Was The Moon Landing Fake? Why Some People Think So

Theorists who believe the Moon landing was staged point to uneven shadows, the lack of stars in photos, and the famous picture of a waving flag as proof.

NASAAstronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first people to set foot on the moon — or was it just a sound stage?

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” astronaut Neil Armstrong said on July 20, 1969 — the day humanity first landed on the moon. Or, did we? Was that just what They wanted us to think? It was the middle of the Cold War, and the Russians had already sent Sputnik into orbit. America needed a win, and landing on the moon was the perfect way to one-up the communists. Too perfect, some might say. Which raises the question, was the moon landing fake?

As ridiculous as it might sound to those who are scientifically inclined, the idea that NASA faked the moon landing — possibly with the help of famous director Stanley Kubrick — is one of the most popular conspiracy theories of all time, although it has fallen out of favor in more recent years as other theories have taken center stage. Still, for a time, the idea of a fake moon landing was widely proliferated, and unlike many of today’s more outlandish theories, there was at least some reason to believe this may have been the case.

Unlike, for example, the Flat Earth conspiracy theory, NASA very well could have had a reason to lie about landing on the moon. The U.S. and the USSR were at the height of the so-called “Space Race,” each competing to be the first country to put mankind on the moon. Sputnik sent American engineers into a panic spiral; the Russians were closing in on their goal.

NASA was determined to beat Russia to the moon, no matter the cost. But what if they simply couldn’t? If only there were some way to make it look like NASA astronauts had landed on the moon. It would take a highly skilled auteur to do it, but it could be done.

Of course, most people agree that NASA really did put three astronauts on the moon in the summer of 1969. For every piece of “evidence” that the moon landing was faked, there are hundreds of pieces of evidence that prove the opposite. Yet, the idea lingers on more than 50 years later — and it’s easy to see why.

Former U.S. Navy Officer Bill Kaysing Kicks Off The Fake Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory

It all started in the mid-1970s, once the initial excitement about America’s moon landing had begun to die down somewhat. There had been rumors, hushed whispers heard from a few cubicles over perhaps, that maybe America hadn’t actually gone to the moon at all. NASA, some people said, were lying to everyone, just to get a leg up on the Russians.

NASABuzz Aldrin standing next to the American flag on the moon. Conspiracists say wind must be blowing the flag — but there are other reasons it looks like it’s flowing.

But the theory really started to take off in 1976, when a former U.S. Navy officer by the name of Bill Kaysing published a book entitled We Never Went to the Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. Kaysing, who had earned his Bachelor’s in English and had no knowledge of rocket science, served as a technical writer for Rocketdyne from 1965 to 1963 — Rocketdyne being the company that built the Saturn V rocket’s F-1 engines.

Bill Kaysing/billkaysing.comBill Kaysing, the former Navy officer known for spreading conspiracies about the moon landing.

Kaysing effectively argued that the odds of successfully landing on the moon were so low, it would have been easier to fake the moon landing on a sound stage, even if Russian spies were about. Whether Kaysing’s evidence was credible didn’t really matter — the book propelled him to national fame, and he made countless appearances on radio and television to discuss his claims. He was dubbed “The Father of the Moon Hoax Theory,” and would later claim that he used the theory to courage people to question authority.

Kaysing likely didn’t realize just how influential his claims would be. But four years after he published his theory, another group of conspiracy theorists would take the concept and run with it: the Flat Earth Society.

How The Flat Earth Society Helped Spread Conspiracy Theories About The Moon Landing

“The facts are simple. The Earth is flat,” said Charles K. Johnson, president of the International Flat Earth Research Society, in a 1980 interview with Science Digest.

The Flat Earth News, September 1979Charles K. Johnson and his wife Marjory, both Flat-Earthers who ran the society from their home in California.

Johnson, who ran the Flat Earth Society from his California home, was devoutly religious. He believed that science — and in particular, space exploration — was an attempt to remove Jesus from the world and hide the world from the biblical truth that the world was, in fact, flat. A major portion of Johnson’s beliefs derived from the fact that, in the Bible, Jesus ascended up into heaven.

“The whole point of the Copernican theory is to get rid of Jesus by saying there is no up and no down,” Johnson claimed. “The spinning ball thing just makes the whole Bible a big joke… Reasonable, intelligent people have always recognized that the Earth is flat.”

NASAA clearly round Earth as seen from the moon in July 1969.

Johnson made several other sensational claims, such as “Moses was a Flat-Earther,” and “Columbus was a Flat-Earther,” and that the Church of England taught us “the world is a ball.”

“George Washington, on the other hand,” he said, “was a Flat-Earther.” Additionally, Johnson suggested that the real reason Washington wanted to split America away from England, therefore starting the American Revolution, was to “get away from those superstitions.”

As conspiracy theorists often do, Johnson incorporated a number of other theories relating largely to New Age beliefs and the United Nations. As is often the case, everything is connected, all part of a much larger conspiracy. Today, the same sentiment is echoed by figures like Alex Jones, Joe Rogan, and YouTuber Shane Dawson — to sometimes dangerous results.

NASAAstronaut Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission.

The Flat Earth conspiracy theory is still alive and well today, with believers all across the globe. Along with it, the idea that NASA faked the moon landing has continued to proliferate; they are, at this point, inseparable. Believers in the theory claim to have evidence, though, so it would only be fair to examine it.

Debunking “Evidence” That The Moon Landing Was Faked

As Kaysing made a point of highlighting, going to the moon was no easy task. President John F. Kennedy said it himself in a 1962 speech: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

NASAThe launch of the Saturn V rocket, July 16, 1969.

Landing on the moon was a challenging endeavor, but not so difficult that NASA would forego the project altogether — and certainly not so challenging that they would enlist Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, who had worked together previously on 2001: A Spacey Odyssey, to fabricate it. The Russians would surely have been able to suss out that the footage was faked, and that’s not to mention the heaps of other evidence, from returned moon rocks, laser imaging, and actual photographs showing that the moon landing really happened.

Still, even today, around five percent of Americans believe the moon landing was fake. That may sound like a small number, but that would still be more than 16 million people. And, like with any die-hard conspiracist, it’s nearly impossible to convince them otherwise. That hasn’t stopped scientists from trying, however.

Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at a testing facility practicing their moon walks, pre-launch.

In 2019, the former chief historian for NASA, Roger Launius, spoke at length with the Associated Press to try and debunk some claims made by conspiracists.

For example, conspiracists have claimed that the American flag in photos from the moon landing seems to be blowing in the wind. In actuality, Armstrong and Aldrin accidentally bent the rod a bit, making it seem as if the flag was in motion, and images were captured quickly after it was set, so the flag had not yet settled.

Stars did not show up in the photos because of the camera’s shutter speeds, which were too fast to capture the stars’ faint light — not because they were on a sound stage (where they could have added stars in post-production, mind you). Another main point of contention for conspiracists is how, exactly, the photos were taken, as neither Armstrong nor Aldrin ever appears to be holding a camera. The answer? The cameras were mounted on their chests.

After all, it would have been difficult to hold a camera up to their eyes in their suits.

NASABuzz Aldrin on the moon.

It’s easy to look back at the moon landing, say that such a seemingly impossible task couldn’t have been done, and cast enough doubt to convince the easily swayed, distrustful, and paranoid that “the man” has been lying to them. What conspiracists always fail to recognize, though, is that the people pushing these theories — the Shane Dawsons, Alex Joneses, and Joe Rogans of the world — have an agenda of their own, too.

For Charles Johnson, his agenda was to convince people to abide by what he believed the Bible preached. For Jones, it’s to sell his supplements. Rogan wants people to listen to his podcast. Dawson wants people to watch his YouTube videos.

It can be good to question authority, to demand proof for claims that might seem outrageous, to not take everything at face value — but that skepticism shouldn’t be unbending. It’s okay to change your mind when someone presents you evidence pointing to the contrary. That isn’t weakness; it’s learning.

Was the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Faked? There’s also a theory that the Apollo 17 moon landing was fake. Still, the faked moon landing theory didn’t diminish the value of the moon dust from Apollo 11.

ncG1vNJzZmiZnKHBqa3TrKCnrJWnsrTAyKeeZ5ufonyuu86nZKWZnpm2r7OMn5iknZQ%3D