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Product Name: ISSUE 2

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The foreground of many images of the astronauts on the Moon are filled in with light, while the shadows remain absolutely black, again proving that there are multiple light sources. In this one, the argument is that with his back to the sun, the astronaut's suit should be as dark as his own shadow stretching out in front of him (see Apollo 16 image, above). Since there is no light diffusion in an absolute vacuum, NASA "must" have used reflectors or "fill-in lamps" to illuminate the astronaut for this photograph. The truth is, there is evidence of a "reflector" in this image -- but it is the lunar surface itself! Obviously, the lunar surface is a fairly bright gray color. It is known, from the Apollo samples brought back and analyzed in Houston, to contain a LOT of glass beads, with a lot of reflective and refractive minerals in it. All of these materials tend to kick light directly back toward the source of illumination with very high efficiency, in this case the sun. This is one reason why the Full Moon is so much brighter (than other phases) in the night sky; the sun is "behind" the Earth. The effect of the sunlight hitting the lunar surface and being reflected back toward the sun itself creates a "backscatter" that fills in the astronaut's bright white shadowed suit with excellent "fill-light." And the fact that the shadow is so dark on the ground in front of him is proof of exactly the opposite of the claim being made by the "Moon Hoaxer" crowd. It shows that indeed, the astronaut is standing upright in a harsh vacuum, where his suit can "see" the illumination from the surrounding lunar landscape. By stark contrast (pun intended ...), almost no light at all has seeped into the shadow -- because it's lying flat on the ground and cannot "see" anything but black space overhead! It is, as it should be, extremely dark and sharp. Interestingly, as to the question of multiple light sources, some of the leading debunkers of the Moon Hoax theory have also made a very significant mistake. It is flat wrong, ,as many of them have stated, that the Earth is a "very significant" light source on the Moon. When full, the Earth is on the order of 68.4 times brighter than a full Moon as seen from Earth. It also takes up something like 13.5 times as much sky. But, that's not the whole story. The Earth is -- maximum -- 100 times the brightness of a Full Moon (we're going to overestimate a bit to prove the point). The apparent magnitude (brightness) of a Full Moon is about -13. The equivalent magnitude of the Sun is about -27. Subtracting, that's a difference of 14 magnitudes. Since each 5 magnitudes corresponds to a factor of 100 in brightness, a difference of 14 magnitudes corresponds to almost 100 X 100 X 100, or a factor of a million! Allowing for the ~100 times greater reflected brightness of the Earth (at "Full Earth"), the direct lunar sunlight is still ~100,000 times brighter than the Earth's illumination. There is NO WAY that the slide films used by the crews (even the "super film" developed by EG&G, see below) could have detected that feeble "Earthlight" on the lunar surface, even in the shadows, with exposures set for the sunlit view. Of course, we have our own thoughts on this. Some of the debunkers must be realizing that backscatter is insufficient to account for some of what we are seeing on the lunar surface photography. To come up with an explanation, they have resorted to the (obviously incorrect) "Earth light" angle; but it is of course, more interesting than that. Read on.

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In the last few years, we have become increasingly alarmed as a particularly silly and damaging "urban myth" has begun to take hold. Promoted by a few well known authors such as David Percy and the late James Collier, this latest twist on the... more