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Alan Shepard

Alan Shepard was an American astronaut who piloted the Freedom 7 sub-orbital flight in 1961 and commanded Apollo 14 in 1971, when he hit the first golf shot on the Moon and took part in an in-flight study of cosmic-ray light-flash phenomena; a photograph from his book Moon Shot has separately been described by a researcher as deliberately faked.

Freedom 7 (1961); Apollo 14 (1971) · NASA astronaut; Commander, Apollo 14

Alan Shepard was an American astronaut who piloted the Freedom 7 capsule during the 1961-05-05 Freedom 7 sub-orbital flight. A subsequent inner-ear problem took him off flight status for six years, from 1964 until he was reinstated in 1969.¹ He underwent a secret and then-innovative inner-ear surgical procedure that allowed him to command the Apollo 14 mission and complete the 1971 Apollo 14 landing on the Moon.²

During the final extra-vehicular activity of Apollo 14, Shepard surprised NASA and the nation on live television by hitting the first golf shot taken on the Moon, on 1971-02-05.³ He boasted during the live radio transmission that the ball “went miles and miles."⁴

Shepard took part in a formal in-flight study of cosmic ray visual phenomena (light flashes) conducted during Apollo 14, alongside crewmate Edgar Mitchell. He reported 10 light flashes in his right eye and 4 in his left.⁵ On one occasion, Mitchell reported a flash at the same moment Shepard reported one in his right eye;⁶ Shepard considered the two reports to have occurred within a fraction of a second of each other.⁷ He never observed two light-flash streaks occurring simultaneously,⁸ did not notice a halo effect following the flashes,⁹ and did not notice a preferred direction for them.¹⁰ Shepard felt that the flashes he observed appeared generally random in direction, without a consistent correlated pattern.¹¹ Some flashes spanned as much as 50 to 60 degrees of his peripheral field of view,¹² which he estimated at roughly 50 to 160 degrees horizontally.¹³ In some cases a flash appeared broken in the centre, giving the impression of two dots, one immediately following the other.¹⁴ He noted that light could seep in around the edges of the window shades when the spacecraft rolled so the sun struck some of the windows,¹⁵ and he generally kept his eyes open during the observation period except when avoiding this sunlight seepage.¹⁶ The crew closed their eyes when Mitchell turned on his flashlight during the sessions.¹⁷ Shepard considered that setting aside a defined period of time for observation was necessary, since without it, other distracting thoughts made the phenomenon too random to quantify.¹⁸

Only two Apollo 14 astronauts, Shepard and Mitchell, landed on the Moon, and each carried one Hasselblad camera.¹⁹ Early in the mission’s first EVA, Shepard photographed Mitchell deploying the television camera just north of Fra Mauro (Apollo 14 landing site), an image from the Ken Johnston collection known as AS14-66-9301 “Mitchell Under Glass” (Apollo 14 photograph).²⁰ Administrative records catalogue it as a genuine Apollo 14 photograph.²¹ Shepard also took the Apollo 14 landing site panorama held in the Ken Johnston Collection.²² Photograph AS14-66-9279 (Apollo 14 photograph), taken by Shepard while standing on the east side of the Lunar Module Antares, contains major elements of the same scattered-light geometry seen in Johnston’s version of AS14-66-9301.²³

Richard C. Hoagland said that he found a deliberately faked photograph in the middle of Shepard’s own account of his journey to the Moon in the photographic section of Moon Shot (book).²⁴ The image, catalogued as the Alan Shepard fake golf shot photograph (Moon Shot), was published as a two-page spread showing both Shepard and Mitchell simultaneously in the same frame, something no single Hasselblad camera could have captured.²⁵ Mitchell had erected a colour television camera at the landing site two days before Shepard’s golf shot, which broadcast a running sequence of images to Earth in parallel with Shepard’s live radio transmission.²⁶ In the faked image, the flag pointed in the opposite direction and Shepard’s body position differed from the real event.²⁷ The faked centrefold copies and reverses portions of the Lunar Module Antares, adding astronauts, a golf ball, a TV antenna, shadows and a flag as cutouts from other Apollo 14 imagery, with the flag pointing in the opposite direction from the actual Hasselblad photograph and live television downlink.²⁸

According to Dark Mission, there have been persistent rumours that Neil Armstrong and Shepard were also Freemasons, though this has never been confirmed.²⁹ Hoagland separately speculated that Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin may have been pre-selected for the Apollo 11 mission for the same reasons he believed applied to Shepard and the Freedom 7 flight.³⁰

References (30)

Inner-ear problem grounded Shepard 1964-1969 after the Freedom 7 flight.
“For Shepard, it was a curious inner ear problem, which took him off flight status for six years, from 1964 (following his historic sub-orbital Freedom 7 "hop" in 1961)until he was miraculously "cured" and reinstated in 1969.”
Dark Mission ch19:34227-34446
Secret 1971 inner-ear surgery let Shepard command Apollo 14.
“He had a secret and then-innovative inner ear surgical procedure, which allowed him to ultimately command Apollo 14 to the Moon in 1971.”
Dark Mission ch19:34452-34583
Shepard hit the first golf shot on the Moon during Apollo 14's final EVA, 1971-02-05.
“It was during the last EVA of Apollo 14, you might remember, that Alan Shepard surprised NASA and the Nation on live television—and achieved a unique claim to history as well—with his famous "… first golf shot on the Moon."”
Dark Mission ch19:34590-34807
Shepard boasted live that the golf ball 'went miles and miles.'
“boasted that the ball "went miles and miles."”
Dark Mission ch19:36976-37014
Shepard reported 10 light flashes in his right eye, 4 in his left.
“Al, you had 10 right and 4 left”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:09:05.9-00:09:07.7
Mitchell and Shepard reported flashes at the same moment on one occasion.
“Ed, you said flash, and then Al, you said simultaneous with him, I had a flash in the whole right eye.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:09:52.1-00:09:57.4
Shepard judged the simultaneous reports to be within a fraction of a second.
“certainly within a fraction of a second, I think it was simultaneous.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:10:09.7-00:10:12.2
Shepard never observed two flash streaks simultaneously.
“I never did see two simultaneously either.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:02:46.1-00:02:48.0
Shepard noticed no halo effect after the flashes.
“I haven't really noticed a halo effect myself.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:11:04.7-00:11:07.6
Shepard noticed no preferred direction for the flashes.
“I didn't notice any preferred orientation.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:15:43.1-00:15:45.2
Shepard felt the flashes were random in direction, with no consistent pattern.
“in my case i couldn't really correlate a pattern out of it yeah i would think that the time period in which we tried to report them street by street flash by flash was representative and it was my feeling that it was generally random during that time period”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:00:39.1-00:00:56.0
Some flashes spanned 50 to 60 degrees of peripheral vision.
“in some cases the light flashes would go across as much as 50 or 60 degrees of that.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:16:04.5-00:16:09.5
Shepard estimated his horizontal peripheral field of view at 50 to 160 degrees.
“if you're talking about a horizontal peripheral field as being somewhere in the vicinity of 50 to 160 degrees”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:15:55.2-00:16:02.7
Some flashes appeared broken into two dots.
“In some cases I had the feeling it was two dots one immediately following the other, giving the impression of right to left, or top to bottom, or bottom to top, or left to right.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:16:16.2-00:16:25.0
Light seeped around window shades when the sun struck the windows.
“Even though we had the window shades on, when we'd roll around so the sun would hit some of the windows, there'd be some light seepage around.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:07:09.2-00:07:14.5
Shepard kept his eyes open except when avoiding sunlight seepage.
“During that time, at least I made the technique to keep my eyes closed, open otherwise... generally speaking, eyes were open.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:07:17.4-00:07:23.8
Crew closed their eyes when Mitchell's flashlight was on.
“we closed our eyes when Ed flipped his flashlight on.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:07:23.1-00:07:25.5
Shepard said a defined observation period was needed, or the phenomenon was too random to quantify.
“I think that's the way you really have to go is to take a definite period, set it aside and do it because otherwise it's so random and so many other things going through your mind that It's the only way you can't even quantitate it.”
NASA-UAP-D027, Apollo 14 Debriefing (Continued), 1971 00:20:11.8-00:20:25.3
Only Shepard and Mitchell landed; each carried one Hasselblad.
“since there were only *two* Apollo 14 astronauts who landed on the Moon—Shepard and Mitchell—and just two Hasselblad cameras (one for each of them)”
Dark Mission ch19:36190-36332
Shepard photographed Mitchell deploying the TV camera early in EVA-1 ('Mitchell Under Glass').
“One particularly spectacular frame stood out—what has come to be known as 'Mitchell Under Glass' (AS14-66-9301)—a shot of astronaut Edgar Mitchell deploying the TV camera just north of the A-14 landing site, taken by Apollo 14 Commander Alan Shepard early in EVA-1, as part of the preceding panorama sequence.”
Dark Mission ch11:95067-95367
AS14-66-9301 confirmed as a genuine Apollo 14 photograph.
“this (see Color Fig. 5) is a *real* Apollo 14 photograph, taken by Alan Shepard of his fellow astronaut, Ed Mitchell—as Mitchell was setting up the TV camera at the beginning of their first lunar EVA.”
Dark Mission ch19:39378-39574
Shepard took the Apollo 14 landing site panorama in the Johnston Collection.
“Color Fig. 4 - Apollo 14 landing site panorama from Ken Johnston collection taken by Alan Shepard.”
Dark Mission ch14:46264-46354
AS14-66-9279 shares scattered-light geometry with Johnston's version of AS14-66-9301.
“ALSJ Archive frame AS14-66-9279 [Fig. E-3])—a photograph Alan Shepard took while standing on the east side of the LM—contains major elements of *the same scattered light geometry* as seen on Ken’s version of “9301” (where Shepard was standing to the west when he took that amazing photograph).”
Dark Mission ch20:14434-14715
Hoagland said he found a deliberately faked photograph in Moon Shot's photographic section.
“It's when you begin to examine the *photographic* section of their joint authorship, "Moon Shot," that the real problems begin. There, right in the middle of Shepard's own account of his amazing against-all-odds personal journey to the Moon… … Is a *deliberately* faked record of the trip [Fig. 12-4].”
Dark Mission ch19:35488-35787
The two-page golf-shot spread shows both astronauts at once, impossible for one Hasselblad.
“who took THIS Hasselblad shot—published as a two-page spread (note the central binding in the reproduction), in Shepard's own "space biography?" ... Both astronauts—Shepard and Mitchell—are seen simultaneously *in the same photograph?*”
Dark Mission ch19:36340-36568
Mitchell's TV camera broadcast to Earth in parallel with Shepard's golf-shot transmission.
“The only other camera which could have taken this particular image was the color television camera, erected by Mitchell at their landing site soon after first emerging from the lunar module "Antares" two days earlier. In fact, this camera did send back to Earth a running sequence of television images of this event, in parallel with Shepard's live radio transmission as he took his swing”
Dark Mission ch19:36582-36965
In the faked image the flag and Shepard's body position differ from the real event.
“we noted, among other things, that the flag was pointing the opposite direction in the photo, Shepard's body position was different”
Dark Mission ch19:37241-37363
The faked centrefold composites cutouts onto Antares, with the flag reversed.
“Fig. 12-4 - Faked “centerfold image” from Alan Shepard’s book “Moon Shot.” Portions of Apollo 14 Lunar Module Antares (L) is copied and reversed in right hand image. In addition, astronauts, “golf ball,” TV antenna, shadows and flag are added “cutouts” from other Apollo 14 imagery—with flag pointing in opposite direction from actual Hasselblad photograph (L) and live TV downlink.”
Dark Mission ch19:88846-89219
Persistent, unconfirmed rumours held that Armstrong and Shepard were Freemasons.
“There have been persistent rumors that Neil Armstrong and Alan Shepard were also members, but it has never been confirmed”
Dark Mission ch12:117569-117681
Hoagland speculated Armstrong and Aldrin were pre-selected as he believed Shepard was.
“or maybe (as he found out with Alan Shepard and America's first manned sub-orbital flight, back in 1961 …) the men themselves—Armstrong and Aldrin—had, for some reason, been pre-selected.”
Dark Mission ch12:29667-29846

Alan Shepard

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