A video allegedly released by WikiLeaks, allegedly showing NASA’s “faked” moon landing shot in the Nevada Desert, is circulating widely on social media platforms. Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: WikiLeaks released the footage of moon landing scenes filmed in the Nevada Desert.
Fact: WikiLeaks has not released any such footage. The viral video is an amalgamation of the real footage of NASA’s Apollo moon landing and the behind-the-scenes footage of the Hollywood movie ‘Capricorn One’. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To verify the claim, we first searched the WikiLeaks website, as well as their social media handles, to find if they had indeed released any footage related to the moon landing. However, this search did not yield any results.
Continuing our investigation, we critically examined comments on the social media posts sharing the video. Several users identified the footage as behind-the-scenes clips from the movie ‘Capricorn One‘, a 1977 film centered around a faked Mars landing.
Using this information as a lead, we carried out relevant keyword searches on the internet. The search results confirmed that numerous clips in the viral video indeed matched the behind-the-scenes footage of ‘Capricorn One’ available on YouTube.
For instance, a scene from the viral video at the 0:18 timestamp matches the 2:01 timestamp in the ‘Capricorn One’ BTS reel; similarly, footage at 2:40 corresponds with 17:40, 4:01 with 23:50, 4:40 with 37:47, and 5:22 with 41:23 in the BTS reel.
Moreover, the viral video also contains genuine clips from NASA’s Apollo moon landings (e.g., Planting the Flag footage, available here, here, and here). Also, the portion seen at the 0:17 timestamp in the viral video is from the Apollo 11 mission.
Based on these findings, it is evident that the viral video is a fabricated mashup, not an authentic release by WikiLeaks, as claimed.
To sum up, the claim that WikiLeaks released footage of the moon landing recorded in the Nevada Desert is false. The viral video is a mix of real NASA footage and BTS clips from the movie ‘Capricorn One’.
