Jack White's Aulis "Apollo Hoax" Investigation - A Rebuttal

[Evan Burton]

On the thermal blanket, I made a clip that shows the LM under construction and shows the thermal material.

It's large - about 13.9Mb. I'm not very experienced with making manageable size clips as yet. I'll try to get a smaller one done (the original is 60Mb!).

http://www.zippyvideos.com/1932765026291586/lm_clip_small/

[Craig Lamson]

Dave .. Why do you think the high resolution photo of the "stage lights" at the top of the photo is not available ? ... I thought you could find anything !! LOL

Actually I am more impressed with your explanation ( film sprockets ) than with Mr. Lamson's version of what he thinks the "stage lights" might be ( writing loops ) .... In fact , I can't believe you jumped so quickly on that feeble explanation ...

It's unfortunate that we don't have the high res photo to study , as it would be much clearer , but I did copy this photo to my files and did an enlarged , zoomed in close up of this photo and I will have to disagree with both of your assessments on this one .

Not only do these objects ( whatever they may be ) look nothing like writing loops , why would out of the literally thousands of Apollo photos would this partial writing only show up on this one particular photo and none of the others ? .... That makes no sense whatsoever ...

So I think we all may want to keep digging on this one because I don't accept the "writing loops" explanation at all ... and if you are honest about this one and take another real close up look at this photo , I think you might agree with me that this is not the answer to what these anomalous objects might be ...

But if Mr. Lamson can show more examples of "writing loops" at the tops of any of the other Apollo photos and they are obviously writing which resembles these objects , then I would gladly change my opinion .

BTW , I'm not convinced that these objects are stage lights either , but if I had to choose among film sprockets , writing loops or stage lights , I would have to go with the lights .

I'm not surprised you don't accept my suggestion as to the origins of the markings on this picture. same old same old.

First off why do you find that these marking don't resemble writing? Second have you ever seen film that has been marked with a technical pen? Have you ever personally marked the septum of a piece of 70mm film with a technical pen (or any film what so ever)? If you answer no to these question you are in a pretty poor position to make value judgments about these markings.

So lets work through the ideas being tossed around and see what idea best fits the evidence (markings on the top of the film)

Dave suggested that the markings might be sprocket holes in the film and posted an Apollo frame that has what looks like sprocket holes at the top of the frame. Not a bad idea, as the 70mm film used in the Hasselblad was double perforated...meaning it had sprocket holes on both sides of the length of the film.

So does Dave’s idea fit the photographic evidence in question? In a word, no. First off the 70mm film magazines used in the Apollo missions placed the sprocket holes on both sides of the image, not the top or the bottom. Based on that fact alone we know that the camera original of the frame in question did not have sprocket holes on the top. (see attached photo showing the perfs and their location in a Hasselblad back) Second the markings bear no resemblance to sprocket holes.

Interestingly the markings on the second image that Dave found DO appear to be sprocket holes. While they would be impossible on an in camera original frame it is possible that they were introduced during the duping process. However these possible sprockets holes bear no resemblance to the markings on the frame in question.

I suggest that the marking might be writing. Does my idea fit the evidence? In a word, Yes. In the attached crop of the image ( upsampled in PhotoShop from a really crappy net jpg taken from ALSJ) the loops for the suggested writing is visible. We see five markings. The first is a large dot followed by a small dot The second is clearly a circular marking with a "dot at the bottom. Third is a "dot and what appears to be a line extending upward from that dot. Forth, and this is a good one, is a circle with an overlapping "starting or finishing" point. Finally we have dot with a lighter, circular /horizontal line. All in all these marking look very much like hand writing.

So would writing make sense in this location on a strip of film? In a word, yes. This is a common practice and method for adding reference markings to a strip of film. The unexposed septum on a roll of film (and on 70mm its the ONLY place that makes sense due to the perfs.) is near clear on negative films and the technical pens generally use black ink. This combination produces white-ish writing on a black-ish background...which is consistent with the markings on the frame in question.

Does the writing look like what we would expect from a technical pen on a film surface? The answer is yes. Technical pens by their nature produce markings that are often uneven in density and fullness. The pens are designed to operate like a fountain pen but unlike a fountain pens that has a split nib, a technical pen uses a hollow steel tube with a blunt, square tip. In other words it is simply a tube cut at a right angle and the ink flows down the tube to the writing surface. When writing with one of these pens, its quite easy to create a heavy "spot" of ink if you move too slow, and for your line to get thin and weak if you get the blunt tip too near vertical when writing. The markings on the image in question show signs of both "heavy spots" and thin, weak lines...consistent with the properties of a technical pen being used on film.

Finally Duane suggest that the markings could be spotlights. Does the evidence fit that conclusion? In a word, NO!

First lights don't create an image on film that is a thin circular line with an overlapping stop or start mark. Second lights do not create an image that looks like a thin looping line. Finally and most importantly a light shining towards the lens will not create a sharp edged image...it will "glow" around the edges due to light scatter and in the film base. There is no evidence that the markings are lights.

The best fit for the available evidence is writing. Should new evidence become available, that conclusion is subject to change.

Edited November 18, 2006 by Craig Lamson

[Dave Greer]

Very quickly...

Duane, I accepted Craig's explanation of hand-writing as better than my sprocket hole theory because the shape of the marks in question is quite organic, not unlike how handwriting would appear. Sprocket holes are very geometric.

Do you have the software capable of measuring dimensions on photographs? If so, measure the physical size of the frame... you'll see that whatever the marks are, they are not on the exposed part of the film... hence it's impossible that they are stagelights (or anything else other than some kind of mark on the fiml itself - it's not an exposed image of anything).

[Kevin M. West]

Do you have the software capable of measuring dimensions on photographs?

I do.

I added the fiducials that aren't visible against the sky based on the locations of the rest of the visible fiducials. The red line is the approximate location of the edge of the exposure. I haven't done the same for the one with the sprocket holes but I'd be willing to bet that those are outside the exposure also.

[Craig Lamson]

Do you have the software capable of measuring dimensions on photographs?

I do.

I added the fiducials that aren't visible against the sky based on the locations of the rest of the visible fiducials. The red line is the approximate location of the edge of the exposure. I haven't done the same for the one with the sprocket holes but I'd be willing to bet that those are outside the exposure also.

Well outside the exposure mask ...try this highres image with no sprocket holes for comparison.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/AS15-82-11214HR.jpg

[Dave Greer]

Do you have the software capable of measuring dimensions on photographs?

I do.

<snip>

I added the fiducials that aren't visible against the sky based on the locations of the rest of the visible fiducials. The red line is the approximate location of the edge of the exposure. I haven't done the same for the one with the sprocket holes but I'd be willing to bet that those are outside the exposure also.

Kevin

Thanks for posting that, it shows exactly what I measured in photoshop - whatever it is, it's outside the exposed part of the film. Hence, it's not stagelights.

Whether it's sprocket holes, writing or something else is moot as far the hoax theory goes (my vote still goes to writing).

Duane - do you accept that the "artefacts" are indeed outside the exposed part of the film, hence not stagelights, or anything else indicative of fakery?

(PS re your question about not being able to find a higher res version of this picture online - I suspect it's because it's been spoiled by light leaking onto the film, so it's not a priority. The version we do have is sufficient to allow accurate enough measurements to be made to confirm the position of the "artefacts" - outside the exposed film.)

Edited November 19, 2006 by Dave Greer

[Dave Greer]

More evidence that it's not a stagelight. Just noticed a thread on apollohoax.net discussing the same thing. There are indeed other images showing the same thing. Here's one:-

AS15-84-11348

Again, the artefact is not on the exposed part of the film, so it's not stagelights. It looks even more like hand-writing... the last character looks very much like a "4" - i.e. the "4" in "AS15 84".

I'm now even more firmly in the handwriting camp!

[Dave Greer]

<snip>

Now , as for the photos in question on this thread , I don't buy the handwriting loops answer at all , or the sprockets answer either in the photo you posted ...

I withdrew the "sprocket mark" theory in favour of one that better fits the data (hand-writing).

I have no way of measuring the photos , so I don't know if the objects being discussed are "outside of the exposure " or not .... but if they are , then why are they on the film and showing up in these two photos ?

Let's assume for sake of argument that they are indeed not part of the exposed film (I can measure this so know it to be true). Is it not logical to assume that it may be something written on the film by a dark room technician, to aid identification?

The latest photo you posted above shows these anomalous objects also , and your claim is that these writing loops are outside of the exposure too ... but what I find so strange about that answer is this .... Why would only two photos showing the partial "writing loops" allegedly be outside of the exposure , when all the other thousands of photos are not ?

I think this is down to who (i.e. which actual individual) performed crops of the photos, how accurate they were, and whether the scans came from negatives or prints. Remember, the film strip is black, the moon's sky is black, the fiducial marks are black - so any photo which had part of the moons sky in the frame at the top would be more difficult to crop accurately. Here is a the highest resolution version I've been able to find, which has been better cropped.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/...-89-12015HR.jpg

And most importantly , have you noticed that the only photos showing these alleged "writing loops" have the same "lens flare" problem also ?

Well, this "light leak" or "sunstrike" phenomenon tends to be present mainly on the first and last frames of a roll of ilm, and it makes sense that a technician marking the film for identification would do so near the start of the roll. The photo in question is indeed the first of the roll.

I can see why Jack thought these might be a bank of stagelights ... It's not just the anomalous objects at the tops of these photos that don't belong but also the "lens flare" light looks as if it could have been created by some form of overhead stagelighting ..

You'll need to measure it to prove it for yourself that the artefacts are not on the exposed part of the film, in which case any possibilty of them being stagelights is reduced to zero.

Don't you find it a bit odd that the only photos so far showing these "writing loop" anomalies , also show what looks to be like light from possible stagelights shining from above ?

No. There is a thread on the BAUT forum from a while ago, which has the reference numbers of many such frames which show similar writing, one even shows the whole number hand-written on the film. This thread dates back a while, and most of the images have been more accurately cropped to remove this (unnecessary) information.

I'll see if I can find a link to the thread, or even some of the images referenced.

EDIT The BAUT discussion is here. The post in question is this one here. I've had a quick look but can see any obvious marks, Kiwi on this thread had a CD version of the ALSJ from a few years ago, hence he has access to photos showing these marks.

And what about the photo you posted allegedly showing "sprocket holes " ? .... Your theory on that one was blown out of the water by Lamson , when he educated us all on the fact that sprocket hole marks can only appear on the sides of pictures and never at the top of them .

Indeed, but once again, it's not on the exposed part of the film... so not an actual photo of anything in the original scene.

So not only is the "writing loops" answer total nonsense , as the last anomalous object in the photo above looks nothing like the number 4 ( wouldn't 8 have been the last number written ?)

I'm assuming you're referring to AS15-84-11348? It looks like a passable number 4 to me. You can't have read what I posted under the picture, so I'll paste it in here again:-

Again, the artefact is not on the exposed part of the film, so it's not stagelights. It looks even more like hand-writing... the last character looks very much like a "4" - i.e. the "4" in "AS15 84".

... but we now have yet another photo showing anomolous objects which need to be explained also , because they can not possibly be sprocket holes .

It would be nice to know exactly what caused this, but again it's an academic exercise, as they are not on the exposed film.

Edited November 20, 2006 by Dave Greer

[Craig Lamson]

And what about the photo you posted allegedly showing "sprocket holes " ? .... Your theory on that one was blown out of the water by Lamson , when he educated us all on the fact that sprocket hole marks can only appear on the sides of pictures and never at the top of them .

So not only is the "writing loops" answer total nonsense , as the last anomalous object in the photo above looks nothing like the number 4 ( wouldn't 8 have been the last number written ?) ... but we now have yet another photo showing anomolous objects which need to be explained also , because they can not possibly be sprocket hole marks .

Duane strikes again. You, like oh so many of your CT friends are very selective readers. Pick and choose until the words fit your faulty worldviews.

First, if you care to look my words about the sprocket holes being on the sides of the Apollo Hasselblad images pertain to the CAMERA ORIGINAL FILM...not any dupes that have been made later. As a side note I did make a mistake in my statement that it was impossible for camera original film sprocket holes to be on the top of an image. The correct term should have been improbable. If one were to turn a lunar Hasselblad on its side and take a picture the sprocket holes would be on the top and bottom of the picture. That said turning a Hasselblad on its side to take a picture has litlle use. As a Hasselblad user for over two decades, I can say with confidence that I have NEVER found a need to turn the camera on its side to take a picture. WHY? BECAUSE THE CAMERA PRODUCES A SQUARE NEGATIVE!

Anyway back to the sprocket holes on the top of the dupe frame in question. You ridiculed the suggesting that the sprocket hole could have changed location relative to the image during duplication. That was born from your ignorance of the duplication process. Many, many dupe generations were made of the Apollo images AFTER the Dupe Masters were created by the contact process. If you made dupes via projection for example, on a printer that used 70mm film, the sprocket holes could easily be changed from being on the sides of the image to the tops and bottom of the image. How? Simply by the design of the printer and the orientation of the film magazines to the subject frame bring copied. After all the sprocket hole have nothing to do with the images, they are ONLY a method of moving film past the gamera gate. Nothing sinister, unless you have a ct worldview.....

You are in over your head Duane. Back to the drawing board.

Edited November 21, 2006 by Craig Lamson

[Steve Ulman]

... but we now have yet another photo showing anomolous objects which need to be explained also , because they can not possibly be sprocket holes .

It would be nice to know exactly what caused this, but again it's an academic exercise, as they are not on the exposed film.

From what I can find, the original image of AS15-82-11214 with the "sprocket holes" is from the Apollo Image Atlas at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) site.

The images presented on the LPI site are highly processed jpeg’s from video scans of “The Apollo film” – they don’t say which generation of film. They do however give users the following warning:

Because of all this processing, these catalog images should not be used for research purposes. They should only be used to select and identify images for use in a research project. Higher resolution products should be obtained for use in any scientific investigation(s).

Full description of the processing techniques used can be found on the LPI page Background Information on the Production of the Images used in the Apollo (Handheld/Still) Imagery Catalog.

My guess is that the boxes or bars we see on the AS15-82-11214 image are artifacts from the original video scan (probably background – behind the film being scanned), and simply weren’t cropped out during the post processing.

Do the images with the “loops” also come from the LPI catalog, or are they from a different source?

[Dave Greer]

OK I've kindly been sent a copy of AS14-64-1975 by Kiwi on apollohoax.net. This is from a CD version of the ALSJ he acquired a few years ago, and has scans cropped slightly differently. Here is the image on the LPI.

Current images on the ALSJ and apolloarchive.com show a similar level of cropping.

Now look at the old copy I have from the CD version of the ALSJ.

Quite clearly, the mission, roll and frame number have been written next to the frame, this time by the side rather than above it.

I was sent this by a New Zealander Doug Bennett, who (and I quote) "has been taking photos since 1968, has spent 15 years as a professional photographer -- most of them in my own businesses, was very skilled at high-quality black-and-white processing and printing, taught photography to hundreds, and was regularly a judge of photographic competitions."

He has confirmed on other forums that it was a common practice in the 60's and 70's to mark negatives using technical pens in this manner.

Duane - the "artefacts" in the original image have been shown to be outside the exposed part of the film, and we have direct evidence that mission, film and frame numbers were indeed written next to the negatives. I can't see why anyone would continue to think there is something here that constitutes evidence of faked photographs.

[Dave Greer]

Dave ... Nice work .... But I still have a couple of questions for you ...

Why is the writing on the side in this latest photo and not at the top , like in the two other photos ?

Because that's where the technician chose to write it. Does this make you suspicious of fakery? If so, why?

Why is the writing not part of the photo image itself as in the other photos , but separated from it by the black area instead ?

The writing is NOT part of any image we have discussed so far - as has been stated and shown, it lies outside the exposed part of the film. Parts of the writing are sometimes visible due to how the photos have been cropped, keeping part of the unexposed area of the negative in the crop. This is clearly evidenced not only in the image I posted showing the mission, roll and frame number, but also in the image which initially started this discussion - the writing is NOT on the exposed part of the film... very easy to check using the measure tool in Photoshop. It would also be a relatively simple to prove to oneself using Paintshop - using the visible fiducial marks you could use quite simple geometry to show that the writing is indeed above the top of the frame.

Heck, you could even use a ruler up against the monitor as a last resort...

And why does this photo also have the "lens flare " effect as well ? .. Is this just a coincidence that the three photos to surface so far showing the "writing outside the exposed area ", also have lens flare ?

I suspect it's just coincidence. I have seen at least one other photo from Apollo 12 that has some handwriting on the LHS of the frame, but no sunstrike present.

It is clear that the writing on this latest photo is well outside the exposed area of the film but not on the others .

You can claim this, but actually taking the trouble to measure it proves this claim to be false.

[Kevin M. West]

And most importantly , have you noticed that the only photos showing these alleged "writing loops" have the same "lens flare" problem also ?

Well as demonstrated, there are images without the 'lens flare' that show the writing. But, there is one thing the images with writing all have in common. They are all very poorly cropped. Why? Well, the ones we've seen so far were spoiled images, mostly due to light leakage. They could have been purposefully cropped that way to show that the light went outside of frame and was not part of the image. Or maybe they were just such crappy images that no one cared enough to take the time to do it right. Whatever the reason, they are clearly NOT stage lights.

Edited November 22, 2006 by Kevin M. West

[Dave Greer]

Dave ... You have only supplied photo examples with the writing on the SIDE and obviously outside the exposed area , as the writing is in the black area ... So you have not proven your case .

The photo in question still contains anomalies as far as I am concerned ... They may not be stage lights , but I don't buy your writing loop theory either .... Maybe if you can supply a photo showing the writing overlapping and still within the image at the TOP of the photo , you can prove your point ... Otherwise , it's just your and Lamson's and West's opinions as to what the objects are at the top of the photo being discussed .

Duane

What they actually are is irrelevant to whether the photos are hoaxed, since they are not on the exposed part of the film. (I'm willing to accept the writing loops theory as they look like writing, I've seen photos with writing on them, albeit at the side of a photo, and I've had correspondence form a photographer who used to mark his own negatives this way and recognised it immediately).

Even if I didn't know, or have evidence, for what they are, they would not be evidence (and certainly not proof) of a hoax... as I keep on stating, they do not appear on the exposed part of the film... I have measured it, so has Kevin West (I've posted his photoshopped picture below as a reminder), you can even measure it yourself in Photoshop, or using MS Paint by using simple geometry and the fiducial marks, or even using a ruler on your monitor screen.

If you're interested in trying to find out what they actually are, then fair enough, but I think you need to cede the point first that they are indeed not on the exposed part of the film, otherwise we will carry on going round in circles.

[Dave Greer]

If the objects are not on the exposed part of the film then why are they overlapping part of the photo image and clearly seen in the photo ?

It's simply due to how that particular image was initially cropped. Subsequent versions have been better cropped - links have already been provided to you. Just because it's visible in the crop does not mean it was on the exposed part of the film.

... Plus , why are they at the TOP of the photo instead of the black area at the SIDE of the photo , which clearly IS in the unexposed part of the film ?

OK, here's a scenario... Bob preferred to write at the side of the negative, Jack preferred to write at the top. The short answer is, I don't know... why is it so important?

I didn't say the objects were proof of a hoax , so please don't misquote me ...

Since when did I say I was quoting you? This is what I said:-

Even if I didn't know, or have evidence, for what they are, they would not be evidence (and certainly not proof) of a hoax

Never mentioned your name once, so I'll politely ask you to please stop falsely accusing me.

I said that you haven't proven your case as to them being writing loops .... To prove that you would need to produce a photo where writing is at the TOP of the photo and also overlapping the photo image ...

Wrong... there is no overlapping of any image I have seen. All the handwriting is outside the exposed part of the film.

Your claim of these objects being outside of the exposed area makes no sense either because they are inside the photo image and not outside in the black area where the writing is located in the other photos you posted here ...

Wrong - you simply don't understand the cropping issue. The marks are outside the exposed part of the film - you have been told how to measure this on several occasions.

So your alleged Photoshopped measurements and red lines mean nothing unless you can prove these are writing loops outside the exposed area of the film ... Which so far you haven't done .

If you think the marks are within the exposed part of the frame, prove it. I've measured it, and I know it's outside the exposed part of the film. I've even told you how to prove it for yourself, several times.