THE MOON-LANDING HOAX

WHY DOES THE THEORY STILL LIVE ON? ALL ABOUT SPACE DEBUNKS A HOAX THAT RAGES AMONG CONSPIRACY THEORISTS EVER SINCE NEIL ARMSTRONG AND BUZZ ALDRIN LANDED ON THE LUNAR SURFACE

- Elizabeth Howell, Robert Myers and Robert Z. Pearlman

The Moon-landing hoax still lives on more than 50 years after Apollo 11 - the first crewed mission to land on the Moon. Phil Plait has mixed feelings about the Moon-landing hoax. Plait known as 'the Bad Astronomer' to his many thousands of readers on Syfy - reveals he is frustrated that he and others like him still have to debunk the hoax theory from time to time, over 50 years after the first Moon landing. Then again, Plait became famous because he's so good at debunking in the first place.

Back in February 2001, Fox Broadcasting ran a documentary titled Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Plait coincidentally had a pile of research-ready from a book he was working on, and a friend sent him an advance copy of the show so that he had time to write up a response. Plait's essay on his personal blog, which he published shortly after the show aired, quickly generated thousands of views years before Facebook, Twitter and today's social media even existed.

Fox's TV show propelled Plait's writing to a large audience, and his 2002 book Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing 'Hoax'helped as well. Plait remains a popular science commentator nearly two decades later. "I kind of wish it had never aired," Plait says about the Fox documentary, "because it opened a huge Pandora's box. On the other hand, it's exposing a wound to sunlight. That thing was there anyway, festering. Let it get out to the public, and let it heal, and let it kill the infection. But yeah, it's troubling just to know that if Fox hadn't aired that, who knows what my career path would have been."