Apollo 11: "The Untold Story?"

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For most people, the words "Project Apollo" bring to mind Apollo 11, and the first landing on the Moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969. But it was much more than that. Apollo was the end result of the dedication by America to reach the Moon before the Soviet Union. It included some six manned landings on the Lunar surface, the wrenching loss of three brave Astronauts in a fire, the first manned orbital mission to the Moon, and several test flights in Earth and Lunar orbit. There was also the near disaster that turned into the human triumph of Apollo 13.

Projects Mercury and Gemini were the necessary stepping stones to the Moon. The piloting and ground control skills needed for the Moon project were honed to perfection. The technology required for missions a quarter million miles from Earth, where there would be no rescue if things went awry, was developed first in the one man, and two man flights of Mercury and Gemini.

The benefits of Apollo include:

Humans landing on the Moon for the first time.

A total of six manned missions to land on the Moon, and bringing back a uniquely human perspective on that achievement. These 12 men carried out important scientific experiments and tasks as well.

Over 800 lbs (363 kg) of Moon rocks and soil samples returned to Earth for scientific analysis.

Six different arrays (one from each landing) of scientific intrumentation set up and activated for remote telemetric study after the crews returned to Earth.

Accumulation of much new medical knowledge and technology which benefitted millions worldwide.

Development of early solid state compact computers. This work eventually led
Apollo Launch
In Lunar Orbit
Earthrise
Moonwalk
Returning Home

to the computer revolution of the 1980s and 90s.

Development of fuel cell technology.

And so much more in the long run. In spite of many detractors, some of whom claim that men never actually went to the Moon, there is ample hard evidence that they did. There can be no doubt that the United States Moon landing program, known as Project Apollo, was an unqualified success.
NASA Photo

Apollo 11
By: Mark R. Smith
The Apollo 11 mission (July 16-24, 1969) was the culmination of President Kennedy's 1961 vow that America would reach the moon before the end of the 1960s. This occurred 20 July 1969 when two Astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz (Edwin) Aldrin landed on the moon. A third astronaut, Michael Collins orbited the moon in the command module while Neil and Buzz were walking on the moon.

Here is a very brief synopsis of the astronauts' flight experience:

Neil A. Armstrong, Commander


He flew 78 combat missions during the Korean War.

He was a project pilot on many pioneering high speed aircraft, including the 4,000 mph (6400 km/h) X-15. He has flown over 200 different models of aircraft, including jets, rockets, helicopters and gliders.

He served as command pilot for the Gemini VIII mission in March 1966, and performed the first successful docking of two vehicles in space.

 
Armstrong

Buzz (Edwin) E. Aldrin Jr., Lunar Module Pilot


Aldrin flew 66 combat missions in F-86's during the Korean war.

Previous to Apollo 11 Aldrin spent 4 days in space aboard the Gemini XII spacecraft.

Throughout his career as an astronaut, Aldrin logged over 289 hours in space.

 
Aldrin

Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot


Before he became an astronaut, Collins logged over 5000 hours as a USAF pilot.

Before the Apollo 11 mission, Collins was the pilot on the 3 day Gemini X mission in July 1966.

 
Collins
Buzz Aldrin's "U.F.O."
Prior to the Apollo 11 mission all three of these astronauts had been pilots and also had previous experience in space.

In July of 2006 a presentation was aired on British television entitled, "Apollo 11: The Untold Story". In this short clip it shows Buzz Aldrin speaking about an object which he and Mike Collins saw during the Apollo 11 mission which "was sort of L shaped."

Video Clip is available HERE (Google Video)

The following is a transcript of what was spoken by Mr. Aldrin during this clip:


TIME on Video 0:38 - 0:49

"There's something out there that uh was close enough to be observed and uh what could it be?"

 

TIME on Video 1:04 - 1:20

"Mike decided he thought he could see it in the telescope and he was able to do that and when, when it was in one position it had a series of ellipses but when you made it real sharp it was sort of L shaped. That didn't tell us very much."

 

TIME on Video 1:52 - 2:30

"Now, obviously the three of us were not gonna blurt out, 'Hey Houston, we got something moving alongside of us and uh we don't know what it is, you know? Can you tell us what it is. We weren't about to do that, uh because we know that uh the those transmissions would be heard by all sorts of people and uh uh who knows what somebody might have demanded that we uh turn back because of aliens or whatever the reason is. So we we didn't do that, but we did uh decide we'd we'd just cautiously ask uh Houston where how far away was the S-IVB."

 

TIME on Video 0:12 - 0:18

"Do you have any idea where the S-IVB is with respect to us?"

 

TIME on Video 2:47 - 3:10

"And uh a few moments later, why they came back and said something like it was 6,000 miles (9600 km - Ed.) away. Because of the maneuver, so we we really didn't think we were looking at something that far away. So we decided that, that after a while after of watching it uh we it was time to go to sleep and not to talk about it any more until we came back and and debriefed."


END OF ALDRIN ON VIDEO

Option: The Above Words In Aldrin's Own Voice MP3 2.1mb

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Just two days after this video aired, on 26 July 2006, the following rebuttal to the video was posted on NASA's website.
The wording of the question from NASA is somewhat misleading. The question infers that they "all saw unidentified objects." In every instance during the video, Aldrin refers to this object in the SINGULAR sense (as one object). NASA also misleads in the question "which seemed to have been following them." Aldrin clearly states, "we got something moving along side of us." Following certainly does not have the same meaning as moving along side of. Could this 'QUESTION' be the beginning of a cover up by NASA? After all, we have shown on other Project P.R.O.V.E. pages that NASA covers up, misleads and even lies to us.

Now let's look at the answer. NASA conveniently states that "quotations were taken out of context and did not convey the intended meaning." When you closely examine the last segment of Aldrin speaking, the video changes from different clips but the AUDIO IS ONE CONTINUOUS STREAM. It is one complete statement and from it's own content suggests that there is no other audio to follow. In other words the audio does not appear to be taken out of context.

If we were going to end this article here with just the video and NASA's rebuttal presented as evidence, it would be very easy to conclude that NASA is indeed trying to cover up something. But keep reading, there is more evidence!
The REST of The Story

On 31 July 2006, Buzz Aldrin appeared on the popular night time radio show Coast To Coast AM. Host George Noory asked Buzz Aldrin, "So, darn, you and Neil didn't see any spacecraft on the moon after all?" Mr. Aldrin's response was, "Any spacecraft. Just stars just stars."

The answer to the preceding question could lead some to believe that Buzz Aldrin was changing his story from seeing something "sort of L shaped" to "Just stars, just stars."

Option: The Above Words In Aldrin's Own Voice MP3 439kb

(From Coast To Coast Broadcast 31 July 2006)

Is Mr. Aldrin changing his story? Is NASA still trying to cover up something here? We have one more piece of evidence to present before we can accurately answer this question. Apollo missions 11 through 17 all had technical debriefings which were originally classified, but several years ago the classification was downgraded to unclassified. The technical debriefing for Apollo 11 is where we find the answer to our two remaining questions. The portion of the technical debriefing which covers the incident in question can be found HERE. (see page 3) This document in .pdf format is a photocopy of the original classified debriefing given by the three astronauts over 35 years ago!

(Document Also Available HERE. .pdf File 2.7mb Requires Acrobat Reader)

Quote from the above mentioned technical debriefing; beginning from page 3...


Aldrin: "The first unusual thing that we saw I guess was one day out or something pretty close to the moon. It had a sizable dimension to it, so we put the monocular on it."

Collins: "How'd we see this thing? Did we just look out the window and there it was."

Aldrin: "Yes, and we weren't sure but what it might be the S-IVB. We called the ground and were told the S-IVB was 6,000 miles away. We had a problem with the high gain about this time, didn't we?"

Collins: "There was something. We felt a bump or maybe I just imagined it."

Armstrong: "He was wondering whether the MESA had come off."

Collins: "I don't guess we felt anything."

Aldrin: "Of course, we were seeing all sorts of little objects going by at the various dumps and then we happened to see this one brighter object going by. We couldn't think of anything else it could be other than the S-IVB. We looked at it through the monocular and it seemed to have a bit of an L shape to it."

Armstrong: "Like an open suitcase."

Aldrin: "We were in PTC at the time so each of us had a chance to take a look at this and it certainly seemed to be within our vicinity and of a very sizable dimension."

Armstrong: "We should say it was right at the limit of the resolution of the eye. It was very difficult to tell what shape it was. And there was no way to tell the size without knowing the range or the range without knowing the size."

Aldrin: "So then I got down in the LEB and started looking for it in the optics. We were grossly misled because with the sextant off focus what we saw appeared to be a cylinder."

Armstrong: "Or really two rings."

Aldrin: "Yes."

Armstrong: "Two rings. Two connected rings."

Aldrin: "Yes."

Collins: "No, it looked like a hollow cylinder to me. It didn't look like two connected rings. You could see this thing tumbling and, when it came around end-on, you could look right down in it's guts. It was a hollow cylinder. But then you could change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by this open book shape. It was really weird."

Aldrin: "I guess there's not too much more to say about it other than it wasn't a cylinder."

Collins: "It was during the period when we thought it was a cylinder that we inquired about the S-IVB and we'd almost convinced ourselves that's what it had to be. But we don't have any more conclusions than that really. The fact that we didn't see it much past this one period --- we really don't have a conclusion as to what it might have been, how big it was, or how far away it was. It was something that wasn't part of the urine dump, we're pretty sure of that.

Skipping ahead a bit, when we jettisoned the LM, you know we fired an explosive charge and got rid of the docking rings and the LM went boom. Pieces came off the LM. It could have been some Mylar or something that had somehow come loose from the LM."

Aldrin: "We thought it could have been a panel, but it didn't appear to have that shape at all."

Collins: "That's right, and for some reason, we thought it might have been a part of the high gain antenna. It might have been about the time we had high gain antenna problems. In the back of my mind, I have some reason to suspect that its origin was from the spacecraft."


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Now that we have the complete story with three eyewitness accounts, we can get a better understanding of what all three astronauts might have seen. Over 35 years ago Aldrin reported, "it seemed to have a bit of an L shape to it." This is almost identical to what Aldrin states in the movie, "was sort of L shaped."

NASA posted on their website just last month (July 2006), that the astronauts were "seeing one of the panels." This idea of the object being a panel was suggested by Aldrin himself over 35 years ago in the debriefing when Aldrin said, "We thought it could have been a panel" Armstrong referring to Aldrin's comment about an L shape states that it looked, "Like an open suitcase." An open suitcase when viewed from its side and from a distance could look similar to an L also. Collins stated, "you could change the focus on the sextant and it would be replaced by this open book shape." An open book when viewed directly from the top or bottom would also have a shape similar to what the other astronauts reported.

In the debriefing, the three astronauts discussed the possibilities of what this object might have been. Collins (one of the three eyewitnesses) sums it up this way, "I have some reason to suspect that its origin was from the spacecraft." Since there was no mention in this report of any extra terrestrial spacecraft, I am certain that the spacecraft which Collins was referring to was the one that they were in.

The words that Aldrin spoke during the movie, "Apollo 11: The Untold Story." in no way contradicted what was stated in the then classified debriefing from 37 years ago or even what he stated on the Coast To Coast radio show. It appears to us at Project P.R.O.V.E. that the unknown object that Aldrin and the other two astronauts saw was more than likely a panel from their own spacecraft.

NOW THE STORY HAS BEEN TOLD!

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At the end of the day, it's up to YOU to draw your own conclusions.

 

© 2006 Mark R. Smith