Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[Barry Karr <SkeptInq@aol.com>]

Interesting article on the claim that the Moon Landings were hoaxed and a
response the article has drawn from Arthur C. Clarke.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-land07102001.story

One giant leap for lunar skeptics
As many as 20 percent of Americans believe that the moon landings were faked.

Michael Cabbage | Sentinel Space Editor
Posted July 10, 2001

CAPE CANAVERAL -- As cosmic conspiracies go, this one has it all. Government
lies and treachery. Murdered astronauts. Global domination by a one-world
cabal.

Move over, grassy knoll and Area 51. The myth that America’s lunar landings
were faked by the U.S. government is booming -- and not just among X-Files
addicts. Millions of Americans, as many as 1 in 5 according to some
estimates, now suspect Neil Armstrong took his one small step inside a
television studio in the Nevada desert.

*****************************************************


    As a long-time admirer of the United States, I am appalled to hear that a
recent poll suggests that 20% of Americans are ignorant fools:  I hope the
figure is grossly exaggerated, as no other term is strong enough to
describe anyone who believes the Moon landings  have been faked. If the
late unlamented  Evil Empire was still around, I might have suspected some
of being communist sympathisers attempting  to discredit the one
achievement for which the U.S.A. may be remembered a thousand years from now.

    Remembering how quickly Watergate unravelled, how could  any sane person
imagine that a conspiracy  involving *hundreds of thousands of people over
more than a decade* would not have done the same?    Ben Franklin put it
well : `A secret known to three people can be kept - as long as two of them
are dead.'

    And how do these nitwits account for the fact that, for the last thirty
years, the laser reflectors and radio sensors on the Moon have been
transmitting terabytes of data back to Earth? Who do they think put them
there -  E.T.s?

    But I can't waste any more time on lunatics: I am too busy proving that
George Washington never existed,  but was invented by the British
Disinformation Service to account for a certain minor unpleasantness in the
Colonies.

                Sincerely,

                Arthur Clarke       11 Jul `01.

PS
    Everyone:  Please  pass on - but don't give my address!!