Why People Think The Moon Landing Was Faked

Published July 20, 2016
Updated July 8, 2022

Broad Implications

Moon Hoax Inside Job

Martha Soukup/Flickr

This kind of broken thinking poses a problem for society, as conspiracy researcher Alfred Moore points out. According to Moore, conspiratorial thinking erodes society in at least five ways:

  • Distracts people and governments from doing normal business, instead miring them in investigations and fruitless protests against unseen evils that might not actually exist
  • Impedes cooperation with authorities, as seen among parents who believe the government is concealing vital information about vaccines and choose not to participate in vaccination efforts
  • Undermines democracy, which depends on the possibility for rational persuasion to work
  • Justifies violent action against the limitless injustice perpetrated by the people believed to be part of the cover-up
  • Delegitimizes dissent/authority by positing hidden agendas and suggesting that one’s opposition is motivated solely by a nefarious secret agenda

  • Healthy skepticism of government claims is generally a good thing. Science positively thrives on skepticism; knowing that all claims will be checked helps keep scientists honest and makes them actually do the math.

    Conspiracy theories aren’t healthy skepticism, however; they’re a credulous rejection of facts for reasons that have a lot more to do with the believer than with the subject.

    In place of reality, an essentially irrational belief like the Moon landing hoax substitutes a funhouse-mirror picture of the world that drives otherwise normal people away from the mainstream and encourages tribalism, short-term thinking, and a retreat into agreeable echo chambers on the Internet.

    If we’re not careful, these traits will cause serious problems for us in the next century.

     

    Next, read about the conspiracy theories that actually were true, and why chemtrails are a myth.

    author
    Richard Stockton
    author
    Richard Stockton is a freelance science and technology writer from Sacramento, California.
    editor
    John Kuroski
    editor
    John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.