They Kinda Want to Believe Apollo 11 Was Maybe a Hoax (original) (raw)

Science|They Kinda Want to Believe Apollo 11 Was Maybe a Hoax

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/science/moon-landing-hoax-conspiracy-theory.html

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Critic’s Notebook

Conspiracy theories were once deadly serious. On the internet, skepticism about the moon landing shows how the mood has shifted.

Buzz Aldrin, left, and Neil Armstrong, practicing moon rock collection on Earth in April 1969.Credit...JSC/NASA

July 1, 2019

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Dawson’s “theories” are assembled from pop culture detritus, stitched together through video clips, off-the-cuff podcast interviews and spooky internet chatter. His videos are pegged to trending topics — whipping up nefarious plots around fidget spinners and Avril Lavigne — but they also plug into old-fashioned lines of conspiratorial thinking: the Illuminati rules humanity, the Earth is flat and the Apollo 11 mission was faked. His “MOON LANDING CONSPIRACY THEORY” video has been viewed more than seven million times.

Dawson is a capricious conspiracist. In the middle of his paranoid rant about the moon, he places his hands sincerely over his chest and says: “Once again, it’s a theory. I don’t want to get sued, or put in jail.” Then he narrows his eyes, as if to size up the whole field of space science, and scoffs, “But I mean, the evidence is notlooking good.”

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