E01 - Les masques des comploteurs
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00:00Discretion absolute, esoteric science, work of the shadow, mysterious rituals from the
00:14background of time.
00:15Are secret societies the entrails of evil?
00:21One thing is certain, they feed on innumerable conspiracy theories.
00:30They are accused of devils aims, they want to rule the world, unless that is already the case.
00:44Everywhere we suspect conspiracy theories.
00:48Are these accusations really founded or is it pure fiction, inspired by successful authors such as Dan Brown?
01:00The occult confréries have existed for millennia.
01:05Their members are among us.
01:09They are everywhere.
01:15Welcome to the dark world of secret societies.
01:29Marian Fussell is from Göttingen.
01:38He investigates what may be the craziest conspiracy in the history of Christianity.
01:43Would Christ have had descendants?
01:46And are they protected by a secret order?
01:49Daniel Ganser is from Zurich.
01:54He thinks we still don't know all the truth about the September 11th attacks.
02:03Ulrich Walter is from Munich.
02:06He is interested in the first man on the moon.
02:09Was it a staging orchestrated by NASA?
02:24The Vatican has been the seat of a spiritual and temporal power for 2,000 years.
02:45If we work here for the salvation of the souls of men, we are also dealing with games of influence and power.
02:53Speculations about the Holy See are in full swing.
02:56Behind these walls is a sensational secret that could shake the whole world.
03:09It is about Jesus Christ.
03:13The catacombs of Rome house the oldest representations of the Son of God.
03:22It presents a young man overflowing with joy of life who would have had a wife, Mary Magdalene.
03:32In the Apocryphal Gospel of Philip, we can read in verse 55 that the companion of the Savior is Mary Magdalene.
03:39According to legend, he loved her more than all his disciples and often kissed her on the mouth.
03:48If all this is true, we should rewrite the history and theology of Christianity.
03:56The Vatican hides a truth that could weaken its power.
04:01Dan Brown's bestseller, Da Vinci Code, has made the history of Jesus and Mary Magdalene known to the general public.
04:08Since its adaptation in the cinema with Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou, many people know it.
04:14But finally, if Christ had a descendant, it would mean that...
04:17Mary was pregnant at the time of the crucifixion.
04:28For her own safety and that of their unborn child, she fled the Holy Land and came to France.
04:35And that's where she gave birth to a girl.
04:39Sarah!
04:45Thus, the descendants of Jesus Christ would live here, in the south of France, protected by a secret confrérie.
04:55Mary was alone, being where it all started, in Reine-le-Château.
05:15This peaceful village has a surprisingly large church.
05:19For many, the building is the proof that Reine-le-Château is the epicenter of a great plot.
05:33It is a remarkable monument, full of mysterious symbols.
05:37Such a church does not seem to be in its place in this small village.
05:45Terrifying creatures welcome the visitor.
05:54The statues we see here represent the Mother of God or Mary Magdalene with the Child of God.
06:07Many stories and legends surround this village, and in particular its church.
06:13Its luxurious redevelopment around 1900 and the construction of other buildings all around
06:19lead us to wonder how all these works were financed.
06:23Such a construction site must have swallowed considerable sums,
06:26and even today, we wonder about the origin of this money.
06:32The suspicions surrounding this church date back to the time when Abbot Berenger-Saunière took office in Reine-le-Château.
06:39When he arrived in the summer of 1885, the village was very poor.
06:52However, the abbot soon undertook, at great expense, the renovation of his church.
06:59The parishioners soon wondered where all this money came from.
07:09For Marianne Fusseul, this construction site and the mysterious descent of Jesus are part of a vast conspiracy theory.
07:21Christian Doumergue brings him additional information.
07:28He studied the documents left by the village priest and knows all the tales and legends that revolve around Reine-le-Château.
07:39Abbot Berenger-Saunière made expenses that were out of his means.
07:43It was clearly not his priest's income that allowed him to build all this domain.
07:48This generated questions among the villagers at the time.
07:53People wondered where all this money came from, how it could lead to such a way of life.
07:58And from there, a rumour was born that the abbot had found a treasure.
08:03For a long time, people wondered about the exact nature of this treasure.
08:07Was it money? Precious relics?
08:10Or, as some believe, ancient documents proving that Jesus had descendants?
08:19It is still thought that with this treasure, perhaps parchments,
08:23Berenger-Saunière would have blackmailed the Vatican.
08:27Berenger-Saunière would have blackmailed the Vatican.
08:30He would have withdrawn money from the Holy See in exchange for his silence on the existence of the daughter of Christ.
08:39Marie-Madeleine is at the centre of this great scandal.
08:46Leonardo da Vinci would have immortalised the wife of Christ in his famous painting of the Seine.
08:52It is not the apostle John, but Marie-Madeleine who would have been represented on the left of the Lord.
09:01The legend of the family of Jesus has always been rumoured.
09:04A secret brotherhood would even protect its descendants.
09:12In his novel, Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown exploits this incredible story.
09:22Who are you?
09:24We have many names.
09:26The depositors.
09:28The guardians.
09:30The Priory of Sion.
09:38Although it is said that the Priory of Sion is very old,
09:41the French call it the Priory of Saint-Denis.
09:46Although it is said that the Priory of Sion is very old,
09:50the Frenchman Pierre Plantard was the first to write a book on this subject in the 1970s.
09:56Did he reveal the existence of a secret society?
10:08Our investigation leads us to Paris.
10:10This is where the Priory of Sion would have operated.
10:16The Priory of Sion
10:22The most important documents on this organization are found in the National Library of France.
10:28A real institution.
10:30What is kept there seems beyond all suspicion.
10:35The Priory of Sion
10:41The specialist in religions, Frédéric Lenoir, is fascinated by this mysterious brotherhood
10:46and the alleged descendants of Christ.
10:49By compiling the archives, he found an interesting document.
10:54The list of the great masters of the Priory of Sion,
10:57as it was referenced by the BNF.
11:05The Priory of Sion
11:13This inventory, carefully sorted, dates back to the time of Jesus.
11:17It features brilliant personalities such as the universal genius Leonardo da Vinci,
11:24or the famous scientist Isaac Newton.
11:35What a prestigious name.
11:37But were they all really at the head of the Brotherhood?
11:41If we look at these documents that were deposited in the National Archives,
11:45we can see that, at first glance, there is a good historical knowledge,
11:50since the dates correspond to the characters, the blazons are correct,
11:55except that afterwards we can see that, with real historical characters,
11:59we are going to add characters that have nothing to do with the people who existed during the Crusades,
12:06we are going to include Leonardo da Vinci, who has nothing to do with the Templars,
12:10we are going to mix history and fiction.
12:15By mixing facts with fiction, we attract the attention of the public and the media.
12:20Myths
12:25A suspicion of reality makes a fabulation credible.
12:29Myth-makers are well aware of this, and they use this method to blur the lines.
12:38What struck me was the creation of a modern myth.
12:41In the same way that, in the past, the Greeks invented extraordinary stories,
12:46they made myths that still exist,
12:48we saw, with this story, in the middle of the 20th century,
12:52the creation of a myth, and a myth that has a planetary success today,
12:56and this is something quite extraordinary.
12:59Another element at stake in the case of the Priory of Sion,
13:02it is impossible to prove the authenticity of the list of Grand Masters.
13:07It was anonymously deposited at the BNF.
13:11To this is added a probing piece,
13:14the constitutive act of the organization, signed by Pierre Plantard in 1956.
13:24The Priory of Sion is therefore an invention of the 1950s.
13:28Pierre Plantard himself recognizes it at the end of the 1980s.
13:31There has never been a confrérie to protect the descendants of Jesus.
13:41Another theory also rests on fragile bases.
13:45In the documents left by Abbot Saunière,
13:47Marianne Fusseul can read in black and white where he got so much money from.
13:53He turned over funds sent to say Masses to the intentions of the deceased.
13:58Saunière was a crook.
14:04Thanks to the book of accounts we found,
14:07we now know that it was not a treasure,
14:10but rather a trade of Masses.
14:13However, it did not spoil the myth.
14:15People still think that there could be hidden treasures,
14:18and therefore continue to look for them.
14:24One can be surprised that the fraud of Saunière could last so long.
14:33People were extremely credulous.
14:38The longevity of some legends can be explained by the very nature of the human soul.
14:52Marianne Fusseul has analyzed what best convinces people of the veracity of a secret.
14:58The more important and extraordinary it seems, the more we believe it.
15:03Knowing what it is all about is secondary.
15:13In the case of the Priory of Sion,
15:16it is essentially a man, Lantard, who sought to enrich himself.
15:20In itself, this is not a big deal.
15:22But there are other theories of the conspiracy,
15:25which target entire groups and defame them.
15:28And there it can become a real danger, a serious threat.
15:32This is the case of one of the most funest theories of the conspiracy in history,
15:36the myth of the world Jewish conspiracy.
15:40In the first half of the 20th century,
15:42Jews are accused of all kinds of evil.
15:46They are suspected of wanting to cause the collapse of nation states
15:49through the great capital or Bolshevism,
15:52and this in order to rule the world.
15:55To justify these allegations,
15:57we point the finger at rich Jewish entrepreneurs.
16:00The Balines.
16:03The Rothschilds.
16:07The Guggenheims.
16:13The Astors.
16:20The Jews are presented as the enemy.
16:24If the international financial Judaism succeeds in and outside of Europe,
16:30to bring the people to another world war,
16:34then the result will not be the Bolshevism of the earth
16:38and thus the victory of Judaism,
16:40but the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.
16:45The theory of the Jewish conspiracy finds its origins in Prague,
16:48in a very surprising and gloomy place.
16:54Every 100 years, Jewish leaders from all over the world
16:57would secretly meet in the city's cemetery.
17:01The Sion Sages would form a phantom government
17:04with the aim of oppressing Christians.
17:08If this conciliatism is a pure product of imagination,
17:11the consequences will not be any less dramatic.
17:16In Berlin, hatred is sown by spreading the spectrum
17:19of an international Jewish conspiracy.
17:24Marian Fussell wants to know how this legend came to be
17:27and why so many people still believe in it today.
17:38At the Jewish Museum in Berlin, he meets Wolfgang Benz,
17:41historian and anti-Semitism specialist,
17:44who studied the accusations made against Jews during the 20th century.
17:54The Sion Sages
18:00The thesis of the Jewish conspiracy comes from a small book
18:03called The Protocols of the Sion Sages.
18:06No pamphlet has caused so much suffering in the last century.
18:11The author plays skillfully on fears, prejudices,
18:14and the demonization of Jews.
18:17The Protocols of the Sion Sages
18:21It is about rallying people around a common enemy
18:24by distorting it.
18:29It is a mysterious, obscure story,
18:32according to which the Jewish community's debtors
18:35would meet every century at the Prague Cemetery
18:38to say where they are in the conquest of the world.
18:41It is called Protocols,
18:44as if it were an official, authentic document.
18:55The Protocols would have been secretly signed
18:58by the first world congressman.
19:01If this meeting took place, its purpose was quite different.
19:05It was organized by Theodor Herzl,
19:08not to dominate the world,
19:11but to create a Jewish state in Palestine.
19:14Why was the truth distorted?
19:20There are always prejudices and negative images
19:23about minorities.
19:26In this case, the Jews are reduced to a few ideas.
19:31They are mean,
19:34they threaten those who are not Jewish
19:37and they want to conquer the world.
19:44Saint Petersburg.
19:47It is in Tsarist Russia that the true story
19:50of the Protocols of the Sion Sages begins.
19:58Nowhere else is anti-Semitism as widespread
20:01as within the Russian people.
20:04No country has as many Jews
20:07as the Empire of Nicholas II.
20:10Considered as the enemies of Orthodox Christians,
20:13they are overwhelmed.
20:20The head of Russian secret services abroad,
20:23Pyotr Rachkovsky,
20:26takes advantage of the anti-Semitic climate for political purposes.
20:29He wants to impute to the Jews
20:32that the Protocols of the Sion Sages were written by the Tsar.
20:35To do this, he just needs to discredit them a little more.
20:44Pyotr Rachkovsky needs a document
20:47that will allow him to defame the Jews.
20:54He can't find one,
20:57so he makes one in a hurry.
21:02Here it is.
21:08It is Matvei Golovinsky who is in charge of this ferocious work.
21:20Is it so simple to stigmatize a group of individuals?
21:23And for what purpose is it done?
21:26The man needs booklets.
21:29The leaders in particular need them
21:32to conceal their own failures,
21:35their own flaws,
21:38or to mobilize the people for a specific purpose.
21:41Of course, the conspiracy theories
21:44push this mechanism to extremes.
21:47This is even more true
21:50for the Protocols of the Sion Sages
21:53who stigmatize the Jewish people as a whole
21:56by accusing them of being evil
21:59and responsible for all the evil on earth.
22:05If the secret agent Golovinsky
22:08is a specialist in false press articles,
22:11he signs a decisive pamphlet for the decades to come.
22:14To do this, he plagiarizes without shame
22:17and mixes reality and fiction.
22:20He takes over entire passages
22:23from a satire by the French writer Maurice Joly,
22:26Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.
22:29He finishes his text with the word Protocol
22:32to give it an authentic aspect
22:35while everything is false.
22:38This work, no doubt the most dangerous of the 20th century,
22:41will be reissued many times in the Russian Empire.
22:51In a few years,
22:54the Protocols of the Sion Sages conquer the entire planet.
22:57This false pamphlet echoes
23:00the ambient anti-Semitism.
23:06Golovinsky's text is translated into many languages.
23:09In Germany, too, he is given faith.
23:21The Protocols of the Sion Sages
23:27The Protocols of the Sion Sages
23:30agree perfectly with Nazi ideology.
23:33It is not long before the author is blamed for his imposture,
23:36but once a conspiracy theory has been launched,
23:39it is difficult to stop it.
23:42The Protocols of the Sion Sages
23:48The Nazis referred to these fictitious Protocols
23:51as if they were the tangible proof of an international Jewish conspiracy.
23:54In the end, it is all anti-Semitic propaganda
23:57and persecution of Jews that rely on this document.
24:02Under Nazi terror,
24:05such a pamphlet inevitably leads to the Holocaust.
24:08Nearly 6 million Jews were exterminated
24:11until the capitulation of Germany.
24:27And the Protocols of the Sion Sages?
24:30They survived the shock of the Shoah
24:33and the fall of the Third Reich.
24:36And now they spread the hatred of the Jews.
24:44On the portals of Hamas,
24:47Marian Fussell finds the anti-Semitic brulee.
24:50In the charter of the Islamist movement,
24:53the Protocols are cited as if they were an authentic document,
24:56and not a fake one.
24:59The Conspiracy Theories
25:04The conspiracy theories simplify complex phenomena to the extreme.
25:07There is no nuance.
25:10Everything is black or white, good or bad.
25:13The thesis of the International Jewish Conspiracy is a perfect example of this.
25:16It still haunts the minds of millions of people around the globe.
25:19It is supposed to be instrumentalized to serve political interests
25:22and put to the test to interpret current events.
25:26New York was the scene of an event
25:29during which the Protocols of the Sion Sages resurfaced.
25:48On September 11, 2001,
25:51two planes hit the World Trade Center towers.
25:54The whole world was in shock.
25:57More than 3,000 people perished.
26:05The images of the collapse of the Twin Towers
26:08remain engraved in the collective memory.
26:11In the four corners of the planet,
26:14millions of viewers see the emblems of American hegemony go up in smoke.
26:22You're in time.
26:25I'm getting behind the car.
26:30In the Islamic bastions of the Arab world,
26:33scenes of jubilation spontaneously burst out.
26:36The United States are the main guarantors of the existence of the State of Israel.
26:39For many Muslims,
26:42the Great Satan is deeply affected.
26:52The culprit is quickly found.
26:55Oussama Ben Laden, head of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda.
26:58It was he who ordered the attack, according to the official version.
27:09But very quickly,
27:12there were doubts about the allegations of the American government
27:15concerning September 11.
27:19Marianne Fussell is in New York.
27:22Many are those who still believe they do not know the true circumstances of the tragedy.
27:25Few events in contemporary history
27:28feed as much conspiracy theories
27:31as the September 11 attacks.
27:37Did the terrorists have overseas allies?
27:40Did the American government plot
27:43to justify its intervention in Afghanistan
27:47and later in Iraq?
27:50Or was another force involved in this affair?
27:59The September 11th is a difficult event to apprehend,
28:02but at the same time people quickly demand explanations.
28:05Very quickly, we look for responsible people,
28:08culprits, and it is quite natural
28:11that we resort to the old conspiracy theories.
28:15Here again, a Jewish conspiracy is invoked.
28:18According to fanatic Islamists,
28:21it would this time target the Arab countries.
28:24A Jewish plot.
28:27These instigators would have sacrificed thousands of innocents
28:30to lead the world into a war and thus reach their end.
28:35This argument presents striking analogies
28:38with the thesis developed in the Protocols of the Sages of Zion.
28:44Do you want to get further away?
28:49After the attacks, a famous religious man
28:52said on Egyptian television
28:55that the story of September 11 is that of a Jewish plot.
28:58It is another story.
29:01It means that the West...
29:04Marian Fussell examines these accusations.
29:07Is it true that the Israeli government
29:10advised the Jews not to go to work in the Twin Towers on September 11
29:13as claimed by a Syrian newspaper?
29:22The political scientist Stephen Brunner
29:25knows only too well this type of incrimination.
29:28He analyzed the events of September 11.
29:31A large number of Jews were found dead in the World Trade Center.
29:39Of course, it is completely absurd.
29:43First of all, between 250 and 400 Jews
29:46died in the attacks.
29:49Then, one has to ask how the Jews could have been informed.
29:55It is said that the Mossad informed them.
29:58As if the Israeli secret service
30:01had the phone number or email address of every Jew on the planet.
30:04It is so absurd that I don't know what to say about that.
30:08Despite this rationalization,
30:11conspiracy theories persist.
30:14Skeptics claim to constantly discover new inconsistencies.
30:17One of them concerns the missing plane.
30:24On September 11, at 9.37,
30:27the Pentagon was hit by a violent explosion.
30:30This was due to the crash of an American Airlines plane.
30:33However, even today,
30:37some refuse to believe this explanation.
30:44We don't see a plane on the surveillance camera video,
30:47but only a deflagration.
30:53Marian was the only one to look at the images.
30:56He knows the theory of the missing plane
30:59and does not consider it plausible.
31:03The theory of the Pentagon conspiracy...
31:06The thesis that there was no crash at the Pentagon
31:09is quite easy to refute.
31:12You just have to remember how the video surveillance system works.
31:15The camera only films at certain intervals.
31:18In other words, at certain times it escapes the device.
31:21It is probably in one of these intervals that the plane crashed.
31:24It approached the building at a lightning speed
31:27and could not be filmed by the camera in such a short period of time.
31:30In short, the video surveillance technique
31:33explains to itself why we don't see the plane.
31:37The official report indicates that the terrorists
31:40had planned their attacks since Hamburg.
31:45It is in this city that a man is investigated
31:48who considers the report of the American government as lacunar.
31:51Daniel Ganser is a hyrenologist,
31:54that is, an expert in the science of peace.
31:58He has analyzed the documents published on terrorist attacks.
32:04He does not make any case of conspiracy theories and sticks to the facts.
32:07However, according to him, these speak for themselves.
32:11He immediately notices that the official report
32:14ignores purely and simply an event,
32:17the collapse of the third tower.
32:20September 11, 2001
32:26Few people know that on September 11, 2001,
32:29in addition to the twin towers, the World Trade Center 7 collapses.
32:34It is a building 170 meters high
32:37which is just next to the two towers.
32:43But this building only collapsed a few hours later
32:46when it was not hit by a plane.
32:51Do the metal beams really have the effect of overheating?
32:55Or was the building dynamited?
32:58And why did some TV channels
33:00announce its collapse an hour before it happened?
33:04For years,
33:06we have been wondering about the cause and effect of this case.
33:20For Daniel Ganser,
33:22the 2008 report on the collapse of the third tower is not conclusive.
33:28Even today, we do not know why this building collapsed.
33:32When we watch the videos,
33:34we get the impression that it was dynamited.
33:36If we look at the three upper angles,
33:38we notice that it collapses without much resistance.
33:41I spoke to experts in the building
33:43who assured me that the building had collapsed.
33:45So, of course, we can wonder
33:47what happened on September 11th.
33:53Another strange event happened on Wall Street.
33:56The day before the attacks,
33:58anonymous investors bet on a massive fall
34:01of the American Airlines and United Airlines.
34:04They were right.
34:06The two planes were owned by these two companies.
34:11Some had to earn a fortune
34:13by being informed of the imminent death of thousands of people.
34:17It is clear that someone had to know what was going on.
34:20There was someone who organized the attacks.
34:23They were not elephants or giraffes.
34:25They were men.
34:27So some people had to know what was going on.
34:30But again, to know who committed the crime,
34:33you have to go to the Security Exchange Commission, the SEC.
34:36It is they who keep this information,
34:38but they refuse to divulge it.
34:40The SEC is a secret organization.
34:42It is not a secret organization.
34:44It is they who keep this information,
34:46but they refuse to divulge it.
34:50Was the American government informed of the attacks?
34:53Did it even orchestrate them,
34:55as well as some in advance?
34:57A terrible accusation.
34:59But it is not unthinkable.
35:02The American military themselves have aroused this suspicion.
35:06In 1962, they submitted a machiavellian plan
35:09to the President of the United States,
35:11John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
35:13Operation Northwoods planned, among other things,
35:15terrorist attacks on Washington
35:17and on civilian air traffic.
35:21Fidel Castro was then to be held responsible for these attacks.
35:25Kennedy refused.
35:28Once the people's trust in the political power has started,
35:31it is difficult to go back.
35:34This type of situation appeared during the Cold War, in particular.
35:37At that time, a policy of disinformation was wisely conducted,
35:40which led to a climate of suspicion.
35:43In these conditions, conspiracy theories
35:45found a particularly favorable ground,
35:47because everything was questioned
35:49and there was no longer any confidence in the state.
35:51It was at such a time that conspiracy theses
35:53knew their hour of glory,
35:55that they are particularly popular and popularized.
35:58Since always,
36:00mistrust of the government
36:02is deeply rooted in American society.
36:04One of the most famous conspiracy theories
36:07has given rise to a strange experience
36:09in the Nevada desert.
36:13One summer night in 1976,
36:16a man is preparing to demonstrate
36:18that the greatest scientific achievement of the United States
36:20is a robbery.
36:30Bill Kaysing does not believe
36:32that the Americans walked on the moon.
36:34For him, it is technically impossible.
36:36It is a political maneuver
36:38in the middle of the Cold War.
36:40Bill Kaysing claims
36:42that the mythical landing
36:44was staged on Earth,
36:46and he thinks he can prove it.
36:52This summer night,
36:54he goes to war against the American government.
37:05If he was right,
37:07this would not be the greatest adventure of humanity,
37:10but the biggest failure in history.
37:18On July 16, 1969,
37:21a 3,000-ton Saturn V rocket
37:23takes off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
37:27Its destination?
37:29The moon.
37:32It is a planetary show.
37:34Millions of people tremble with excitement
37:36in front of their TVs.
37:45The American president started the race to the moon
37:48in September 1962,
37:50betting everything on this map.
37:53He knows how ambitious such a project is.
38:01We choose to go to the moon in this decade
38:04and do the other things,
38:06not because they are easy,
38:08but because they are hard.
38:13Kennedy needs this success.
38:15For years,
38:17the Americans have been behind their sworn enemy
38:19in space exploration.
38:21In 1957,
38:23the Soviets managed to send
38:25the first living being into space
38:27by putting the Laika dog into orbit.
38:31Four years later,
38:33it's the turn of the first man, Yuri Gagarin.
38:36He manages to go around the Earth.
38:39What a beauty, he says on the radio
38:41from his spaceship.
38:50Space seems to belong to the Russians.
38:53NASA, it accumulates failures
38:55and suffers heavy human losses.
38:58The Apollo program swallows billions,
39:00but the expected results are not in sight.
39:11A critical situation in the psychological climate
39:14of the Cold War
39:16that puts the two systems in competition.
39:23The Sputnik shock was a huge shock for the Americans.
39:28Until then, they were the masters of the world.
39:30Of the free world, that goes without saying.
39:32But also of the entire planet
39:34on the technological, economic
39:36and in all sectors.
39:39They had to admit their delay
39:41in this key area.
39:44They did everything they could
39:46to overcome this shock.
39:48They went from the final victory
39:50in the battle of systems
39:52and this victory they wanted to win at all costs.
39:55In July 1969,
39:57the Apollo 11 mission is launched.
40:00With it, the United States want to take
40:02the first place in the conquest of space.
40:14Twelve minutes after takeoff,
40:16the three Americans are in Earth orbit.
40:19The rocket now travels at nearly 40,000 km per hour.
40:24The astronauts take three days to reach the Moon.
40:27They do several rounds,
40:29then Buzz Aldrin starts the maneuvers
40:32to land on the Sea of Tranquility.
40:48Houston, uh,
40:50the Eagle has landed.
40:53We copy you down, Eagle.
40:56That's one small step for man,
41:00one giant leap for mankind.
41:04Oh, that looks beautiful from here, Neil.
41:06Yeah, you got it?
41:08That's a good step.
41:11It's very pretty out here.
41:14Are you getting a TV picture now, Houston?
41:19Would this immense triumph
41:21actually be nothing more than a huge masquerade?
41:26Bill Kaysing is the first to formulate this hypothesis.
41:30In 1976,
41:32he accuses the government
41:34of having filmed the Moon landing on Earth.
41:37He is convinced that all the evidence,
41:39photos and shots are fake.
41:42The flag, the footprints,
41:44none of this could have been filmed on the Moon.
41:49In the Nevada desert,
41:51he hears that it is very easy
41:53to mislead public opinion
41:55because we would believe ourselves here on the Moon.
42:01Bill Kaysing makes his own lunar clichés.
42:05In fact, he manages to take pictures
42:07that look disturbingly like those of NASA.
42:11So what is the share of truth and lies?
42:15Okay, good, good, good.
42:27The triumphant return of Apollo 11 astronauts
42:30was part of a vast staging.
42:33To set up a project of this magnitude,
42:36the American government and NASA
42:38should have acted like a gigantic secret society.
42:42Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin
42:45would have been wrongly celebrated as heroes.
42:51In Munich, Marianne Fussell
42:53wants to carefully examine the reproaches made to NASA
42:56and obtain clarifications
42:5840 years after the first trip to the Moon.
43:02Ulrich Walter himself went into space in 1993.
43:06He carried out scientific experiments there for 10 days.
43:10Today, he is the head of the Aerospace Technology Board
43:13at the Technical University of Munich.
43:17He is also the head of the Aerospace Technology Board
43:20at the Technical University of Munich.
43:23He is also the head of the Aerospace Technology Board
43:26at the Technical University of Munich.
43:29Each month, Ulrich Walter receives dozens of letters
43:32with this one and the same question.
43:34Did the Americans really walk on the Moon?
43:41Today, there are still many who think
43:43they have been wrong about the Apollo 11 mission,
43:46and this, although the films and photos of NASA
43:49were analyzed in the early months of the year.
43:52The conspiracy theory about the Moon landing
43:55met with a favorable echo in the 1970s.
43:58We were in the middle of the Cold War,
44:00and there was a climate of mistrust,
44:02especially in the United States,
44:04with the Watergate affair and other scandals.
44:07We imagined that the government, or in this case, NASA,
44:10was capable of anything to abuse the power of the Moon.
44:13But this was not the case.
44:15The conspiracy theory about the Moon landing
44:18met with a favorable echo in the 1970s.
44:21We imagined that the government, or in this case,
44:24NASA, was capable of anything to abuse the power of the Moon.
44:27Enigma number one,
44:29why don't we see stars in the photos?
44:32Enigma number two,
44:34why isn't there a crater under the propeller
44:37of the landing module?
44:39Enigma number three,
44:41how is it that the astronauts are illuminated
44:44as they descend from the capsule,
44:46while the rest of the spacecraft
44:48is lost in the darkness?
44:51Enigma number four,
44:53how do you explain the movement of the American flag
44:56when there is no wind on the Moon?
45:01These are the same questions that concern Bill Kaysing.
45:05In 1976, he published his notes in a book,
45:08which brought him a lot of money.
45:14Bill Kaysing triggered a wave of conspiracy theories
45:17in photos that no longer seem to be able to stop.
45:20The supporters of these theories
45:22constantly find new clues.
45:24Their attacks are nevertheless always based
45:27on the photos taken during the landing on the Moon,
45:30or elsewhere.
45:33Apollo 11
45:45Ulrich Walter knows perfectly well these clichés
45:48and thinks he can refute each objection.
45:56The former astronaut is convinced
45:58of the veracity of the mission to Apollo 11,
46:01even if for many it is inconceivable
46:03that men could have walked on another celestial body.
46:14Let's take, for example, the stars,
46:16which are not seen in some photos.
46:18The explanation is very simple.
46:20When you take a photo and expose a clear pattern,
46:23you know you have to close the diaphragm.
46:25So you can no longer see the faint glow of the stars,
46:28and that's exactly what happened here.
46:30For the same reason, the astronaut is lit
46:32while he is in the shade.
46:34The ground of the Moon reflects the light of the Sun.
46:41But what about the absence of craters?
46:45A crater can only form
46:47if there is a depression under the landing module.
46:50However, the Moon does not have the same structure.
46:52It has a relatively solid ground,
46:54without which astronauts could not walk.
46:56And above, there is a layer of dust
46:58about 2 cm thick.
47:00When the Moon is lit,
47:02the gases only sweep this dust.
47:04That's why we don't see any craters.
47:07And why does the flag float in the wind?
47:12One of the astronauts takes the flag,
47:14plants it in the ground to immobilize it,
47:16and shakes it.
47:19That's why we really see it moving.
47:22We thought the flag was floating in the wind,
47:24when it was just a man who had shaken it.
47:28It looked like it was fluttering.
47:32Marian Fussell does not doubt
47:34that the Americans walked on the Moon.
47:36What worries him, however,
47:38is that the rumors of a scam persist,
47:41despite all the counterarguments.
47:47For many, the expedition to the Moon
47:49is still inconceivable.
47:51Like many other things.
47:55As long as there are humans,
47:57there will always be conspiracy theories.
47:59Because these speculations
48:01are based less on knowledge
48:03than on beliefs.
48:05They cannot be refuted by evidence or arguments.
48:07Those who want to believe in a conspiracy
48:09do not allow themselves to be discouraged
48:11or convinced otherwise.
48:13In other words, conspiracy theories
48:15are extremely effective
48:17and resist very well to accusations or clarifications.
48:20This is undoubtedly their greatest strength.
48:22We cannot stop them.
48:26The most fanciful theses
48:28find a favorable echo at a time
48:30when people lack landmarks.
48:32Some see the instruments of occult power
48:35operating behind their high walls,
48:37in the shadow of their gaze.
48:39Church, government, secret society.
48:48No conspiracy theory is too aberrant
48:50to not spread around the world.
48:52On the contrary,
48:54the more aberrant it is,
48:56the more we believe in it.
49:22See you next time.