Surprising unearthed footage of Buzz Aldrin has sparked conspiracy rumours that the entire Apollo 11 moon landing may have been staged, as America commemorates the 59th anniversary of the event.

For decades, Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong, has talked openly about the mission. However, two of his previous interviews have gone viral, with some people saying he acknowledged that the United States never reached the moon.

Clips from two conversations with Aldrin that seem to show him acknowledging that America never visited the moon have surfaced as the US commemorates the milestone.

When Aldrin appeared on the Conan O’Brien Show in 2000, the crowd was taken aback when the host recalled seeing the moon landing when he was a youngster.

“No, you didn’t,” Aldrin snapped. “There wasn’t any television, there wasn’t anyone taking a picture. You watched an animation.”

O’Brien was rendered dumbfounded by the awkward interaction, which has since received millions of views on the internet.

Then, in 2015, an eight-year-old girl asked the former astronaut why no one has returned to the moon. Aldrin replied: “Because we didn’t go there, and that’s the way it happened.”

NASA has consistently maintained that the Apollo 11 mission was authentic, supported by moon rocks, telemetry data, and the testimonies of thousands of scientists and engineers.

On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission took out from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 9:32 a.m. ET.

Commander Neil Armstrong, age 38, Lunar Module Pilot Aldrin, age 39, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, age 38, were on board; the latter two landed while the first three stayed in orbit.

At 4:17pm ET on July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin touched down on the lunar surface in the Eagle lander, and a short time later, Armstrong stepped outside and delivered his now-famous line: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

An estimated 600 million people witnessed the event, which was televised globally, but many have long questioned how much of what they saw was real.

In the middle of the 1970s, popular scepticism following Watergate and the Pentagon Papers stoked doubt about the moon landing. Since then, there have been recurring theories about shady interviews, inconsistent lighting, and contrived sets.

NASA has always rejected such assertions, citing lunar rock samples, telemetry data, and the testimonials of thousands of scientists, engineers, and astronauts as evidence of the mission’s legitimacy.

However, one of America’s oldest conspiracy theories is still going strong almost sixty years later, with Aldrin’s exact statements suddenly resurfacing.

Conspiracy theorists were enraged by Aldrin’s interview with Conan O’Brien because they thought that his admission that some of the moon landing broadcasts were animated was evidence that everything was staged.

“You watched animation so you associated what you saw with… you heard me talking about, you know, how many feet we’re going to the left and right and then I said contact light, engine stopped, a few other things and then Neil said ‘Houston, tranquility base,” Aldrin told O’Brien.

“The Eagle has landed. How about that? Not a bad line.”

But he was talking to the animations that were intercut with actual video that broadcasters at the time used to cover the lunar landing.

In a more contemporary video, Aldrin was interviewed about space by a young girl during the 2015 National Book Festival.

“When asked why nobody has been to the moon in such a long time,” he responds, “because we didn’t go there, and that’s the way it happened.”

Widely circulated on social media, the video ends before Aldrin explains that lunar missions were terminated due to a lack of finance and changing government priorities.

He later explains: “We need to know why something stopped in the past if we want it to keep going.” 

“It’s a matter of resources and money, new missions need new equipment.”

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