Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Phil Plait: If they were to fake the moon landings and there were some people in there
that were gonna do this, why would they send von Braun to Antarctica?
Why would they take pictures of von Braun, and then say "look, von Braun went to Antarctica.”
Why even do that if this was gonna be a secret thing?
And you're gonna go to Antarctica and collect rocks, um… It doesn't make sense to send
your rocket genius.
Joe Rogan: There's a lot of things that don't make sense but the fact is, he was in Antarctica,
he did bring back moon rocks.
Phil Plait: They brought back some meteorites.
Joe Rogan: From the moon.
Phil Plait: Um, I don't think they brought back hundreds of pounds.
If you find it, it's available all over the place.
Joe Rogan is quite the master debater, but Plait is absolutely right, in that it doesn't
make sense to send a legendary rocket scientist, like Wernher von Braun to collect meteorites.
Unfortunately, on this February 23rd, 2007, airing of the Penn Jillette Radio Show, Joe
Rogan was in the studio and Phil Plait called in from home, with his trusty internet handy.
When Joe brought up the von Braun trip, which Plait obviously had never heard of before,
and Plait Googled "Werner von Braun in Antarctica" he was probably inundated with hundreds of
illegitimate references to the trip as a meteorite hunting expedition.
The same stuff was still floating around four months later, and convinced Glst2 to erroneously
add what he said to the Wikipedia article.
Then it took half a year until somebody realized that there is no documented evidence that
any of what the conspiracists claim could have happened.
Another problem is that the whole story doesn’t fit with NASA's supposed modus operandi.
If they wanted to find something in Antarctica to pass off for moon rocks, they would have
sent a couple of expert geologist - leaders in their field - someone who might possibly
know what they were looking at.
Then when they returned, NASA would have taken the rocks and assassinated the geologists,
cleaning up all the loose ends.
That's what Kaysing would have said.
Jarrah: While it is true that a Japanese expedition did manage to retrieve 9 meteorite samples
in 1969, their discovery wasn’t a total surprise, because explorers have been finding
meteorites in Antarctica since 1912, the year von Braun was born.
To imply that Antarctica was not known to haven meteorites until 1969 is just plain wrong.
The operative word here is a FEW.
The Wikipedia article states that a FEW meteorites were found in Antarctica - a FEW, not a bunch,
not a veritable gold mine, just a FEW - between 1912 and 1964.
How many is a few?
Well, to answer that question, we have to take a short trip outside Wikipedia (I hope
you don’t mind.) to the Meteoritical Society website.
Between 1912 and 1964, a total of FOUR meteorites were discovered in Antarctica.
The first was an ordinary chondrite, an L5, followed by a pallasite, which is a rare type
of stony-iron meteorite, and two iron meteorites, none of which resemble moon rocks at all.
Meanwhile, searching for meteorites NOT found in Antarctica during that time period, 93 were
found between 1912 and 1917 alone, and over half of those were found in either Texas or California.
Why send von Braun to Antarctica when he could have picked up meteorites on a trip to
Huston, Texas or Goldstone, Califorina?
The conspiracists have way overcomplicated this accusation.
Wernher von Braun was in Antarctica in January 1967.
Two years later, in 1969, the 10th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found NINE meteorites -
count ‘em, NINE - at the foot of a receding glacier.
That’s when geologists first suspected that the movement of ice sheets might cause meteorites
to concentrate in certain areas.
Then it wasn’t until 1973, a full year after the Apollo program had ended, that they found
a dozen more meteorites in the same place that they found the other nine.
Between 1969 and 1973, they collected a total of 21 meteorites.
And they were nothing that could be passed off as moon rocks.
This data is out there for anyone to see.
And all these meteorites were found by knowledgeable geologists on long, general geological expeditions,
not by rocket scientists on a one week working vacation.
The first expedition dedicated solely to searching for meteorites didn’t happen until 1974.
To imply that Antarctica was a known as a RICH source for meteorites BEFORE 1969 -
is just plain wrong.
Four meteorites!
And of the thousands of pounds of meteorites that have been collected worldwide since 1974,
only 129 of those listed on the Meteoritical Society website have been identified to date
as originating from the moon.
The first to be recognized as such, was Allan Hills 81005, found on January 18, 1982.
The first lunar meteorite to be found was actually Yamato 791197, which was discovered
on November 20, 1979, but was not recognized to be of lunar origin until after the elemental
ratio tests were finalized in 1982.
Furthermore, a fact that Jarrah might find interesting is that only 29 of the 129 lunar
meteorites found on earth were found in Antarctica.
55 were found in Oman, 44 [were] scattered throughout Northern Africa, and one was found
by an Aborigine meteorite hunter in Jarrah’s native Australia.
Looks like von Braun should have gone to Oman if he really wanted to find meteorites to
pass off as moon rocks.
So, what do we know and what can we prove?
Well, obviously, Wernher von Braun did not bring back any lunar meteorites from Antarctica.
He was too busy spending quality time with his chums and playing maypole.
We also know that Antarctica was not known to be a fertile source of meteorites before 1969.
And the four meteorites collected in Antarctica prior to the Apollo missions, were identified
as chondrites, iron and stony-iron meteorites, which bear no resemblance at all to moon rocks.
The von Braun conspiracy claim is now dead.
Ciao moon hoax conspirators, wherever you are.