WEBVTT - How Do Astronauts React to Lunar Landing Conspiracy Theories? 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:06.880 Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.799 Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here about the lunar landing, astronaut Neil 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.720 Armstrong once said it would have been harder to fake 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.360 it than to do it. On July twentieth, nineteen sixty nine, 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.000 Armstrong and Edwin buzz Aldrin Jr. Became the first human 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.800 beings to ever walk on the Moon during NASA's Apollo 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.840 eleven mission. Orbiting above them at the time was the 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.920 third number of their crew, aviator Michael Collins, who was 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.479 piloting their command module. Together, these three entered the history books. 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.559 The lunar landing was a defining moment, a technical achievement 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.840 made possible by centuries of scientific progress and the hard 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.680 work of more than four hundred thousand people. But according 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:48.240 to a Pole seven million Americans think that the entire 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.360 thing never happened, and a sixteen British poll found that 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.960 more than half fifty two percent of Brits think that 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.760 the Apollo eleven moon landing was faked, including an astonishing 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:00.680 seventy percent of Brits aged twenty five to thirty four. 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.319 On December eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine, four months and twenty 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.440 five days after Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins returned to Earth, 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:11.400 John Noble Wilford of The New York Times ran a 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.680 story about a few stool warmers in Chicago bars who 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.240 had gone on record to claim that all the Apollo 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.600 eleven moonwalk footage was fake and must have been secretly 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.959 filmed somewhere out in the Nevada Desert. The popularity of 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.760 this misguided belief mushroomed during the Watergate scandal, an actual 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:30.679 government conspiracy that seems to have left people more susceptible 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.080 to believing other big government cover ups were plausible. In 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.679 nineteen seventy four, writer Bill Casing self published a pamphlet 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.080 called We Never Went to the Moon. Casing's writings alleged 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.600 that any sort of lunar landing would have been impossible 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.839 to carry out. In nineteen sixty nine, NASA, he concluded, 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.080 staged the moonwalk in a makeshift studio and then swore 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:54.120 the astronauts secrecy. Later, he added that the Challenger explosion 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.640 wasn't an accident either. Casing accused NASA of sabotaging the 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.080 spacecraft before the crew of seven got the chance to 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.600 expose the Apollo eleven cover up. His pamphlet gave the 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.560 so called lunar truther or movement its first manifesto. Deniers 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:10.480 like Casing saw their cause enjoy a modern renaissance in 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.400 two thousand one, when the Fox Network aired a documentary 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.639 called Conspiracy Theory Did We Land on the Moon? A 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.760 forty seven minutes special. The program featured interviews with Casing 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.640 and other Apollo eleven skeptics. One of them was Bart's Sabrell, 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.680 a filmmaker who has released two documentaries of his own 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.239 on the subject. The Fox program enjoyed great ratings, as 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.280 did a rebroadcast of the show that aired a month later. However, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.480 scientists overwhelmingly denounced the one sided special. The turn of 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.840 the millennium also saw an explosion of Internet conspiracy sites, 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.600 which further the spread of lunar trutherism. All that negative 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.359 attention was bound to generate some uncomfortable moments for the 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.920 Apollo eleven crew. In the year two thousand, Neil Armstrong 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.880 was celebrating his seventieth birthday. One of the cards he 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:57.239 received came from a school teacher who wrote, Dear Mr Armstrong, 0:02:57.440 --> 0:02:59.200 I would like to point out that you and the 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.800 other astronauts are making yourselves a worldwide laughing stock thanks 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.080 to the Internet. From there, the author encouraged Armstrong to 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.560 visit a favorite conspiracy website. Armstrong forwarded the card to NASA, 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.160 asking if the agency had ever publicly refuted these allegations. 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.600 He said, I occasionally asked questions in public forums and 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:20.120 feel I don't do as good a job as I 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.200 might with more complete information. NASA had, in fact rebuffed 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.560 the claims way back in seven that June, a press 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.239 release from the organization dismantled casing's major arguments. After the 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:35.360 two thousand one Fox special, the Space Agency reissued the document. Still, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:39.119 the dabters were not satisfied. While making one of his documentaries, 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.000 Bart Sabrill and a cameraman ambushed Armstrong at a two 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.200 thousand one aerospace event in New York City. James Smith, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.480 then the president of the event's sponsoring corporation, recalls its 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.480 Sabrell held up a Bible and demanded that Armstrong place 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.240 a hand on it and swear that he had really 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.600 gone to the moon. The conspiracy theorist was swiftly ejected. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.680 This wasn't the only time Sabrell filmed himself accosting an 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.080 appalled a veteran, he issued the same spontaneous Bible challenge 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.720 too many other space travelers, including Apollo fourteens Edgar Mitchell, and, 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.000 as Michael Collins told Aaron Space Magazine in twenty sixteen, 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.920 the fringe theorist once tried to corner him in a supermarket. 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.840 For the record, Collins says that he finds lunar hoax 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.560 theories laughable. Buzz Aldrin, on the other hand, sure wasn't 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:22.720 amused when Sabrill and a cameraman ran up to him 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:26.080 outside of Beverly Hills Hotel in two thousand two. Sabrill 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.360 had lured Aldrin there under the false pretenses of an interview. 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.040 Once Aldren arrived with his stepdaughter in tow, Sabrill started 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.000 poking him with a Bible and unleashed a torrent of insults. Finally, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.400 the seventy two year old had had enough. With a 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.960 swift left hook, Aldrin punched Sabrill in the jaw. Sabrill, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:45.880 who quickly fled the scene, tried to sue Aldron for assault, 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.120 but the charges were dropped. The filmmaker has since apologized 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.039 for his behavior. In Armstrong Gave What was to be 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.520 his last interview before his death at age two. During 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.280 a taped exchange with Australian CEO Alex Malley, the First 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.919 Man on the Moon talked about everything from his Ohio 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.760 childhood to NASA's future. Perhaps inevitably, Armstrong was asked point 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.799 blank if the moon landing had been a hoax. He replied, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.479 people love conspiracy theories. I mean, they are very attractive, 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:16.480 but it was never a concern to me because I 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:18.720 know that one day somebody is going to fly back 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:26.280 up there and pick up that camera I left. Today's 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.360 episode was written by Mark Mancini and produced by Tristan McNeil. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.840 For more on this and lots of other out of 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.880 this world topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:46.000 dot com.