Colonel Buzz Aldrin Addresses Moon Landing Conspiracies

On July 21, 1969, mankind completed a feat which even now seems almost unfathomable. A lunar module piloted by Colonel Edward Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin touched down on the surface of the moon, and Aldrin followed Neil Armstrong down the ladder to be the second man to walk on the moon. His first words on the moon, “beautiful view; magnificent desolation,” are not quite as famous as those of Neil Armstrong; however, being second in the small handful of men to share the experience of walking on the moon makes it no less awe-inspiring. There have been those who have tried to marginalize the accomplishments of these astronauts, even going so far as to suggest that the moon landing never happened. While all but the most ardent of conspiracy theorists do not doubt this moon landing happened, questions surrounding the events of July 21, 1969, come up again and again when discussing hoaxes involving outer space.

Perhaps people can be forgiven for finding it very difficult to believe mankind has not only succeeded in “slipping the surly bonds of earth,” but that humans have actually traveled to the moon and back. During the perigee of the moon in July 2014, the moon’s orbit put it at a distance of approximately 225,622 miles from the Earth. A perigee, the moon’s closest proximity to the Earth in a given month, combined with a full moon creates an effect scientists have dubbed a super-moon. Yet even during a time when the moon appears its largest, to imagine human beings traveling that distance through the vacuum of space, their lives depending on man-made gadgets and on a collection of knowledge gained in such a relatively short period of history, is almost asking too much. And so the conspiracy theories abound.

Colonel Buzz Aldrin has been asked his thoughts on the suggestions that the moon landing was a hoax. And when not harassed as he was by conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel in 2002, whom a frustrated 72-year-old Aldrin finally decked in the face, Buzz Aldrin has a fairly elaborate response to questions regarding moon landing conspiracy theories.

Reddit 2014

His most recent remarks on the matter came in the form of an “Ask Me Anything” interview on Reddit.com in July 2014. Aldrin was asked how he felt about people who claimed the moon landing was faked. Here was his response:

“I personally don’t waste very much of my time on what is so obvious to a really thinking person, of all the evidence—we talked about Carl Sagan recently, who made a very prophetic observation. He said that ‘extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence to make them believable.’ There is not extraordinary evidence of (as far as I know) all the claims that have been made that we did NOT go to the Moon. There are photographs from lunar reconnaissance orbiter satellites, going around the moon, that clearly show all of the experiments that we described when we came back from the moon, and they are evidence that we were there, telling the truth.

You can even see a trail of Neil Armstrong’s trek (not footprints really but the stirred up dust in walking or jogging behind him) to see the west Crater that we had flown over. Neil was concerned about landing close to that, and he took photos of that, and then he went back to the spacecraft. I was back inside the spacecraft at this time, but looking at the photos of Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiters, you can clearly see the evidence of Neil’s trek. And he took photographs, and all the signs are still there.”

You can read the entire interview with Colonel Buzz Aldrin here.

Bottom Line

Most people do not doubt the available evidence that on July 21, 1969, NASA Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon. Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin most recently dismissed conspiracy theories claiming the moon landing was faked during an interview on Reddit.com in July 2014.