http://mentalfloss.com/article/53107/why-do-people-say-moon-made-cheese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO-psvePoI8
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/47296397/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/biggest-myths-about-moon-dispelled/#.U9mx6VZKYpF
http://earthsky.org/space/five-myths-about-the-moon
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-unusual-myths-and-theories-about-the-moon
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lunacy-and-the-full-moon/
http://listverse.com/2012/12/28/10-reasons-the-moon-landings-could-be-a-hoax/
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21582241-people-do-not-sleep-easy-nights-when-there-full-moon-lunacy
http://moonconspiracy.wordpress.com/the-nazis-had-a-base-on-the-moon/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/it-must-be-the-moon-tired/
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131029-does-a-full-moon-make-people-mad
1. The moon makes us crazy
The word lunacy traces its roots to the word "lunar," and plenty of people, from nurses to police officers, will tell you that things get wild around the full moon.But this non-supernatural equivalent of the werewolf myth doesn't hold water. A 1985 review of the literature on the timing of mental illness and the moon found that the folklore that links the full moon with mental breakdowns, criminal behavior and other disturbances has no basis in scientific data. Nor has research turned up a link between the moon's phase and surgery outcomes — though pets are more likely to need a trip to theemergency room during a full moon, likely because owners keep them out and about later on nights when the moon brightens up the sky.
The word lunacy traces its roots to the word "lunar," and plenty of people, from nurses to police officers, will tell you that things get wild around the full moon.But this non-supernatural equivalent of the werewolf myth doesn't hold water. A 1985 review of the literature on the timing of mental illness and the moon found that the folklore that links the full moon with mental breakdowns, criminal behavior and other disturbances has no basis in scientific data. Nor has research turned up a link between the moon's phase and surgery outcomes — though pets are more likely to need a trip to theemergency room during a full moon, likely because owners keep them out and about later on nights when the moon brightens up the sky.
2. The supermoon can cause disasters
The reason we have supermoons is because the moon's orbit is not perfectly circular. When it swings closer to Earth on its elliptical path, the moon does exert a bit more of a gravitational pull on our planet. But it's nothing Earth can't handle.
Tidal forces around the world will be particularly high and low, with the moon exerting 42 percent more force at its closest point to Earth than it does at its farthest, according to Joe Rao, Space.com's skywatching columnist. This extra force doesn't have an appreciable effect on disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, however.
"A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others," John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey told LiveScience's sister site Life's Little Mysteries. "They haven't found anything significant at all."
The reason we have supermoons is because the moon's orbit is not perfectly circular. When it swings closer to Earth on its elliptical path, the moon does exert a bit more of a gravitational pull on our planet. But it's nothing Earth can't handle.
Tidal forces around the world will be particularly high and low, with the moon exerting 42 percent more force at its closest point to Earth than it does at its farthest, according to Joe Rao, Space.com's skywatching columnist. This extra force doesn't have an appreciable effect on disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, however.
"A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others," John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey told LiveScience's sister site Life's Little Mysteries. "They haven't found anything significant at all."
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some people believe that the Apollo moon landings were faked by NASA, which used doctored photos, staged videos and other ploys to dupe the public. Proponents of these hoax claims argue that technology was not advanced enough for astronauts to reach the moon and return home safely; they also point to ostensible signs of studio trickery, including the fact that the American flag planted by the Apollo 11 crew in the lunar surface appeared to flutter in the vacuum of space. In 2002, retired astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who became the second person to walk on the moon in 1969, grew so exasperated with one conspiracy theorist’s accusations that he punched him in the face. The septuagenarian space pioneer was not prosecuted.
Perhaps because the menstrual and lunar cycles are similar in length, many early civilizations believed that the moon determined when women could become pregnant. This could explain why female moon deities—from the Chinese goddess Chang’e to Mama Quilla of the Incas—figure so prominently in mythologies from around the world. In the 1950s, the Czech doctor Eugene Jonas stumbled across an ancient Assyrian astrological text stating that women are fertile during certain phases of the moon. He based an entire family planning method on this hypothesis, telling his patients they ovulated when the moon was in the same position as when they were born. According to another theory that persists to this day, full moons cause an uptick in births, flooding maternity wards with mothers-to-be in labor. Recent studies have turned up little statistical evidence for moon-induced baby booms, however, and most experts think any lunar effect on procreation is imagined.
In the 1820s, the Bavarian astronomer Franz von Paula Gruithuisen claimed to have glimpsed entire cities on the moon with his telescope. He wrote that the “lunarians” who lived there had built sophisticated buildings, roads and forts. Most of his colleagues scoffed at his assertion, but he eventually got a small lunar crater named after him. Sir William Herschel, a prominent British astronomer and composer, also thought aliens lived on the moon and made regular observations about the progress of their construction projects. In 1835, when the New York Sun published a series of fraudulent articles about the supposed existence of life on the moon (pulling off the so-called “Great Moon Hoax”), it falsely credited Herschel’s son John, a famous astronomer in his own right, with the shocking discovery.
After World War II, rumors circulated that German astronauts had traveled to the moon and established a top-secret facility there. Some even speculated that Adolf Hitler faked his own death, fled the planet and lived out the rest of his days in an underground lunar hideout. Connections were also drawn between flying saucer sightings—including the famous incident near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947—with the Nazis’ alleged UFO development program. These theories form the basis of the science fiction novel “Rocket Ship Galileo,” published by Robert A. Heinlein in 1947.
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