In yet another confounding testament to the sorry state of the United States education system, New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye has expressed skepticism about the country’s Moon landings over half a century ago.
“I don’t know about the Moon, you know,” he said during a media appearance on Monday. “I think I can see back in the day why we would put on the mask if we went there, but I’m not really sure 200 percent if we went there or not.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m leaning one way or the other,” he said. “I just know I’m a little bit skeptical.”
During the interview, Maye revealed that he took a class about conspiracy theories while studying at the University of North Carolina, which he said discussed the possibility of “Hitler being alive and ‘Are birds real?'”
Judging by his colorful — and confounding — commentary about the Moon landings, there’s a decent chance he may have woefully missed the point of the class.
It didn’t take long for NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to chime in on Maye’s brain-melting take.
“I quite literally have the receipts,” Isaacman tweeted in response.
Over 50 years after NASA’s last crewed mission to the lunar surface, the agency is gearing up to make its long-awaited return a mere two years from now. As part of its Artemis program, NASA is looking to test its Moon-bound spacecraft some time next year, before making its first landing attempt in 2028 — if everything goes according to plan, that is.
But reassuring a misinformation-steeped populace that we’ve already visited the Moon is proving far more difficult that one might think. Most recently, Moon denialists even went as far as to spread misleading, AI-generated footage as “proof” that NASA’s most recent crewd trip around the Moon and back as part of its Artemis 2 mission was faked.
Maye’s skepticism is yet another reminder of one of the most persistent conspiracy theories that has survived for decades. Despite a litany of detailed archival footage, many Americans refuse to believe humans have walked on the Moon.
As the country’s being ruled by an executive branch that’s effectively telling its people what it’s seeing with its own eyes isn’t real, it’s no wonder conspiracy theorists are still holding on to their harebrained hunches.
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