I once had a neighbor who was sure that the moon landing was a hoax, because the moon is nothing but a light in the sky and therefore it is impossible for anything to land on it. My own reason for assuming that NASA does, indeed, engage in various conspiracies is a little more reasonable: it’s a government agency.
Nick Redfern covers quite a few cover-ups and outright lies in The NASA Conspiracies, although he supports his stance primarily with an abundance of hearsay, rumor, and redundancy. Among the topics covered are his contention that the Apollo moon missions were faked (a la Capricorn One) in order to convince the Soviet Union that American technology was superior to theirs; that alien beings live among us in secret; and that the big bump on Mars is actually an ancient sculpture depicting a Martian face. Redfern also brings us highlights of other mysteries, including the UFO crashes at Roswell and Kecksburg, alien abductions, and U.S. astronauts’ encounters with mysterious ghoulies during NASA missions.
Area 51, aliens around the globe, and the suggestion that NASA secretly sabotaged the fatal 1986 flight of Challenger – Redfern tosses these and other speculative notes into his book along with stock photos that bring nothing new to the debate. For the larger part of his career, Redfern has been a journalist, contributing as a freelancer to The Daily Express, People and The X-Factor. In The NASA Conspiracies, he does exactly what a good journalist should do – he tells the story without drawing conclusions. That doesn’t mean that the story isn’t slanted, only that Redfern knows how to use subtle words and phrases in order to guide a reader in a particular direction.
While The NASA Conspiracies is a nice compilation of generally-known tales, it contains no new insight and certainly no evidence that would hold up under the slightest scrutiny. Sure, it’s a fun read, and if you’ve never watched any of the conspiracy- and extraterrestrial-related programming on television, you might even find it exciting. In truth, however, I suspect that the greatest conspiracy here involves Redfern, a publisher, and a plan to make some quick money.