Why is this still a controversial topic?: The Apollo 11 mission and the US space program

This last spring's Eurovision Song Contest had an interesting entry from Italy. A man in a clown costume sang a collection of disjointed thoughts, at one point saying, "E che le lune senza buche Sono fregature." (https://eurovisionworld.com/eurovision/2025/italy#google_vignette) That translates to, "And that moons without craters/holes are frauds."

I went back and looked at stills of the moon landing by Armstrong and Aldrin in 1969, and I didn't see any craters. I did see a dune in the background, which seems a bit odd since dunes form from the action of repeated gusts of wind; the moon doesn't have an atmosphere, so it doesn't have gusts of air that could form dunes.

I wasn't going to blog about this topic. Moon landing questions are heavily discouraged in our culture, and I do enough digging into less mainstream possibilities already. However, I think it is important to sometimes ask questions about things that seem to merit a few. A world where questions are off-limits is an ever more unpleasant place. And Italy practically begged the western world to ask a few questions about the 1969 moon landing!

I am blogging about the topic now because I was reading, how to, a book by the creator of xkcd. (If you have never read it, xkcd is a very clever comic that one often needs a background in math and science to understand. See https://xkcd.com/ .) In describing the aircraft that was used to carry the Space Shuttle orbiter around, the author of how to said, 

To carry the Space Shuttle orbiter, the carrier aircraft has a special mount that protrudes from the top of the fuselage. This mount fits into a socket in the belly of the Shuttle orbiter. Next to the mount is an instructional plaque, which features the single best joke in the history of the aerospace industry:

ATTACH ORBITER HERE

NOTE: BLACK SIDE DOWN

My father worked in the aerospace industry--specifically on anthropomorphic tank suits for pilots at one point--on and off for decades, and I assure you that he never joked about this writing on the Shuttle orbiter carrier. 

My curiosity raised, I looked up whether the Shuttle orbiter carrier really said that. There was a photo showing that it did. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Carrier_Aircraft#/media/File:Shuttle_mounting_point.JPG .) The word "NOTE" was in red font, while the rest of the instructions were in black. I decided to try doing doubles-cancellation on the black font part of the message and got this result: trlakswn. I tried a few possibilities for reading it and saw that if one reads it backward, it is "nw skal rt" or "No-scale art." 

"No-scale"? As in a reference to weightlessness? And then it was followed by the word "art", which can be the abbreviation of "artificial". What was going on at NASA that a hint of faked weightlessness somehow got painted on the orbiter carrier? Surely someone in the organization knew of the ever-present conspiracy theories about the space program and would have been careful to avoid feeding them.... Wouldn't they?

These are questions I will never be able to answer.

[Update 7/15/2025: It doesn't help simplify matters when a headline says the following:

The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America’s UFO Mythology

U.S. military fabricated evidence of alien technology and allowed rumors to fester to cover up real secret-weapons programs

Is that a tabloid headline?!

No, it's the Wall Street Journal, last month. See https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/ufo-us-disinformation-45376f7e, June 6, 2025. Hardly a wild-eyed news source.]

Something going on with eggshells heated with aluminum?

I am experiencing possible weight loss again from an experiment. Only time will tell if this one really works, but as usual I'm posting my procedure. This blog is easier to read than my handwritten notebooks and so makes a good research record. 

This variation uses eggshells that have been boiled with aluminum foil and roasted banana ash; after peeling and drying the eggshells, I pulverize them and use them as a powder. See procedure below:

1) At least one day ahead of time, boil some washed eggs in distilled water together with aluminum foil strips and a little roasted banana leaf ash. After the eggs are cool, remove shells; remove as much membrane from the eggshells as possible, then pulverize the eggshells in a blender.

2) In the morning, on an empty stomach, drink some celery leaf/roasted banana leaf ash/distilled water (strained with nylon mesh). Wait an hour. Eat a little raw green cabbage then do the next 8 steps.

3) Microwave for 60 seconds 4 or 5 raw juniper berries and some dried parsley leaves in a plastic IKEA children cup. Press the juniper berries into a small amount of salted butter on the tines of a personal blender.

4) Microwave for 60 seconds around 20 raw juniper berries in a dry, white mug with beer salt (for the silicon dioxide in it)/a little cream of tartar (for the potassium ions)/aluminum-ash-eggshell powder (from step 1 above). Swirl the mug a bit immediately after, and press around 4 of the juniper berries into a small amount of salted butter on the tines of a personal blender.

5) Grate some cinnamon bark into the step 4 mug, swirl it, then microwave it for 60 seconds more. Press around 4 of these juniper berries into the salted butter, too.

6) Microwave step 5 mug 30 seconds, then put in some Hershey's cocoa and swirl it, Press around 4 of these juniper berries into the salted butter, too. Puree the distilled water, salted butter, and all the juniper berries (just to mix, so not for long).

7) Microwave 60 seconds some dried dill weed on Hershey's cocoa in a Classico pasta sauce glass Mason jar, then stir in (with plastic) some just-sliced small pieces of washed Roma tomato.

8) Microwave 60 seconds in a mug a little roasted banana ash on a little homemade onion powder on Hershey's cocoa, and pour some of the step 6 puree into it. Stir with plastic.

9) Mix step 8 into the DCT (with plastic).

10) Eat part of step 9. Put in some distilled water in which dry soybeans have been soaked overnight and eat more of it. Put in some raw green cabbage and eat the rest.

[Update 7/16/2025: I'm getting progressively, tentatively more hopeful about using aluminum-treated eggshell powder. I started to put hydrogen peroxide (3% H2O2 from the store) in the cooking water (distilled H2O) for some hard-boiled eggs (which I washed first) along with some aluminum foil, then I cooled the eggs and peeled them, removing the membranes from the eggshells and pulverizing the eggshells.

I think I might be making calcium peroxide, strontium peroxide, or barium peroxide. The sulfur from the egg would be helpful in forming intermediate sulfate to allow their formation as chemical products. Perhaps the aluminum is a catalyst.]

[Update: 7/17/2025: Down in weight again today! Here's the chemistry book page that makes me think that calcium/strontium/barium peroxide could be a key ingredient in weight loss:

Elements of Chemistry, 1943, Brownlee, Fuller, Hancock, Sohon, and Whitsit.]

[Update 7/23/2025: Never mind about the hydrogen peroxide. That seems to be going nowhere.

Looking over my records, I see that consumption of red cabbage, which is actually purple, might have been involved when I thought it was the hydrogen peroxide. So many possibilities, so many that don't pan out. 

I'm starting to wonder how Thomas Edison only experienced "several thousand ways that didn't work" when he was inventing the light bulb. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/31/edison-lot-results/]

Undercurrents in today's society

One might wonder why I am so convinced that there are undercurrents in our society when it comes to hidden chemicals and technology. I now accept as proven that there are underground movements and efforts to hide them and profit off of them that go back for some time.

Back in 2016, I found out that molybdenum (especially as the compound molybdenum glycinate available in molybdenum supplements on the market) was extraordinarily effective at treating migraines and nausea/vomiting. Yet almost no one seemed to know anything about it outside of some chiropractors and alternative medicine websites. I sent emails to hundreds of norovirus and migraine researchers, but almost nothing I sent seemed to even get through their email filters.

Then in 2017/2018, a man started emailing me and my relatives, claiming he was a lost-long half cousin who had found us via my father's website, which had a lot of genealogy on it. Because I have done a fair amount of family history myself, I was the family member who befriended him. He seemed legit, but he did some odd things. For instance, he dug for information about my grandfather, who was born in China, and what Taoist medical secrets he might have learned. He also offered to write a movie script with me and said it would make us millions of dollars, but that I couldn't talk about the script with other people since they would get greedy and want some of the money. 

I actually met him in person. He arranged to meet me in the Bay Area when I was visiting a relative there. This wasn't just an internet creation; a real person presented himself as my cousin and even took me and my relative out to dinner! He eschewed drinking any alcohol, much to my alcohol-enjoying relative's disappointment.

I haven't emailed with him for years now, and I now believe that he used the information on my father's website to gain my trust and engage in extensive correspondence with me. But, unlike most fraudsters, he didn't ever ask me for money. He asked me for medical secrets and offered me a potential of a great deal of money (over six figures) if I would work with him on a secret project.

The timing of his appearance in my life, so soon after discovering molybdenum--a little-discussed element in the medical field--could be extremely effective at treating nausea and migraines, is suspicious. It is especially suspicious given his promises of secret money and digging for more medical secrets.