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How a few muddled words during China’s Chang’e-6 launch set off a flurry of faked moon landing rumours
- Mission scientist Pei Zhaoyu struggles to form a sentence during a live broadcast, sending patriotic doubters of the 1969 moonwalk into overdrive
- Leading research organisations step in to call for reason
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Mandy Zuoin Shanghai
Some of China’s top research bodies have sought to quash an online flurry of conspiracy theories that the US’ 1969 moon landing was faked – suggestions based on a lunar scientist’s garbled sentence in a live interview with state television.
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The interview with state broadcaster CCTV took place during the launch on May 3 of the Chang’e-6 spacecraft to return the first samples from the far side of the moon.
During the broadcast of the launch Pei Zhaoyu, deputy chief of China’s lunar probe programme at the China National Space Administration, appeared to struggle for words as he discussed the selection of the landing point for the mission.
“We didn’t find that … that from the Apollo basin…,” Pei said.
Noticing that Pei was having trouble organising his thoughts, the host of the broadcast quickly moved the conversation on to another topic.
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By Apollo basin, Pei was referring to a large impact crater located in the southern hemisphere of the lunar far side, which is one of the planned landing points for Chang’e-6.
But many online users linked the basin’s name to Nasa’s Apollo mission over 50 years ago on the near side of the moon, and thought Pei was trying to say that no remains of the mission were found.
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