By Reuters Staff
7 Min Read
Posts circulating on Facebook in late 2020 and early 2021 claim that Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr., the second person to walk on the moon, claimed that he “saw aliens while he was there.” According to the posts, Aldrin “told nasa (sic) & later took a lie detector test, which he passed.” This claim is partly false, as the astronaut did describe seeing an unidentified object moving outside of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, but the sighting was explained soon after the mission returned.
This NASA file image shows U.S. astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, one of three Apollo 11 astronauts, during the lunar landing mission on July 20, 1969. Apollo 11, launched forty years ago today on July 16, 1969, carried astronauts Neil Armstrong, who was the Mission Commander and the first man to step on the moon, Aldrin, who was the Lunar Module Pilot, and Michael Collins, who was the Command Module pilot. Armstrong was the photographer for this image. REUTERS/Neil Armstrong-NASA/Handout