Fetzer/Burton Moon Landing Debate Finale

[Peter Dawson]

I'm going to regret this.

HYPOTHESIS: Detectable fakery of moon landing photography was created and disseminated to launch (pun intended) conspiracy theories designed to A) reinforce the "nothing can be known for certain" foundation upon which contemporary socio-political power and academic inquiry is partially but significantly based; B) further Balkanize an already fractured deep political research community; and C) assault American exceptionalism and thus taint all other inquiries into historical conspiracies in general and the JFK conspiracy in particular.

ALL-IMPORTANT STIPULATION: The hypothetical fakery and larger operation of which it is the key component would be effective whether or not actual Apollo moon landings happened.

SCENARIO I -- The Apollo landings took place as advertised. A number of legitimate photos are quickly doctored so as to indicate fakery and thus support the "uncertainty conspiracy" herein hypothesized.

SCENARIO II -- The Apollo landings never took place. Flawless AND detectable faked photographs were created to support the "uncertainty conspiracy" herein hypothesized.

PRECEDENTS: The Zapruder Film; the so-called (by me, at any rate) Doppelganger Gambit.

DISCLAIMIER: I'm not prepared to go to the wall with the hypothesis herein presented. Yet.

I agree with the gist of your hypothesis, although I believe most of the flaws detected in moon mission photos are easily explained, and therefore aren't flaws at all. Regarding the small number that aren't easily explained, I'm not going to take the word of the hoax-believers over the word of the scientific establishment, if only because the former are still clinging to easily dismissed evidence to support their case, and that ain't at all cool.

What made me start to think along the lines you are suggesting is seeing Bart Sibrels movie, where one after the other the retired astronauts put themselves in compromising positions so that Sibrel could easily depict them as having been caught out by him. As if some Masonic order from on high was given to them to co-operate with Sibrel in making themselves look like shonky fakes.

Edit to add:

If they genuinely were fakers trying to hide the fact that the moon landings were faked, Sibrel would have been cut off after one or two interviews, or more likely not have been able to interview even one of them. Instead he gained access to 5 or so of them.