“Wikileaks releases moon landing cut scenes filmed in the Nevada desert.”
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In this July 20, 1969 photo made available by NASA, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity. (Neil Armstrong/NASA via AP)
No, Wikileaks didn’t release evidence that the moon landing was faked
If Your Time is short
- This video includes authentic footage from the 1969 moon landing and behind-the-scenes footage of a 1977 fictional movie. It doesn’t prove that the moon landing was a hoax.
- We found no evidence that Wikileaks released this video.
A TikTok video shows a series of clips of what looks like footage from space interspersed with scenes from film sets.
"Wikileaks releases moon landing cut scenes filmed in the Nevada desert," reads text underneath the video, which was shared in an Oct. 23 Instagram post.
A narrator refers to the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing and falsely suggests that it didn’t happen.
The Instagram post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
We emailed Wikileaks about the claim and didn’t hear back. But the site, which has published leaked government documents and tens of thousands of emails from the account of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign manager before the 2016 election, doesn’t appear to include the footage in the TikTok video.
Featured Fact-check
We searched the Wikileaks website for results including the words "moon," "landing" and "Nevada" and found zero results.
USA Today fact-checked a similar post and found the video features behind-the-scenes footage of "Capricorn One," a fictional 1977 movie about faking a mission to Mars after the first manned flight is scrapped.
According to IMDb, the Mojave Desert in California, and Yuma, Arizona, were among the filming locations. It didn’t mention Nevada.
The video in the post also uses authentic clips from the Apollo 11 moonwalk, weaving reality with movie magic in a way that seems intended to mislead viewers into believing that the historic space mission didn’t happen. That’s wrong.
We rate this post False.
Our Sources
Instagram post, Oct. 23, 2022
Wikileaks website, visited Oct. 25, 2022
YouTube, Apollo 11 - Buzz Aldrin Descends Ladder to Lunar Surface, July 16, 2009
YouTube, Capricorn One (1978) HD, March 31, 2017
YouTube, On Set Capricorn One, Dec. 14, 2014
USA Today, Fact check: WikiLeaks did not release footage that proves moon landing staged, Jan. 28, 2022
IMDB, Capricorn One, 1977
NASA, July 20, 1969: One Giant Leap For Mankind, July 20, 2019
PolitiFact, Fifty years after Apollo 11, moon landing hoaxes still thrive online, July 18, 2019
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More by Ciara O'Rourke
No, Wikileaks didn’t release evidence that the moon landing was faked
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