There was an interesting program on Channel 5 last night called 'Stranger than Fiction'. Last week's episode focused on the competition between US and Russian surgeons in the transplant field (featuring two headed dogs and talk of human head transplants).
Anyway yesterday's episode was based on the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Now, myself and a few others like to keep a cynical view on this and whether or not it took place but the show did more to explain things this time.
It showed footage of the lunar module being tested on Earth with clips of Neil Armstrong ejecting from it after it went belly up.
The most interesting part of the documentary though was that when the astronauts got into space. They asked Houston something like "Where is the location of the S-IV" in relation to the last stage of the booster rocket. When Houston replied "It is 6,000 nautical miles away" the documentary explained that the crew had asked in this reserved manner (knowing others would be listening to the conversation) because they had seen an object with oval shapes around it hovering near the module. They didn't want to bring the mission into disrepute by suggesting 'something else' was up there with them!
When they went for some sleep, they reported seeing flashes of light. I initially thought this was leading to an explanation of radiation hitting their retinas from solar flares etc. but it turned out to be 'z-particles' penetrating the module and the crew.
Bizarre viewing and a welcome insight into the Apollo program. One wonders why such information has been kept from us for so long and why, nearly 40yrs on the technology has not been better utilised and exploited for the benefit of all mankind. Not just the "Eagle" that "landed".