NASA's Egyptian God-worship examined

        Richard Hoagland and Mike Bara persist in claiming that a ritual-minded faction of senior NASA managers arranges for key mission events to take place at astrologically favorable times. They do this, according to Hoagland & Bara, to honor the Egyptian Gods Isis, Osiris and Horus. Isis is represented by the star Sirius, Osiris by the three belt stars of Orion (Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka,) and Horus by the star Regulus (also known as Alpha Leonis, being the main star of the constellation Leo.)

        A time is considered favorable if one of these five stars is at certain key elevations as seen from some place relevant to that mission — a launch or landing site, typically. The key elevations are as follows: -33°, -19.5°, 0°, 19.5° and 33°. 19.5 is chosen because it is the latitude at which three vertices of an inscribed tetrahedron appear when the fourth vertex is at one of the poles of a sphere. 33 is chosen because of its Masonic significance, and because the sine of 19.5° is 0.333.

        The combination of astrology and numerology alerts any but the most devoted Hoagland disciple to the fact that we are not here dealing with science — but Hoagland & Bara give the theory the sciency-sounding name The Ritual Alignment Model, and the rules of the game are spelled out simply. Mike Bara wrote on p.14 of "Dark Mission" 2nd edn. "only five stellar objects ... have any significance ...: the three belt stars of Orion, ...Sirius, ... and Regulus. And only five narrow bands of stellar altitude (19.5° above and below the horizon, 33° above and below the horizon, and the horizon itself) have any significance."

        Speaking at the so-called Alien Event in November 2009, Mike Bara said "NASA always seems to want to land or launch when the stars are in favorable positions, at least according to their mythology." [at 04:07]

        Richard Hoagland wrote, in the caption to Fig. 5-10 of "Dark Mission," of "NASA's fanatical, relentless, redundantly symbolic message of resurrection."

        So we have five heavenly bodies and five possible elevations, and a "relentless" drive to make these coincidences happen.

        Hoagland & Bara use the "Redshift" astronomical software to check for coincidences, and back in 1999 they posted a 'Table of Coincidence' to Hoagland's web site, listing some 35 candidate events over the 53 year history of NASA that they consider validate their theory. I took a look at the list up through the end of the Apollo program, and here's my analysis:


1 >> Moon at -33°at launch of Ranger 7, as seen from Cape Canaveral, 7/28/1964. DISQUALIFIED. Moon not one of the five specified stars.
2 >> Alnitak at +19.5° at launch of Ranger 7, as seen from Ranger 7's eventual impact site on the Moon. DISQUALIFIED. Since the exact impact site was not known to anyone at the time of launch, this could not have been contrived.

That's all for the Ranger program. They claim nothing for Rangers 1,2,3,4,5,6,8 or 9.

3 >> Moon at +33°at landing on Moon of Surveyor 3, as seen from JPL. DISQUALIFIED. Moon not one of the five specified stars.

That's all for the Surveyor program. They claim nothing for Surveyors 1,2,4,5,6 or 7.

4 >> Sirius at 51° at launch of Mercury-Redstone 3, 5/5/61, as seen from the future landing site of Apollo 14 on the Moon. DISQUALIFIED. 51° not one of the specified elevations.
5 >> Comet Encke at +33°at launch of Mercury-Atlas 6, 2/20/62, as seen from Cape Canaveral. DISQUALIFIED. Encke not one of the five specified stars.

They claim nothing for the other 5 Mercury flights, or for any of the 12 Gemini flights. So far we have ZERO hits.

6 >> Mintaka at 0° at Apollo 8 LOI, 12/24/68, as seen from the future landing site of Apollo 11. DISQUALIFIED. Since the exact coordinates of the Apollo 11 landing were not known to anyone at that time, this could not have been contrived.
7 >> Sirius at 19.5° 33 minutes after the Apollo 11 landing, as seen from the landing site. THIS WAS LATER AMENDED by Mike Bara to the following (see "Dark Mission" pp.11-14, 2nd edn): Regulus at -19.5° later, at MET 105:25:38, after Aldrin made a short speech asking everyone to pause a moment and "give thanks in his or her own way." DISQUALIFIED. Mission managers were not aware of Aldrin's plans, therefore they could not have contrived this. Although it's conceivable that Aldrin himself is "in on" the ritual, since Regulus was 19° 30' below the horizon, it's quite hard to imagine how he would have seen it in order to measure its elevation.
8 >> Alnilam at +19.5°at landing of Apollo 12, 11/19/69, as seen from the landing site itself. ALLOWED.
9 >> Pegasus at some unspecified elevation at what should have been the Apollo 13 landing site. DISQUALIFIED. Pegasus not one of the five specified stars.
10 >> Sirius at +33.3°at launch of Apollo 15, 7/26/71, as seen from Cape Canaveral. ALLOWED.
11 >> Sirius at -33°at landing of Apollo 16, 4/20/72, as seen from the landing site itself. ALLOWED.
12 >> Mintaka at +19.5° at landing of Apollo 16, 4/20/72, as seen from Houston. ALLOWED
13 >> Betelgeuse at some unspecified elevation at ascent of Apollo 17, as seen from the Apollo 12 landing site. DISQUALIFIED. Betelgeuse not one of the five specified stars.

        So only four of Hoagland & Bara's claimed "hits" conform to THEIR OWN RULES for determining which events are part of what they call their "model."

        I will now attempt to estimate — conservatively — how many possible opportunities NASA's Moon programs generated for Hoagland & Bara to examine with their software.

RANGER
There were 9 launches and 5 lunar impact events. The program was managed by JPL, thus the point of view for star elevations could have been either Cape Canaveral or JPL. 28 OPPORTUNITIES.

SURVEYOR
There were 7 launches and 7 lunar landing events. 35 OPPORTUNITIES, allowing an additional point of view for landing events.

LUNAR ORBITER
5 launches. All eventually impacted the Moon but, being conservative, I assume those are not candidate ritual events. 10 OPPORTUNITIES.

MERCURY
Managed from Houston. 7 launches for 14 OPPORTUNITIES

GEMINI
10 manned launches, 4 EVAs, 7 rendezvous. Point of view could have been the Cape or Houston. 42 OPPORTUNITIES

APOLLO
11 manned launches, 6 lunar landings, 6 lunar takeoffs, 9 Lunar Orbit Insertions, 9 Trans Earth Insertions. 94 OPPORTUNITIES, allowing for an additional point of view for lunar landings and takeoffs.

NOTE: Considering that Hoagland & Bara actually allow themselves to identify cross-mission events as significant (ascent of Apollo 17 as seen from Apollo 12 landing site, e.g.) the number of opportunities in the Apollo program is actually many hundreds. However, being conservative, I'll stick with 94.

SUMMARY
        A conservative estimate of the number of opportunities for ritual star alignments in these six programs is 223. Four actual alignments are identified — a 1.8% success rate.

        Hoagland & Bara's theory must therefore be judged bankrupt. A total failure. Richard Hoagland & Mike Bara are liars.