From the news agency that once brought you talk of a “demon shark” comes more quality scientific reporting. On Monday, Fox News tweeted something that questions whether or not the Apollo 17 moon landing was faked.
“You be the judge: Skeptics say picture debunks moon landing,” the outlet tweeted out with a story on a new conspiracy theory.
The conspiracy theory in question — which, of course, Fox is quick to dismiss early on in the piece — involves a YouTube video that allegedly “proves” NASA’s 1972 mission to the moon is fake. The video’s uploader, whose username is Streetcap1, presents a picture they claim shows a stagehand in one of the astronaut’s visors.
In fact, about 21 seconds into the video, the uploader claims an astronaut isn’t wearing a spacesuit at all. Because reasons.
“What we appear to have here is a figure of a human not wearing a spacesuit, circa early ‘70s … Apollo 17 photograph,” Streetcap1 says in the video. “There was some dispute back in 2009 of the legitimacy of these photos.”
Fox can try and distance itself from this obviously absurd idea all it wants, but it seems Streetcap1 is loving all the newfound attention.
Screenshot via YouTube
It takes only a cursory Google search to prove Streetcap1’s idea wrong. Space writer Jason Major has already pointed out the man in the visor is very clearly LM pilot and geologist Harrison “Jack” Schmitt reflected in Commander Gene Cernan’s visor.
To put it lightly, this video is a load of horse shit, and Fox should be embarrassed that they framed it as a question for readers to “judge” like a bake-off. Did NASA have the best lemon meringue cookies or did it fake them in AN EXPENSIVE AND WILDLY INTRICATE ATTEMPT TO FOOL THE AMERICAN PUBLIC? Wake up, sheeple.
Like most moon hoax conspiracies, this latest idea is built around misinformation that’s insulting to astronauts and the entire NASA human spaceflight program. If you have even a shred of doubt about the validity of NASA’s moon landings, here are some resources to commit to memory.
There is overwhelming, irrefutable proof that NASA sent humans to the moon, multiple times. While these moon hoaxer videos will never go away, it’s deeply satisfying to see Fox get ratioed about them on Twitter.
Justice is served.
