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Heehee! I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl.
I finally get to take on Bartie Boy himself. He's seen fit to enter my YouTube channel and start commenting on my production. In case you don't know, his YT handle is "moonmovies":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SRV7elUFjo
Feel free to join in the fun. This should be great theater.!
Established Member
Nice, congratulations. He still assumes the footage was somehow faked though. Any reason to believe that, plus anything that has backed this assumption up has been taken away by you. He doesn't seem to realize that.
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This post begs a few of questions:Originally Posted by moonmovies
The burden of proof still lies on NASA to come up with an answer on why they needed to fake the distance from the Earth in the Collins shot.
Actually, the burden of proof lies with Bart to prove that the distance was faked. What evidence is there that it was faked? For that matter, what information does the shot give about the distance to Earth from which to judge whether it is correct or not?
I must question it's representation of the facts, given that this Houston transmission occurs at exactly 31 hours 17 minutes and 18 seconds into the flight.
Somebody will have to help me out, here. My understanding was that the transmissions were at 10:32 GET (00:04 GMT), 30:29 GET (20:01 GMT), and 33:59 GET (19:31 GMT). I don't offhand know how long each transmission was. What does Bart have that says a transmission was at any other time than these? (Upon further reflection, IIRC the archivist who put the GMT time labels forgot to account for Daylight Savings Time when converting from local, which threw off the times by 1 hour (DST had only been standardized across the US in 1967). The GET times are still correct, as are my GMT listings above.)
This film falsely reports the time, and the astronauts are not in this clip.
What makes him think that the time is falsely reported? We can get the time-of-transmission from the video & Hasselblad images of the visible continents and correlating with the predicted geometry. For this, we can use the Earth and Moon Viewer. For best result, we need the latitude, longitude and altitude information for that time.
Was this filmed by a 'sacraficial lamb' who never made it back to Earth, or is it a fake?
After verifying that the viewing angle and Earth-phase are correct, we can establish beyond reasonable doubt that the the images were taken on July 17, 1969 by correlating them with weather data for that date. This has been done here.
Of course, we all know that the burdon of proof actually rests with Bart to research and prove that that these correlations do not exist, but if HBs ever did real research, they wouldn't be HBs. ABs, on the other hand, enjoy looking this stuff up, so it would be fun to hammer these discussion points into the ground.
Order of Kilopi
The footage in Lunar Legacies is known to have been on the reel that Sibrel identifies as his raw footage. Sibrel owes the world an explanation for why he didn't comment on it in his original film, and why he left it out of his version of the raw footage. However his position is much improved from two years ago: he at least acknowledges now that the footage exists.
I doubt that Sibrel is under any delusion that he can prove this footage is fake. It's just bluster. He hopes sheer audacity will convince fence-sitters that he's the authority on this material. He has an empire to preserve, so the footage "must" be fake. It's a good window into the conspiracist's mind: if footage from some reel can be spun to support his theory, it's unmistakably genuine with no question at all about its authenticity; if it contradicts his claim, then of course it must be fake and anyone who says otherwise has a heavy burden of proof to prove it's real.
Established Member
Exactly the same question I just asked him. We'll see if he sticks around to respond, or if this was just a drive-by.
At least I know I'm on his radar screen. Maybe sales are slumping.
That's the information I have also. Actually, Mark Gray's title card says 30:28 GET, but the actual transcript indicates 30:29:28, *assuming* 00:00 GET was at ignition. Perhaps Jay or someone can clarify the actual definition.Somebody will have to help me out, here. My understanding was that the transmissions were at 10:32 GET (00:04 GMT), 30:29 GET (20:01 GMT), and 33:59 GET (19:31 GMT). I don't offhand know how long each transmission was.
Anyway, here's the actual TAC transcript from A11 that coincides with the 2nd TV transmssion:
01 06 29 28 CC Apollo 11, this is Houston. Over.
01 06 29 34 CDR Go ahead, Houston.
01 06 29 39 CC 11, this is Houston. Goldstone reports they are receiving a TV picture coming down from you all, a little snowy, but a good TV picture. Over.
01 06 29 54 CDR Roger. We're just testing the equipment up here.
The first mention of the TV transmission happens at 30:29:28 GET: Day 01 (24 hours)+6 hours, 29 minutes, 28 seconds. Of course, that's only when it's first mentioned. The actual transmission no doubt started shortly beforehand, so Mark's time stamp of 30:28 is most likely right on the money.
The transcript time codes quoted by Sibrel are from later in the transmission. This is his only basis for claiming my film "falsely reports the time".
See above. He's going by the time stamps from the section of video that actually disproves his porthole theory, not the beginning of the transmission.What does Bart have that says a transmission was at any other time than these?
I love how Bart only presents the two possibilities for the origin of the video. Fakery or human sacrifice.Was this filmed by a 'sacraficial lamb' who never made it back to Earth, or is it a fake?
After verifying that the viewing angle and Earth-phase are correct, we can establish beyond reasonable doubt that the the images were taken on July 17, 1969 by correlating them with weather data for that date. This has been done here.
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Right. He's very careful to only include a few seconds of a harmless earth shot from the 30:28 transmission. He understandably avoids the incriminating portion.
Still, this inclusion proves he DID have the footage.
Does he have a choice?However his position is much improved from two years ago: he at least acknowledges now that the footage exists.
Right. Their latest tactic has been to dispute the actual identity of the astronauts shown in the video, claiming stand-ins were substituted, who look nothing like Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins. When asked why NASA would be so careless as to let these "actors" faces be photographed, the tortured logic and spinning go into overdrive.I doubt that Sibrel is under any delusion that he can prove this footage is fake. It's just bluster. He hopes sheer audacity will convince fence-sitters that he's the authority on this material.
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I think GET is supposed to start at liftoff, though the exact start appears to be off by a smidgen at times. According to Apollo by the Numbers, the liftoff of Apollo 11 occurred at 0.63 s GET.
Established Member
Thanks Bob, I had wondered about that.
I think I can live with a .63 sec variance.
Order of Kilopi
I think GET is supposed to start at liftoff, though the exact start appears to be off by a smidgen at times.
Zero-time in GET is the last integral second before liftoff. That is, actual liftoff must occur between GET 000:00:00 and GET 000:00:01, so the Apollo By The Numbers liftoff times do not reflect any anomalous imprecision. Theoretically it corresponds to the hold-down release command, although I believe the sequencer issued the command based in part on verification of steady-state operation of the F-1 engines, which could occur at various times after ignition.
MET is a similar notion redefined for the shuttle and is not properly applied to Apollo missions. Zero-time in MET is the instant of the SRB ignition command at which point the stack is irrevocably committed to the launch attempt.
MET is given in days, hours, minutes, and seconds while GET is most properly given in hours, minutes, and seconds although the initial printed Apollo 11 transcripts used days rather than sequential hours.
Order of Kilopi
Mark's time stamp of 30:28 is most likely right on the money.
I agree. Mark doesn't attempt precision any finer than he can supprt with evidence, which is why he doesn't try to nail it down to the precise second. His time stamp corresponds to when the transmission was first received at the ground station, not when it was first referenced in the transcript. Sibrel wrongly uses the first mention of the transmission in the transcript as the start of the transmission.
The typewritten transcripts were hastily prepared. Their time stamps rely on the accuracy of the start-of-reel time stamps, which were given to the transcriptionists. A certain amount of skew is likely, and a claim of sub-minute precision in a reconciliation is inadvisable.
*assuming* 00:00 GET was at ignition.
Ignition was at around T-000:00:08 to allow the F-1s to come to steady state prior to releasing the hold-down. Large pump-fed engines have long ignition transients.
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Okay, that makes sense. Thanks, Jay.
Order of Kilopi
Still, this inclusion proves he DID have the footage.
A very smoking gun. To borrow a phrase from the Nixon era: What did Bart Sibrel know, and when did he know it?
It's helpful to review the provenance of what we're calling the raw footage. Mission Control couldn't always see the video because the high-capacity MSFN links weren't always up. The relevant ground station could always see the video because, obviously, they were receiving it. So whenever they got a video downlink from the spacecraft, the ground stations recorded it on videotape. The live telecasts were both recorded and transmitted over the temporarily-active high-capacity MSFN links.
The "report film" that Sibrel saw was simply a concatenation of the various videotaped downlinks strung together on one reel for convenience. Because these snippets occurred several hours apart in real life, it's possible to omit one of them from the concatenated film without destroying its integrity. This is what Sibrel apparently did when he recently released the "raw" footage. But the sixty-four dollar question has always been whether the GET 30:28 telecast might have been omitted from Sibrel's version. It would be strange had it been, but since Sibrel's version is a 16mm kinescope of the original videotape there is the possibility of editing before Sibrel got hold of it.
But his use of the frame or two conclusively connected to the GET 30:28 telecast confirms that it was part of his source material and puts him squarely on the spot to explain why he did not discuss the portion of it that does not correspond to his claims, and why he left it out of his own publication of the raw footage.
Does he have a choice?
He doesn't now, but he once thought he did.
I'm convinced Bart Sibrel legitimately believed early on that he had top-secret footage. It's the easiest way to explain why he thought he could edit it heavily to support his conclusion and why he thought he could get away with showing parts of the live telecast as if they were top secret.
And until very recently Sibrel apparently still believed that the raw footage was comparatively difficult, if not impossible, for anyone else to get. And so apparently he believed he could continue to bluster about the contents of the raw footage without fear of meaningful contradiction, including publishing his own edited version of the "raw" footage that conspicuously omits the GET 30:28 footage.
That isn't to say that A Funny Thing... is excusable because it's only ignorant. Sibrel edits the footage in a few places to create anomalies and contradictions that simply aren't there if the viewer gets to see the whole footage and listen to the astronauts talk. It looks like he believed he could edit that footage to say what he needed it to say, and that he would never be caught. His dishonesty is explicable only if you accept the premise that Sibrel really believed he had backstage footage. But that doesn't excuse the dishonesty.
My first, subsequent, and continued criticism of A Funny Thing... is that it shows you only isolated snippets of the evidence instead of letting you see it whole and drawing your own conclusions from it. Using the same tactics I could show you photos from a Project Bandaloop performance and tell you a wild tale about a bank heist and you'd swear I had shown you photographic evidence to support my claim.
I believe that's what motivated Sibrel to release the "raw" footage. He probably figured I and a few other Apollo geeks had seen the raw footage, but it was still generally unavailable to the public. So he tried to get the upper hand by releasing a hacked-up version to show people he had nothing to hide, again believing he probably wouldn't get caught omitting footage. But up until very recently, Sibrel's position has been that there is no GET 30:28 telecast.
I think Bart Sibrel is just now realizing how ubiquitous his "secret" footage really is and how badly he's been caught cheating. Obviously he's desperate now to discredit it, but unfortunately by his own admission he's known about it for years. Claiming it's fake simply doesn't get him off the hook, not only because he has the burden of proof for his affirmative rebuttal of the footage, but because even if he could make a good case for its being fake he still has to answer for why he knew about it all along and didn't say a thing. If he knew it was fake when he made A Funny Thing... then how does he expect us to buy the notion that the rest of the backstage footage must be genuine? If he's labeling stuff real or fake depending on whether it fits his theory, then we might as well have a photo of him with his hand in the cookie jar.
Their latest tactic has been to dispute the actual identity of the astronauts shown in the video...
I fail to see what this buys him. If there were stand-in astronauts in Earth orbit during the Apollo missions, then that means he doesn't know where Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins really were. The whole point of his previous work was to prove they weren't on the moon because he thought he could prove they were in low Earth orbit during that time.
Order of Kilopi
Now he is copying Percy and Bennett. From the openning section,
"We are not claiming that astronauts have never walked on the Moon. Our personal interpretation of the evidence is that surrogate astronauts were employed. It is our further view that the famous named astronauts for example Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Ed Mitchell in all probability never left Earth orbit, ..."
Order of Kilopi
That's the kind of spaghetti-bowl reasoning you get when your agenda is to reject a particular conclusion rather than to discover the truth.
Established Member
So, instead of ending Armstrong, Aldrin and Mitchell to the moon NASA actually sent other guys to the moon?
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Yeah, makes a lot of sense, doesn't it
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That's great Jay. Thanks for clearing up when the GET clock actually started.
Order of Kilopi
It's like the one about The Odyssey - it wasn't written by Homer, but by somebody else of the same name.
Only this is worse. It's starting to look as if these leading HBs believe men walked on the moon, but they also faked it for no apparent reason.
I hope these people will get their comeuppance one day.
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A topic I would love to grill him on, but I doubt he has the courage to stick around long enough to answer the tough questions.
Me thinks it was just his version of a shot across the bow. It may be time to hire 24 hour security and buy some pepper spray. I think Bartie is fixin' to do himself some more stalkin'.
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He won't stick around. As soon as he realises that he's talking to someone with a grasp of the facts, he'll be out of there. It isn't in his interest to allow people to discredit him. After all, he must have made a fair few dollars over the years. The more he's exposed as a fraud, the less he'll make. (hopefully)
Order of Kilopi
To debate at length would be most un-Sibrellian. He says just enough to establish doubt in the minds of the true believers that you know what you're talking about, then departs the field before you can expose his ignorance. He knows that the less he says, the better.
At the Astronauts Gone Wild premiere he held a Q&A session. But you were only allowed one question with no followup, so that Sibrel always had the last word. That way he could make up whatever he wanted to "answer" your question and you'd have no opportunity to call him on it.
As with nearly all other conspiracy kingpins, Sibrel is all about controlling the debate. He won't discuss your claims at length in your forum, or in a forum that doesn't provide either a format conducive to his argumentation methods or a way for him to censor you. So expect that he'll produce his own video and sell it, or he'll address straw-man versions of your claims on his web site where the reader can't see and hear your statements alongside his.
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Maybe we could start a new thread entitled 'Questions that Bart won't ever answer'! I'll go first.....
'Bart, how much money have you made from your Moon Hoax claims'?
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I wonder what Sibrel would do if a group of debunkers dispersed through the audience? The next person in line could followup on the previous person's question. I'd love to see Sibrel try to bluster his through an onslaught of tough questions.
Order of Kilopi
I wonder what Sibrel would do if a group of debunkers dispersed through the audience?
He would say that clearly a well-organized team of government disinfo agents had been sent to wreck his credibility using a coordinated set of lies. And his audience of paranoiacs would cheer loudly.
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No need for security, all you need to do is hire a 70 year old man. Bart seems to have trouble when he arouses the ire of a septuagenarian.
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Maybe they meant that the ones on the moon were the sacrificial lambs? Obviously they died from VA radiation?
But wouldn't that still mean we made it to the moon?
Order of Kilopi
But wouldn't that still mean we made it to the moon?
Yes. And presumably NASA was so embarrassed by the astronaut's sacrifice that they didn't announce it. NASA can stomach having to announce that three of its best astronauts died in a preventable launch-pad fire due to haste and carelessness, but they won't announce that other brave astronauts died while winning the race to the Moon.
This is where we bring up someone's discovery in the Nixon library of a brief but stirring speech Nixon was to have delivered in the event that Apollo 11 had been unable to lift off from Moon. It says the sorts of things you'd expect a President to say at a time like that. But it raises a couple of questions. First, it suggests the U.S. wasn't afraid of conspicuous failure; and second, it suggests the administration wasn't sure of the outcome, so they covered all the bases -- further suggesting that it wasn't a carefully-staged hoax.
Order of Kilopi
How fascinating! I've never heard of this before.
Is the speech available?
Again, I am struck by how much richer the real history of Apollo is. Who would want to exchange it for an unimaginative ill-thought-out imitation of Capricorn One?
Order of Kilopi
In Bart's defense (I can't believe I just said that), Aldrin isn't your typical old guy.
Order of Kilopi
Is the speech available?
Yes and no. A scan of it was circulated around the web years ago when it was first discovered, but I don't currently know where to find a copy of it.
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