I came across Schizotypal Personality Disorder when I was studying for a counselling diploma some years ago. It was not a condition that was within the remit of your common or garden counselling therapist, being something that probably required a referral to a more highly qualified practitioner.

I had to dust off one of my journals the other day because I kept encountering individuals on websites who seemed to exhibit some of the characteristics of a STPD profile. These symptoms include strange beliefs or magical thinking, abnormal perceptual experiences, strange thinking and behaviour, paranoia, to name but a few. I am talking specifically here about folks who think that the Moon Landings were a hoax - that they were actually filmed events created in a studio on Earth.

In considering how anyone could possibly ignore the overwhelming evidence for the legitimacy of the Apollo project, I had to take into account that some of these people are just trolls. But there were too many of them, some armed with the most preposterous hypothesis's, to suggest that trolling was the sole cause.

NASA and many other qualified people have taken great pains to answer the often ludicrous and childish questions that have emerged, principally about photos taken on the Moon. All exhibit a painfully low level of science education and perhaps even less common sense. For example, the oft asked question, "Why are there no stars in the photos from the Moon?" is one that your average Year 7 student could answer. One wonders how wilfully stupid anyone could be, unless they have a mental disorder. Cue STPD.

I don't wish to be mean, but these people are stomping on the dreams and memories of many others who derived great joy and inspiration from the Apollo project, a project which set out to put a man on the Moon, and achieved that goal in 1969. You can quibble over whether that goal justified the great cost, that's fine. But to deny it ever happened is the worst kind of self-deception. It's also just plain nasty.

Real man, real moon.