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Bill Kaysing

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Bill Kaysing
Born
William Charles Kaysing

(1922-07-31)July 31, 1922
Chicago, Illinois[1]
DiedApril 21, 2005(2005-04-21) (aged 82)
Santa Barbara, California[1]
Cause of deathComplications following an angioplasty procedure[1]
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of Redlands, B.A. English[1]
OccupationAuthor
Spouse(s)Carol M. de Ridder (divorced); Ruth Cole Kaysing[1]
Children2[1]
ParentCharles William Kaysing[1]

William Charles Kaysing (July 31, 1922 – April 21, 2005) was a writer best known for claiming that the six Apollo Moon landings between July 1969 and December 1972 were hoaxes. He is regarded as the initiator of the Moon hoax movement.

Early History

Kaysing joined the United States Navy in 1940 as a midshipman. He attended officers training school, and the University of Southern California.[1] In 1949, he received his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Redlands. He later worked for a time as a furniture maker.

AeroSpace Employment History

Kaysing began work as the senior technical writer at Rocketdyne, starting on February 13, 1956. On September 24, 1956, he became a service analyst; starting September 15, 1958, he worked as a service engineer; and starting on October 10, 1962, as a publications analyst. On May 31, 1963, he resigned for personal reasons.[2]

Trained as neither an engineer nor a scientist, he nevertheless also served as the company's head of technical publications, during this time from 1956 to 1963 at Rocketdyne (a division of North American Aviation and later of Rockwell International) where Saturn V rocket engines were built. .[3]

Charges that the Moon landing was a hoax

Main article: Moon landing conspiracy theories

Kaysing asserted that during his tenure at Rocketdyne he was privy to documents pertaining to the Mercury, Gemini, Atlas, and Apollo programs, arguing that one does not need an engineering or science degree to determine that a hoax was being perpetrated. Even before July 1969, he had "a hunch, an intuition, ... a true conviction" and decided that he did not believe that anyone was going to the Moon.[4] Kaysing wrote a book titled We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle,[5] which was self-published in 1976.[6] The book was republished in 2002 by Health Research Books. In his book, Kaysing introduced arguments which he said proved the Moon landings were faked.

Claims in the book and subsequent sources include:

  • NASA lacked the technical expertise to put a man on the Moon.
  • The absence of stars in lunar surface photographs.[7]
  • Unexplained optical anomalies in the photographs taken on the Moon.[8]
  • The absence of blast craters beneath the Lunar Modules. The rocket engines of the Lunar Modules should have generated an enormous dust cloud near their landing sites the final seconds of descent.[9]
  • The mysterious death of Thomas Ronald Baron, a quality control and safety inspector for North American Aviation.
  • The Dutch papers had questions regarding the "authenticity" of the Moon landings.[4]

Kaysing also claimed that NASA staged both the Apollo 1 fire and the Space Shuttle Challenger accident, deliberately murdering the astronauts on board. He suggested that NASA might have learned that these astronauts were about to expose the conspiracy and needed to guarantee their silence. A vocal advocate of conspiracy theories, Kaysing believed there is a high-level conspiracy involving the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Reserve, Internal Revenue Service and other government agencies to brainwash the American public, poison their food supply and control the media.[10] He also implied that the death of Thomas Baron in a traffic accident with a train a week after he testified before the United States Congress, and the disappearance of his 500-page report on the Apollo 1 fire, was not an accident. He was also a participant in the Fox documentary Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?,[11] which aired on February 15, 2001.

On August 29, 1996, Kaysing filed a defamation lawsuit in Santa Cruz County Superior Court against astronaut Jim Lovell for calling his claims "wacky" in an article by Rafer Guzmán for Metro Silicon Valley.[12][13] Lovell is quoted:

"The guy is wacky. His position makes me feel angry. We spent a lot of time getting ready to go to the moon. We spent a lot of money, we took great risks, and it's something everybody in this country should be proud of."

The case was dismissed in 1997.[14]

Kaysing's theory of how the Moon landing was faked

Original theory from We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle (1976)

The launch preparation was normal. Since the Rocketdyne F-1 engines in the first stage of the Saturn V rocket were "totally unreliable," a cluster of "five booster engines of the more dependable B-1 type as used in the C-1 cluster for the Atlas missile"[15] were secretly installed, one inside each of the Saturn V's five F-1s. The five smaller rocket engines together would produce only one-half the thrust of a single F-1. The public see the astronauts enter the Apollo spacecraft, but then they disembark before liftoff via a high-speed elevator to a duplicate of the spacecraft. During this transition period, television coverage is "lost accidentally." The rocket launch appears normal, although the weight of the fueled Saturn V on the launchpad is less than one-twentieth of its original design specification, according to Kaysing. The second and third stages of the Saturn V are equipped with "mock" Rocketdyne J-2 engines. The third stage puts Apollo into a parking orbit. The astronauts are flown to a Moon set in Nevada, 80 miles from Las Vegas. Fake signals from Apollo are sent to tracking stations. The Apollo spacecraft is jettisoned into the south Polar Sea. The astronauts are comfortable in Nevada, free to wander about Las Vegas with showgirls, except for some check-ins with Mission Control. They partake of the excellent buffet served on the 24th floor of the Sands Hotel and watch color television broadcasts from a private Telstar satellite. The astronauts fake the landing and moonwalk on the Moon set. The simulated reentry of the Apollo Command Module is really a drop from a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft; the astronauts are flown to Hawaii, where they enter the Apollo Command Module, which is dropped out of sight of the recovery ship.

Revised theory from Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (2001)

Kaysing:

"The astronauts were launched with the Saturn V. Then, in order to account for their disappearance, they simply orbited the Earth for eight days and in the interim they showed these fake pictures of the astronauts on the Moon. But on the eighth day the command console separated from the vehicle and descended to Earth as, of course, was shown in the films."

Legacy

Kaysing has inspired numerous people who do not believe the Moon landings were real. He encouraged Ralph René to write "NASA Mooned America!"[16] after René decided that he had done extensive research to likewise prove the landings were faked.[citation needed]

Kaysing's daughter, Wendy L. Kaysing, has stated that along with Kaysing's nephew, Dietrich von Schmausen, she hopes to one day write a book about her father. This book is not to reiterate Kaysing's hoax claims but rather talk about her father as a person. This will include quotations, reflections, incidents, philosophies and goals set by Kaysing during his lifetime. Though no specific plans for a release date were given, the authors have stated the working title for this book will be Life and Times with "Wild" Bill Kaysing, the Fastest Pen in the West.[17]

Selected bibliography

  • Kaysing, William (1966) [Originally published in Cycle World]. Intelligent Motorcycling. Illustrations by Jon Dahlstrom. Long Beach, Ca: Parkhurst. OCLC 29211988.
  • Kaysing, Bill (1970). Land and how to Buy it For a Few Dollars an Acre. Santa Barbara, CA: Paradise Publishers. OCLC 80342613.
  • —— (1970). How to Eat Well on Less Than a Dollar a Day. Santa Barbara, CA: Paradise Publishers. OCLC 80843621.
  • —— (1971). The Ex-urbanite's Complete & Illustrated Easy-does-it First-time Farmer's Guide: A Useful Book (1st ed.). San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books. OCLC 162589.
  • —— (1973). The Ex-urbanite's Complete & Illustrated Easy-does-it First-time Farmer's Guide: A Useful Book (Revised ed.). San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books. ISBN 0-87932-047-8.
  • —— (1974). The Robin Hood Handbook. New York: Links Books. ISBN 0-82563-024-X.
  • ——; Kaysing, Ruth (1975). Eat Well on a Dollar a Day: Live a Healthier Life at a Fraction of the Cost. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-87701-066-8.
  • —— (1976). Fell's Beginner's Guide to Motorcycling. New York: Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-81190-272-2.
  • ——; Reid, Randy (1976). We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle!. Fountain Valley, CA: Eden Press. OCLC 19542836.
  • ——; Reid, Randy (1976). We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. Pomeroy, WA: Health Research Books. OCLC 47861692.
  • —— (1977). Clark, Cathy (ed.). Privacy: How to Get It, How to Enjoy It. Fountain Valley, CA: Eden Press. OCLC 3892204.
  • —— (1981). We Never Went to the Moon: America's 30 Billion Dollar Swindle. Cornville, AZ: Desert Publications. ISBN 0-87947-388-6.
  • —— (1984). Great Hot Springs of the West. Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press. ISBN 0-88496-211-3.
  • —— (1987). Great Hideouts of the West: An Idea Book for Living Free. Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 0-91517-962-8.
  • —— (1987). The Senior Citizens' Survival Manual. Mission, KS: Bellwether Press. ISBN 0-94413-600-1.
  • —— (1988). Bill Kaysing's Freedom Encyclopedia. New York: Instant Improvement. ISBN 0-94168-302-8.
  • ——; Kaysing, Ruth (1996). Eat Well for 99 Cents a Meal. Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 1-55950-137-5.
  • ——; Kaysing, Ruth (1996). The 99¢ a Meal Cookbook. Port Townsend, WA: Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 1-55950-140-5.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kaysing, Wendy L. "A brief biography of Bill Kaysing". BillKaysing.com. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  2. ^ Kaysing 2002, p. 80
  3. ^ Kaysing 2002, p. 30
  4. ^ a b Kaysing 2002, p. 7
  5. ^ Kaysing 2002
  6. ^ Plait 2002, p. 157
  7. ^ Kaysing 2002, pp. 20–24
  8. ^ Kaysing 2002, pp. 23, 25
  9. ^ Kaysing 2002, pp. 19, 22, 75
  10. ^ Nardwuar the Human Serviette (February 16, 1996). "Nardwuar vs Bill Kaysing" (Interview transcript). Nardwuar.com. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  11. ^ Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (2001) (TV) at IMDb
  12. ^ Guzmán, Rafer (July 25–31, 1996). "Mooning NASA". Metroactive. San Jose, CA: Metro Newspapers. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  13. ^ "Author who alleges moon landings never happened sues ex-astronaut, alleging libel and slander" (Abstract). Knight Ridder. September 10, 1996. Retrieved May 9, 2013.
  14. ^ Plait 2002, p. 173
  15. ^ Kaysing 2002, pp. 62, 64
  16. ^ René 1994
  17. ^ Munro, Aria C. (June 24, 2005). "Biography of 'Wild' Bill Kaysing, Fastest Pen in the West" (Press release). Publishers Newswire/Neotrope. Retrieved January 2, 2011.

References

Further reading

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