This is the first of a series of four conspiracy theory essays. In chronological order, first we have extraterrestrial speculation and the alleged moon landing of 1969, next we deal with suspicious Governmental testing and the AIDS epidemic from 1980 until the present time, then a discussion about the events of “9/11″ (2001) and finally, some current ongoing suspicions.

There are those who still doubt the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrial visitation. They think that because we don’t yet have the technology to visit other planets, nobody else possibly can either. If “Man” can’t do it, it can’t be done. But suppose they are here (I wouldn’t swear that they aren‘t), apparently then, our civilization is not the most advanced or the most intelligent, is it? There have been simply too many reported accounts of UFO sightings and abductions (and many of them have not been disproved) for us just to disregard all of them. Sure, there have been definite hoaxes and some sightings have been explained or proven to be fake, but that does not mean that there have not been genuine ones as well.

The same person who believes in God, which they have not seen, will flatly refuse to accept something that they have actually seen. I have heard this exchange. “Look, Dear, a UFO!” “No, it’s not. I don’t believe in UFOs.” “Then, what is it?” “Well, I don’t rightly know.” So, “Dear,” if you don’t know what the thing is, then by definition it is an unidentified flying object, hence the name! Hello?!

It appears that we Americans are a rather fickle bunch. I mention Americans only because I don’t know how other nations of the world regard everything. But whereas many of us vehemently deny the existence of extraterrestrials and their visitations, they were so quick to accept Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds” in 1938 as frighteningly real. It was done merely as a Halloween prank, but it put the country into a panic, their thinking that actual Martians had landed on native soil. Of course, I was not born yet, but I’m sure I would have been skeptical about the whole thing. For one thing, how did they know that the visitors were from Mars? There was no verbal communication between them, so they didn’t tell anybody whence they came. Plus, even if they had, they wouldn’t have identified themselves as “Martians,” as that is the name we have for them. Were all those listeners that stupid and gullible not to take that into consideration?

There are historians who are convinced that there really was a lost continent of Atlantis, which purportedly sank into the sea, although there is some conjecture about whether it was the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean. At any rate, it is agreed that before it disappeared the land was inhabited by extraterrestrial beings from who-knows-where. It is believed that these are the people who built the Egyptian pyramids and maybe the ones in Mexico as well. They apparently had the technology that we don’t (they actually got here from somewhere, after all), their being able to move and stack all those stones of such massive weight.

It is also believed that these beings from another world have mated with the native Earthlings to create a new evolutionary race. That would mean that there are aliens, half-aliens, their offspring and descendants living among us to this very day. I can appreciate the possibility that other-worldly visitation is not a new thing. Who knows what went on on this planet millions of years ago? No one is still alive who would have witnessed it. We have only fossils, archaeological finds and deductive speculation to guide our beliefs. I, myself, am not arrogant enough to discount the whole thing as preposterous or impossible.

It is rather anthropocentric of us, as well as unrealistic, to think that this tiny planet (relatively speaking) on which we live is the only place in this vast Universe to sustain some kind of life. Those who do contend this notion seem to base all the possibilities of life on our own limited capabilities. When speculating on the likelihood of lifeforms on any of the other planets, in our solar system alone, we always use our own peculiar situation as a criterion. That planet is too hot or that planet is much too cold to sustain life. But just because they are too hot or cold for us mere mortals, does not mean that no other creatures in the Universe may be able to withstand such extreme temperatures. The composition of our bodies is adapted to conform to this planet’s particular environment. I would think that the other planets operate pretty much in the same way, whereas their inhabitants’ physical makeup is such that it is impervious to extreme heat or cold.

Since the planet Mercury does not rotate, it always keeps the same side to the sun. So one half of the planet is extremely hot and bright, while the other side is extremely cold and dark. But how about along the area where the two hemispheres divide? Might there be some moderate degree of temperature and light somewhere along the cusp that might sustain life as we know it? Venus is covered with a thick layer of clouds. We can’t even see the actual surface. Who knows who or what’s under there? Just like our own ozone layer, and because of its proximity, maybe those encompassing clouds serve as a safety cushion against the direct rays of the sun.

Mars is the other planet most likely to harbor some sort of life similar to ours. It lies right next to us and is not all that far away, relatively speaking. The other outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and maybe others, too, that we don’t know about yet), are all too cold for us to live on, but there could be certain lifeforms who are adapted to subzero temperatures. Just like I wouldn’t want to live in the Arctic regions, but the people and animals who live there don’t seem to mind the cold. Those outer extraterrestrials might dwell underground where they have a special heating system, created by possible volcanic activity. Everything does not have to be on the surface, you know. Or they may not require any form of heat or light. That’s why they live where they do!

With all the planets orbiting and revolving around in space, I’d like to believe that they are serving a more important purpose than only that, in the scheme of things, just like our Earth is. And as small as our Earth is, relatively speaking, that harbors so many lifeforms, it’s hard to believe that Jupiter and the other humongous planets are completely devoid of anything. That would be such a waste of space, as it were.

If there are extraterrestrials somewhere out there, why is it often assumed that they are hostile and would come here for the sole purpose of annihilation? It’s probably because, knowing us, that would be our mission with regard to them. We expect everybody to be like us, I guess. Maybe their visits and abductions are more about study and curiosity about us Earthlings rather than about global conquest and aggression. If they are already here among us, they apparently are operating on the down-low. I don’t personally know any, or at least none that I am aware of. Do you?

I have something to say about Pluto. A few years ago somebody–I don’t who it was exactly–made the decision to take away Pluto’s status as a true planet and has now deemed it as a “dwarf planet.” But it’s still a planet, in my opinion, its size notwithstanding. All of our planets are different sizes. Pluto does the same thing as the other planets do, that is, rotate and revolve around the sun, so its diminutive size is inconsequential. Why set a minimum limit for validation? I expect that the “people” living on Pluto don’t think that their world is so tiny. Our Earth is not so big either, as compared to the much larger ones, but it looks humongous to us. In the scheme of things, size is relative. So I eschew that unfair demotion and will continue to acknowledge Pluto as a bona fide planet. So there!

Cosmologist Neil DeGrasse Tyson said something on “The View” one day, which gave me pause for thought. Looking at it another way, while discussing the possible incidence of extraterrestrial visitation, “Why are all these alleged sightings usually only witnessed by U.S. military facilities, when they could land in any part of the world? There are billions of people today who own mobile phones that are equipped with cameras, recording capabilities and internet access. Come on! If any aliens land anywhere or even get close, somebody would record it and it would go viral in a matter of minutes.” Tyson has a good point. Who can do anything now, at least in public, without someone catching them in the act? We are forever vigilant. There is no real privacy anymore.

I don’t agree with anything that involves all of us to be “Top Secret,” “classified” or of “national security.” Let the people know what is going on. If we are in fact being visited by extraterrestrials, how is that not everyone’s business? When they landed, did they say, “Take me to your leader” and did not want to deal at all with the general public of Earth? Why should this be privileged information for only a few to know about? Some of the excuses given were that the news would cause a panic, or that we are too unsophisticated to be able to handle the truth, as Jack Nicholson‘s character in A Few Good Men (1992) suggests. Has the Government so little trust in the American public? I’ll bet the extraterrestrials wouldn’t keep our visitations to their planet a secret.

We receive shocking and disturbing news all the time, but we deal with it and get over it eventually. But these matters are not even disturbing and not all that surprising, when many people have witnessed UFO sightings everywhere for decades, and during all that time our Government has employed secret agencies to protect, investigate and conceal what they know about their activity and interaction. The “Men in Black” are real, y‘all! I don’t care nearly as much about who got shot today, whose house caught on fire in New Jersey or people I don’t know, but I certainly would like to know that a spaceship from another planet just landed in Sheep Meadow in Central Park!

I don’t know why if they let everybody know when we go into space–and certainly if we made it to another planet, it would be worldwide news–why would they not let us know when somebody from somewhere else arrives on our planet? What would be a bigger news item than that? I would think that we would want publicly to welcome them rather than secretly hide them away somewhere. I only hope that they are not greeted with guns and Army tanks and such, thinking that they have come to attack us.

There was a recent TV series entitled, “Salvation,” with this contrived, though preposterous, premise. For those who have not seen it, here is a synopsis. A Harvard science student discovers that a massive asteroid is plummeting directly towards Earth and is due to collide in 180 days. As this is an ongoing series, that will give the characters sufficient time to do something about it, you see. So this young man contacts a friend of his who in turn tells someone that he knows in the Defense Department at the Pentagon. It turns out that this guy already knows about it and swears the others to secrecy. “We can’t let this news get out.” He never says why not. What?! So there is an asteroid that is destined to kill us all in a matter of months, and they can’t tell anybody? How irresponsible is that? We are always getting into everybody’s business when it doesn’t concern us, but then when something does involve other nations, we tend to keep what we know to ourselves. Plus, they need billions of dollars to build some kind of defense mechanism to counteract the asteroid, money that the U.S. government does not have.

But wait, get this. The few people in the know are trying to come up with a solution. So, one of these scientists figures out a way to blast the asteroid, but in doing so, it will cause the thing to shatter into other chunks. But the good news is, all the pieces will miss the western hemisphere entirely. “So, where will it hit?” someone asks. “Oh, Russia and basically all of Asia.” Oh, well, then. As long as we are safe, who cares about all those other billion innocent people who will have to die? And nobody seems to think that there is anything wrong with that. We always have to be on top and look out for Number One, don’t we?

In their arrogance and self interests, what none of these characters took into consideration, what if Russia, China or whoever were doing exactly the same thing that we were doing? We are not the only nation watching the skies. Might they, too, have known about the careening asteroid and were also keeping it a secret? How could these few Americans be the only ones in the entire world who are aware of such a thing? How do we know that somebody else has not come up with the same solution that our guys have, but are fixing it so that it would avoid them and hit us instead? Since it involves all of them as well, to me it would make more sense for all of the world nations to put aside their petty competitiveness and secrecy to combine our resources and technology to work on the problem together. Someone must have realized the ridiculous rationale of the whole thing, and the show did not last its first season.

Of course, this is merely a drama for our entertainment, but I mention it because I wonder, if it were a real occurrence, would the Government try to keep it all hush-hush, too, like they do with the UFOs and extraterrestrials situation? Come on, guys! Let the people know what’s going on. We can take it. If the world is going to end pretty soon, I, for one, would like some warning. There are some things I would like to do before it’s too late.

I believe that there is a Governmental cover-up, and I am quite certain that they know more about it than they are telling us, the American public. There was the Roswell (New Mexico) incident of 1947, where allegedly an actual alien spacecraft crash landed (or was it shot down?) and all evidence was tampered with or destroyed, including the inhabitant beings discovered therein. What are they doing out there in Area 51 in Nevada that is so Top Secret that even the facility itself is a secret? The area, including the rather large lake that it’s on, is excluded from all maps and charts.

And what are they hiding in that Hangar 1? If there is nothing going on, then why all the secrecy? But then, if it is a secret, how do we know about it? As with any secret, once you divulge it to anyone, it’s not a secret anymore. So, somebody must have said something to somebody for us to know about the place’s existence. Someone’s denying something that we believe in does not erase it from our own consciousness. All the U.S. Presidents since Harry Truman have had privy to the information, but they all were sworn to secrecy as well. In addition to Truman, when UFOs actually flew over the White House in 1952, Carter, Ford and Reagan admitted to definite sightings, and it’s rumored that Eisenhower and Nixon actually met the captured aliens in person!

# Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars…#
As if! After seeing the film Capricorn One in 1978, in which NASA faked a manned trip to Mars, it started me to wonder if the widely-accepted moon landing in July 1969 was not itself an elaborately-staged hoax. I had thought that I was the only one who had my doubts until the Fox TV network did a special some years ago that makes very compelling claims that the event never happened and reported that there are millions of other Americans who are fellow disbelievers.

I believe that there is a reason why this happened at that particular time. In the fifties and sixties, the United States was in this stupid space race with Russia, and our Government’s main goal and ambition was to be the first nation to the moon, before the Russians got there. All the better if they claimed the conquest before the decade was out. So 1969 was their last chance. But despite the deadline urgency, what practical purpose does going to the moon serve? As far as we know, there’s not a damned thing up there. Never mind that the project would cost us $20 billion, the politicians just wanted the chauvinistic satisfaction of saying that we got there first. But since they did not yet have the know-how, they had to concoct a plan and try to convince the public that they did it anyway. The TV report contends that even with our present technology, getting humans to the moon is still not possible. First of all, there is the deadly radiation belt in space to deal with. If they had gone to the moon and back, there would have been noticeable damage and injury to the spacecraft and to the astronauts.

Now let’s consider the visual evidence. But in this case, even seeing is not always believing, because every conceivable effect can be achieved with our modern photography techniques. The TV images that we were shown and the famous photographs of the alleged landing all could be phony. But where was it all filmed then, you might ask? Why, on the built movie set at Area 51, of course! That would be my guess. Since it is off-limits to the general public, the Government can do whatever they want there, and we won’t know anything about it. Consider the fact that every motion picture that is set on another planet or heavenly body is actually filmed somewhere here on earth. That’s an important reality right there.

Take the 1964 British production, First Men in the Moon for one example. Do you really think that it was filmed on the moon? Yeah, and that was Sandra Bullock and George Clooney really floating around in space in Gravity (2013), wasn’t it? In Star Wars (1977) the scenes depicting Luke Skywalker’s home planet, Tatooine, was filmed in Tunisia. I didn’t recognize it, having never been to Tunisia. So how is this moon recreation any different? None of us has seen the actual lunar terrain. How do we know for sure that it’s not merely Nevada desert land that we are looking at? I wouldn’t know the difference. Do you?

Remember the famous photos of the Apollo astronauts planting the American flag on the “moon” surface? We have been taught that there is no air on the moon. So why is that flag waving in the breeze?! Maybe they thought that nobody would notice, as they made no allusion to it. But NASA claims that the flag was not waving at all but only appeared to be. There was a pole through the top of the flag to make it stand out rather than hang limp. This gave it the appearance of waving, you see. Well, they might get away with that explanation with a still photo, but I have seen motion footage that showed the flag definitely waving. Where were the cameras situated that took the pictures of the astronauts exiting the spacecraft and stepping onto the moon surface, by the way? They had to have been already in place somewhere nearby. Then who placed them? The Moon People Welcoming Committee?

There is also the question of light and shadows in the photographs. There are pictures of the astronauts (or somebody in spacesuit costumes, since we can’t see their faces) standing apart from each other, but the ground shadow of one goes in a different direction than the shadow of the other, implicating that there is more than one light source present. How can that be, unless it was a manmade setup for the sake of the photos?

Several pictures that were supposed to have been taken at different locations on the “moon,” some miles apart from each other, were compared, and it was discovered that the background landscape on the pictures are absolutely identical! Don’t these little inconsistencies at least present some reasonable doubt? Of course, NASA officials and others have a ready explanation for every contradiction made.

Plus, there is the matter of the cover-up. Just like in the Capricorn One movie, the astronauts and underlings directly involved with the hoax had to be dealt with to protect their secret. There was a space scientist who worked for NASA, who had written an extensive report about how it was impossible to get to the moon. But before he could release his findings to the public, he suddenly and mysteriously died and the exposé was never published. What about posthumous publication? They still could have shown us the report if they wanted to, which they didn’t. This was the latter part of 1968, when plans were well underway, I’m sure. Do you honestly think that man’s demise at that particular time was purely coincidental? I don’t think so. I hope that none of you are so naïve to believe that no one has ever been disposed of to protect a conspiracy.

Some have dismissed the Fox program because they deem it to be more of a tabloid report going for ratings. But the National Geographic Channel, which is deemed to be a more reputable, responsible network, also did a similar report one year. They took a more scientific and analytical approach and still had their doubts that the moon landing really took place. So what it comes down to, as with this and every other conspiracy theory that comes along, we can choose to believe it or not.

But I wonder, now that we supposedly know how to do it, why hasn’t moon exploration become an ongoing, common occurrence? Why haven’t other nations with the technological know-how taken up the task as well? Maybe they have better things to do with people’s money than to spend it on such frivolous non-necessities. Or they all realize that it’s still not possible. They supposedly went back again in October ‘69, so we did it those two times and that’s it? I mean, it’s been over 50 years now. Why haven’t they gone back again in all that time? Maybe they have come to the realization that it’s not worth the great expense. Or maybe it’s the same reason why magicians don’t like to perform the same trick more than once for the same audience. They are afraid that people will eventually figure out how they did it. And, too, the more there are privy to a conspiracy, the more difficult it is to keep it secret. I’m not as gullible and as trusting as most of the American public seems to be. When it comes to Governmental dealings, I always have some measure of doubt, whereas many of you probably tend to believe everything they tell us.

Now, despite of all what I just said, as I do keep an open mind and tend to consider other scenarios, I recently got wind of another legend of lunar lore. And that is the likelihood that the moon is already inhabited and has been for an indefinite number of years! So “The Man in the Moon” may not be a fantasy after all. You see, as it was explained to me, whoever it is up there all reside on the “dark side,” the side of the moon that is not visible to photo shoots and probes. The inhabitants are not Earthlings but originate from somewhere else in our solar system. So we are not the only ones who harbor secrets. This lunar society apparently wants to remain anonymous and exclusive and has ordered all extraterrestrial interlopers not to invade their private domain. They desire to be left alone. I am not sure by what means this information was ascertained or conveyed, by interstellar communication perhaps, but if it is true, we must be honoring their wishes, and that would explain why there have been no more lunar visitations from us or anybody else, if there ever were at all. It could be then that since we are not allowed to visit the moon, we wanted to save face and were compelled to fake it and just tell people that we went there anyway. Again, you can believe it or not. I am just the reporter.