BY KYLE LOVERN

On July 20, 1969, one of the most amazing achievements in human history happened. The United States landed on the moon, and the first men walked on its dusty surface.

Or did it really happen?

I was just a 12-year-old, skinny, freckled-faced kid that summer, but I loved watching the rocket launches by NASA and dreamed of being an astronaut. I recall sitting on the living room floor that hot summer night and watching our black and white TV with my family as Neil Armstrong took that first step off the ladder of the lunar lander. His first words were, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I also recall going to our local grocery store in Nolan, W.Va., a few days later. The old general store was complete with a front porch and benches for people to sit on. I overheard a couple of old-timers talking about the moon landing.

One of them was holding a blue, metal Maxwell House coffee can and using it as a spittoon to spit his tobacco juice into. I’m paraphrasing, but they both agreed that it didn’t really happen. They theorized that it was filmed in a desert out west in some place like Nevada, and the whole thing was a sham.

My young mind was surprised, and I remember going home and telling my dad. Of course, we believed it happened, and I could not comprehend them thinking otherwise.

All of these years later, I still see surveys where there is a percentage of the population who think it was a conspiracy and that the United States faked the landing just so they could beat Russia in the “space race.” We had been in a Cold War battle with the Soviet Union to beat them to the moon. Russia beat us by having the first cosmonaut launched into the upper atmosphere, but now it looked like we had defeated them to the ultimate goal, landing on the lunar surface.

So why do conspiracy theorists say that we didn’t really go to the moon?

“The moon landing is fake because the American flag looks like it is flapping in the wind. There is no wind on the moon, so how can the flag fly in the pictures instead of just hanging there? NASA designed these flags with a horizontal rod inside to make them stick out from the flagpole.” At least that is the answer they gave to this question.

“The moon landing is fake because you can’t see the stars.” The answer from NASA and others is the exposure on the astronauts’ cameras was too short to capture the moon’s surface while also capturing the comparatively dimmer stars. The same thing happens if you go onto someone’s back porch at night and turn on the lights. But the naysayers say this was because it was footage shot on a stage.

Third, the conspiracy theorists say, “The moon landing is fake because the shadows aren’t right.” They say that is because of the camera and stage lights. The experts say there is a simple solution to this question. The problem with this hypothesis is that, although the sun is the primary illumination source on the moon, it isn’t the only illumination source. Another source is the lunar ground, which reflects the sun’s light.

The conspirators believe the six crewed landings from 1969–1972 were faked and that 12 Apollo astronauts did not actually walk on the moon. But if this were the case, there would have had to have been many others involved in the fictitious hoax. After all, NASA employed hundreds of engineers and other workers during this era.

The conspiracy theories have continued this belief public for more than 40 years. Opinion polls taken in various locations have shown that as many as 20 percent of Americans think it is possible that it was a hoax. Of course, many Russians think it didn’t happen, and we did not beat them to the moon.

Conspiracy theorists claim that NASA faked the landings to avoid humiliation and to ensure that it continued to get funding through the years.

Another theory was that it was all done to distract public attention from the unpopular Vietnam War. The moon landings suddenly ended about the same time the United States ended its involvement in the war.

As for me, I am like that youngster who overheard that conversation years ago. I believe we did go to the moon and that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first two men to traverse the dusty surface. I think a few other astronauts got to experience the same thing after that. I choose to believe.

Conspiracies are sometimes fun to think about, but some are pretty outlandish.

I think our lunar moon buggies and US flags are still on the celestial orb.

Reportedly we are working toward going back to the moon as a stepping-stone to our next destination in our Solar System – Mars.

I hope I live long enough to watch man walk on Mars and send the footage back to Earth.

Of course, I’ll be much older and watching on a color, high-definition TV — a lot different from back in 1969.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley area. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist.)