Man on the moon just luna(r)cy?

THE two words “conspiracy theory” have been ban-died about throughout the world for decades. How-ever, it has been ramped up even more since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

- RAVI GOVENDER

We will return to that aspect later.

What is a conspiracy theory? It is a belief that some secret, but influential organisation is responsi-ble for an event or phenomenon. Also, a theory that asserts that a secret of great importance is being kept from the public.

As I mentioned earlier, it is not a new concept, but I did not realise exactly how far back it goes. Interesting words are found in the Bible in Isaiah 8:12, 13 (English Standard Version): “Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honour as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.”

Okay, modern day conspiracy theories are any-thing but religious. More sacrilegious, perhaps.

Let us consider a few examples of them to give clarity to the uninitiated. The biggest one to me because I had lived through the incident and it was a humongous feat. It happened in July 1969, when Apollo 11 was launched by the US and Nasa, and it marked the first time that man had landed on the moon.

The theory is that the moon landing was staged and the footage shown on TV was actually filmed in a Hollywood studio. Fact or luna(r)cy?

A few years earlier, another incident occurred which birthed a conspiracy theory — which prevails until now.