FACT CHECK: No, Buzz Aldrin Did Not Tweet The Apollo 11 Moon Landing Was Faked

An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows a 2014 tweet by astronaut Buzz Aldrin confessing that NASA’s Apollo 11 mission to the moon “was staged.”

Verdict: False

There is no record of Aldrin tweeting the statement. A representative for Aldrin also refuted the rumor, which seems to stem from a satirical article.

Fact Check:

Aldrin and late astronaut Neil Armstrong landed on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, according to NASA. Of the U.S.’s 12 astronauts to walk on the moon, only Aldrin, Apollo 15’s David Scott, Apollo 16’s Charles Duke and Apollo 17’s Harrison Schmitt remain alive today, the agency states on its website.

In recent days, Facebook users have been sharing a supposed tweet dated to Nov. 6, 2014, at 12:07 that looks to have been retweeted 1,100 times. The tweet, purportedly sent by Aldrin, reads, “It’s time I confess; The Apollo 11 missions, which landed man for the first time on the moon, was staged, none of it was real.” (RELATED: Do Neil Armstrong’s Space Boots Not Match A Footprint He Left On The Moon?)

There is, however, no record of Aldrin tweeting the statement. An advanced search of his verified Twitter account, @TheRealBuzz, did not yield any matching tweets. It also does not appear in archived screen grabs of his timeline from Nov. 11, 2014. On Nov. 6, 2014, Aldrin tweeted about the “Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager” video game.

Check Your Fact didn’t find any national news outlets reporting Aldrin had sent a tweet about the Apollo 11 moon landing being fake. If he had said such a thing on Twitter and received 1,100 retweets, it almost certainly would have attracted media attention. Aldrin has talked on multiple occasions about his moonwalk occurring.

“Dr. Aldrin did not, would not, and never has made any such statement in this venue or any other,” Bobby Charles, a media relations representative for his company Aldrin Ventures, told Check Your Fact via email. “Nor has any other astronaut who has served this nation, during the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle, or recent era.”

The story of Aldrin sending the fake tweet appeared in a satirical article published by the website Huzlers, the International Business Times reported in November 2014. Huzlers describes itself as “a satirical and fictional entertainment blog.”

The Apollo 11 moon landing has long been the subject of baseless conspiratorial claims that it was faked, according to ABC News.

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