Man on the Moon

At the time of this writing only 12 men have set foot on the moon, and Neil Armstrong, of the U.S. Apollo 11 space mission, is the man first recorded to have done so.  Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin explored the Moon's surface for 2.5 hours. Man's ascent into the heavens and his first steps on lunar soil was broadcast to all the watching and hopeful televisions of the world on July 20, 1969.

For his work in space, Neil Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  It signifies  his astronomical accomplishments and his contributions to the United States’ space program. But despite this recognition and despite the historical record etched in history books, despite the testimony of Armstrong's fellow Americans who worked on the space program, despite the fact that millions of people watched this incredible feat of human technology via television cameras and screens, some people still claim the US journey to the moon was a great hoax. They even  believe the moon expedition never really happened at all.

On February 15th, 2001, Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Another nationally televised program reaching millions of households, this one propositioned the idea that 1969 technology was not advanced enough to actually make such a thing as a lunar landing, possible.  Producers behind this program asserted that America, anxious to send a person to the moon and beat the Soviets in the race for space, merely acted out the Apollo landings in some secret movie studio, and this for the purpose of impressing the Soviets and the world. As evidence, the program sights (as proof it never happened,) the absence of star-fields in the sky behind the spacecraft; the waving of a flag in an atmosphere where there is no wind; the curious deficiency of a blast crater beneath the lunar lander where it had just fired rockets and the danger there would have been of traveling through the killer electrons of the Van Allen radiation belt.

( Some believe that the Astronauts would have been killed if they would have passed through this field of radiation.) 

Over-all, they believe that the moon buggy rides, the experiment of dropping a feather and a hammer, the collection of moon rocks, the flag ceremony, the momentous “first step into space” and even Al Shephard's golf shot was faked.  The premise is that this was all done for tricking the minds of the soviets because they, (who ever THEY is,) believed that reaching the moon first was a sure way to prevent the enemy from dominating the world.   Of the millions of viewers, some have latched on to this idea of believing the lunar landing was ahoax, but if the landing of man on the moon was faked, even those who believe it was would have to admit it was indeed a very elaborate one. 


Bart Sibrel, producer of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon (1969); Bill Kaysing, author of We Never Went To The Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle (1976) ; Mary Benette and David Percy, co-authors of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers (2001) ; and Ralph Rene, author of NASA Mooned America (1994) have all made it their business to announce to the world that trips to the moon were nothing more than a hoax.  It’s an alluring accusation.There is a lot of money to be made if you can tickle people's ears.  Not only that, if you believe that USA sent the first man to the moon... you obviously have a lot of faith in your US government, because after all, you didn't REALLY see it.  You only saw transmitted photos of something they want you to believe really happened.  But, did it? 

And, how can you ever really know without evidence?

In Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?,  film footage of the moon landing is reviewed with commentary about what is wrong with “that” picture, and several people candidly give their seemingly honest opinion that the United States never “really” went to the moon, leving one to really wonder if maybe they are all right.  It quite hard NOT to wonder if the accusations they are making in this film are true. It leads one to ask if it is possible that it all never really happened, except in a remote, obscure and secretly hidden away television studio.  You might believe it to be true if uou believe all the evidence they show you.

One problem with this “evidence” that  it never happened, (true or false,) is that it is presented as "evidence" before an audience where no one under the current age of 40 can personally remember what took place 40 years ago at the time in history. This little casting of a "shadow of doubt,"is creating a landslide of people who believe the allegation that the moon landing that we all believed to have seen with our own eyes, never REALLY happened. Not only that, but those who actually worked on the space program, those who walked on the moon itself, have now become geriatric or perhaps even slipped the surly bonds of earth themselves in a more permanent way.  The legacy of the space program has been left to a skeptical and suspicious world.

Defenders of the moon landing, using the same film footage,  most frequently note the untrained observations of the scrutinizers.  They have explanations for what is cast as "evidence" and give explanations, point by point, suggesting that those who say we never went there really just want to make a case against the United States or sell a book rather than know the truth- that we were there.

This is the way propaganda works in the media saturated world of this millennium. It seems that anyone with a tongue to wag in front of a camera, anyone willing to lash computer keyboard strokes  across the continents, can have a voice if they want to.  Their images and words, true or false, are broadcasted for all eyes to see and hears to hear.  Like beauty in the eye of the beholder, a person sees, or hears, exactly what they want to. Seeing... is believing, but some never stop to even think that the eye and senses can be fooled.


Fact or fiction is not always so distinct and distinguishable, especially as we live in a digital day.  Not only is our media mixed with both real and imaginary images, but people simply love controversy, and like having opinions.  We laud people selling books that say what we want to hear, and are quick to forget that cameras, though what they say is word a thousand words, are not always candid.


People who were involved in the space projects from where their paycheck came consider the books and films crying “hoax” to be “nonsense.” They watched the historical event in their living rooms on the TV,.  They saw it launch in person, they felt the ground shake when it roared into the sky.  They worked on the mission, or stood behind the cameras, they acted as the media, and having lived it, breathed it, seen it for themselves, they simply believe it is impossible for man’s trip to the moon to be a hoax, and some wonder how it is that someone, anyone, could so earnestly assert that all the astronauts, employees of NASA, members of the civil government, the entire Department of Defense, the Russian space program leaders, large portions of the British government, amateur and professional astronomers, journalists, news reporters, broadcasters, investigators, radio engineers, and all the television viewers in that day, could possibly be so deviant so as to foll the rest of us, or so stupid to have been fooled by just a few.

In another related documentary film titled, Did We Go? (2000) Aron Ranen asked astronaut “Buzz” Aldrin, on camera, “Where were you, July 20th 1969?” Aldrin’s response was, “On the surface of the moon.” The interviewer then asked Aldrin, “What kind of proof can you offer us that you were there.” Alrdin replied, “I am an a honest person, and I tell you I was on the moon, if you choose not to believe me, forget it.”

The man who closed the capsule hatch on the astronauts before they departed from planet earth and headed for their moonwalk, Gunter Wednt, is old now. With is his deep German accent, he gave an opinion to the camera on this film. He said, “Of all the people I had been in contact with, may they be reporters, regular people, college eh… students, high school students, there was never a question raised as this was a fake or not.  What kind of proof do you require? I mean, can you prove there was a World War II?”

Another man, Bob Tooley, who worked at NASA for thirty years, was interviewed in Rainens film.   Tooley, after talking to the interviewer about racial problems he faced while working at NASA, told the camera, “…if there was any kind of problem, if there was any kind of fake thing going on, I would be the first one to expose them people; but hey, it’s true. It’s true; we did it!”

And in another video titled, Did We Really Land Men on the Moon, former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, from Apollo 14 declared to the interviewer, “We did exactly what we said we did.” He later added, “All this attempt to say the Apollo programs were fake is just shear nonsense.” As he was answering the interviewer, it became apparent that the person who asked for the interview asked under false pretenses. The footage also showed the former astronaut’s outrage and insult when he realized he was being interrogated because the interviewer believed it was a hoax! (Apparently Mitchell thought it was just a regular interview.) The camera man and interviewer could then be seen being escorted out of Mitchell’s living room, by Mitchell, as he repeatedly insisted the intruders leave his home. Now the viewer is left wondering, "What exactly did his reaction mean?"

Was Mitchell genuinely mad that he had been mislead and invited unwanted guests into his home, or was he lying to the camera once more and embarrassed when confronted with the truth?

To muddle up the already convoluted tale, (if you are able to follow along thus far) major news sources, including ABC and CNN on August 15, 2006, ran stories reporting that NASA's Goddard Space Center in Maryland had lost the original film footage of the first moon landing!  It seems that seven hundred boxes of original transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing and no one knows where the tapes have gone. The article said NASA has been searching for a year, but still can’t find them.

It was Australian news sources, not USA, which first reported that the films were “missing.” Their story said that NASA engineers hope that when the tapes are found they can be transferred to digital technology so that we can have a better quality version of the moonwalk than what we have today; after all, all we have today in circulation is copies of TV broadcasts. Why the films are missing, is a mystery, as is what the original films will reveal if they are ever found. 

In the course of human history, as people of the past die off , as films are lost, stolen or destroyed, as pages of our history books turn to threads and shreds,  he proof of whether or not man ever went to the moon, or not,  may end up not being only a matter of opinion and belief.  You might even say that  one way or another,  depending on who you trust to tell the truth, what you believe ultimately about the matter will take a giant step of faith.