Villanova prof discusses conspiracies theories linked to the moon landing
— R.E.M, “Man on the Moon”
RADNOR >> In 2002 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was a keynote speaker at a conference.
“He was being trolled and followed by a conspiracy theorist who kept calling him a big liar and a faker,” said Derek Arnold, a communication instructor at Villanova University who teaches a class about conspiracy theories. “He kept walking behind (Aldrin) and asking him to swear on the Bible (that he walked on the moon). Finally, Aldrin turned and decked him. This guy did nothing but hound him for months.”
The conspiracy theorist tried to sue Aldrin and the judge told him that he was lucky that Aldrin wasn’t suing him.
Flash forward to July 20, which is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Studies show that between 5 to 15 percent of Americans believe the moon landing was a hoax, he said. Another study showed that 50 percent of Russians don’t believe it.
Why are some people willing to believe conspiracy theories? Arnold said those people are more likely to feel that they aren’t in control of their lives.
“One of the things that we have found through various studies is people who feel taken advantage of or marginalized are more likely to buy into conspiracy theories,” Arnold said. “People want that kind of order in the world and they don’t get it,” he said.
Also, the media landscape with 24/7 news and websites peddling all kinds of dross promotes conspiracies.
“All these off-beat things get clicks and eyes. It makes it easier for conspiracy stories to spread so much faster,” Arnold said.
“When a story is breaking and there is a rush to get things out, sometimes that information is wrong,” Arnold said. Later, when “conspiracy theorists see no mention of it,” they decide there was a conspiracy to repress something.
“We love stories and telling a story,” he said. “People love a great story that’s put together well, even if we don’t believe it. In the end we’re captivated.”
“With the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, it was now so long ago, there are less and less people who remember it,” he said. “So there is a tendency to say maybe it did not happen. The same thing with the Holocaust.”
When discussing conspiracy theories, Arnold asks his class to think about who benefits. With the moon landing, there was the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union going on, as well as the Cold War.
“It was a huge propaganda matter,” he said. “We would have to win. By faking it we could say we won and have a huge propaganda hit.”
The moon landing was also something that unified the country during the era of the unpopular Vietnam War. And Congress pulled the financial plug on the Apollo missions afterward, too, so there was less interest in space exploration.
But if there were a conspiracy, thousands of people who were involved in the NASA missions would have had to keep silent all these years and the chances of that are minute, he said.
“Nobody cracked and said this was fake,” he said.
“It wasn’t until this last year that an orbiter went around the moon and suggested highly that we were there and here were pieces of space craft were found,” he said. That Japanese space craft sent back images of the flags put on the moon by the Apollo crews and showed that the lunar soil had been disturbed.
“There is now the digital evidence we can look at,” said Arnold. “Before we didn’t have that technology.”
Some of the other major conspiracy theories include the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which he called, “the grandfather of all conspiracy theories;” alien landings at Roswell, New Mexico and Area 51; the death of Princess Diana; and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to name a few. More recently, the mass shooting of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School became a topic for conspiracy theorists, he said.
But every now and then, what was once considered a conspiracy theory turns out to be true. A case in point was the syphilis experiments performed on African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama, he said.
Arnold has been teaching the class on conspiracy theories for the last five years.
“It’s less glamorous than it sounds,” he said. “A lot of stuff is on logic and the media and how technology helps encourage conspiracy theories.”
He always enjoys hearing what students think.
“They’re open-minded and more curious,” he said.