Moonies

Because of yet another fundraising drive on WPR , I was punching through the radio presets this morning and landed on The Lake, 93.1 - where they often play stuff I enjoy. Unfortunately, the DJs were discussing the so-called 'moon hoax' - that is, the idea that NASA faked the whole trip to the moon thing. Apparently, Fox recently aired a program promoting this idiotic conspiracy theory.

In fairness, one of the DJ's was disputing the other guy's support of this, umm, lunatic fringe notion. My gut reaction was that I lived through it and yes, we sent men to the moon. Here is a solid scientific response.

Anyway, I sent the show an email pointing out that my IQ dropped as a result of listening to their show. Greg Bair replied stating that they were just having fun and that they never claimed to be "scientistists". Or spellers, apparently. But really, they are in no danger of being confused with Science Friday. Stick with the tunes, guys.

Anyway, a real moon hoax was perpetrated - in 1835 when the New York Sun published the 'findings' of Sir John Herschel that the moon was inhabited by abundant life forms, including bison herds, blue unicorns, biped beavers, and "Vespertilio-homo" or bat men! The Sun never retracted the story. Now that's a hoax.