Pro Sports Has a Moon-Landing Conspiracy Problem

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTGuest EssayNov. 14, 2026, 7:00 a.m. ETCredit...Eric ThompsonJ.R. MoehringerMr. Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who writes frequently about sports.It caused barely a ripple — maybe because most people who heard it couldn’t quite believe it? Last month Drake Maye, the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, revealed that he’s “a little bit skeptical” about the 1969 moon landing. Skeptical — as in, not entirely sold on that whole one-giant-leap-for-mankind thing.Mr. Maye made this alarming confession during his weekly segment on Boston’s WEEI-FM, a spot normally given over to empty platitudes and jock-speak, but an intrepid caller asked Mr. Maye if he subscribes to any conspiracy theories — and whew, boy. “Let me try not to get too controversial,” he said. “I don’t know about the moon, you know,” adding, “I’m not really sure 200 percent if we went there or not.”My first thought on hearing this was: Huh. All these years I’ve been laboring under the impression that the moon landing was among my earliest and most cherished memories, and now it turns out those memories were a sham. According to Mr. Maye — and one of the show’s hosts, who eagerly co-signed Mr. Maye’s skepticism — I need to wake up, along with the 600 million other people who thought they were witnessing history.Then I had a second thought. If Mr. Maye and I have anything in common, it might be that we’re both reluctant to automatically believe everything we hear. So I allowed myself to wonder if that wasn’t the real Drake Maye on the radio but, rather, some ingenious Maye impersonator. Alas, a quick internet search revealed that the quarterback wasn’t being impersonated. It was all too real.At which point I pivoted again. In my mind, I began reaching out to Mr. Maye. While rinsing dishes, checking email, I composed a respectful but impassioned letter, and fantasized about FedEx-ing it to Patriots HQ, tucked inside “Of a Fire on the Moon,” Norman Mailer’s deeply felt paean to Apollo 11.“Dear Mr. Maye: You went to Chapel Hill, right? Fantastic center of higher education! I love that campus. I’ve known several brilliant U.N.C. graduates, so I need to ask: Was the library undergoing some sort of renovation while you were there? Were students prevented from entering that building during your time?”I didn’t send the letter. Instead I stewed and scolded myself for being so irked by some random athlete’s isolated remark.That was the problem, however. Deep down I feared it wasn’t isolated. He probably got his lunar talking points from someone else. Sure enough, another quick online search for “moon truther” and “pro athlete” and … oh, no. Like the astronaut Buzz Aldrin upon first seeing the moon, I stared at my screen and said, “Magnificent desolation!”They’re everywhere. A superfit army of doubters who can jump, shoot, hit and throw balls better than the rest of us. Tyler Herro of the Milwaukee Bucks, Dallas Goedert of the Philadelphia Eagles, A.J. Brown of the New England Patriots, Danica Patrick of racecar driving fame. Even the GOAT, Steph Curry, came out as a moon truther, though he later said he was joking.By far, the most shocking name was Josh Allen, the sublimely gifted quarterback of the Buffalo Bills. He was asked in 2023 if he takes stock in any conspiracies. “The moon landing’s up there for me,” he said with a shy grin. “Still not quite sure if I believe that one wholeheartedly.”Unlike Mr. Maye, whose struggles and lapses have often frustrated fans, Mr. Allen is the finest football player alive — apologies to Patrick Mahomes. His game is like a Cézanne, revolutionary and inarguably beautiful, meaning no one can fail to see it, though until recently I’d have said the same about the moon landing. If Mr. Maye as moon truther made me stew, Mr. Allen made me despair.We already live in a posttruth world, where everyday people walk around doubting the legitimacy of elections and the efficacy of vaccines, but this moon thing feels so much worse. Why? Because a hurricane of artificial intelligence slop and corrupted histories and bewildering deepfakes looms, and if we can’t all get on the same page today, this minute, about the easy stuff, what hope do we have for navigating the not-so-brave new world? Ours might be the first generation smart enough to solve every one of humanity’s problems but too stupid to believe in the solutions.Future historians may look on our epoch and see it as one continuous clash of truth versus nonsense, an essential battle that seems to be nearing its decisive moment. At such a perilous time, consensus about basic reality is a precondition for survival as a society, and reality doesn’t get more basic than men walking on the moon.I freely concede to truthers that the moon landing is improbable. It becomes more improbable the farther it recedes in time. How were thousands of scientists able to devise and settle on a single viable plan for squeezing three adult men into a roughly 10-foot cone in the tip of a 363-foot Saturn rocket (only three feet longer than a football field), then shooting it 234,000 miles into space, using 7.5 million pounds of thrust that easily could have incinerated the men before it lifted them off the ground? How did we then land two of those men beside a treacherous crater on our silvery neighbor, soft as feathers, before picking them up 22 hours later and bringing them all the way back home without a scratch?And how did we pay for it? It’s unfathomable in our age of political fecklessness, when Congress couldn’t unite to fill one pothole in downtown Washington, D.C., if their lives depended on it. It defies belief. But we need to resist that kind of defiance. Question authority? Right on. Question actuality? Peace out.Apart from the unassailable facts, what moon truthers blithely dismiss is the transcendent piece of the moon landing (a sinful waste, given how scarce transcendence has become). The real discovery of Apollo 11 wasn’t the moon but Earth — the astronauts’ breathtaking photo over their shoulders, Earth’s first selfie, which upended how we see ourselves, in ways we still haven’t processed. The astronaut Michael Collins, who took that iconic photo, said Earth, so tiny in the vast oceanic darkness, gave a vivid impression of “fragility,” an observation rich in both poetry and humility.I don’t know if athletes are extra-susceptible to trutherism, moon or otherwise. Kim Kardashian also disputed the moon landing, and I suspect she changed few hearts or minds. But when an elite athlete says it? Countless kids take note. Muhammad Ali was the first person who made me see the Vietnam War as immoral. John Carlos and Tommie Smith were the first to make me see that protest can be beautiful as well as brave. To kids, every athlete is the epitome of cool, and thus the voice of authority, and that goes triple for Mr. Allen, who has the second-best-selling jersey in the entire N.F.L. I think of all those boys and girls wearing No. 17 and hearing Mr. Allen doubt humanity’s greatest achievement, and I just know that many will forever harbor doubts as well. Especially if the Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl.Come to think of it, the moon landing was a lot like Buffalo’s six-decade quest to win it all. Improbable bordering on impossible. When it does finally happen, presumably with Mr. Allen at the controls, there will be jubilation across New York, as there was when the Eagle landed. Expect a giant ticker-tape parade for Mr. Allen, as there was for the Apollo astronauts. Champions often say, “This is something no one can ever take from us,” but if I could speak with Mr. Allen, if I were to send him my repurposed Maye letter, I’d ask him to imagine someone in the future taking it away.I’d invite Mr. Allen to picture it: Despite the parades, the millions of witnesses, the incontrovertible video evidence, suddenly there are prominent people questioning whether it ever happened. Try to imagine how that would feel, I’d implore him. Try.When Mr. Aldrin was in his 70s, some guy got in his face outside the Luxe Hotel in Beverly Hills. The guy, waving a Bible, screamed that the moon landing was bogus. Mr. Aldrin — the brooding, brilliant jet pilot, who risked his life to go to the moon, who had several friends lose their lives trying to go to the moon, including his very best friend — did what any decent screenwriter would have had him do. He decked the guy.I hope Mr. Allen shows the same fire — sans violence — when some crackpot (wearing a New York Jets hoodie?) steps from the shadows and throws shade on his crowning glory. I hope he sees at that moment that it’s no small matter. Conquering the improbable is our shared mission as humans, and when someone seeks to deny one of our finest victories, it isn’t idle trash talk separate from the fight. It is the fight. Words not only matter; they’ve never mattered more, and when they miss the mark we all need to say something, speak up, or else we’re doomed. Along with this fragile Earth.Related ContentAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT