Sometimes we Americans are held to standards that are rather stringent. It's what comes of being the Big Guy on the block. A letter has arrived from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, a man who has favored me with very flattering quotes from time to time, and who now finds himself — understandably — puzzled by our behavior. He writes:

Dear Jim, As a long-time admirer of the United States, I am appalled to hear that a recent poll suggests that 20% of Americans are ignorant fools: I hope the figure is grossly exaggerated, as no other term is strong enough to describe anyone who believes the Moon landings have been faked. If the late unlamented Evil Empire was still around, I might have suspected some of being communist sympathisers attempting to discredit the one achievement for which the U.S.A. may be remembered a thousand years from now. Remembering how quickly Watergate unraveled, how could any sane person imagine that a conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of people over more than a decade would not have done the same? Ben Franklin put it well: "A secret known to three people can be kept — as long as two of them are dead."

And how do these nitwits account for the fact that, for the last thirty years, the laser reflectors and radio sensors on the Moon have been transmitting terabytes of data back to Earth? Who do they think put them there — E.T.s? But I can't waste any more time on lunatics: I am too busy proving that George Washington never existed, but was invented by the British Disinformation Service to account for a certain minor unpleasantness in the Colonies.

Sincerely,

Arthur Clarke, 11 July, 2001.

In my lectures, I've always pointed out that keeping the Watergate operation a secret only required that a handful of persons be quiet, while a Moon Landing hoax would have needed the total silence of those many thousands of persons — and their kids, wives, husbands, hairdressers, golf and bridge partners, etc., etc. I'm afraid, Sir Arthur, that there very probably are some 20% of us here in the colonies who treat the greatest adventure of the last century as an invented farce. Up ahead, you'll read how the Moon Hoax aficionados explain away your observations.

Reader Bobby Charles was less eloquent than Sir Arthur in his comments, but just as angry....

That such nitwits can really exist, is what baffles me. What did my Dad do for NASA all those years, and with all those tracking stations, and were Grissom and the lot just pulling his technical leg for all those years? Give me a break. I guess that the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria never left port, either? The pyramids were built to attract tourists and re-labeled in the late 1800s, as a big hush-hush? The Titanic was never really rediscovered, just a great mockup in Hollywood? The moon rocks just "happen" to be different from all others anywhere on this planet? The astronauts that traveled to the moon just happen to bear the spiritual, emotional and physical signs of their space travel — radiologically and otherwise — as a grand hoax, paired with a stunning coincidence of specially-targeted sun spot eruptions that penetrated the Earth's atmosphere with slight upticks in radiation for their personal space? What of the expense? Did Congress get bamboozled into spending gobs of money on a great film, and no more? And President Kennedy preferred to dream of a great movie, rather than to really inspire a generation? How did the level of cynicism get this high? Who are these Looneytoons that do not believe in science, history, personal endeavor, heroic feats and rock-solid facts? Forgive me, but I find these folks an utter waste of time, the "didn't happen crowd." I wish they'd just all go back to their beer, and shuffleboard, and wondering if the Earth is really not, after all, going around the sun.

Mr. Charles was formerly associated with Speaker Hastert, doing oversight of NASA, 1995-1999. We thank him, as one of the "deluded," for sharing his thoughts with us.

Well, our friend Jim Oberg, a very vocal critic of pseudoscience and a writer and authority on the subjects of Soviet space travel and technology, tells us that the "nitwits" have produced rationalizations for the obvious problems in their "didn't happen" scenario. Says he:

As for the laser reflectors, [they claim that] robots brought them, as on the Russian lunakhod prams. The moon data transmission, alas, was shut off in 1978 when the ALSEP batteries decayed. For the next few years, at least, the Moon will remain a radio-quiet world.

I've collected anecdotes of other cultures around the world, re the reality of humans on the moon. The Hare Krishna sect denies it, the Castro regime teaches in schools that it was a fake, the Taliban and other Islamic extremists declare "kafir" [infidel] anyone who admits to the possibility. In Lebanon in the early 1970s, one of the sad arguments which split the centuries-old Maronite-Moslem peace, was about an old Moslem cleric who declared the moon landings impossible because the moon was a heavenly body which could not be defiled by booted footsteps, and some Christian newspaper made great sport by mocking the harmless old man with the taunt that the astronauts didn't just step on the moon, they defecated on it too, so there, you old bearded fool.... It hurt a lot of feelings needlessly, contributing to the collapse of the social compact there.

A mid-1970's Voice of America world opinion survey found about half of the people they talked to, had heard that men had been to the Moon, but a quarter of them thought it had been the Russians.

But as they say, proof is proof. I don't want to use my influence here, of course, but I can speak from personal experience. Those Moon-suits are still not as comfortable as they might be. But we suffer for science....

The place to go, to see the definitive data on this farcical delusion that we never went to Luna, is www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html Interestingly enough, the host of the site discovered that when he entered the words "The Bad Astronomer" into a program that created anagrams, it came out as: MOON TRASH DEBATER. The "good" astronomer who manages the site is Dr. Philip Plait of the physics and astronomy department at Sonoma State University, a member of the California State University system. Take a look at this site, please.

STOP THE PRESS! I've received a terrifying notice from "Class Law," which appears to be a legal firm in the U.K. Strangely, the firm claiming to represent psychic superstar Uri Geller, is always different! He must have a very busy time keeping them in line! This notice refers to an item that appeared last week mentioning Mr. Geller. The admonition says:

You state in one of the articles "Geller was sued by the coach of the England National Soccer team, for making "an extraordinary combination of lies, inaccuracies, exaggerations and misleading innuendoes" in a National [sic] newspaper, according to the coach's solicitor". The comments made by you are completely untrue, damaging and defamatory. Mr Geller was not sued by the coach of the England National Soccer team and you have sought to defame our client by citing a non-existent Court case.

All manner of dire possibilities follow, which I'll spare you. Some day I'll publish the form letter that goes out on all these matters that so concern Mr. Geller. That expression, "completely untrue, damaging and defamatory" is very, very, popular in these epistles. You can fill in the blanks. However, I am edified to know that at least Mr. Geller regularly follows this page.... In any case, to completely satisfy "Class Law," I will re-publish here the entire reference that appeared last week, making two changes in the item to which they object. Any inaccuracy was inadvertent, unintended, incorrect, and much regretted. In passing, I'll tell you that other folks are equipping me with several other items of Geller lore, examples of how his mystical efforts have not yielded the intended results. Very interesting reading, as you'll see, and I will take great care to see that they are accurate, I assure you all. Here is the "corrected" item from last week:

Was it a prayer, a magic spell, a charm, or a prediction? It's difficult to say, where Uri Geller's involved. Two weeks ago he appeared on UK television, sending out his powerful vibes to assure that British tennis star Tim Henman would win the men's singles at Wimbledon. TV viewers were urged by Geller to put their hands on the TV screen (shades of Oral Roberts!) to assist this miracle. Well, despite this formidable influence, Mr. Henman lost to Croatia. I recall that in 1997, Geller had a divine revelation that a horse named "Go Ballistic" would win the Grand National. Not only did the horse not win, it didn't even run, because the race was abandoned. Geller's psychic efforts to support football have been equally dismal. In 1998, the team in which he has an interest and acts as consultant for, Reading Football Club, was demoted to a lower league, having finished bottom of their division, right after the wizard switched on his powers. In the resulting media brouhaha, Geller was threatened with a suit by the coach of the England national soccer team, for making "an extraordinary combination of lies, inaccuracies, exaggerations and misleading innuendoes" in a national newspaper, according to the coach's solicitor. Just a thought in this regard: is it fair, or sporting, to employ supernatural powers to help a team or an athlete to win? Isn't sports a matter of strength, skill, and strategy? Since drug testing is routinely carried out in sports, should we now wave a dowsing rod over performers to see if they show signs of psychic "doping"? As we mentioned previously, football teams pray for success, so this probe should also be applied to them, I suggest. I think that from now on, we should bet on the opposition when Uri Geller is at work. The record speaks for itself, and in science, we follow the evidence....!

There! I trust that "Class Law" is happy with this change. Mr. Geller has not been sued by the coach, and for all we know, may never be sued by him. We'll have more on Mr. Geller's association with Reading Football Club, and of a claim he made in another respect. Stay tuned.

A reader suggests, re our discussion of astrology and the possible effects of date-of-birth on the development of a young human being, that because of school opening dates, a significant factor might be:

. . . the long term impact (if any) of being the youngest or oldest in the class in the first few years of school. Being younger implies more likely to be smaller (and hence less likely to be as skilled athletically) and also more likely to be less mentally developed. This would seem like an obvious Ph.D. thesis in education or psychology of education. Obviously this is a long way from astrology, but potentially there could be small, but measurable effects on such things as the probability of being a professional athlete or going to college, etc., that are based entirely upon cutoff dates for kindergarten!

Here are the facts as given in a press item about a co-incidence that seems, at first reading, just about unbelievable. This was sent out by John Atkinson, who I must thank for giving us an excellent subject to discuss, dissect, and analyze. It was picked up and made its way around the Internet, where very interesting views were expressed:

The claim is that on June 14th, a 10-year-old U.K. girl named Laura Buxton found a balloon in the garden of her home in Pewsey, Wiltshire. This was a "message" balloon, bearing the usual note from the sender, who we're told in this case lives in Blurton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, some 140 miles from Pewsey. The item says that:

1. The balloon had been sent aloft by another 10-year-old girl.

2. Her name is also Laura Buxton.

3. Both girls are fair-haired.

4. Both girls have black Labrador dogs.

5. Both girls have a guinea pig.

6. Both girls have a rabbit.

Wow! Sounds remarkable, doesn't it? Dr. Chris Chatfield, a well-known and respected statistician at Bath University, was quoted by the press as having said that the odds on Laura finding her namesake by using a randomly-released balloon were "a million to one — if not more."

But hold on. The first thing that struck me about this item was the wording of the statement attributed to Dr. Chatfield. It sounded as if he were implying that the Laura Buxton who released the balloon was doing so in order to find another girl with that same name. That, of course, is not at all the same as the balloon just being found by another person with the same name. John Atkinson thinks, "[Chatfield] was probably telephoned and found the whole thing an amusing story and didn't take it too seriously. Most likely he knows how these coincidences can happen and has heard many such stories before." Agreed, John.

Hardly had I received this data, when readers of this page began sending in their observations, and very cogent observations they were! Bill Steele noted, "I wonder how common the name "Buxton" is in that area? If this happened in southern California and both girls were named Lopez, would it be a big surprise?" Well Bill, I know of a Laura Buxton who is an anchor person for a TV station in San Diego, and I'm told there's a very well-known painter named Laura Buxton — who was born in London. And "Laura" is not at all an uncommon name, either here, or even less so in the U.K. Bill continues: "Isn't fair hair about 50 percent of the population? And does Dr. Chatfield have any figures on how many kids keep rabbits and guinea pigs?" I'd add, yes, in England I'm sure that half the kids can be described as "fair-haired," and any number of kids keep rabbits and guinea pigs. But I must ask, did either girl have more than one rabbit or guinea pig? We're not told. And where are the data on whether the girls also had cats or goldfish, whether both wore rings or earrings, whether they both had siblings — of either gender, older or younger, and of what names? And such other details — among thousands! — as food preferences, churches attended, favorite colors, school grades, shoe size, and on and on, are not provided, because obviously these didn't match, and would detract from a very good story. This is data-searching in its most blatantly careless use.

Bill ends with,"Oh, and how many balloons did the kid send out?" Good question, Bill, but we now know that Laura herself sent out just one balloon during celebrations for her grand-parents 50th wedding anniversary. And, from the way the story is written, says John Atkinson, it looks like only one was released.

Also, I'd ask, how many other similar "message balloons" did other kids send out? And was it part of a school project? Questions that should be asked, though in this case, it's none, and no. But in other years, how many kids have sent out balloons that did not end up in the hands of other kids with even vaguely similar names, or even of the same gender?

Enter reader Greg Reinhardt, who asks: "But what colors are the guinea pigs and the rabbits?" That's another good question. Note that the black color of the Labradors is made part of the story, because it fits! Besides, there are only two choices here — black or yellow; very few other colors are found. And, asks Greg, how did statistician Chatfield arrive at the stated odds of "a million-to-one"? Was it by mathematics, or just a metaphor? More importantly, he adds, "Who cares what the chances are of something happening — after it's occurred? As has often been noted, the probability of an event, after it takes place, is 100%! More to the point, noting that the savants insist on computing the odds of such an event, asks Greg, "Can we all please stop these anecdotes? Aren't anecdotes the precise antithesis of skeptical rigor?" How I wish that certain investigators of supposed paranormal events and abilities, would heed that observation....

Just as a thought experiment, let's look at this following set of questions, and suppose that they had been used in an investigation of a similar situation:

1. Do the two persons share similar tastes in clothes?

2. Are the first names of their wives, the same?

3. Are their house-numbers the same?

4. Do both persons have the same religious affiliation?

5. Are both persons passionate about bowling?

6. Were they both married in the same month of the same year?

Well, the answers to all six questions, is yes, in the real-life case I now bring up! Remarkable, right? Where did these questions come from? Well, they could have been asked of a pair of identical male twins, separated at birth and adopted by different families in the USA, and used as part of a sociological study some years back to study similarities between identical twins separated at or shortly after birth. This "research" was widely publicized at one time. As it happens, however, these questions were not asked; the six correspondences quoted above came to light when two men's histories were investigated to find similarities. The integrity of this sort of inquiry depends upon whether you are looking for correspondences, or if you're asking of each set of persons in a survey, the same set of questions — without knowing any of the answers in advance.

Since there are tens of thousands of possible correspondences that can be discovered, a great number of general searches of this kind are going to result in "evidence," and that's what makes for media interest — and for "strange" items that will be repeated — and embellished — at the next party, coffee klatsch, or visit to the barber shop.

Besides, in this latter study, it's obvious that twins are bound to have some similarities merely because of DNA-mandated hard-wiring. That should not surprise us, and we should expect it.

Reader Yves Barbero opined:

A thought.... The fact that we've all experienced really unusual, if not outright mystical, events can't possibly be a coincidence, can it?

But seriously, it is a tendency of human nature to "round out" stories to make a point. I've done it myself (hopefully not recently now that I'm a "made" man in the army of skepticism). How many of us have gone back to locations of our youth and found that things were not quite as we remembered them? In some cases, diverse places have merged in our memories. Why not incidents?

We also tend to "routinize" our observations to fit pet beliefs (the very reason scientists go to such lengths to do double-blind experiments). For instance, we in the labor movement immediately recognize the words, "right to work" as meaning restrictions on union activities. People in other fields can obviously find examples of their own.

And we "automate" our viewpoints. For instance, if I hear the word "free" or "save fifty percent," I'm immediately suspicious of the value of a product claim. Whenever I hear the word "freedom," I add the words, "to do what?" and wonder what laws they want to pass to restrict my freedom to do things. I keep reminding myself that skepticism is not cynicism, and then some clown gets on the New York Times best seller list with some crap about the power of prayer....

Reader Richard A. Sherer wrote:

What has been fascinating in this discussion is that none of the skeptics seem to feel the need to question the veracity of the story. I wrote to John Atkinson privately, and he told me it came from The Daily Mail. Other than that, we know nothing about the truth of the story we've been discussing. Or does that matter?

Brian Siano offered his opinion that perhaps it didn't matter, much, depending on what your interest is in what phenomenon:

. . . it isn't so much the truth of a particular story as it is what people are making of the story.

Exactly! I agree. The accuracy of the press report didn't really enter into my discussion. It's the impression of "marvelocity" that comes out of it, that most interests me. And in any case, this discussion has been fruitful, I believe. We've opened up for discussion several ways of looking at such stories, whether they're true or not.

To close on the subject, Jud McCranie offers two examples of variations of this "incredible co-incidence" game: (1) shooting an arrow and then drawing the bull's eye around the spot the arrow hits, and (2) playing the game first and then making up the rules. That's a direct, bang-on, hit, Jud! I'd call it a bulls-eye! Congratulations! I'm calling a press conference right away!

To briefly return to the Chadra Levy disappearance mystery discussed here last week, a "psychic" here in Florida who claims he is "God," has the real bottom line on the matter. He says:

1. Chandra Levy is "what many call dead." (Well, I admit that I'm one of those uninformed persons who refers to "dead," as "dead.")

2. Her human body will be found either 7/1, 7/17, or 9/17, and will contain severe head trauma, if not decapitation. (Decapitation can be severe, that's true.)

3. She was murdered due to a work connection involving jail, a blonde jealous woman, a son, or a pregnancy, and either the initials LSD or drugs. (Since she worked at a jail, part of that's not too unlikely.)

If these predictions are as accurate as "God's" former ones, Chandra will show up alive and well in Switzerland, having married a handsome prince, and will live for the next 65 years in bliss.

Hey, some of you answered last week's problem by not using all the matches, or by making four triangles, etc., etc. Not allowed! A great number of you submitted a solution that consisted of a parallelogram of base 5, side 1. That would require a height of 2/5 of a match, and since I'd rather thought that we understood a distinct preference for "pure" solutions here, Euclidian/Pythagorian answers, I have to ask, how do you get to 2/5 of a match-length? But by strictly Euclidian means, as shown here, we can obtain a half-match length, and even a quarter-match length (not shown), so that is the preferred procedure. We had some answers that required sines and other sophisticated means, but let's stay as basic as we can, okay?

BUT: then I heard from someone calling him/herself "Loopy," and I had to eat my words. You can indeed arrive at 2/5 of a match-length! Study the illustration! This is one of those hitherto unsuspected solutions. Way to go, Loopy! There were several other clever solutions, but due to lack of time and space, I just can't include them here. Sorry!

(Strictly by my personal error, the common correct solution (the 2X4 parallelogram) popped up on the page last week when it was first posted, and remained there for about 20 minutes before I spotted it and rallied webmaster Jeff Kostick to rescue me, which he promptly did. Only one reader caught my boo-boo, and kindly refused to take advantage of it.....)

I regret to announce that since I'm now just launching the Jordan Good Weasel trip to Houston and Boston, after which I'll return to begin packing for Australia, I'll be so busy that I will find it difficult to keep putting new puzzles up every week. The content of the page will change, as usual, since I'll be supplying Jeff with sufficient new material, but I will have to omit the weekly puzzles for the time being. I anticipate that we'll get back into that aspect by August 24th. Hopefully. I'm going to be away for a few weeks on the other side of the globe, attending the exciting "Ideas at the Powerhouse" conference in Brisbane, Australia, from August 12th to 19th.

Similarly, the Thursday, July 26th, Internet Audio show from the JREF studio will be handled by Andrew Harter and Jack Latona, possibly with guests, since I'll be unable to participate. The same applies to the August 16th and August 23rd shows, when I'll be in Oz.