| Marco Polo was an Alien? by Michael Graeme "Conspiracy and the Apollo myth. " |
Marco Polo was an Alien by Michael Graeme When I think back to my childhood, one of the most memorable events was sitting up into the small hours waiting for Neil Armstrong to take that one small step. At the time, I wasn't really aware of how important an occasion this was, but I do recall my father saying that it was a marvellous thing. In my later years, that's how I came to sum it up in my own mind: whatever the motivation behind the Apollo space program, for us onlookers around the world it was, and still is, an achievement to marvel at. I'm in my forties now and work as an engineer. Much of the inspiration for my choice of career came from memories of the Apollo program, and the resulting belief that engineering and science make all things possible. When, later in the Apollo program, there occurred the near disaster of Apollo 13, it was not politician or lawyers or accountants, or investment bankers who got the astronauts home - it was engineers and scientists. I was therefore surprised, some time ago, to hear younger colleagues - intelligent, educated engineers, debating whether or not the moon landings had ever taken place. "They hadn't the technology in the sixties," ran the argument, and there was a genuine conviction among some that the whole thing had been a hoax, that it had been filmed in a TV studio, rather like in the movie Capricorn One. Of course, a quick browse of the Internet reveals this to be one of the all time great conspiracy theories, like the face on mars, or alien abductions. As a social phenomenon, conspiracy theories are interesting and as wide ranging as they are, they all lend their support to a belief in the universal malevolence of authority, and its desire to mislead or misinform the public. The Apollo astronauts brought back rocks, they carried out experiments, they left arrays of mirrors at which astronomers fired lasers from earth in order to make incredibly precise measurements of distance, and one day people will go back to tidy up all the stuff we left behind, the descent stages, the tools, the old lunar rovers. But in the eyes of some, in spite of all we learned from those historic and heroic moon landings, none of it ever happened, and as is the way with conspiracy theories no amount of argument to the contrary will convince the sceptics otherwise. There's an awful lot of rubbish on the Internet. The anarchic nature of the web is, at the same time, one of its most and yet also one of its least attractive features. Anyone can publish anything, but it doesn't make it true and we have to be very careful what we choose to read. I've encountered a lot of false and downright offensive material that I've skipped over and not taken issue with, rather like one politely ignores the voluble rants of the insane, or the drunks spilling out after closing time. However, for some reason I do find this rubbishing of the Apollo missions particularly galling and, in trying to understand the reasons why, I came to the conclusion that such endeavours are more deeply inspiring than we give them credit for. That one small step, and all the steps that followed it inspired not only my dreams but the dreams of a generation and there has been nothing to compare it with since. My son is about the same age now as I was at the time of the first moon landings, and when I consider what world events there might be this year to inspire him, I see only a world troubled and inward looking, a world dominated by the negative, rather than the positive. What event will be worthy of him staying up until the small hours of the morning? What sentence, what simple charm of words will be spoken to inspire and uplift his generation? I suspect none. For all the criticisms it's received from the sceptical and the ignorant, science remains our only gauge of untarnishable truth, its probing methodology our only voice of reason. It gives us something sure to hold on to, a star to guide our course across an ocean made restless by irrational storms, by superstition, by pseudo-science,... and by conspiracy theories. Marco Polo was an alien? I don't think so. People do amazing things. Believe it! ____________ Link to A short story Copyright © M Graeme 2002 |