Appendicitis II: We Never Went to the Moon pp. 182-184

 Like Cooper before him, Kaysing does not have the greatest understanding of what an appendix is for. He’s much closer than Cooper, I have to give him credit for that; but an appendix should build off the established writing or should correct any mistakes. Here we’re getting more “evidence” for the conspiracy, but this stuff could have easily been in the proper book. Instead, we’re give this line, “No attempt has been made to categorize the following bits and pieces of the ‘jigsaw puzzle’…but for now, bear with me and place the pieces in your own mind where they fit best.”

Ok, Cooper’s writing seemed lazy but that was largely because he didn’t know better. Kaysing has been a writer for a bit before this book, and this is some bullshit. For the remaining twenty pages we, the reader, are supposed to the editing work for him. This is some bullshit…but let’s plow through it.

The first section is titled “Betty Grissom.” Betty is the wife of the late Gus Grissom who perished in the Apollo 1 fire. Kaysing opens with, “Recently, a supporter in Texas relayed the information that Betty Grissom’s house was invaded by government agents after the death of Gus.”

Oh, so some unnamed person is telling you a story they heard from someone else, which is why Kaysing wrote that the information was “relayed” to him. Kaysing didn’t know this, the person that is telling Kaysing didn’t know this, this is third degree hearsay. So, we are moving on.

Our next section is “The Astronaut’s Suits.” Here Kaysing tells an anecdote that a writer of a book on the type of clothing that astronauts wear didn’t find what he expected. He was told that “it would put the Russian space program back several years if the US divulged their space suit secrets.” We’ve been reading this book fairly carefully and never have the space suits been called into question.

“A Former Astronaut Speaks” here Kaysing relays to us a letter he was sent, wherein someone claiming to be a NASA employee in Alabama said he thought the whole thing was a hoax. We aren’t given how we know this person really worked for NASA, what they did, or why they thought it was a hoax. This could in itself be a hoax, if this letter actually exists.

“The Intelligence Pyramid” Kaysing explains that the US Intelligence department is very big. I agree.

The next one is very odd. It’s titled “Massive Organizational Capacity” and I’m thinking he’s going to piggyback on the last entry writing about the size of NASA. Instead, he goes down a very weird place, “Few people realize the power of the establishment. But it becomes plainly visible when one realizes that ALL manufactures are party to the new “product identification code” that appears on virtually everything sold. The next step will be to put a PIC on you so that no one can buy or sell without being identified without doubt.”

If you asked me what the strangest claim in this book was, I would never have guessed that Kaysing was going to jump into “mark of the beast” territory. This entire section, which is in full above, rests on a fallacy. People like him think that manufacturers were directed to do this, but it was an association of trade that agreed to do this because it simplified business transactions. The store clerk doesn’t have to enter the cost of everything into the register, they just scan the product. It made things easier. The idea that you would need one to make purchases is a conspiracy that is as old as the UPC itself.

The entire thing comes from the book of Revelations (Rev. 13: 17-18) where those with the mark are able to buy food while those without the mark cannot. Kaysing tries to avoid making this connection, but it’s impossible to do so. He can dodge the overt religious message, but the evangelicals created this theory so it’s theirs. We also know that it’s utter bunk, and the conspiracy has moved to Credit Card purchases, RFID tags, GPS, etc.

This doesn’t belong in this book. It’s an utter non-sequitur.

“Media Opposition” to finish off today and again, this is a misnamed section. Instead of talking about the media’s opposition to his claim that the Moon Landing is a hoax, he instead tells us that we eat five pounds of food additives a year. That cancer deaths have increased in proportion to the rate of increase of chemical additions to food, to which I would like to ask if he means salt. I wonder if Kaysing is coming off the introduction to the chemical phobia that defines left wing fear mongering conspiracy theories until around 2016.

Also in this section is a claim repeated by tax protester Martin Larson. Here we are told that the IRS is a scam, and that because of the 4th amendment, which Kaysing thinks is the right to property but is actually the right against unreasonable search and seizure of that property. Kaysing, like the NRA, needs to read the ENTIRE amendment that he likes.

We are also told in this section (again, titled Media Opposition), that the oil shortage was a hoax. Now, this is kind of true in that the energy crisis in the 70s wasn’t about a lack of fuel. It was about an oil embargo by the largest oil producing region on the planet. If you understand anything about economics one of the things is that the largest supplier of a thing controls the price. When OPEC began its embargo, it caused fuel shortages because the price was too high. Kaysing is correct that US Oil was being sold to Japan, but this isn’t a revelation. This is how global economies work in a post-Mercantilist world. You may think that US oil should stay in the US, but that is an entirely different conversation.

Finally, for this section on Media Opposition that has covered any media opposition. We are told about a medical quack named Ivan Illich who was jailed for not abiding by the “cut-burn-poison” method, by which Kaysing means “chemotherapy.” Ivan Illich is just a naturopath quack, and this section made me sad, because it reminded me that we use to jail medical quacks for their quackery instead of putting them in charge of medicine.

The last sentence in this section is “My feeling about Apollo is that it is a hoax for no other reason than the government is a specialist in hoaxing the public.”

This sentence is fine, because it illustrates that Kaysing has no proof that Apollo project was a hoax, he just feels that it is. Conspiracy theories attract because of this not because of the “facts” of the theory. He’s presented nothing, he hasn’t even presented in this section that the government has been hoaxing the public.