists and political analysts overwhelmingly agree that there will not be a North American Union in our lifetime, and that the Amero remains purely theoretical. Herbert Grubel, the Canadian economist who first proposed the idea of the Amero, freely admits "There wouldn't be very much benefit for the United States."

However this didn’t help the paranoia being capitalized upon.  A coin designer even designed an Amero dollar, the image of which is in free circulation in the imaginary banking system of the minds of conspiracy theorists.  The coin itself does not exist in any more that a land of monopoly money, made by someone trying to make a quick Amero – sorry, buck.

The Amero -

Daniel Carr who designed the fictitious Amero   has been quoted as saying, “My goal with these coins is not to endorse a Union of North America or a common Amero currency.  I fully support the United States Constitution, and I would not welcome (in any form) a diminishment of its provisions.  I expect that these coins will help make more people aware of the issue and the possible ramifications.  I leave it up to others to decide if they are in favor of, or against a North American Union.  And I encourage citizens to voice their approval or disapproval of government plans that impact them.

Selling a few coins and starting a little controversy, that’s the American way.

But there are some real parts to this puzzle that deserve connecting with.

The Security and Prosperity Partnership really does exist, and its tri-national task forces continue to meet, but its members consider it a way for the United States, Canada, and Mexico to collaborate on issues such as customs, environmental and safety regulations, narcotics smuggling, and terrorism. 

But the partnership doesn’t advocate open borders or a massive superhighway, for an increase in trade among the three nations, which the conspiracy theorists call the NAFTA Superhighway.

A nonprofit organization, called the North America's Supercorridor Coalition, or NASCO, whose mission is to ensure the efficiency and safety of some of the country's major truck trade routes, has had a map on it’s website, and conspiracy sites have been falsely labeling it the blueprint for the NAFTA Superhighway.  In reality it is Interstate 35.

The Supercorridor -

Frank Conde, the director of communications for NASCO, says "that making economic relations among the three nations more efficient is no more than responsible stewardship. The worst damage that (conspiracy theorists) are doing with their unfounded fears are distracting political leaders at all levels, and preventing us from putting together that policy."

At the core of this type of conspiracy theory is the perception that that those in power “simply can’t be trusted.” 

But all one has to do is look to Europe to see what has happened in practicality.  Countries still exist, much as before, despite the adoption of the Euro.

Though there seems no reality in the Amero, even if more open trade and borders became a reality, there would be no reason to believe that this is part of any kind of conspiracy to take away any individual freedoms.  In practicality, it would open up greater freedom of trade and travel

So Jeff, in the interest of keeping score, this one looks as paper thin as the paper upon which the Amero is printed. 

I’ll bet my future Amero penny on it. 

Should the penny even still exist at that point… which means will have to connect the Amero nickels, dimes and quarters.

As always, until then, e-mails are always welcome.

THE TWO WAY TELEVISION

O.K., let’s file this one under …

THE CONSPIRACY OF THE TWO WAY TELEVISION

Right now…

As you sit at your computer…

Reading this blog…

I am watching you.

I can see the dots that are the pupils of your eyes moving across the text by way of that teeny tiny little dot of a camera on your computer, that sits there hiding, and which that you barely ever even think about. 

That’s the one that’s there for when you Skype, or iChat, or Google Talk…

Well, I am not really watching you, but that’s what Jeff has always thought. 

Not me watching, but somebody…

Frequently, we will have a version of this conversation about the built-in camera on the computer:

Jeff: That thing is always on, isn’t it?

Me:  So if you are really worried about that little camera, don’t do anything stupid around it, like sit right here and explain to it that you are not going to file your Federal return because you disagree with the right of the Federal Government to levy income taxes.

Jeff:  So then you agree, it’s on?  And you have no idea who could be watching…

That’s the paranoia of conspiracy theorists.  That there is an army of Men in Black taking notes on each and every one of us as we type our blogs, surf for porn, and waste our days watching YouTube videos.  Nameless, faceless, and out to do us no good…

The theory of the evil empire watching from the other side of the looking glass comes from George Orwell, who, in his popular novel 1984 prophesized that Big Brother was always watching us.  Those watching in secret would use whatever they would learn to keep the population in line.  The same concept was made use of by Ray Bradbury in his classic novel, Fahrenheit 451.

Think of how many people would be required to watch each and every one of us, all day long, waiting for us to take out the dog-eared copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

This morning, our brand new 42-inch HD digital flat screen TV was delivered.  Don’t ask me how Jeff and I afforded this luxurious item, part-time blogging and full-time conspiracy theorist are not the highest paying job occupations. 

So, Jeff now worries that this new digital monstrosity is also watching us, preparing to gather data on us 24/7.  That means someone out there will watch me watching an occasional episode of The Jersey Shore.   There, I admitted it.  C’mon, you know you watch as well.

With this brand new LCD screen hanging on the wall, I guess this claim bears investigating.  Is our new television a window into our private lives?  And is there a massive conspiracy to use all this  information gathered about us, against us?

Now witness the following, and follow along as a witness, as we try to connect the pixels...

Jeff and I have television service through a digital cable box supplied by Time Warner Cable.  Time Warner Cable is part of one of those huge conglomerates that Jeff imagines are constantly poised to take over the world.

It’s not really a secret that companies like Time Warner Cable, or Google (via the searches an individual might do), or facebook (by their awareness of the ‘likes’ of its users), compile information about each of us, even entering areas in which we might have an expectation of privacy.

Think about the last time you signed on to Amazon.com.  Now I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I know that they know enough about my buying habits, to suggest books that I might like to buy.

But can this information be used against you?  And is there any chance that it could be in the form of a conspiracy, behind closed doors, in smoked filled rooms…

After the attacks of September 11th, 2001, Jeff, and other conspiracy theorists were worried that in the guise of national security, individual freedom and privacy would be whittled away.

Under the USA Patriot Act, passed just a month after the September 11 attack, Federal agents can force a noncable television operator to disclose every show you have ever watched.  For me that would be at least as far back as all those episodes of Sesame Street and The Electric Company.  Those brought to you by the letter C, for conspiracy.  Or by the letter D, for dot.

It’s sort of reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials. All the Federal Government just has to say is that the request is related to a terrorism investigation and your TV provider is prohibited from informing you that your personal information has been requested. 

Then if you watch Bewitched, surely a subversive sit-com, you can get locked up.  Well, maybe not Bewitched, but maybe if you watch a lot of old Hitler documentaries…

Or certainly all day marathons of Mel Gibson movies. 

Sounds pretty ominous, and vey much connects to Jeff’s paranoia.

But we don’t have a non-cable operator supplying us with television here in the East Village.  We have Time Warner Cable. 

The Cable Act of 1984 gives cable operators, and their subscribers, greater protection against the Patriot Act.  Cable companies do not have to release an individual's records unless the government investigators show that the person is the target of a criminal investigation. 

Even then, the individual must be notified of the request, which the individual can then challenge in court. 

Yes, a noncable company, like say DirecTV, collects a large amount of individual data, such as program package orders, pay-per-view orders.  They even track your online purchases, much like Amazon does.  So, yes, they are not subject to the 1984 statue.  The Justice Department could ask DirecTV to disclose whether you subscribe to Playboy, or purchased Viagra, if it would help an investigation.

But it feels unlikely that anyone from the federal government will make frivolous requests, even into the lives of conspiracy theorists.  Because, it still requires a subpoena.  

But Jeff is right, the companies are still all compiling data about us, and it is entirely possible it could be misused. 

But it seems so unlikely that a physical person is actually watching me through this beautiful new television set, otherwise they would be able to connect with the beautiful angry middle finger I have placed out there for their viewing pleasure.  But somewhere there will be ones and zeros about every channel change I am about to make.

Or, I could just have my digital finger connect with that tiny little dot of a power switch on the new set, and turn it off…

Conspiracy… doubtful.  A misuse of technology to sell us stuff we don’t want… always possible.

So, until I hear otherwise from someone on the other side of The Looking Glass, e-mails are always welcomed.

Please keep your eye on the dot in the meantime.

THE HIDDEN CODED SYMBOLS

O.K., let’s file this one under …

THE CONSPIRACY OF THE HIDDEN CODED SYMBOLS

In previous blog posts, we have investigated several of Jeff’s claims and conspiracy theories about the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Some of these theories were easily disposed of…

Like the claim that the Twin Towers were secretly wired with explosives, and demolition experts were waiting for the building’s lease holder to give instructions to “PULL IT!.”

    

                                                   Tower explosion

Or, like the claim that some poor unsuspecting woman in rural Pennsylvania, was part of a larger conspiracy to hide from the world the fact that Flight 93 was exploded in mid-air by a missile fired at it by a mysterious white fighter jet.

Shanskville photo 

-- 

Now, witness the following, and follow along as a witness, as we attempt to connect the dots:

This morning, Jeff was showing me how there are secret codes hidden in the very keys on which I type this blog and telling me that those secret codes are used in Catcher in the Rye-style mind control for nefarious and terrorist-related purposes.

According to Jeff, it turns out that Microsoft was the real hand behind the September 11th attacks.  Microsoft employees are the ones creating, and even sending, the coded messages.

Once again, Jeff has found some big, bad, government or corporate villain, with sinister motives. 

Here’s a recap of part of our morning conversation:

Jeff:  You know why Microsoft invented Wingdings?

Me:  Wingdings?   Is that a code name for Conspiracy Theorists?

Jeff:  Listen dummy, while you sit around and laugh about it, their brainwashing you without you even knowing it.  You can’t tell me you don’t believe that corporations try to influence us with images?

So, Wingdings…

For those who came in late, Windings is a font in the Microsoft word-processing software. 

When you type the keys on your keyboard in the Wingding font, it reveals a series of sign-language drawings, then some warning signs, and finally some religious icons.  Those latter icons are clearly needed to express the target of a specific attack.

Since Jeff is right about one thing, and Microsoft has largely taken over the computer software world, it’s going to be easy for many, if not all, of you to participate here in real time with this particular blog entry.

Follow along now with the home edition and type the following uppercase letters:

N Y C

Now, unleash the power of Wingdings, which is in the font menu, and see what would happen if you type these very same keys in that font. 

You get:

N Y C

Now, not being an expert of the Dan Brown or Brad Meltzer level in the meaning of coded symbols, I have to take this on face value and concede this first point to Jeff and the Conspiracy crowd.  I will attribute the obvious meaning to each one.

N = Death. 

Y = Jews. 

C = Good

Harkening back to the days of my fourth grade teacher’s lessons on constructing full sentences, I will put it together, just the way Jeff did for me:

Death to Jews is good.

There are 255 characters in the Wingdings font. It is pretty random, that that would happen like that, so it’s almost like the point has got to be conceded.  After all, New York City is a largely Jewish city.  It’s been the subject of organized terrorists attacks as far back as February 1993, not long after the font itself was created.  Again, that’s pretty random. 

An easy connection of the dots from the supposed creation of hidden messages, in a widely used computer software, to an attack on New York City.

And Jeff continued to show me more evidence related to the second, larger attack on New York City. 

It seems one of the call signs of the planes that hit the Twin Towers was:

Q33NY

See what would happen if you type these same keys in the Wingdings  font.  You get:

Q33NY

Q = Plane

3 = Tower

3 = Tower

N = Death

Y = Jews

Overlooking the fact that the font would have to anticipate the call sign of a plane ten years into the future, the characters generated by the number 3 in the Wingdings font are pieces of paper, not buildings.

If you type in the numbers 2 3 4 5 in the Wingdings font you get:

2 3 4 5

That looks like a sheet of paper, another sheet of paper, a lot of sheets of paper, and a file cabinet.  There are no buildings at all in the Wingdings font.

But, simple research yields the fact that this Q33NY was not the call sign, tail number, air traffic control locator, or anything else involved with either of the two planes.

Now if you type in the C in the Webdings font, also created by Microsoft, you get:

C

C = Skyline

Now, why not use that Font for the secret messages, that’s a lot more useful then a piece of paper.  You hit a plane and the skyline and maybe there is a Koran in there somewhere.

But type in the N and the Y and you get:

N Y

Put it together with the C and you get:

N Y  C

Or, I Luv the Skyline. 

So Jeff, in the interest of keeping score, this one looks pretty flimsy under any analysis

Jut for kicks:

Type the number 1 in Wingdings.

You get l

A lone dot… with nothing to connect it to.  Because, that’s where this investigation ends.

And, finally, type in, for no particular reason:

, J

You get . J

Or, e-mails are always welcomed.

Till next time

S A M

S A M

Shedding a tear, and crossing my fingers, that no conspiracy theorists will bomb my secret lair.

THE FAKED MOON LANDING

O.K., let’s file this one under …

THE CONSPIRACY OF THE FAKED MOON LANDING

In previous blog posts, I have often dealt with the path of least resistance problem. 

For instance, why not simply believe a lone gunman hid out in a sixth floor window and shot The President of the United States?  Is it that people can’t believe that something that audacious is possible?

Or, is it that they require that a more interesting tale be woven around major events so they overlook the fact that the simplest explanation is more likely than not, the right explanation. 

The shortest distance between two dots is usually just a straight line.

Witness the following, and follow along as a witness:

This morning, Jeff showed me more supposed indisputable evidence that NASA faked the Apollo Moon landings.  It seems he just can’t let this go, even after once being laughed at over this same issue at an NYU speaking event (Jeff says, of course, Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, would never admit to the hoax.  Jeff is lucky that Buzz Aldrin didn’t punch his light’s out).

Aldrin speaking -

This morning, Jeff showed up with a cup of coffee and a quaint old Life Magazine.  A 1969 edition, picked up from a street vendor, for a few bucks, not two blocks from our apartment.

Jeff opened up the magazine to the colorful spread, the first photos of men on the moon.

Here’s a recap of the conversation:

Jeff:  All right who took these photos?

Me:  (insert sarcasm) A photographer?

Jeff:  Well, certainly not the astronauts.  And certainly not on the moon.

Jeff went on to point out several problems with photos in the Life Magazine spread as well as a video recording from the Apollo 11 mission.  

Both, Jeff said, were clearly fakes.

Jeff relies on three separate issues to support his conspiracy theory of faked photos and video, proving man did not land on the moon:

Jeff’s theory number one is that everything is just too perfect.  In other words, the images should have been much more messy given the cumbersome space suits and the hostile environment. 

Conspiracy theorists like messy.  Perfect makes them think it’s a cover-up.  Otherwise, the conspiracy theorists would have nothing to talk about, or around which to invent the conspiracy.

As Jeff demonstrated from the dog-eared pages of the magazine, each of the photos was perfectly framed.  Every one of them was also perfectly focused.  Each one was also  perfectly lit. 

Recall that both Jeff and I went to NYU Film School, so we talk about things like composition and focus a lot.  Jeff himself was a master of unfocused, poorly lit, and poorly composed footage all through freshman year (I couldn’t resist).

Aldrin on the stairs -

But, isn’t it obvious that photos that were released to the magazines were meant to connect the public to the event, not to memories of their own personal bad photography?

It is actually quite easy to find less perfect photos that were not released at the time to Life Magazine, or to any other magazine.

The Internet, the boon to conspiracy theorists, and to truth seekers, has several of these photos available with an easy search.

The astronauts took hundreds of photos, and many of them sucked.  They are the kind of bad photos that get stuffed in conspiracy theorists drawers, along with their own personal copy of Catcher in the Rye.

Some of the 1969 photos are badly composed, out of focus, and badly lit, all at the same time.

Horrible photo -

These photos were rejected, much like this argument.  That’s why copy editors and information departments exist.  They are not covering up anything more than bad pictures.

I remember that in film school we also talked a lot about editing.  That’s where you take stuff out that doesn’t help the story. 

If conspiracy theorists looked at the rejects, their story would not be helped, but the truth would.

Then, there is the question of who took the photos, and also who took the famous video that was fed to the major news networks.  Since, with only two men on the moon, and one of them in many of the photos, the answer to this one should be fairly simple.

Reflection of the other astronaut -

Jeff insists there were other shadowy persons standing on “the lunar surface and the whole thing was an elaborate hoax.

As proof Jeff says when Neil Armstrong steps down the ladder of the Lunar Module to be the first man to set foot on another world, the camera is looking at him from a perspective from which no human could have yet placed a camera. 

Armstrong on the stairs -

Film school graduates, of course, are always very concerned about camera angles.

According to Jeff’s conspiracy theory, this proves the presence of a production assistant, or a still photographer present on “the moon”, seeming to support the “landings were all faked on a soundstage argument” made popular by the film Capricorn One.

Who, pre-placed that camera?, the little gray men that have been kidnapping and molesting the women of this planet since the Mayan’s came up with the prophesy of 2012?

Yes, of course, the camera was pre-placed.  It was preplaced by human beings on the little blue dot called Earth.

When Astronaut Neil Armstrong was at the top of the ladder, he pulled a cord to open a panel in which a TV camera was already lined up for the perfect film-school-like shot.  Astronaut Buzz Aldrin switched on the camera from inside the cabin.  Cue the walk down the ladder. 

“That’s one small step for men, one giant leap for conspiracy theorists…”

Finally, there is the case of the photo of the Astronaut saluting the mysterious waving flag.

:

Apollo flag waiving –

This conspiracy theory hinges on the no atmosphere on the moon argument.  So, there was no wind or even the slightest breeze to blow the stars and stripes, except perhaps for the air conditioners on the sound stage busily keeping the crew and the astronauts cool.

Simple research takes care of this one.  The flag hung from a horizontal rod, connected to a vertical one. The astronauts couldn't get the horizontal rod to extend completely, so the flag didn't get stretched fully. It has a ripple in it, like a curtain that is not fully closed.  It only appears to be waving.

But, it is American to question.  And that is the very purpose of this blog. 

However, Jeff, back in July of 1969, two brave men actually connected two heavenly spheres. 

Someday men will go back there with a camera, and find the undisturbed landing site.  But I am sure someone will say it was placed there, rather than taking the simple explanation, or the path of least resistance.

Until then, a lone dot in the sky that holds the truth.

l

And, until then, e-mails are always welcomed, even if they are from the moon.