According to Armstrong, he was forced to reconsider every single detail of the monumental journey after watching a few persuasive YouTube videos, and reading several blog posts on conspiracy theorist Ralph Coleman’s website, OmissionControl.org.

"It only took a few hastily written paragraphs published by this passionate denier of mankind’s so-called ‘greatest technological achievement’ for me to realize I had been living a lie, " said a visibly emotional Armstrong, addressing reporters at his home. "It has become painfully clear to me that on July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module under the control of my crew did not in fact travel 250,000 miles over eight days, touch down on the moon, and perform various experiments, ushering in a new era for humanity. Instead, the entire thing was filmed on a soundstage, most likely in New Mexico."

"This is the only logical interpretation of the numerous inconsistencies in the grainy, 40-year-old footage," Armstrong added.

Amstrong was swayed by OmissionControl’s use of bolding and capital letters to highlight NASA’s many blatant fallacies.

Although Armstrong said he "could have sworn" he felt the effects of zero gravity while soaring out of the Earth’s atmosphere and through space, he now believed his memory must be flawed. He also admitted feeling "ashamed" that he had failed to notice the rippling of the American flag he and Buzz Aldrin planted on the surface, blaming his lack of awareness on the bulkiness of the spacesuit and his excitement about traveling to the "moon."

"That rippling is not possible in the vacuum of space," Armstrong said. "It must have been the wind from an air-conditioning duct that I didn’t recognize because you can’t hear a damn thing inside those helmets."

"This is all just common sense, people," he added. "It’s the moon. You can’t land on the moon."

In a symbolic display of his newfound skepticism, Armstrong then grabbed a collection of moon rocks he had kept as souvenirs and dramatically dumped them into a trash can.

One of the main arguments posited on Coleman’s website—that America could not, in 1969, have realistically possessed the technological capabilities needed to put a man on the moon—was reportedly one of the first things to cause the legendary astronaut a pang of doubt. Despite having spent thousands of hours training for the historic mission under the guidance of the world’s top scientists, technicians, and pilots, Armstrong said he knew the conspiracy theories were true after learning that website author Coleman was "quite the engineering buff."

"Yes, at the time I thought those thousands of NASA employees were working round the clock for the same incredible goal, but if anyone would know what was really going on, it would be Ralph Coleman," Armstrong said of the 31-year-old part-time librarian’s assistant. "He knows a lot more about faked moon landings than I ever could. He’s been researching the subject on the Internet for years."

"Literally years," he added.

Addressing another inconsistency brought to light by OmissionControl, Armstrong explained he was probably so focused on piloting the lunar module that he failed to notice that one of the moon rocks visible in footage of the landing appears to have the letter ‘C’ stamped on it. An emotional Armstrong said that the only possible explanation for this detail was that the rock actually came from NASA’s prop department.

"They forgot to turn it over," Armstrong said, removing his eyeglasses to wipe away tears. "Those lying bastards at NASA went through all the trouble to fake the moon landing, but they forgot to turn over one little prop rock. And now the whole damn thing’s blowing up in their faces."

Although Armstrong initially questioned why the U.S. would attempt such an elaborate cover-up, he cited one overarching explanation provided by Coleman: that it was a ploy to defeat the Soviet Union and fulfill the Illuminati’s plan to unify the world’s banks and control the dissemination of information.

"Just ask Ralph Coleman," Armstrong said. "He’ll answer any questions you have."

To conclude the press conference, Armstrong showed reporters footage of his first steps on the moon to demonstrate that the most daming evidence was "right under our noses." Speeding up the tape and replaying the graceful moonwalk several times in a row, Armstrong explained that the iconic images of humanity’s triumphant dance with the cosmos was actually just a film of him walking backwards, slowed down, and played in reverse.

"What other explanation could there be?" Armstrong asked. "It’s all right here. Everything is all right here if you’d just open your damn eyes and see!"

All the buzz about the Moon began on February 15th when Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Guests on the show argued that NASA technology in the 1960’s wasn’t up to the task of a real Moon landing. Instead, anxious to win the Space Race any way it could, NASA acted out the Apollo program in movie studios. Neil Armstrong’s historic first steps on another world, the rollicking Moon Buggy rides, even Al Shepard’s arcing golf shot over Fra Mauro– it was all a fake!

Fortunately the Soviets didn’t think of the gag first. They could have filmed their own fake Moon landings and really embarrassed the free world.
Shows like Conspiracy Theory ought to be as tongue-in-cheek as they sound. Unfortunately, there was an earnest feel to the Fox broadcast, enough to make you wonder if the program’s makers might have fallen under their own spell.

According to the show NASA was a blundering movie producer thirty years ago. For example, Conspiracy Theory pundits pointed out a seeming discrepancy in Apollo imagery: Pictures of astronauts transmitted from the Moon don’t include stars in the dark lunar sky — an obvious production error! What happened? Did NASA film-makers forget to turn on the constellations? Most photographers already know the answer: It’s difficult to capture something very bright and something else very dim on the same piece of film — typical emulsions don’t have enough "dynamic range." Astronauts striding across the bright lunar soil in their sunlit spacesuits were literally dazzling. Setting a camera with the proper exposure for a glaring spacesuit would naturally render background stars too faint to see.

Here’s another one: Pictures of Apollo astronauts erecting a US flag on the Moon show the flag bending and rippling. How can that be? After all, there’s no breeze on the Moon….

Not every waving flag needs a breeze — at least not in space. When astronauts were planting the flagpole they rotated it back and forth to better penetrate the lunar soil (anyone who’s set a blunt tent-post will know how this works). So of course the flag waved! Unfurling a piece of rolled-up cloth with stored angular momentum will naturally result in waves and ripples — no breeze required!

The Fox documentary went on with plenty more specious points. You can find detailed rebuttals to each of them at BadAstronomy.com and the Moon Hoax web page. (These are independent sites, not sponsored by NASA.)

The best rebuttal to allegations of a "Moon Hoax," however, is common sense. Evidence that the Apollo program really happened is compelling: A dozen astronauts (laden with cameras) walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Nine of them are still alive and can testify to their experience. They didn’t return from the Moon empty-handed, either. Just as Columbus carried a few hundred natives back to Spain as evidence of his trip to the New World, Apollo astronauts brought 841 pounds of Moon rock home to Earth.

"Moon rocks are absolutely unique," says Dr. David McKay, Chief Scientist for Planetary Science and Exploration at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC). McKay is a member of the group that oversees the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at JSC where most of the Moon rocks are stored. "They differ from Earth rocks in many respects," he added. "For example," explains Dr. Marc Norman, a lunar geologist at the University of Tasmania, "lunar samples have almost no water trapped in their crystal structure, and common substances such as clay minerals that are ubiquitous on Earth are totally absent in Moon rocks."

"We’ve found particles of fresh glass in Moon rocks that were produced by explosive volcanic activity and by meteorite impacts over 3 billion years ago," added Norman. "The presence of water on Earth rapidly breaks down such volcanic glass in only a few million years. These rocks must have come from the Moon!"
Right: A glass spherule (about 0.6 mm in diameter) produced by a meteorite impact into lunar soil. Features on the surface are glass splashes, welded mineral fragments, and microcraters produced by space weathering processes at the surface of the moon.

Fortunately not all of the evidence needs a degree in chemistry or geology to appreciate. An average person holding a Moon rock in his or her hand can plainly see that the specimen came from another world.

"Apollo moon rocks are peppered with tiny craters from meteoroid impacts," explains McKay. This could only happen to rocks from a planet with little or no atmosphere… like the Moon.

Meteoroids are nearly-microscopic specks of comet dust that fly through space at speeds often exceeding 50,000 mph — ten times faster than a speeding bullet. They pack a considerable punch, but they’re also extremely fragile. Meteoroids that strike Earth’s atmosphere disintegrate in the rarefied air above our stratosphere. (Every now and then on a dark night you can see one — they’re called meteors.) But the Moon doesn’t have an atmosphere to protect it. The tiny space bullets can plow directly into Moon rocks, forming miniature and unmistakable craters.

"There are plenty of museums, including the Smithsonian and others, where members of the public can touch and examine rocks from the Moon," says McKay. "You can see the little meteoroid craters for yourself."

Nick-named "Big Muley," this 11.7 kg Moon rock was the largest returned to Earth by Apollo astronauts. One side of Big Muley was peppered with meteoroid "zap pits." Below right: A close-up view of 1 mm diameter zap pits shows tiny craters lined with black glass surrounded by a white halo of shocked rock. [more]
Just as meteoroids constantly bombard the Moon so do cosmic rays, and they leave their fingerprints on Moon rocks, too. "There are isotopes in Moon rocks, isotopes we don’t normally find on Earth, that were created by nuclear reactions with the highest-energy cosmic rays," says McKay. Earth is spared from such radiation by our protective atmosphere and magnetosphere.

Even if scientists wanted to make something like a Moon rock by, say, bombarding an Earth rock with high energy atomic nuclei, they couldn’t. Earth’s most powerful particle accelerators can’t energize particles to match the most potent cosmic rays, which are themselves accelerated in supernova blastwaves and in the violent cores of galaxies.

Indeed, says McKay, faking a Moon rock well enough to hoodwink an international army of scientists might be more difficult than the Manhattan Project. "It would be easier to just go to the Moon and get one," he quipped.

And therein lies an original idea: Did NASA go to the Moon to collect props for a staged Moon landing? It’s an interesting twist on the conspiracy theory that TV producers might consider for their next episode of the Moon Hoax. "I have here in my office a 10-foot high stack of scientific books full of papers about the Apollo Moon rocks," added McKay. "Researchers in thousands of labs have examined Apollo Moon samples — not a single paper challenges their origin! And these aren’t all NASA employees, either. We’ve loaned samples to scientists in dozens of countries [who have no reason to cooperate in any hoax]."

Even Dr. Robert Park, Director of the Washington office of the American Physical Society and a noted critic of NASA’s human space flight program, agrees with the space agency on this issue. "The body of physical evidence that humans did walk on the Moon is simply overwhelming."

(several images posted)

This image taken from the camera of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shows one of the flags planted during Apollo missions to the moon.

Now, thanks to high-resolution cameras orbiting the moon, the mystery is solved: All the flags but one are still standing. The exception is the flag for Apollo 11, the historic first human moon landing in 1969, said professor Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, lead scientist for the cameras aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The lack of an Apollo 11 flag is consistent with astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s memory of the famous mission. Aldrin said the flag blew over from the rocket blast when astronauts left the surface.

Robinson previously had doubted whether any flags would be visible. "Personally, I was a bit surprised that the flags survived the harsh ultraviolet light and temperatures of the lunar surface, but they did. What they look like is another question (badly faded?)," Robinson wrote in a recent blog on the orbiter’s website.

Images taken by the orbiter show the flags and their shadows but aren’t detailed enough to reveal whether the Stars and Stripes are still visible.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is an unmanned spacecraft that has been circling the moon for more than three years. The minivan-size orbiter has equipment that is photographing the moon’s surface, recording temperatures and measuring radiation.

The photographs are being used to map the surface and could be used to identify future landing sites, although the United States now has no plans to send humans back to the moon.

NASA’s Apollo program included multiple launches in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was designed mainly to land humans on the moon and bring them back to Earth safely. Six missions accomplished this. Others were not as successful.

A cabin fire on Apollo 1 killed three astronauts during a launch-pad test in 1967. Apollo 13 was unable to land after an oxygen tank exploded and forced the crew to return to Earth in 1970. Even with the mishaps, the Apollo program is viewed as widely successful and credited with igniting a generation’s interest in space. The last manned mission to the moon was Apollo 17 in December 1972.