Yet it often seems like the
deeper we get into the world around us, the more we realize how little
we actually know. A mountain of data may promise us answers, but first
you have to sift through the questions.
The latest evidence: A YouTube
video that's circulating and shows what looks like a human figure
standing on the surface of the moon.
NASA, which has checked the image against its trove of images from the same location, is shrugging it off.
Sure
enough, go to Google Moon and find the coordinates (27° 34' 12.83'' N,
19° 36'21.56 W) and you'll see it, too. Here's a screenshot I took (I
added the red arrow):
It's
been a generation since humans ruled out the possibility of life on the
moon—let alone a giant humanoid just chilling on the lunar surface. So,
uh, what is that thing?
"We have other images that do
not show any imperfection so most analysts believe the image reflects
nothing more than a tiny piece of debris on the lens," spokesman Robert
Jacobs told me. (And in a follow-up email: "Believe
me, if there was a man on the moon, we’d be recounting our own
astronauts to make sure we got them all back from Apollo and then
telling everyone else!")
Fair enough. The rational explanation, after all, is quite often the best one.
And yet there's something about
the image that lingers. In a vast landscape of shameless Photoshopping
and Internet hoaxes, and at a time where most people have long since
given up on the Loch Ness Monster and the Cottingley Fairies, there's
still that little tug of wonder—misplaced, though it may be.
Just think: We can zoom in on actual photographs of the actual moon
from our unbelievably sophisticated handheld computers. But it's the
smudge of dirt on a camera lens that makes people marvel at the depths
of what we still don't know.
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