Bill Kaysing (July 31, 1922^{[not verified in body]} – April 21, 2005^{[not verified in body]}) was an American author and conspiracy theorist who claimed that the Apollo Moon landings between 1969 and 1972 were hoaxes.

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Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Bill Kaysing
Kaysing in 2000
Born	(1922-07-31)July 31, 1922
Died	April 21, 2005(2005-04-21) (aged 82)
Nationality	American
Occupation	Author

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Kaysing served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II,^[1][2] having attended Navy Officers Training School.

Kaysing would come to assert in a new vein of writing that came to fruition in the mid-1970s, that during his much earlier tenure at Rocketdyne he was privy to documents pertaining to the Mercury, Gemini, Atlas, and Apollo programs, and argued that one did not need an engineering or science degree to determine that a hoax was being perpetrated.^{[citation needed]} According to his account of this intellectual development, the Rocketdyne scientists with whom he worked expressed to him that there was enough technology at the time to perhaps send a crewed rocket to the Moon, but not enough technology developed to return safely to Earth.^{[citation needed]} They also spoke of the very real problem of traveling through atmospheric radiation without harm to the astronauts as a problem that yet needed to be solved.^{[citation needed]} Even before July 1969, he had "a hunch, an intuition, ... a true conviction" and decided that he did not believe that anyone was going to the Moon.^[3] Kaysing thus wrote a book titled We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle, which was self-published in 1976,^[4] and republished by Health Research Books in 2002.^{[citation needed]}

In his book, Kaysing introduced arguments which he said proved the Moon landings were faked. Claims in the book including that:

• NASA lacked the technical expertise to put a man on the Moon.^{[citation needed]}
• the absence of stars in lunar surface photographs was indicative of a hoax.^[5]
• there were unexplained optical anomalies in the photographs taken on the Moon.^[6]
• there was an absence of blast craters beneath the Lunar Modules, and that the rocket engines of the Lunar Modules should have generated an enormous dust cloud near their landing sites during the final seconds of descent.^[7]
• the death of Thomas Baron, a quality control and safety inspector for North American Aviation, was mysterious and indicative of a hoax.^{[citation needed]}

He also noted that Dutch newspapers questioned the "authenticity" of the Moon landings.^{[non-primary source needed][3]}

Lovell defamation lawsuit

On August 29, 1996, Kaysing filed a defamation lawsuit in Santa Cruz County Superior Court against astronaut Jim Lovell for calling his claims "wacky" in an article by Rafer Guzmán for Metro Silicon Valley.^[11][12] Lovell is quoted:

The guy is wacky. His position makes me feel angry. We spent a lot of time getting ready to go to the Moon. We spent a lot of money, we took great risks, and it's something everybody in this country should be proud of.

The case was dismissed in 1997.^[13]

Original theory from We Never Went to the Moon (1976)

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Kaysing describes preparation for the launch^{[clarification needed]} as normal,^{[citation needed]} but since Rocketdyne F-1 engines in the first stage of the Saturn V rocket were "totally unreliable," a cluster of "five booster engines of the more dependable B-1 type as used in the C-1 cluster for the Atlas missile" were secretly installed, one inside each of the Saturn V's five F-1s.^{[14][original research?]}

Revised theory from Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (2001)

Kaysing states that:^{[full citation needed]}

The astronauts were launched with the Saturn V. Then, in order to account for their disappearance, they simply orbited the Earth for eight days and in the interim they showed these fake pictures of the astronauts on the Moon. But on the eighth day the command console separated from the vehicle and descended to Earth as, of course, was shown in the films.

Kaysing encouraged Ralph René to write NASA Mooned America!, after René decided that he also had research to prove the landings were faked.^{[citation needed][15]}

Kaysing's daughter, Wendy L. Kaysing, has stated that she hopes to one day write a book about her father with Kaysing's nephew, Dietrich von Schmausen, not to reiterate Kaysing's hoax claims, rather to talk about her father as a person.^[16]

• Kaysing, William (1966) [Originally published in Cycle World]. Intelligent Motorcycling. Illustrations by Jon Dahlstrom. Long Beach, Calif.: Parkhurst. OCLC 29211988.
• Kaysing, Bill (1970). Land and how to Buy it For a Few Dollars an Acre. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Paradise Publishers. OCLC 80342613.
• —— (1970). How to Eat Well on Less Than a Dollar a Day. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Paradise Publishers. OCLC 80843621.
• —— (1971). The Ex-urbanite's Complete & Illustrated Easy-does-it First-time Farmer's Guide: A Useful Book (1st ed.). San Francisco, Calif.: Straight Arrow Books. OCLC 162589.
• —— (1973). The Ex-urbanite's Complete & Illustrated Easy-does-it First-time Farmer's Guide: A Useful Book (Revised ed.). San Francisco, Calif.: Straight Arrow Books. ISBN 0-87932-047-8.
• —— (1974). The Robin Hood Handbook. New York: Links Books. ISBN 0-82563-024-X.
• ——; Kaysing, Ruth (1975). Eat Well on a Dollar a Day: Live a Healthier Life at a Fraction of the Cost. San Francisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-87701-066-8.
• —— (1976). Fell's Beginner's Guide to Motorcycling. New York, N.Y.: Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-81190-272-2.
• ——; Reid, Randy (1976). We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle!. Fountain Valley, Calif.: Eden Press. OCLC 19542836.
• ——; Reid, Randy (1976). We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. Pomeroy, Wash.: Health Research Books. OCLC 47861692.
• —— (1977). Clark, Cathy (ed.). Privacy: How to Get It, How to Enjoy It. Fountain Valley, Calif.: Eden Press. OCLC 3892204.
• —— (1981). We Never Went to the Moon: America's 30 Billion Dollar Swindle. Cornville, Ariz.: Desert Publications. ISBN 0-87947-388-6.
• —— (1984). Great Hot Springs of the West. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Capra Press. ISBN 0-88496-211-3.
• —— (1987). Great Hideouts of the West: An Idea Book for Living Free. Port Townsend, Wash.: Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 0-91517-962-8.
• —— (1987). The Senior Citizens' Survival Manual. Mission, Kansas: Bellwether Press. ISBN 0-94413-600-1.
• —— (1988). Bill Kaysing's Freedom Encyclopedia. New York, N.Y.: Instant Improvement. ISBN 0-94168-302-8.
• ——; Kaysing, Ruth (1996). Eat Well for 99 Cents a Meal. Port Townsend, Wash.: Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 1-55950-137-5.
• ——; Kaysing, Ruth (1996). The 99¢ a Meal Cookbook. Port Townsend, Wash.: Loompanics Unlimited. ISBN 1-55950-140-5.

• Moon landing conspiracy theories
• Bart Sibrel