Debunked: Lack of fingernail bruise injury proves Apollo 17 fake

FlightMuj

Active Member
A youtuber named LunaCognita posted a video about 6 years ago, here it is:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR3KeHq_tJI


In it he claims one thing and here are the transcripts I found that matches what he says regarding the astronauts hands : https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.eva1post.html. At 124:16:24 he says: "Ohh! You don't have a tub of hot water I can soak my hands in, do you?"
Schmitt later recalls: Schmitt - "I had been aware from the experience of previous crews that you could get rough or damaged finger tips and that your fingernails could lift right off the quick as a result of constantly reaching in the suit and getting a little bit of grabbing from the rubber bladder. Knowing that, I wore some nylon liners and also kept my fingernails clipped down as far as possible to delay the process. But, ultimately, all my nails were lifted off the quick and I can remember seeing blood under Gene's fingernails. There was nothing much else you could do about it; it was just a continuous, traumatic soreness which faded into the background."]
There are many others that show the extent of damage, but the pictures he claims do not show like this one: AP17-72-HC-907 Apollo.png

I will post after a few hours some more pictures and transcripts regarding this so we can sort this one out. The thing is also that the amount of time spent in the orbit after the EVA was about 4 days or so and also Eugene Cernan states using lotion to cure it, but I have yet to find that one. Still given the time it would have somewhat healed.
One is this: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/ap17-S72-56081.jpg
ap17-S72-56081.jpg
where you do see the damage to fingernails, and the conspirator also realizes this but says that the damage is not there in most of the images.
I will comeback again and post some new findings.

[Mick edit]
Ticonderoga photo source:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/ap17-72-HC-907.jpg
ap17-72-HC-907.jpg
20171023-103317-ck3hf.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The claim that is made in the video that the 35mm images were taken prior to the mission and were staged is patently nonsense. There are many 35mm images showing scenes that could only have been taken in cislunar space or in lunar orbit, such as those showing the lunar far side, zodiacal light sequences featuring Jupiter, and time and date specific images of Earth, The fact that the two astronauts concerned were filmed on the lunar surface, where more time and date specific images of Earth were broadcast on live TV, also counts towards the claim being bogus.

As for the images, I guess when luna cognita gets a injury he instantly gets a 3 day old bruise. He also seems to be pinning an entire argument on the word "some", looking very carefully at photos he thinks proves his point, and skipping very quickly over those that don't.
 
In most of the pictures of Eugene Cernan the damage to his fingernails is not seen although his hands look a little abraised. During Trans Earth Orbit there is a picture of Harrison Schmitt which does show the damage to hands as the thumbnail of the Video i.e. the picture of the cake cutting ceremony:Jack.png
Although the hands of Eugene Cernan are not that damaged but the tone of the skin looks different:Eugene.png
I do need some explanation as the damage is not that harsh, or maybe the 3-4 days ride helped it heal, and also they were greeted on a ship or something and they gave them some soothing?
Anyone? @Trailblazer
 
So the main problem with the conspirator is that he says that he believes in the Moon landings and does not doubt it at all (at least that is what he says in the end), but he doubts that the 35 mm images from inside that CSM do not show the extent of the damage as described by the astronauts and so the 35 mm images are not real although in the above examples there is some damage, it is hard to that their nails are damaged at all as they said the opposite:
"Ohh! You don't have a tub of hot water I can soak my hands in, do you?"
[Schmitt - "I had been aware from the experience of previous crews that you could get rough or damaged finger tips and that your fingernails could lift right off the quick as a result of constantly reaching in the suit and getting a little bit of grabbing from the rubber bladder. Knowing that, I wore some nylon liners and also kept my fingernails clipped down as far as possible to delay the process. But, ultimately, all my nails were lifted off the quick and I can remember seeing blood under Gene's fingernails. There was nothing much else you could do about it; it was just a continuous, traumatic soreness which faded into the background."]
Content from External Source
Some of the images claimed are found in Apollo 17 Magazine 163/TT here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/albums/72157658592613769

21038830323_426644a8bf_k.jpg

21472005468_42837238e0_k.jpg

21473008139_e374e8e8e5_k.jpg

21648452932_487f6acd78_o.jpg

21659816675_6a8541001c_o.jpg
 
With the helicopter photo, there's simply not enough pixels to see much of any subungual hematoma. If you reduce the resolution of the cake photo to match this becomes more apparent.
Cake photo:
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/ap17-S72-56081.jpg
Helicopter photo: https://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a17/ap17-72-HC-907.jpg
20171023-111638-vyx7s.jpg The cake photo is also much higher contrast in the hand.
Zooming in on a low resolution photo is best initially done without "enhancement", so you can see what you are actually dealing with, however even here you can see a dark area in the fingernails. The degree to which you can see them in enlarged images depends on what algorithm is used.
20171023-112956-dsv8a.jpg
20171023-113103-i9ufv.jpg
 
I know that the helicopter one is of low resolution but still you can see the nails at the edge of the fingers as if they have come off from their bed, or, atleast have been damaged. but my problem is that, something Luna Cognita also states is that the 35 mm photos during TransEarth Coast do not show any damage to hands; specifically Eugene Cernan hands. Although the first picture in post 4 is from the 35 mm photos from TransEarth Coast.
The real question is, were all the 35 mm photos taken inside the CSM during TransEarth Coast? If so then the conspirator expected more damage. Not just that, they wore the gloves back for their re entry and so the more damaging to their hands could have happened after that and thus the 35 mm photos will simply not have captured the damage.
 
I know that the helicopter one is of low resolution but still you can see the nails at the edge of the fingers as if they have come off from their bed, or, atleast have been damaged. but my problem is that, something Luna Cognita also states is that the 35 mm photos during TransEarth Coast do not show any damage to hands; specifically Eugene Cernan hands. Although the first picture in post 4 is from the 35 mm photos from TransEarth Coast.
The real question is, were all the 35 mm photos taken inside the CSM during TransEarth Coast? If so then the conspirator expected more damage. Not just that, they wore the gloves back for their re entry and so the more damaging to their hands could have happened after that and thus the 35 mm photos will simply not have captured the damage.

What damage? What exactly is missing?

A nail coming off its bed is something that can happen partially, just a painful separation at the edge that's looks no different to a normal nail.
 
I cannot find the book "The Last Man On the Moon" so cannot confirm, maybe you can? Although the video claims this from that autobiography:Eugene.png
Also the Apollo 17 Lunar Surface Journal has this:
[Cernan - "By the time the mission was all over, my hands were nothing but blisters. The skin on my knuckles was gone. Inside the glove, all the knuckle points were constantly scrapping and, although they hurt, I guess I didn't let it bother me when we were on the surface...
Content from External Source
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.eva2post.html

So in the pictures in post #5 I would have expected to see more of it, right?
The real question is still that: were all the 35 mm photos taken inside the CSM during TransEarth Coast? If so then the conspirator expected more damage. Not just that, they wore the gloves back for their re entry and so the more damaging to their hands could have happened after that and thus the 35 mm photos will simply not have captured the damage.[/I]
 
One thing I noticed is that you can see some kind of blemish (chapped lip?) at the right corner of Eugene Cernan's bottom lip in the photos taken during the trans-Earth coast, which is also present on the Ticonderoga shot posted above:

upload_2017-10-24_15-31-23.png


AS17-163-24132:
upload_2017-10-24_15-33-6.png

AS17-163-24150:
upload_2017-10-24_15-34-35.png

and AS17-163-24174:


In the photos taken on the outward journey, the blemish is not there, eg AS17-162-24053:

upload_2017-10-24_15-40-13.png
 
Last edited:
Also the Apollo 17 Lunar Surface Journal has this: [Cernan - "By the time the mission was all over, my hands were nothing but blisters. The skin on my knuckles was gone. Inside the glove, all the knuckle points were constantly scrapping and, although they hurt, I guess I didn't let it bother me when we were on the surface...
Content from external source​
https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/a17.eva2post.html

So in the pictures in post #5 I would have expected to see more of it, right?
The real question is still that: were all the 35 mm photos taken inside the CSM during TransEarth Coast? If so then the conspirator expected more damage. Not just that, they wore the gloves back for their re entry and so the more damaging to their hands could have happened after that and thus the 35 mm photos will simply not have captured the damage.

The problem here is you are comparing a verbal description with a photo. What does "my hands were nothing but blisters. The skin on my knuckles was gone." actually look like? Painfully abraded skin is not the same as gaping bloody holes. There's a huge range of possibilities, so this seems like something of a pointless and impossible comparison.[/I]
 
The problem here is you are comparing a verbal description with a photo. What does "my hands were nothing but blisters. The skin on my knuckles was gone." actually look like? Painfully abraded skin is not the same as gaping bloody holes. There's a huge range of possibilities, so this seems like something of a pointless and impossible comparison
And from the post-landing pictures, it seems that the only crew member with very visible nail damage was Schmitt. Cernan apparently had a small amount of visible damage, but not enough to show up in all the pictures. And as far as I can see, none of the photos taken in the capsule on the return journey (ie magazine 163) show Schmitt's fingernails clearly, so we can't say whether the damage was there or not.

There are a couple of rather underexposed pictures of Schmitt holding a spoon, in which his fingers are visible. AS17-163-24130 seems to show the same blood spotting, especially on the ring finger.

Original:
upload_2017-10-24_16-22-23.png

Enhanced (auto tone, auto contrast, levels)

upload_2017-10-24_16-23-59.png

The next photo, 24131, also seems to show the blood spot on the ring fingernail when enhanced:

upload_2017-10-24_16-26-6.png
 
The problem here is you are comparing a verbal description with a photo. What does "my hands were nothing but blisters. The skin on my knuckles was gone." actually look like? Painfully abraded skin is not the same as gaping bloody holes. There's a huge range of possibilities, so this seems like something of a pointless and impossible comparison.[/I]
Well the description is harsh and the photos of Eugene do not show the subsequent thing in the pictures in post 5. Just saying...
 
@Trailblazer. Also the second picture in post 4 does show damage on Eugene's hands but on the 35 mm footage the damage is not vivid, or you know visually appealing.
 
I am extremely sorry but I cannot see it @deirdre. I mean can you point out, and I really mean it, I am sorry it does not seem to be "wicked raw".
 
I am extremely sorry but I cannot see it @deirdre. I mean can you point out, and I really mean it, I am sorry it does not seem to be "wicked raw".
its mostly on his knuckles. see how his knuckles are red? (you don't have winter where you live, do you? :) )

here's some examples of 'winter skin'.. the redness may not look so bad but it hurts. and you don't want to soak raw hands in hot water! that burns and just dries them out more. If I were him in that photo I would put petroleum jelly on them.

f22a6b7e23f97e0c4c604f52670594f1--nurses-rodan-and-fields.jpg
 
Actually you know what, something was happening to me today. My lower body was all tired today, my smart watch's screen stopped working, I lost 4 marks in Math test merely because of silly mistakes and I was posting here as I could not see the redness in most of the astronauts' photos, and now a few hours earlier my smart watch started working properly, I am not that tired, and before reading your message I could clearly see the astronuats hands swollen with redness and where finger nails are visible, the damage became quite apparent plus the abrasion on the knuckles on Eugene's hands became visible. I am sorry!!! Claim debunked.
 


This is a flash photograph. Flash photos can show details through semi-transparent surfaces that aren't visible under less direct lighting. It's not just the intensity of the light, it's also the directionality. The light originates from the direction of the camera and bounces back to the camera. This overwhelms both specular and diffuse reflections from other light sources, which ordinarily obscure details beneath semi-transparent surfaces.

This kind of harsh flash photography is less common now. You used to commonly see flash photos of celebrities wearing discreetly dark sunglasses, but with completely visible eyes under the dark lenses. Also female celebrities with sheer dresses that were not meant to be see-through, but which became embarrassingly see-through because of the flash. (There was a really good one of Robin Quivers, but it seems to have disappeared from the Internet.)

So, the bruising under the nails is more visible in this flash photo.
 
Last edited:
From "Biomedical results of Apollo"

Apollo 17. The two lunar surface crewmen developed subungual hematomas of both hands because of insufficient arm length of their pressure suits as in Apollo 15. The Commander also had a herpetic lesion on the right side of the upper lip, which was approximately 72 hours old at the time of recovery.
Content from External Source
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19760005580.pdf

The entire premise of this alleged anomaly still seems to rest on "some photos show damage, some don't, therefore there was no damage". I could show you photos of my left big toe and ask you to assess the condition of the nail. In some lighting conditions and poor focus and oblique camera angle it would be difficult for you to tell. In good lighting and sharp focus you'd see that there was no toenail there at all (it was removed many years ago). I'll spare you that horror.
 
The Commander also had a herpetic lesion on the right side of the upper lip

As I pointed out in the photos above (post #10) - I did wonder if it was a cold sore. However the lesion certainly appears to be on the lower lip, rather than the upper one.
 
Indeed - a schoolboy error by that report. It even made the papers, as indicated by this blog post I found (the blog's name is NSFW, so I grabbed the image directly!):



I also found this quote from Schmitt's oral history:

https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/oral_histories/SchmittHH/SchmittHH_3-16-00.htm

The other part of the glove that was a problem is that no matter how closely you cut your fingernails, every time you reach for something or moved in that glove, you would tend to scrape your nail against the bladder of the suit, the rubber bladder. I even wore liners, nylon liners, to reduce that, but still you would do that, and you'd gradually lift the nail off the quick. That is painful to some degree while you're working, but particularly gets painful later after you've gotten out of the suit and you then prepare for the next day.

Interestingly, Cernan has this to say in the technical debrief

https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a17/AS17Tech5.pdf

The fingers and the hands were just sore from continual movement, to the extent that we both had, on both hands, several blood- blister-like formations under the fingernails. We both felt a discomfort after that first EVA. The second EVA, it was less; the third EVA, it was less; and by lift-off my hands were perfect.

In seems to suggest that by the time they were on the way back home the issues were already abating for Cernan at least.
 
That is a great find @One Big Monkey!!! Indeed Cernan says:"...and by lift-off my hands were perfect" and we all know that the 35 mm Nikon pictures were taken AFTER THE LIFT-OFF!
 
Back
Top