Conspiracies Declassified

by Brian Dunning

  Adding to the pile of official information about Area 51’s activities was the 2007 release of former Area 51 employees from their confidentiality agreements. They’re all now free to speak quite openly about all the work that was done there, and they often do. So far, nothing beyond the projects that we know were developed there—and that we’ve talked about in this chapter—has ever come up in conversation. (Unsurprisingly, the employees’ unofficial association, Roadrunners Internationale, does not count hoaxers like Bob Lazar among their membership.)

  Despite all of this transparency about what happened at Area 51, some conspiracy theorists say that it’s still possible that advanced craft, possibly using alien technology, may still have been tested there. The problem is that this claim can’t be reconciled because both the aircraft and their budgets are eventually declassified, and the aircraft end up in museums. Plus, aviation writers and researchers are relentless. We have access to the entire global history of aviation, and although national test programs are littered with aircraft that never made it into production, very few of them differ substantially from conventional aircraft. Nothing using “field propulsion,” or anything else from the annals of science fiction, has ever materialized.

  The technology currently being developed at Area 51 remains classified, of course, so we don’t know what it is. Industry speculation points to various unmanned aerial systems and possibly hypersonic vehicles. But we still have never found any reason to suspect anything unworldly.

  The Lucifer Project

  * * *

  Date: 1968–?

  Location: Outer solar system

  The Conspirators: NASA

  The Victims: Unclear

  * * *

  The Theory

  Large gas giant planets like Jupiter are sometimes called failed stars—they contain all the elements necessary to undergo fusion and become stars, but they lack sufficient mass to collapse under their own gravity and produce sufficient pressure and heat to ignite the process. Hypothetically, if we could somehow make it happen, having a second star in our outer solar system might turn some of the larger moons of Saturn or Jupiter into habitable worlds.

  Despite those pesky laws of physics, there is a group of believers who say that NASA has already attempted to do this at least twice, and may do so again. These alleged previous attempts were the Galileo probe, which crashed into Jupiter in 2003, and the Cassini probe, which crashed into Saturn in 2017. Both probes were powered by RTGs (radioisotope thermoelectric generators), which contain plutonium. Believers say that plutonium can cause a thermonuclear reaction inside the gas giants that should initiate a chain reaction to turn them into stars.

  Theorists haven’t given any particular reason NASA might have done this, other than the fanciful notion that it might be fun to have some other warm planetoids in the outer solar system.

  The Truth

  It would be impossible for our solar system’s largest gas giants to sustain fusion and become stars, and NASA has never attempted such a ludicrous feat.

  The Backstory

  The idea of turning a gas giant into a star appears to have originated with Arthur C. Clarke’s book 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this book, he used Saturn as an example, but the movie version (and most subsequent theories) have used Jupiter. Jupiter is far more massive than Saturn, so is a better candidate for the gravitational confinement needed to create sufficient pressure and heat to sustain a chain reaction. In Clarke’s stories, the new star was named Lucifer.

  When Galileo was about to end its mission by crashing into Jupiter, a Dutch engineer and conspiracy theorist named Jacco van der Worp went on the Coast to Coast AM radio program to explain his belief that this scheme is exactly what NASA had in mind. The RTGs on Galileo were chosen instead of more conventional solar power, van der Worp believed, because the true hidden purpose of the mission was to ignite Jupiter into a star, and NASA needed the thermonuclear potential of the RTGs. Van der Worp called NASA’s plan the Lucifer Project.

  Nothing happened, of course, when Galileo finally did crash into Jupiter in 2003. However, a few months later, a dark spot was observed on the planet’s surface. Other conspiracy theorists like Richard C. Hoagland were quick to claim that this was the result of Galileo’s thermonuclear explosion—which, for some unknown reason, had not successfully triggered the desired chain reaction.

  The 2017 collision of Cassini into Saturn also produced no dramatic change from planet to star, and at this point it’s unclear if theorists believe that NASA intends to try again.

  The Explanation

  NASA employs people who understand physics pretty well, and unfortunately for proponents of the Lucifer Project, the laws of physics dictate that such a project would never work.

  Gravitational confinement is the main problem. In order to sustain a thermonuclear reaction, a star needs to have a mass greater than about 0.08 solar masses, otherwise it will not have enough gravity to squeeze its core into a mass hot and dense enough. Jupiter is only 0.001 solar masses, and Saturn is only 0.0003. So neither planet is remotely close enough to ever sustain a chain reaction. Even if we somehow did trigger a thermonuclear device inside them, the fusion reaction would involve only critical masses of fuel inside that device.

  Back here on Earth, we have detonated thermonuclear devices many, many, many times greater than what could be achieved using the plutonium from an RTG. The largest was the Soviet Union’s 1961 Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb test with a yield of 50 megatons. You’ll note that Earth was not converted into a small sun when this happened. One of the reasons is that the Earth is not hot and dense enough, and because it is too small to achieve the required gravitational confinement. The same lack of chain reaction would result if a device was exploded on (or in) another planetary body, like Jupiter or Saturn, that is also too small.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  Arthur C. Clarke knew that his scheme couldn’t work within the confines of the laws of physics. In fact, in his book, one of the characters said he “can see a dozen objections” to the plan. That’s why Clarke’s fictional execution of Lucifer required the intervention of powerful aliens, who had some presumed power of creation beyond physical laws.

  The other major problem with the Lucifer Project theory is that an RTG cannot explode like a nuclear bomb. First of all, it uses the wrong grade of plutonium. An RTG uses reactor-grade plutonium, while a bomb uses weapons-grade plutonium. The difference is the relative proportions of Pu-238 and Pu-240. Conspiracy theorists say that this alone does not make it impossible because in 1962, the United States did successfully detonate a weapon using reactor-grade plutonium. The yield was low, but it worked.

  The second reason the Lucifer Project cannot happen has to do with the structure of an RTG. A nuclear explosion requires a quantity of fissile material sufficient to reach critical mass. For Pu-238, this quantity is about 10 kg. To trigger it, it must be imploded by a single instantaneous explosive force striking it from all directions. This crushes it together enough that the fusion reaction is triggered. The shape of this mass and of the implosion force must be exactly right, or it won’t work.

  The RTGs used in Galileo and Cassini were the GPHS-RTG, General Purpose Heat Source RTG. This design uses seventy-two marshmallow-sized pellets of Pu-238 for a total of only 8.1 kg, short of critical mass. Each pellet is individually clad in iridium, separated by membranes, and each group of four is encased in a graphite impact shell. These impact shells are stacked into sleeves. Eighteen of these shells make up the GPHS. Because of this intricate design, there is no plausible scenario in which all the Pu-238 could magically become separated from the other materials in the structure and then somehow be grouped together into a single mass. Even if that did happen, there is not enough plutonium there for a critical mass, and no explosive material at all is included in the design to provide the implosive force.

  Some conspiracy theorists have posited that the heat of reentry into the thick atmosphere of the gas giant would cr
eate sufficient heat and pressure to trigger the thermonuclear detonation. This is not true, and even if it were, pretty much everything else is missing from the equation that would make a detonation possible.

  Claims that solar panels are usually used for these missions are also just plain wrong. In deep space, there is not enough sunlight for solar panels to power the spacecraft. Enter RTGs, which function reliably for decades with no moving parts and no dependence on sunlight. That’s why NASA always uses them for deep space missions.

  From the beginning to the end, every single link in the chain required to make this conspiracy possible is broken. The RTGs cannot explode, the planets cannot burn as stars, and NASA’s scientists know these facts very well. So clearly the Galileo and Cassini missions were not covers for the Lucifer Project, which would never be attempted—at least by people who know what they’re doing.

  The Moon Landing Hoax

  * * *

  Date: 1969–1972

  Location: An undisclosed movie set

  The Conspirators: NASA, unknown filmmakers

  The Victims: Soviet Union

  * * *

  The Theory

  Despite overwhelming historical and physical evidence, a moonrock-solid community of believers worldwide hold that NASA’s Apollo missions did not actually land any humans on the Moon. Some believe the spacecraft did actually launch, but were unmanned; others say the astronauts did fly, but never went farther than Earth’s orbit; still others say the Apollo spacecraft merely orbited the Moon and returned; and yet another group insists that nothing was ever actually launched at all. The only thing they seem to agree on is that the official acknowledged history of the Apollo program is false, and no humans have ever set foot on the Moon. They claim the pictures and videos were faked on a movie set, and that all the other evidence is fake as well.

  Why do they think the Moon landings were hoaxed? Because the United States was in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and wanted the ultimate propaganda victory.

  The Truth

  NASA’s Apollo missions did land twelve Americans on the Moon, a fact that even the Soviets don’t dispute.

  The Backstory

  Doubting the Moon landings has its roots in an unexpected place: Christian fundamentalism. The original International Flat Earth Research Society was dedicated to proving the literal truth of the Bible, and some do interpret a few Bible passages as meaning that the Earth is flat. The Society’s founder, Samuel Shenton, first began arguing against the reality of the Gemini program—which preceded the Apollo Moon program—as soon as we started to get the first photos of the Earth taken from space.

  The hoax narrative did not really go mainstream until 1976, when Bill Kaysing, who had been a publications analyst at Rocketdyne (a rocket engine design and production company) in the early 1960s, self-published a pamphlet titled We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. In it, he proposed a plot that was echoed in Peter Hyams’s 1977 movie Capricorn One about a fake Mars launch, in which the astronauts sneak out of the capsule and transfer to a safe location to make counterfeit TV transmissions.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  Kaysing sued Hyams for copyright infringement of his theory. Though the lawsuit was unsuccessful, it brought a lot of attention to his version of the story, and from then on, the Moon landing hoax belief has been taken seriously by some 6–7 percent of Americans, and by about four times as many Europeans, according to one 2009 study done by the UK’s Institution of Engineering and Technology.

  As far as evidence, theorists point to the photos taken on the Moon and note the following:

  • Light seems to be coming from angles that could only be consistent with studio lighting and not a distant sun.

  • Dust behaved impossibly, including not having been blown away by the rocket motor.

  • American flag flaps in a wind that is supposed to be nonexistent in space.

  One science-based argument that many Moon hoax believers make is that the Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts are a region of space too lethal for humans to pass through. If true, it would be impossible for humans to ever fly outside of a low Earth orbit.

  The Explanation

  The very best proof that humans went to the Moon is the rocks that were brought back. They bear physical proof of having been in space, specifically on the Moon, and brought to Earth in a protected artificial environment. The characteristics of these rocks aren’t even things NASA can fake:

  • Using rubidium-strontium dating, the rocks are shown to be 4.46 billion years old, older than any on Earth. We have no way to fake this result.

  • They also bear what are called zap pits, microscopic craters from impacts with micrometeors at up to 80,000 kph. We don’t have any way to fire projectiles that fast on Earth.

  • They contain cosmogenic nuclides, which are isotopes that damage the crystals in the rocks. These cosmogenic nuclides can only be created by bombardment from high-energy cosmic rays, but the Earth’s atmosphere blocks cosmic rays from doing this to rocks on Earth.

  • We know these rocks didn’t come to Earth naturally as meteors, because their pitted surfaces are pristine. All meteors that pass through Earth’s atmosphere are covered in fusion crusts, or a melted outer layer.

  Perhaps the best certification of the Moon rocks’ authenticity comes from foreign scientists who have studied them. Even the United States’ enemies at the time couldn’t dispute them (the Soviet scientists especially would have loved nothing better than to prove them fake, but they couldn’t).

  Apollo 12 astronauts also retrieved about 10 kg of pieces from Surveyor 3, an unmanned probe that landed on the Moon in 1967. The glass from its camera lens shows the same type of cosmic ray damage found in the rocks, incontrovertible proof that men brought it back from space.

  It is true that traveling through the Van Allen radiation belts does expose the astronauts to high levels of radiation, but people can survive going through it. The Apollo engineers chose a trajectory that carried the astronauts through a narrow part of the radiation belts as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, they were exposed for about an hour. This exposes astronauts to about 1 rem, which is what you get from about 100 chest X-rays. That’s only about 1 percent of what you’d need to get the first signs of radiation sickness.

  Once on the Moon, the astronauts place retroreflectors on the ground at each landing site. A retroreflector is a panel covered with little cubical right-angled mirrors that reflect laser light back at exactly the same angle it came in. During the Apollo program, many nations, including the Soviet Union, verified these retroreflectors by shining their own lasers at them.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  Interestingly, the mere presence of retroreflectors doesn’t prove that any humans were actually on the Moon, because unmanned probes have also taken retroreflectors to the Moon. But it does prove beyond all doubt that all the Apollo missions flew and landed exactly where NASA says they did, because something brought the retroreflectors there.

  For a long time, hoax believers questioned why there were no photographs of the Apollo landing sites taken from Earth. Surely our best observatories’ telescopes should be able to see that, including the Hubble space telescope. The science here is actually a bit surprising. In fact, the Apollo landing sites are too small for Hubble to see them. Hubble is great at seeing things extremely far away, so long as they are incredibly enormous—the size of a star, nebula, or galaxy. The biggest objects we left on the Moon are no bigger than a car—simply too small to be seen from Earth, even using our biggest telescopes. It wasn’t until 2009 that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft was able to take close-up photos of the sites from lunar orbit. Why was its camera able to see what even Hubble could not? Simple: the LRO was 17,000 times closer to the Apollo sites than Hubble. Although Hubble’s telescopic lens is much bigger and better than the LRO’s smaller telescopic lens, it isn’t 17,000 times better.

  Perhaps the most import
ant takeaway from any discussion of the Moon landing hoax is that no scientific rebuttal will ever be able to keep up with every claim made by the conspiracy theorists. That’s why you will easily find loads of information online that claims to prove the Moon landings were faked that is not addressed here. Unfortunately, pseudoscience will always spread faster and more aggressively than science.

  Skeptoid ® Says . . .

  The photographic proof of the landing sites, which even show the astronauts’ footsteps, did essentially nothing to change the hoax believers’ stance. (The polling numbers did not change at all.) Conspiracy theorists typically take evidence that disproves their theory and say it’s falsified, and then point to it and say, “Look! It’s a cover-up.”

  The Face on Mars

  * * *

  Date: 1976

  Location: Cydonia, Mars

  The Conspirators: NASA

  The Victims: Unknown

  * * *

  The Theory

  When the Mars probe Viking I sent a set of photos from Mars in 1976, one shot in particular set off wild speculation that life was or had been present on Mars. One photo appeared to be a human face, perhaps even sculpted, about a full square kilometer in size. It is no exaggeration to say that it set the world abuzz. Skeptics dismissed it as a fun coincidence, a hill with shadows that, at first glance, did look a bit like a face. But others claimed the resemblance was far too close to be anything but a deliberate artificial carving and that NASA degraded or Photoshopped the new images in order to cover up the existence of the civilization that built the face. Conspiracy theorists pointed out that many other constructions in the immediate vicinity also appear to be artificial, including pyramids and geometrically shaped buildings. The region of Mars is called Cydonia, and if you believe the conspiracy, NASA seems determined to block humankind’s first contact with this enigmatic race that has tried so hard to signal their existence to us.