Why does nobody talk about how conspiracy theories get repeated like a game of telephone?

I was at a diner in Pittsburgh last month and overheard a guy telling his friend that the moon landing had 47 different camera angles that all showed the same shadow pattern. I used to believe stuff like that until I actually looked up the original NASA footage from 1969. Turns out the claim about 47 angles was made up by some blog in 2004 and just kept getting copied. I counted maybe 12 actual camera positions on the mission logs. Has anyone else bothered to trace where these supposed facts come from before repeating them?

3 comments

3 Comments

stellanelson11d ago

Duuuude, this is so spot on. My buddy Mike used to swear up and down that the government faked the 9/11 plane crash videos because "no plane could punch a perfect hole like that." I finally got him to sit down with me and actually look up the original news footage from that day. We found the exact clip he was talking about and watched it frame by frame. Turns out the "perfect hole" claim came from a photoshopped image some troll made on 4chan in 2007. Mike just sat there quiet for a minute and then said "well, I guess I owe the internet an apology." It's wild how one lie can just stick around forever.

rubyshah11d ago

My cousin spent months debunking that exact photo for our family group chat.

lunag3011d ago

Oh wow, I totally used to believe stuff like that too. I saw that same photo years ago and was convinced it was real until someone actually showed me the original footage. It's crazy how easy it is to get fooled by a good edit. Did your cousin go through a whole big process to prove it was fake?