Cross Fertilisation

Looking back at the first post, listing some of the subjects that I'll be covering here, it's clear to see that there is a lot of cross fertilisation.  Interest in one subject easily leads to an interest in another.  Just for a bit of fun, let's look at some of the links from the previous page.

The longest held interest mentioned has got to be the Moon landings.  As I mentioned yesterday, I clearly remember watching the later missions as a child. There were countless documentaries on the subject during the 1970's as I was growing up.  I especially enjoyed the film from Apollo 16 taken as they drove across the Lunar landscape in the rover.  From this it's an easy step to an interest in conspiracy theories.

One of the few things that really annoys me is the whole "the Moon landings were hoaxed" discussion.  All of the claims related to the so called hoax have been debunked time and again and yet they persist.  Even though we now have pictures from all the Apollo landings sites, taken from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as a range of non-NASA sources.  One of my favourites is this site which lists some of the many amateurs who followed the missions by radio and telescope.

Some Apollo-didnt-landers, especially those making money from their claims, deliberately cherry pick from the available evidence to lend weight to their opinions.  The reason it annoys me?  Firstly, it is a subject that I have spent a lot of time researching and I've seen convincing proof that the landings took place. One that springs to mind is the behaviour of the dust kicked up by the rover and astronauts.  We are all familiar with the way a dusty surface reacts when its disturbed and it is completely different to the way the Lunar dust behaves, as can be seen here, where the dust particles follow ballistic arcs which look strange because it's so different to what we see here on Earth.  The astronauts took huge risks and knew that there was a fair chance that they would not return.  To label than as cheats and liars does them a huge injustice.

Another link between interests flows indirectly from the above.  It was President Kennedy who pushed through the Apollo missions that led to the Moon landings. One of the best know areas of conspiracy theory is his assassination.  Was it the work of a lone nut, or two lone nuts if you include Oswald's killer Jack Ruby?  Or were greater forces at work?  It seems that nearly every researcher has their own theory as to what happened that day in Dallas.  It is always hard to accept that such world changing events could "simply" the result of one man's troubled mind.

The waters have been muddied further by other factors.  For example, Lee Harvey Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union and then returned to America with his Russian bride.  It should also be remembered that the assassination came hot on the heals of the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis at the height of the Cold War. What now seems like signs of a sinister cover-up may well have originally been attempts to avoid a nuclear holocaust and World War III.

Again, the above leads on to one of my other interests, Discordianism.  This religion (see a later entry for more details) was founded by two friends Kerry Wendell Thornley and Greg Hill.  What I didn't realise until a few years ago was that Thornley had known Lee Harvey Oswald whilst they were both Marines and he always suspected that he had been some how caught up in a conspiracy to assassinate the President.  More information on Thornleys suspicions (or paranoia) can be found here.

Such webs of Synchronicity always fascinated me and will, no doubt, feature in future posts.