Was the giant leap for mankind really just a giant lie?
Conspiracy theorists think so.
The theory that the Apollo 11 moon landing was a hoax by the US government lives on, despite video and photo evidence of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong planting the country’s flag in space.
While conspiracy theorists believe it would have been cheaper and easier to fake the landing than to really achieve it, there have been six manned moon landings, which took place from 1969 to 1972.
Despite theories circulating about the first landing being fabricated, the others have not been exempt from disbelievers.
In fact, the same theorists believe they’ve spotted an odd figure in the visor of one of the astronauts in a clip of the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.
Marking the last manned trip to the moon, the astronauts on board — commander Gene Cernan, lunar module pilot Harrison “Jack” Schmitt and command module pilot Ronald Evans — were the final people to touch down.
In a video titled “Reflection in a Visor. Where’s the reflection of the camera taking the photo?” user Streetcap1 claims the shot has evidence of illegitimacy as he narrates his findings in the clip, which was posted in 2017.
The YouTuber claims a reflection in the visor of one of the astronauts shows a “stagehand” — and, allegedly, the person is not wearing a spacesuit, furthering claims of fabrication.
“You can see some sort of, it looks like a man, back in the early ’70s, long hair, wearing some sort of waistcoat-type thing … and a shadow of that figure, presumably,” the narrator claimed, using his mouse to outline the figure as he talks.
“Where’s this guy’s space suit?” he continued later in the clip, which has been viewed more than 2.8 million times.
But not everyone in the comments was convinced of the YouTuber’s supposed discovery.
“The curvature of the astronaut’s visor causes a fish-eye lens effect. Just Google ‘fish eye lens pics’ and you will see how distorted they are. When you look at the shadow you can clearly see the boxy shape of his life support system,” argued one user in the comments.
“To me it clearly looks like another astronaut with the white, bulky spacesuit. you can see that he has both arms slightly stretched forward and the shadow shows the bulkyness of the spacesuit, including the life support on his back,” another commented.
“I’ve always thought it was a hoax since we didn’t go back in modern times,” claimed someone else.
Nonbelievers of the Apollo missions claim the US government fabricated each intergalactic journey in order to beat the rest of the world to the moon and win the “space race.”
Despite being widely debunked, many theorists continue to perpetuate even the wildest of claims.
Some say the flag was rippling in the wind, but NASA created a special flag to use in space since there would be no wind to keep the flag upright, which would have made an unflattering photo. Meanwhile, others ground their disbelief in the fact that stars aren’t visible or that shadows don’t seem to align with light sources.
