Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from ...

234 BEAM ME UP
which involve space aliens. It would be fair to call Hoagland a
kook. He leads the cause for the alien nature of the Face on Mars
as well as a host of other fringe claims. On his web site (http://
www.enterprisemission.com) he has an article about the Moon and
Hubble with the headline: “NASA Caught in Yet Another Lie.”
Hoagland quotes a Hubble astronomer and expert on Hubble
imaging. As Hoagland relays on his web page, a UFO researcher
asked the astronomer the following question: “Has Hubble taken
any photos of the moon?” He responded: “No, the moon is too
bright (even the dark side) to observe with HST.”
I know this astronomer and called him about this. I swear I
could hear his embarrassed smile on the phone. He apologized and
said that the quote was sadly accurate, and he could kick himself
for making the mistake. He simply wasn’t thinking clearly and said
the wrong thing. Unfortunately, with the web cranks can use his
misstatement for their own ends. Hoagland claims that this is part
of the NASA/alien cover-up of bases on the Moon. His headline
about “NASA lies” is a bit disingenuous. A lie implies intent to
deceive, while in reality an honest error was made. Also, the astronomer
is not a NASA employee. Accuracy is perhaps not Hoagland’s
forte.
Hoagland’s thrust is that this is just another NASA lie to cover
up the fact that Hubble can indeed observe the Moon. According
to his twisted logic, NASA spent years saying the Moon was off
limits to Hubble to keep astronomers from finding the aliens. If
that’s true, why did NASA allow the team of astronomers to observe
the Moon at all? In a rather typical example of conspiracytheory
logic, Hoagland ignores obvious facts that go against his
conclusions.
It would be silly of NASA to maintain a conspiracy by claiming
that the Moon is too bright to observe when, in fact, it was
public record from the start that it routinely observes the much
brighter Earth. Hoagland assumes, from one astronomer’s single
misstatement, that everyone in the astronomical community is part
of a massive conspiracy and would blindly stick to an argument
that is clearly contradictory to facts. Having worked with some of
the astronomers and engineers who designed and use Hubble, I