A mysterious story running through internet forums from 2008 is making a comeback as a Clinton Era report of a NASA cover-up is reanimating an age old question that is sometimes quoted as evidence of activity on the moon, “Who did the skeleton Apollo 11 Astronauts discovered on the moon belong to?” According to the legend, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong discovered a skeleton on the moon wearing a plaid button up shirt and ripped blue jeans along with bare footprints and photographed both.
After they photographed the traces, they were brought back to NASA for analysis, and the whole thing was covered up as a hoax never to be seen again. Then, a Chinese Astronomer by the name of Kang Mao-Pang somehow received the information through a leak and attempted to release it to the world, but was unfortunately ignored by the media despite compiling a team of 400 scientists to declare the story as genuine. Kang found himself without much support, and found it difficult to actually bring NASA’s Skeleton in the Closet to the public.
Sadly, as interesting as the story is, it seems unlikely to hold water as its source has been traced to the July 15, 1997 issue of Weekly World News (the same magazine that brought us the story about Hillary Clinton being in a love Triangle with Elvis and Bigfoot months earlier). Those who are familiar with the now out of circulation magazine will know its tongue in cheek attitude focuses primarily on fictional stories that serve to entertain rather than inform. Another headline from an issue dealt with Santa being arrested for spying on people, so it’s hardly a good primary source for a story now being given quite a bit of circulation.
The move from print to internet rumor popped up in 2008 when a single article appeared on a UFO news site that had clearly taken all source information from the WWN article. The information was also supplemented with “updates” on the likely fictional Astronomer Kang Mao-Pang. Unfortunately, this article was seen by many and the vast anonymity and free flow of information in internet forums allowed for the single article to be posted again and again with no more source information. It’s particularly unfortunate, considering this story is far less interesting as a busted hoax.
And every year or so the story comes back like a virus, sweeping through forums and risking the credibility of those who genuinely have been fooled by the unfounded rumor touted as fact. Sometimes the story is combined with images of a skeleton partially buried in soil. The picture’s source has been tracked down to an earlier cover of the WWN that has been cropped to leave out the shocked astronauts and the moon lander in the background.
Hopefully this particular story of a skeleton on the moon will be finally put to rest. Is it possible a skeleton could be found on the moon still? It would be incredibly surprising, but nowhere near beyond the realm of possibility which is virtually limitless. No doubt the future will be full of other rumors started around the moon and its landing. And of course there will always be those who try to double check these facts to ensure the UFO community isn’t misled.