Letter to President Obama #38 | Subject: Conspiracy Theories
Letter to President Obama #38 | Subject: Conspiracy Theories
Dear President Obama,
So it’s almost the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and that’s got me thinking of conspiracy theories. I’ve always thought it was strange that a small percentage of people believe that the moon landings were a hoax. I mean, if you ask me, I think the evidence is pretty definitive—the moon rocks, the pictures of Earth from the Moon, and the general hassle that it would be to orchestrate a multigenerational worldwide conspiracy involving tens of thousands of people and keeping it secret for 40 years.
But, if the moon landings were really filmed in a studio, I want to get to the more important question—why didn’t we ever make that a full-length movie? That set design was great! And the reduced gravity, it looked so real! Needless to say, we probably should cast different people this time around. I mean, all of the Apollo 11 astronauts were decent looking guys, but let’s be honest—Armstrong famously stammered over his big line, leading some to the impression that he skipped an indefinite article in “one small step for (a) man,” leaving himself open to criticism from self-appointed grammarians and jerks everywhere. If you ask me, I think he did a pretty good job, but critics would probably have the director’s head (Tim Burton?) if he were to be in the sequel.
It doesn’t matter which actors you pick, really, but props will be key to this movie, as we’ll want to take advantage of the cool low gravity environment. There should definitely be a trampoline (how much fun would that be?) and we’ll have to write several dramatic high jumps into the script, maybe as our hero (a gymnast?) flees his enemies (a track and field team bent on taking over the crater/neighborhood?) by leaping straight up fifty feet into a waiting moonicopter.
In any event, the movie should also include pogo sticks. Maybe pogo sticks could be to the moon what cars are to us.
Speaking of Apollo 11, I remember there was a guy running around trying to get Buzz Aldrin to swear on a Bible that he landed on a moon and I remember Aldrin eventually punched him in the face. I thought that was fantastic. I think it would have been even better if Buzz would have hit the guy in the face with the Bible. If he had, could he have been charged with assault with a deadly weapon? If so, awesome, but weird.
Anyway, I guess I can understand why people are skeptical about the moon landings; I mean, first of it all, it’s complicated stuff, and to understand a lot of the explanations about why the photos are real, you’ve got to do the work to understand the science of light rays bending and so forth. And science can be confusing, especially today. Subatomic physics are a good example—many physicists speak a language that could fit right into an forwarded email message averring claims about a one-world-government and the Illuminati.
I mean, contemporary physics actually argues that most of the mass in universe consists of “dark matter” (the enemy of the Illuminati?) and they use other nefarious-sounding codewords like “the god particle.” I hope that last term is just a play on words because it’d be pretty depressing for us to physically locate a divine entity of some sort and then have Him or Her get eaten by an amoeba or something. The only way I’d express a divine entity at the subatomic level is if it had a beard of some sort, gluons, zero spin quarks, whatever. A beard is sort of necessity.
I guess that’s how conspiracies start—there’s a gulf of knowledge that gets filled in with, well, filler. Anything that works. And if something gets discredited, it’s pretty easy to make up something else to fit the theme. To prove my point, consider shriners. After all, no one knows what they really do, they wear those funny hats, and they have some sort of shrine. And they really like kids. If spun maliciously, that could all sound pretty bad.
To debunk my own conspiracy—unless their world-conquering army consists of a bunch of sick kids flanked by old guys in go-karts, I don’t think that they’re up to no good.
In any case, let me know what you think.
Brett
Dear President Obama,
So it’s almost the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and that’s got me thinking of conspiracy theories. I’ve always thought it was strange that a small percentage of people believe that the moon landings were a hoax. I mean, if you ask me, I think the evidence is pretty definitive—the moon rocks, the pictures of Earth from the Moon, and the general hassle that it would be to orchestrate a multigenerational worldwide conspiracy involving tens of thousands of people and keeping it secret for 40 years.
But, if the moon landings were really filmed in a studio, I want to get to the more important question—why didn’t we ever make that a full-length movie? That set design was great! And the reduced gravity, it looked so real! Needless to say, we probably should cast different people this time around. I mean, all of the Apollo 11 astronauts were decent looking guys, but let’s be honest—Armstrong famously stammered over his big line, leading some to the impression that he skipped an indefinite article in “one small step for (a) man,” leaving himself open to criticism from self-appointed grammarians and jerks everywhere. If you ask me, I think he did a pretty good job, but critics would probably have the director’s head (Tim Burton?) if he were to be in the sequel.
It doesn’t matter which actors you pick, really, but props will be key to this movie, as we’ll want to take advantage of the cool low gravity environment. There should definitely be a trampoline (how much fun would that be?) and we’ll have to write several dramatic high jumps into the script, maybe as our hero (a gymnast?) flees his enemies (a track and field team bent on taking over the crater/neighborhood?) by leaping straight up fifty feet into a waiting moonicopter.
In any event, the movie should also include pogo sticks. Maybe pogo sticks could be to the moon what cars are to us.
Speaking of Apollo 11, I remember there was a guy running around trying to get Buzz Aldrin to swear on a Bible that he landed on a moon and I remember Aldrin eventually punched him in the face. I thought that was fantastic. I think it would have been even better if Buzz would have hit the guy in the face with the Bible. If he had, could he have been charged with assault with a deadly weapon? If so, awesome, but weird.
Anyway, I guess I can understand why people are skeptical about the moon landings; I mean, first of it all, it’s complicated stuff, and to understand a lot of the explanations about why the photos are real, you’ve got to do the work to understand the science of light rays bending and so forth. And science can be confusing, especially today. Subatomic physics are a good example—many physicists speak a language that could fit right into an forwarded email message averring claims about a one-world-government and the Illuminati.
I mean, contemporary physics actually argues that most of the mass in universe consists of “dark matter” (the enemy of the Illuminati?) and they use other nefarious-sounding codewords like “the god particle.” I hope that last term is just a play on words because it’d be pretty depressing for us to physically locate a divine entity of some sort and then have Him or Her get eaten by an amoeba or something. The only way I’d express a divine entity at the subatomic level is if it had a beard of some sort, gluons, zero spin quarks, whatever. A beard is sort of necessity.
I guess that’s how conspiracies start—there’s a gulf of knowledge that gets filled in with, well, filler. Anything that works. And if something gets discredited, it’s pretty easy to make up something else to fit the theme. To prove my point, consider shriners. After all, no one knows what they really do, they wear those funny hats, and they have some sort of shrine. And they really like kids. If spun maliciously, that could all sound pretty bad.
To debunk my own conspiracy—unless their world-conquering army consists of a bunch of sick kids flanked by old guys in go-karts, I don’t think that they’re up to no good.
In any case, let me know what you think.
Brett
Labels: apollo, conspiracy, conspiracy theories, fun, funny, humor, illuminati, joke, letter to the president, moon, moon landing, nasa, neil armstrong, science
posted by brett at
10:12 PM
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