According to a poll done by Gallup in early 2001, 6% of Americans (about 1 in every 16) believe that the Moon landing was a hoax. I recalling being asked by a co-worker if I thought men had actually been to the Moon after Fox aired it’s TV special. It's the sort of question that can catch you off guard. My immediate response was, "I had an uncle who was involved with the space program. Either we went to the Moon, or he was a liar. I tend to believe the former, rather than the latter." I also suggested that doubters could use a telescope to see the remains of the Apollo mission. Mythbusters did an episode on the Moon Hoax conspiracy theory, in which they dissects and refuted some of the more common arguments that conspiracy theorists use to make their case: the photographs that would supposedly require more than one source of light; the shadows that don’t align; the flag that supposedly flaps in a breeze; the footage of space walks that could have been made by over cranking the film; that the crispness of the boot prints requires moisture.
The result? Shadows that don’t align can be accounted for by the contour of the landscape alone. Photographs that supposedly could only be made with multiple sources of light can be made with only one. After being jostled, a flag in a vacuum will actually flap more than one in air. Video at normal speed of a man walking in a space suit on a Vomit Commet matches the footage from the Apollo mission better than anything that over cranking can produce. And the rough surface of Moon dirt creates crisp boot prints under a condition of a vacuum. The episode ends with Adam and Jamie going to a telescope and shining a laser at reflectors that were left on the surface of the Moon by the Apollo mission.
Source: Gallup Organization
Source: Mythbusters
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