Faked Moon landing would have been exposed within four years, scientist concludes

For a plot to last five years, the maximum number of plotters turned out to be 2,521. To keep a scheme operating undetected for more than a decade, fewer than 1,000 people could be involved, while a century-long deception had to include fewer than 125 collaborators.

Applying the technique to four real-life scenarios showed that had the moon landings been a hoax – involving an estimated 411,000 people who worked at Nasa – it would have been found out in three years and eight months.

Since Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon in 1969, conspiracy theorists have proposed that the landing was faked. They point to photographs showing the American flag blowing in the breeze, despite there being no atmosphere and the fact that astronauts shadows do not match the lunar module light source.

It has even been claimed that the director Stanley Kubrick admitted filming the hoax on his death bed.

But Dr Grimes’ calculations prove that such an elaborate plot would have been impossible to keep quiet.

Since the late 2000s photos taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of the Apollo landing sites (above) have captured the lander modules and the tracks left by the astronauts. Click the image to enlarge.

Back on Earth, a climate change conspiracy with 405,000 conspirators – based on scientists and staff at institutions like the Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – would have lasted just three years and nine months.

And if big pharmaceutical companies were keeping a cure of cancer up their sleeves, the plot would be exposed within three years and three months, Dr Grimes concludes.

“A number of conspiracy theories revolve around science. While believing the Moon landings were faked may not be harmful, believing misinformation about vaccines can be fatal,” said Dr Grimes.

“However, not every belief in a conspiracy is necessarily wrong – for example, the Snowden revelations confirmed some theories about the activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA).

“It is common to dismiss conspiracy theories and their proponents out of hand but I wanted to take the opposite approach, to see how these conspiracies might be possible. To do that, I looked at the vital requirement for a viable conspiracy – secrecy.”

Dr Grimes said he was inspired to carry out the research by the numerous communications he receives from people who believe in science-related conspiracies.

He developed an equation to express the probability of a conspiracy being either deliberately uncovered by a whistle-blower or inadvertently revealed.

It factored in conspirator numbers, length of time, and even the effects of conspirators dying, whether of old age or non-natural causes.

Also required was a realistic estimation of any one individual disclosing a conspiracy. This was based on three genuine conspiracies, including the NSA Prism project revealed by Edward Snowden.

Dr Grimes, whose research appears in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE, added: “‘Not everyone who believes in a conspiracy is unreasonable or unthinking. I hope that by showing how eye-wateringly unlikely some alleged conspiracies are, some people will reconsider their anti-science beliefs.

“This will of course not convince everyone; there’s ample evidence that belief in conspiracy is often ideological rather than rational, and that conspiracy theories thrive in an echo chamber. This makes challenging the more odious narratives much more difficult.

“If we are to address the multitudinous difficulties facing us as a species, from climate change to geopolitics, then we need to embrace reality over ideologically motivated fictions.

“To this end, we need to better understand how and why some ideas are entrenched and persistent among certain groups despite the evidence, and how we might counteract this.”