One doesn’t have to look too far or wide on the internet these days to find conspiracy theorists and their theories.
They’ve always existed, of course, but they enjoyed a huge boost in their capabilities with the advent of global super-interconnection. Put simply, anyone doubting a huge moment in history, or of the opinion that some sort of cover-up has taken place, can now spread their views and evidence (or lack of, as the case may be) across the world at a few clicks of a button.
It’s hardly a surprise, then, that the naysayers have been out in force during the current NASA Artemis II mission. Part of the mission’s significance is that it has surpassed the record for human spaceflight’s farthest distance from Earth, previously set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.
NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen launched on Wednesday (1 April) aboard a 322-foot rocket, beginning their journey beyond Earth’s orbit.
After spending their first 25 hours circling the planet, during which they described the views to mission control as “phenomenal,” the crew set course for the Moon.
The plan with Artemis II was not to land on the Moon’s surface, but rather conduct a flyby. Nonetheless, it is viewed as a critical step toward future Moon missions.
The crew gave a live interview to CNN to talk about their mission to fly past the dark side of the Moon, and quickly found themselves targeted by conspiracy theorists who believe that the whole journey is being recorded in a film studio somewhere with the help of high-tech camera equipment and a green screen.
During the interview with CNN, a plush toy dubbed ‘Rise’ floated around the capsule’s interior, demonstrating to viewers what it’s like to travel with no gravity.
Yet the most ‘controversial’ detail was reportedly that behind the toy, the letters ‘OW’ and ‘TAN’ appeared in intervals – as if a green screen was glitching in and out of the scene due to the middle of the toy being green in color.
None of the astronauts themselves seemed to notice this happening, but it wasn’t something missed by the masses on social media.
“Fake as hell they really thought they can continue fooling people with all this current Technology that debunks everything in realtime…” one person wrote.
Another quipped: “Duh… even my dog knows it’s fake…”
The detail itself prompted people to seek for an answer as to just why the letters were visible, and it turns out there’s a reasonable explanation.
As per the Daily Mail, the broadcast was filmed using Chroma Key, which Adobe says is generally used on blue or green screen sets to overlay things or people onto different backgrounds.
Live interviews – including those in CNN – are known to typically include text at the bottom of the screen to describe the interview, so it’s thought that the overlay used to cover the words may have refreshed at a different time than the rest of the video, thus creating a glitching effect for viewers.
