Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this is another classic episode from
Speaker 1: our archives. We've all seen lately how fringe theories can
Speaker 1: spread and get out of hand. One pervasive anti science
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory is that the moon landing was faked. Here's
Speaker 1: how it got started. At what the astronauts who were
Speaker 1: there think about it? Hi, brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here
Speaker 1: about the lunar landing. Astronaut Neil Armstrong once said, it
Speaker 1: would have been harder to fake it than to do it.
Speaker 1: On July nineteen sixty nine, Armstrong and Edwin buzz Aldrin Jr.
Speaker 1: Became the first human beings to ever walk on the
Speaker 1: Moon during NASA's Apollo eleven mission. Orbiting above them at
Speaker 1: the time was the third member of their crew, aviator
Speaker 1: Michael Collins, who was piloting their command module. Together, these
Speaker 1: three entered the history books. The lunar landing was a
Speaker 1: defining moment, a technical che evement made possible by centuries
Speaker 1: of scientific progress and the hard work of more than
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand people. But according to a thirteen pole,
Speaker 1: seven million Americans think that the entire thing never happened.
Speaker 1: In a sixteen British poll found that more than half
Speaker 1: fifty two percent of Brits think that the Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: moon landing was faked, including an astonishing seventy percent of
Speaker 1: Brits aged twenty five to thirty four. On December eighteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, four months and twenty five days after Armstrong, Aldrin,
Speaker 1: and Collins returned to Earth, John Noble Wilford of The
Speaker 1: New York Times ran a story about a few stool
Speaker 1: warmers in Chicago bars who had gone on record to
Speaker 1: claim that all the Apollo eleven moonwalk footage was fake
Speaker 1: and must have been secretly filmed somewhere out in the
Speaker 1: Nevada desert. The popularity of this misguided belief mushroomed during
Speaker 1: the Watergate scandal, an actual government conspiracy that seems to
Speaker 1: have left people more susceptible to believing other big government
Speaker 1: cover ups were plausible. In nineteen seventy four, writer Bill
Speaker 1: Casing self published a hamphlet called We Never Went to
Speaker 1: the Moon. Casing's writings alleged that any sort of lunar
Speaker 1: landing would have been impossible to carry out. In nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine. NASA, he concluded, staged the moonwalk in a
Speaker 1: makeshift studio and then swore the astronauts secrecy. Later, he
Speaker 1: added that the Challenger explosion wasn't an accident either. Casing
Speaker 1: accused NASA of sabotaging the spacecraft before the crew of
Speaker 1: seven got the chance to expose the Apollo eleven cover up.
Speaker 1: His pamphlet gave the so called lunar truther Or movement
Speaker 1: its first manifesto. Deniers like Casing saw their cause enjoy
Speaker 1: a modern renaissance in two thousand one, when the Fox
Speaker 1: Network aired a documentary called Conspiracy Theory Did We Land
Speaker 1: on the Moon? A forty seven minutes special. The program
Speaker 1: featured interviews with Casing and other Apollo eleven skeptics. One
Speaker 1: of them was Bart Sabrell, a filmmaker who has released
Speaker 1: two documentaries of his own on the subject. The Fox
Speaker 1: program enjoyed great ratings, as did a rebroadcast of the
Speaker 1: show that aired a month later. However, scientists overwhelmingly denounced
Speaker 1: the one sided special. The turn of the millennium also
Speaker 1: saw an explosion of Internet conspiracy sites, which further the
Speaker 1: spread of lunar trutherism. All that negative attention was bound
Speaker 1: to generate some uncomfortable moments for the Apollo eleven crew.
Speaker 1: In the year two thousand, Neil Armstrong was celebrating his
Speaker 1: seventieth birthday. One of the cards he received came from
Speaker 1: a school teacher who wrote, dear Mr Armstrong, I would
Speaker 1: like to point out that you and the other astronauts
Speaker 1: are making yourselves a worldwide laughing stock thanks to the Internet.
Speaker 1: From there, the author encouraged Armstrong to visit a favorite
Speaker 1: conspiracy website. Armstrong forwarded the card to NASA, asking if
Speaker 1: the agency had ever publicly refuted these allegations. He said,
Speaker 1: I occasionally am asked questions in public forums and feel
Speaker 1: I don't do as good a job as I might
Speaker 1: with more complete information. NASA had, in fact rebuffed the
Speaker 1: claims way back in nine seven. That June, a press
Speaker 1: release from the organization dismantled casing's major arguments. After the
Speaker 1: two thousand one Fox Special, the Space Agency reissued the document, Still,
Speaker 1: the daters were not satisfied. While making one of his documentaries,
Speaker 1: Bart Sabrell and a cameraman ambushed Armstrong at a two
Speaker 1: thousand one aerospace event in New York City. James Smith,
Speaker 1: then the president of the event's sponsoring corporation, recalls a
Speaker 1: Sabrell held up a Bible and demanded that Armstrong place
Speaker 1: a hand on it and swear that he had really
Speaker 1: gone to the Moon. The conspiracy theorist was swiftly ejected.
Speaker 1: This wasn't the only time Sabrell filmed himself accosting an
Speaker 1: Apollo veteran. He issued the same spontaneous bible challenge too
Speaker 1: many other space travelers, including Apollo fourteen's Edgar Mitchell, and,
Speaker 1: as Michael Collins told Airran Space Magazine in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: the fringe theorist once tried to corner him in a supermarket.
Speaker 1: For the record, Collins says that he finds lunar hoax
Speaker 1: theories laughable. Buzz Aldrin, on the other hand, sure wasn't
Speaker 1: amused when Sabrill and a cameraman ran up to him
Speaker 1: outside of Beverly Hills Hotel in two thousand two. Sabrill
Speaker 1: had lured Aldren there under the false pretenses of an interview.
Speaker 1: Once Aldren arrived with his step daughter in tow, Sabrill
Speaker 1: started poking him with a Bible and unleashed a torrent
Speaker 1: of insults. Finally, the seventy two year old had had enough.
Speaker 1: With a swift left hook, Aldrin punched Sabrill in the jaw. Sabrill,
Speaker 1: who quickly fled the scene, tried to sue Aldrin for
Speaker 1: a salt, but the charges were dropped. The filmmaker has
Speaker 1: since apologized for his behavior. In Armstrong gave what was
Speaker 1: to be his last interview before his death at age two.
Speaker 1: During a taped exchange with Australian CEO Alex Malley, the
Speaker 1: First Man on the Moon talked about everything from his
Speaker 1: Ohio childhood to NASA's future. Perhaps inevitably, Armstrong was asked
Speaker 1: point blank if the moon landing had been a hoax.
Speaker 1: He replied, people love conspiracy theories. I mean, they are
Speaker 1: very attractive, but it was never a concern to me
Speaker 1: because I know that one day somebody is going to
Speaker 1: fly back up there and pick up that camera I left.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Mark Mancini and produced by
Speaker 1: Tristan Neil and Tyler Klang. For more on this lots
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff
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