Candace Owens, the right-leaning populist commentator, is no stranger to controversy. For example, she recently tore into former President Donald Trump for his advocacy of taking coronavirus vaccines, which he helped to come into being thanks to Operation Warp Speed. However, Owens has taken to Twitter and championed an oldie-but-goodie conspiracy theory.
“Now for some light-hearted fun. What’s the one ‘conspiracy theory’ that no matter what anyone says you believe is true. Mine is that the moon landing in 1969 was completely faked. Just nothing about it makes sense. Especially NASA ‘accidentally erasing’ the original footage.”
Apollo moon landing denialism has been around for decades, promulgated by people who have a combination of conspiratorial paranoia and scientific illiteracy. The phenomenon became comedic when a moon landing denier named Bart Sibrel accosted Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin and demanded that he swear on a Bible that he did in fact walk on the moon. When Sibrel persisted, the then-septuagenarian Aldrin punched the much younger man in the face.
The moon landing hoax conspiracy theory has been debunked repeatedly. Video expert S G Collins proved that although the technology to go to the moon existed in the 1960s, the technology to fake it did not exist. Mythbusters devoted a whole episode to the subject. The landing sites, including the footsteps of the astronauts, have been photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. If the moon landings had been faked, the Soviets, who had been humiliated by losing the race to the moon and were doubtlessly tracking the Apollo flights, would not have been shy about exposing the hoax.
With regard to Owens’s claim about the original footage from the lunar surface having been erased, the claim is true in one sense. The original tapes taken from the deep space network of Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s first footsteps have been lost. However, those tapes, having not been suited for broadcast, were converted to a format that could be sent out on live TV. The broadcast version still exists.
Putting the final nail in the coffin of the moon landing hoax conspiracy theory, Dr. David Grimes of Oxford University devised an equation that predicts when a conspiracy must come to light. Noting that roughly 411,000 people were involved in Project Apollo, Grimes deduced that if the moon landing had been faked, the truth would have been exposed within 3.7 years of the event. The more people involved in an alleged conspiracy, the more likely it would be uncovered given the passage of time.
The landing of Apollo 11 on the lunar surface was a singular event in human history — an example of human courage and technological genius taking place in a decade that had been ravaged by war, civil strife, and assassinations. Half a billion people on a planet that then contained 3.5 billion witnessed the event on live television, the greatest reality show in history.
One has difficulty fathoming the psychology of someone like Owens or Sibrel imagining, against all evidence, that the moon landings were faked. Although some conspiracies are real (think Watergate), too many people believe in backroom plots that just do not and even cannot exist. The root cause of conspiracy theories may be a combination of paranoia and narcissism that make one, to use that line from The X-Files, “want to believe.”
More than 50 years ago, on a warm summer evening in North America, men from the planet Earth walked on the moon. They planted the American flag, collected rock and soil samples, set up experiments, and even had a brief telephone conversation with President Richard Nixon. Then, fulfilling the last part of John F. Kennedy’s challenge, they returned safely to the planet Earth to universal accolades.
Apollo 11 changed the world. The moon landings were a decisive victory in the Cold War, proving the technological superiority of the West over the Soviet Union. More importantly, they proved what was possible given resources, imagination, and determination. Apollo should be celebrated, not dismissed as a hoax. It is something to hold to as America prepares to lead an international coalition in a long-overdue return to the moon as part of Project Artemis.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration titled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond and, most recently, Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
