“That’s one small step for Austin, one giant plummet down the stairs for the FoF series.”  In this episode, FoF investigates the Moon Landing and tries to determine whether or not it was Fact or Faked, and in the process, succeeded in ticking off this reviewer like never before.  Which is saying a lot considering we’re dealing with FoF here.

This episode starts out in the Situation Room at 9:02 am.  Recall that last week’s duo of disastrous episodes started at 9:03 am.  On the whole it would seem that they just can’t quite start at 9:00 am.  However we’re still looking at the same clothes making me think this was all filmed at once, thus last week’s entire set of episodes, during which the teams traveled to Australia and Hawaii, all took place between 9:02 am and 9:03 am.  That has to be it, afterall, it’s on TV, what we see must be true.  They must have drunk some of that Scalosian Water (Star Trek, Old Series, look it up ) Not to mention the whole "reverse time" thing going on.

Jael starts the round out by showing us a moth on a window.  The image is enhanced for us which makes it look even more like a moth.  So, I guess if it was a male it would be a Malemoth, but not a Mothman.  It is so obviously not in the same plane as the clothesline and you can see it crawl up the window quite easily.  But, let’s listen to the experts.

Bill: “Thhaaaaat (pause) is freaky”

Ben: “I can’t see any real um form to this that is recognizable.  That IS interesting to me.”

This from our Lead Scientist (are we sure that’s not lead as in the element Pb?) and our FBI guy.  Fortunately we have the inhuman input of Austin who adds a note of reality to things.  Let’s listen:

Austin: “I think it’s probably just a video done on a poor digital camera shot at night with poor image quality.”

Tie Guy: “I agree”

Unfortunately, Austin’s description, though correct, offers no explanation and would apply to most of the videos that we see them review, providing that you sometimes substitute “day” for “night”.

Ben shares the Moon Landing story with us.  He explains that a quarter of the world’s population believes that we didn’t go and that if they were faked it would be a massive coverup.  He goes on to tell us of a few of the “theories” (where’s that dictionary, oh, I already wrapped it), the biggest being the Cold War and the Space Race.  The Soviets were ahead of us on everything and we needed this to pull ourselves (the US) back together.

Next he shows us some video clips of the later moon landings that leave a lot of people thinking “Man this really could have been hoaxed.”  Later moon landings?  Why the later ones?  Are there no problems with the earlier ones?  If so, then why fake the later ones?  This isn’t so much a “huh” at Ben as it is to those thinking this.  Well, I guess it’s at Ben, too, since he seems to buy into it.

He shows the Apollo 15 footage of David Scott performing the classic hammer and feather falling at the same rate in a vacuum.  I think with a smaller hammer and feather, this same experiment could be replicated twixt the ears of some of these cast members.  Galileo Galilei suggested that a hammer and a feather dropped in a vacuum would hit the ground at the same time.  This was shown on 02 August 1971 on the moon.

Those suggesting the whole Apollo Program was a hoax (at least for the later missions) say that this experiment could be faked on a “sound stage” by recreating the visual scene and then adding weight to the feather.

Next is some Apollo 16 footage of Charles Duke and John Young doing the famous flag salute.  There is a little reflection above the pack that people have jumped on to say is a wire attached that is pulling him up and causing him to float a bit before coming down.

Chi-Lan says it looks almost like a wire holding him up.

Next we go to a scene of John Young being helped up by Charles Duke and the key here is that it looks like he pops back up in a verrrrry straaannngee way that doesn’t look consistent with what you’d expect.  Why should it be consistent with what you’d expect, you’re on the moon for crying out loud!

Nevertheless, the FoFers obviously have expectations of what it should look like, and the eyebrows raise and the ohhhhhs are uttered.

Chi-Lan then sets up the failure by getting into the recreation mode.  I think even before FoF was aired as a series I was chastising the debunking by Ghost Hunters and said that just because it CAN be recreated doesn’t mean that’s HOW it was done.  Star of India possibly?  It was bad enough when it was done as a small part of a series, but then FoF comes along and bases their entire premise on this.  I was looking for things to throw at this point, but since I’m on my 9^th TV with this series, I restrained myself.

Ben, Chi-Lan, and Austin are detailed to investigate this one.

Before we go out the same door the same way again, Bill brings us some big, blue explosions from Texas.  The Tie Guy brings us the Gulf Breeze UFO which will get its own section.  And Austin and Chi-Lan were apparently too lazy to even be bothered to go to YouTube and type in “Weird Video” and thus have nothing to suggest.  Be thankful for small miracles.

After doing a quick review of the Mythbusters episode which looked at the Moon Landing over a year ago, Ben, Austin, and Chi-Lan supposedly head to Burbank to do a Moon Landing Recreation (and end up on Charon)  Enroute we get the usual little bit of dialog back and forth in the vehicle which serves two purposes.  One is that it shows us some insight into their personal feelings on the subject at hand, thus letting us get to know the inner FoF.  And, two, it reinforces that they are actually going somewhere and don’t have all this footage readymade.

Ben lets us know that he’s excited to be doing this case and Chi-Lan tries to elevate FoF’s status by indicating they are tackling one of the biggest conspiracy theories out there.  She continues to go on (and on and on) about how important it is that they talk to Aron Ranen who was commissioned to do a documentary in celebration of the landing and while doing so he became a “skeptic” because of the things that didn’t add up.

Austin contributes to the discussion by sitting in the back seat and playing with the automatic locks and window controls.

They arrive at the studio and Chi-Lan continues to annoy me with her jabbering and going on something about turning this place into the surface of the moon and being an astronaut.

They meet with Aron Ranen who says that he spent a year, himself, trying to prove that we landed on the moon.  At the end of his “journey” he had more questions than answers.  He talks about the actual video footage and how NASA had lost all the original telemetry and science data sent down from the capsule.  Wait, did they lose it for ALL the missions?   NASA also says they erased them for budgetary reasons so we have the question of which was it.  Was it lost or was it erased.  Well, if you erase something you could say it’s lost…

Ben asks if he finds it believable that there were 400,000 people working on the moon missions and that they could pull off this hoax with no one talking later?  Aron’s explanation is that simulations were done all the time where fake information was fed into the consoles so that they all could practice.   He dramatically says that Man’s first landing on the Moon…could have been a hoax!  Has to be time for a commercial, right?  Yep.

Okay, we’re back.  Anyone else tired of Christmas commercials already?  We get to hear Aron utter his dramatic statement again (in case you forgot it during the Zale’s commercial)  Ben tells us that opens up a whole new avenue for looking at it.  Anyone get what he was saying or what he meant by that?  No?  Okay.  Well, it’s his lead in to saying they have a good starting point for their experiments which is what the crux is: See if you can recreate it, and if you can, then it’s a hoax.

Aron is glad that he could help and shakes their hands and leaves.  Okay…just what exactly did he do for them?  Well, he killed a few minutes of time that they needed to fill.

Ben next tells us that they need to transform this big open room into…the Lunar Surface.  Cue Luna-forming montage.  Many shots of the trio using various tools and building things.  I’ll bet anyone 5 bucks that those little clips are the most they did as far as building anything and after filming them, they shut off the cameras and got someone in who knew how to build.

Chi-Lan keeps going on about recreating things and that with even limited material they could recreate the surface of the moon so thus it’s faked.

Chris Gilman from Orbital Outfitters shows up to give them some space suits and Austin starts to don the clothes that represent his SECOND changing of clothes for this half-season.  Spacesuit donning montage at the end of which, Austin is fully lunarized.  Interesting etymological fact.  Luna (for the Moon) is the root for words such as lunacy and lunatic.  Just thought I’d throw that in there.

They are all set now for their first experiment which is the replication of the hammer and feather drop.  Dubbed the Falling Bodies Test, it gets underway at 11:45 am.  Why do they never put dates?  If they’re going to make up a time you’d think they could at least make up a date to go with it.

The “skeptics”, of course, believe that they used this footage at the beginning to prime the people into believing that the astronauts were actually on the moon.  Ummm, point of order here.  If you’re going to do that to “prime the people”  wouldn’t you have done it two years (and THREE landings) prior?  You would have?  Yeah, I would have too!

But, the sneaky astronauts made a fake feather which would negate air-resistance and duped the world by making a hammer and feather fall at the same rate on a sound stage.  Was there a Press Conference held to report the findings of the hammer/feather test?

Ben foreshadows the countdown and has Austin get into position and has the photography expert line up the shot and prepare to film.  It’s time for the Hammer-Feather Test in 3 – 2 – 1 and Austin drops both of them, then quickly clutches his right foot and hops around the soundstage as the hammer bounces off his little toe.

Chi-Lan explains that they will “degrade their video” by 50% to match the NASA quality.  I can see the scene now.  Ben, with a shoulder holster and shortsleeve shirt, standing in a closed room with one foot up on a chair, a bright light shining at the video tape as he lays in, “You stupid, worthless, cheap excuse for a Beta format tape…”  Sufficiently degraded, the video is shown and Chi-Lan says that, with some simple camera tricks and props, they were able to recreate the video almost exactly.

Uh oh, not looking good for NASA, folks.

Ben tells us this is the jumping off point for the conspiracy of this Apollo Mission.  11?  12?  14?  16? 17?  So now it’s time to do something a little more complex like jumping up and down.  Well, for them that’s complex.

No, not jumping, it’s an iconic Apollo moonwalk…it still looked like jumping to me.  At this point an excited Chi-Lan (is there any other type?) tells us that SHE is going to get suited up.  Austin explains that the astronauts might have been able to get that classic moon-walking look by attaching spring-like devices to their boots.   He neglects the fact that at no time in the Apollo videos do you see big springy things on their feet.  But, that’s a minor detail for FoF and they proceed accordingly because Chi-Lan says that NASA then could have used a technique known as Film-Matting to erase all traces of the springs (but of course would still leave that shiny thing over the backpack so that latter-day conspiracy theorists could claim that they were attached to wires)  Getting closer to needing to buy a tenth TV.

Ben asks Austin if he’s ready to do his moonwalk and I got a great “oh no” sensation just knowing that at some point we were going to be treated to the “moonwalk”  Ben lines up the shot and Austin adds “Let’s see if we can defy gravity.”  Well, they’ve defied common sense, rational judgment, the Scientific Process, and a host of other things, so why not Gravity?

Our First Moonwalk in 3 – 2 – 1 Commercial.  #%@#^$  And we’re back.  Our First Moonwalk in 3 – 2 – 1.  Austin hops and jumps and Ben says that it looks like he’s struggling.  They try again and Ben is almost laughing at him now and calls a halt to the test.  When asked how it looked, Ben says it failed.  Well, you make that many pronouncements and you’re bound to get one or two right, simple law of averages.

He was getting the motion down and everything but unable to reduce his weight.  Yeah, if you want to reduce your weight it helps to go to a body that has less gravitational pull.  Like maybe the Moon.  Chi-Lan says that for the next experiment they need to do something to get some more lift.  Ben adds something about taking some of the weight off, too, by attaching something to his back and pulling up on him.

At this point I was expecting our first GH crossover where they would pull Grant in as a Special Effects Consultant dealing with attaching string to collars.  Maybe they did but he opted out of having that footage shown and made sure his name wasn’t in the credits.  Can’t say I blame him, I wouldn’t want my name listed in the credits here, either!

Up next is the Fly Wire Test where they will attach theatrical fly wire to Austin with about a 100-pound weight to simulate the gravity of the moon.  They also bring in a fly-wire expert to lend some control to the movements.  We don’t see this fly-wire expert in any detail, but if you look closely you can make out a TAPS teeshirt.

Austin at this point does the thing I had been dreading and “moonwalks” as they prepare for the shot.  Ben REALLY gets into the spirit of things with this countdown of “T-minus 3 – 2 – 1 Liftoff.”  Austin gets hoisted up and I start looking through the Walmart flyer for deals on TVs.

Austin gets pulled upward and interestingly goes backward a bit “Grant-style”  Ben likes it.  I, on the other hand, was rather ambivalent about the whole performance.  Chi-Lan says that this attempt is SO similar.  Ben adds that it was perfect height, perfectly framed.  It looks greaatttt!

Uh oh, REALLY not looking good for NASA.

Next to debunk is the controversial astronaut-getting-up scene.  This footage could not have been shot unless someone was using fly-wire to pop the astronaut back up.  So, since they already have some (and an expert on hand) they are going to try to replicate the shot with fly-wire again.

Invisible Support Test is next on the agenda (wouldn’t that also apply to the jump-salute?) and gets underway at 3:10 pm.  Presumably all on the same day.  Ben explains all the things that he has done to make the scene match up and we get ready to go again.  Ben assigns Austin and Chi-Lan their roles and gets ready to count.  And of course as they start to film we break.  After the recap they show the setup again and we get another countdown and ANOTHER FRIGGEN’ BREAK as we go back to the Situation Room at 9:17 am.  Was this only 15 minutes then, or is this another day?

Recap in the Situation Room for those three who were unfortunate enough not to be able to go to the Moon.  Hammer and feather test a success and recreated.  Problem with the spring boots (if only they had sent away to Acme like Wiley did and got some quality merchandise).  Fly-wire a success for jumping to salute the flag.

Finally we get to the results of the Smoking Gun of the Apollo 16 mission, the pop up astronaut.  Ben asks the question that, if you weren’t using a fly-wire, is that a natural movement that an astronaut would make on the moon.  Even though the recreation supposedly looks good, they talk to Chris Gillman, a NASA spacesuit designer, who tells them that when the suits are pressurized they naturally are in a standing position and what they see in that shot is the suit “uncoiling” which is why you get that pop or spring-back motion.

Okay…NASA is accused of faking the moon landing.  Would you then trust someone associated with them to give an explanation?  Yes, if you’re FoF.

Down to the Big Question which is asked by Ben.  “So, could the moon landings have been faked?”  “Yes, you can replicate the moonwalk, the hammer-feather test, all of that, here on earth, pretty well.”

Chi-Lan pipes in with “I think if we had the same resources as NASA we might be able to get exact.  But does that mean that it really was hoaxed?  I personally don’t think so.”  So, no matter what you do, it all comes down to your own feelings about it.

Bill: “The recreations were pretty convincing, but I believe that the Lunar Landings are authentic.”

Ben:  “Even though it can be replicated here on earth it doesn’t mean that the same thing wouldn’t happen in the conditions on the moon.  There were 400,000 plus people involved in the Apollo missions.  To get all of them to not divulge that we didn’t actually go would be enormous and I think taking it all into account it’s a much, much, much more probable it really did happen and we really went to the moon.”

Various shots of assorted head nods from the rest of the FoFers.  The End.

I agree with their conclusion.  I really do.  I like how they brought in the extra information (although 399,980 of those people could have been duped as well…the actual number of people who would need to be in the know is significantly less than 400K)  So what do I have a problem with?  The lack of consistency in this show.  They can’t QUITE replicate EXACTLY the Raystown Lake monster so they leave it as a possibility.  Based solely on the ability to recreate or not recreate it.  Same for the Ghost Writing so there is something “more going on”.  Yet the Ghostly Guardian in Hawaii becomes debunked.

Add to this the general incompetence exhibited in their methods, and their certification of something being Fact or Faked means very little.

Discussion of this episode may be found here.