Small-Minded Conspiracy Theorists

With the fortieth anniversary of the Moon Landings, the conspiracy theories have started to make a reappearance. They say that Neil Armstrong and co never actually went anywhere - the whole thing was an elaborate ruse.

Of course few people believe them. Why would the US government go to such lengths to create a massive hoax when they could just stick a couple of astronauts on top of a rocket?

In an amazing stroke of good fortune involving public transport and a misplaced laptop, this blog has obtained exclusive access to secret information concerning not only the events of July 1969, but a conspiracy which has been perpetrated on the innocent citizens of the World for over 2000 years.

It turns out that the conspiracy theorists just aren't thinking big enough.

The flat earth brigade were closer to the truth than they (or we) imagined. However, they believe that the Earth is just a single flat surface. What they failed to do was to think three-dimensionally. If they had they might have realised that the Earth isn't flat. It's a block of flats.


Each floor is around 2 miles high. If you sail over the horizon, you end up in a large elevator, enabling you to get onto other floors. If the lift is there, of course. If not, your ship might just fall into the lift shaft. Now we know the real secret of the Bermuda Triangle.

When the first explorers sailed forth and discovered all this, they realised that it would be very foolish to tell people about it. If there were untold riches to be found on other floors, they wanted to keep it all for themselves. So, they started to draw maps showing vast expanses of sea, and to tell tales of monsters, of seductive mermaids that would lure ships to be wrecked, and so on. They wanted to discourage the majority of people from setting sail and finding out how easy it was to get to another country. They also wanted everyone to believe that they were brave heroes. Especially the ladies.

A Sailor's Map of the World c. 800 AD.
The central lift-shaft is clearly depicted.

As sailors found more and more places, so their maps got ever more elaborate. And then someone had the bright idea of making the world spherical. It's not known who this clever chap was, but his colleagues thought he was barking mad. They said that no-one would ever believe that. What a silly idea! They'd ask awkward questions, like "why don't the Australians fall off?", and "what's holding it up?", and so on.

"They won't fall for it..."

Nevertheless, the naysayers were wrong. People liked the idea of living on a ball. It was aesthetically and mathematically pleasing. It made the Earth a nice finite place, and it was as far away as you could get from the real picture of a giant run-down apartment block.


But all this happened centuries ago. Why are governments so eager to keep this secret in the 21st century?

The answer, as always, is "money". When the Wright brothers first managed to fly a few feet in the air, the Powers That Be realised that once people got 2 miles up, they'd see that there were ceilings, lights and sprinklers up there. So they devised a plan which would not only keep the aircraft industry from spilling the beans, but which would make vast quantities of money.

As long as the airlines kept up the pretence, and made people sit in their cramped airplanes for hours on end instead of the 5 minutes it would actually take to get to another floor, they could charge a fortune for Business class, whilst the governments of the world raked in airport taxes and the like.

And what about the Moon? Well, only a handful of the world's floors are habitable. The rest aren't finished. As usual the property developers conned investors into building something that was way too big. The moon's actually in the basement. And Neil Armstrong really did go there. Of course, the best way to get down the lift shaft wasn't in a rocket.

The real Apollo 11

So there you have it. Of course, "they" will say that these are just the deranged ramblings of a blogger desperate to find something to post on a weekend. But we know better...