Interviews: Buzz Aldrin, Colonel Slater, Ernie Williams, Richard Mingus, Michael Schratt, Bill Irvine, James Oberg
1. July 20, 1969: For details regarding Apollo 11, “Humankind’s first steps on the lunar surface,” http://nasa.gov; for transcripts of the first lunar landing, visit “Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal,” by Eric M. Jones, http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.landing.html.
2. Armstrong’s hundreds of hours flying: Jenkins, Hypersonics before the Shuttle, appendix 9.
3. astronauts visited the Nevada Test Site: NASA, Appendix E. Geology Field Exercises: Early Training, Field Training Schedule for the first 3 Groups of Astronauts (29), 3, Feb 17–18 & 24–25, 1965 & March 3–4, 1965. “The trip provided an opportunity to examine in detail the craters and ejecta formed by detonation of subsurface nuclear devices in lavas and unconsolidated sediments”; USGS OpenFile Report 2005–1190, Table 1, “Geologic field-training of NASA Astronauts between January 1963 and November 1972.”
4. Ernie Williams was their guide: Interview with Ernie Williams.
5. first water well: Interviews with T. D. Barnes, Colonel Slater, Ernie Williams.
6. astronauts arrived with a lunar rover vehicle: Gerald G. Schaber, “A Chronology of Activities from Conception through the End of Project Apollo (1960–1973),” U.S. Geological Survey, Branch of Astrogeology.
7. by-products of underground bomb tests: “The Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions,” #69043 Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment, 32.
8. astronauts twice referred to: DOE/NV 772 REV 1, “Apollo Astronauts Train at the Nevada Test Site,” 2. The mission commentary
voice transmissions can be downloaded at
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/mission_trans/apollo17.htm.
9. hearing this comparison was a beautiful moment: Interview with Ernie Williams.
10. Just two months after Armstrong and Aldrin returned: Author interview with James Oberg, and from a chapter in his book UFOs and Outer Space Mysteries. In addition to being an aerospace historian and leading debunker of lunar-landing and UFO-on-the-moon conspiracies, Oberg spent his career as a rocket scientist working for NASA contractors, including at Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
11. moon being a base for aliens and UFOs: Interview with James Oberg.
12. Spielberg said in a 1978 interview: Matthew Alford, “Steven Spielberg,” Cinema Papers, 1978.
13. With these three questions: The answers, presented by a popular Web site dedicated to debunking the moon-hoax theory, are: Q: How can the American flag flutter when there is no wind on the moon? A: The movement comes from the twisting motion of the pole. Q: Why can’t the stars be seen in the moon photographs? A: There are plenty of Apollo photos released by NASA in which you can see stars. Q: Why is there no blast crater where Apollo’s landing vehicle landed? A: The moon’s surface is covered by a rocky material called lunar regolith, which responds to blast pressure similar to solid rock; http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm.
14. he experienced “an intuitive feeling”: Fox Television broadcast, “Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?” February 15, 2001.
15. the Today show: A transcript of Kaysing’s interview with Katie Couric, cohost of the Today show, which aired on NBC, August 8, 2001, can be read online at Global Security.
16. canceled the book: Dr. David Whitehouse, “NASA Pulls Moon Hoax Book,” BBC News, November 8, 2002.
17. CIA admitted it had been running mind-control programs: Marks, The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,” 211. During the 1977 Senate hearings, CIA director Stansfield Turner summed up some of MKULTRA’s eleven-year legacy: “The program contracted out work to 80 institutions, which included 44 colleges of universities, 15 research facilities or private companies, 12 hospitals or clinics, and 3 penal institutions.”
18. 58,193 Americans were killed trying: The National Archives, Statistical information about casualties of the Vietnam War, ARC ID: 306742.
19. Great Moon Hoax: Goodman, The Sun and the Moon, 12.
20. Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon: This section is based on my interview with Buzz Aldrin, and also from chapter 20 in his book Magnificent Desolation, which addresses the event and is called “A Blow Heard Around the World,” 332-46 (galley copy).
21. 25 percent of the people interviewed: Brandon Griggs, “Could Moon Landings Have Been Faked? Some Still Think So,” CNN, July 17, 2009. Griggs noted that a “Google search this week for ‘Apollo moon landing hoax’ yielded more than 1.5 billion results.”
22. involve captured aliens and UFOs: AboveTopSecret.com.
23. “The tunnels were dug by a nuclear-powered drill”: Interview with Michael Schratt.
24. N-tunnels, P-tunnels, and T-tunnels: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, The Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions.
25. “deactivated,” according to the Department of Energy: Michael R. Williams, “Ground Test Facility for Propulsion and Power Modes of Nuclear Engine Operation,” 4.
26. the revelation of the Greenbrier bunker: Ted Gup, “The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway,” Washington Post, May 31, 1992.
27. “Secrecy, denying knowledge of the existence”: KCET American Experience, “Race for the Superbomb,” interview with Paul Fritz Bugas, former on-site superintendent, the Greenbrier bunker.
28. on average, twelve months: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, The Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions, 18.
29. at least sixty-seven nuclear bombs: U.S. Department of Energy, United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 through September 1992, 15.
30. Piledriver experiments studied survivability: Cherry and Rabb, “Piledriver Drilling,” UCRL–ID-126150, August 9, 1967.
31. “to destroy enemy targets [such as] missile silos”: Operation Hardtack II, Defense Nuclear Agency, 3 December 1982; interview with DOE officials during my tour of the Nevada Test Site, October 7, 2009.
32. guarding many of the nuclear bombs: Interview with Richard Mingus.
33. After the test ban, the Pentagon reversed its policy: U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, The Containment of Underground Nuclear Explosions, 21.
34. has changed its name four times: See NNSA Timeline, http://www.nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ourhistory/timeline. Notably, there is another agency that has changed its name four times, the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), which, like the Atomic Energy Commission, also began as the Manhattan Project. On May 6, 1959, it changed its name to the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA); on July 1, 1971, it changed its name to the Defense Nuclear Agency; on June 26, 1996, it changed its name to the Defense Special Weapons Agency. Schwartz, Atomic Audit, 61.
35. “mission is to advance technology and promote related innovation”: Google DOE.gov and this statement is the subhead. Or go
to http://www.energy.gov/.
36. formal beginning in 1908: Federal Bureau of Investigation Official Web site, Timeline of FBI History, 1900–1909.
37. Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko in a secret CIA prison: Edward Jay Epstein and Susana Duncan, “The War of the Moles,” New York, 2837.
38. His true allegiance remains the subject of debate: Walter Pincus, “Yuri I. Nosenko, KGB Agent Who Defected to the U.S.,” Washington Post, August 27, 2008. In CIA documents released decades later, Nosenko is quoted as forgiving the CIA for the harsh treatment, stating “while I regret my three years of incarceration, I have no bitterness and now understand how it could happen.” Shortly before he died, CIA officials gave Nosenko a ceremonial U.S. flag from CIA director Michael Hayden.
39. memorandum dated May 1, 1995: Memorandum to Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, from Advisory Committee Staff, May 1, 1995, “Official Classification Policy to Cover Up Embarrassment.” Clinton Staff Memo is marked “Draft, For Discusssion Purposes Only,” and cites 1947 memo listed below.
40. “All documents and correspondence”: “Report of Meeting of Classification Board During Week of September 8, 1947,” Atomic Energy Commission.
41. “cause considerable concern to the Atomic Energy Commission insurance Branch”: September 28, 1947,
