Apollo 11 Moon Landing: Hoax or History? Body Language Analysis

hey everybody Dr g here i'm a clinical and forensic psychologist as well as a body language expert and today we're going to be analyzing the behavior and body language of Buzz Aldrin Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins after the Apollo 11 space mission before we get started with this a couple of quick things one I wanted to make sure you know this is not a psychological evaluation of any kind these are just my opinions in addition to that I do want to remind you to like and subscribe if you want to see more content just like

this all right let's go so what ultimately led me to decide to analyze this is that I was watching a podcast with Joe Rogan and Matt Walsh matt Walsh is not a skeptic of the moon landing joe Rogan seems to be he doesn't insist that it didn't happen but he seems skeptical that it did and one of the things that Joe Rogan talked about was that this press conference was strange that their behavior was weird so I thought I would watch it and see what I observed see if I agreed with that i decided to

look at the comments and some of the raw footage and a lot of people feel that way so hopefully this will help you get a better understanding of the body language that we're seeing now one thing that's important for me to be upfront about as we start this is that I am not a skeptic when it comes to the moon landing i have not explored all the conspiracies about this i don't know all the reasons people believe that it didn't happen but I'm going to tell you exactly what I see during this i'm going to

tell you if there are signs of deception and I will tell you exactly what the body language says my goal for every video I do is to be neutral and I feel the same way about this so even though I have my own perspectives on this I will tell you exactly what I'm observing from their body language and after we finish watching some of this footage we're actually going to go back and look at some of the footage from the press conference before the mission all right let's just jump right in at this time I'd

like to introduce the Apollo 11 crew astronauts Neil Armstrong Michael Collins Edwin Aldren neil so if you look at the behavior already you can see they're all a little bit closed off buzz Aldrin's on the left Neil Armstrong's in the middle Michael Collins on the right so this is going to be their baseline right now the baseline is basically their default body language often times particularly when it comes to deception we look for changes in body language so right now all of them are a little bit closed off they're all touching their hands they're not

wide open which is something that we look for when it comes to honesty we'll see if that changes as we keep going it was our pleasure to have participated in one great adventure now if you look at his shoulders already they're very bunched up so he may be somebody that's either uncomfortable speaking in front of others or he feels anxious right now but this type of shoulder position we think of and we associate with discomfort and stress it's an adventure that took place not just in the month of July but rather one that took place

in the last decade we all here and people now you may have noticed he just scooted back now when we are emotionally connected to people whether it's in court which is often times what I'm analyzing or whether it's situations like this the more we lean forward the more we're trying to connect with the person we're speaking to leaning back sometimes it can be for comfort but sometimes it's also a way to disconnect a little bit let's look at the context of when he did that one that took place in the last decade we all here

and the people listening in today had the opportunity to share that adventure over its developing and unfolding so for whatever reason when he talked about this being something that they've been working on for the last decade he chose that to be the time that he scooted back a little bit now I want you to watch Buzz Aldrin who's on the left i want you to watch his mouth right here we all here and the people listening in today had the opportunity to share that so you see him licking his lips now this is something that

Buzz Ultra does quite a lot actually we're going to be talking about that more as we go but when you lick your lips it's a way to feel less stressed it's a way to calm yourself down it's a pacifying behavior so why is it that right now as Neil Armstrong is talking about this why is that a time that Buzz Aldrin is trying to calm himself down let's see whether or not there's a pattern to it but often times that suggests that you're feeling something we don't have to calm ourselves down for no reason so

whether or not that he's just anxious being on the world stage because this was potentially or arguably the biggest event in human history at the time maybe that's just anxietyprovoking for him but we are seeing him do pacifying behaviors michael Collins less so he just seems to be engaged right now but we'll see if that changes adventure over its developing and unfolding in the past months and years it's our privilege today to share with you so as Neil Armstrong is continuing to talk watch his hands right here see he's picking at his knuckle right there

this once again is a pacifying behavior those are what we look at and those are what we focus in on when it comes to whether or not somebody's being deceptive or is uncomfortable the reason that we associate calming behaviors pacifying behaviors being deceptive is because we often times feel uncomfortable being deceptive we don't like to do it so when we're doing it we have to do things to calm ourselves down privilege today to share with you some of the details of that final month of July that was certainly the highlight for the three of us

of that decade we're going to divert a little bit from the format and there's Buzz Aldrin licking his lips again not seeing a whole lot from Michael Collins yet but I'll continue to watch of past conferences and talk about the things that interest interested us most in particular the the uh things that occurred on and about the moon we will use uh so if you're wondering why unconsciously so many people are saying they're being weird they're being deceptive look at how still they all are now I know this was the 1960s men tried to be

very stoic so it could really be as simple as that but they're all very still and the reason that being still matters is that we tend to associate stillness with trying to hide because there's an instinctual part of us that when we feel threatened we believe if we sit still enough we can avoid that threat so oftentimes when people are being deceptive or they're lying they try to move less that's sort of the goal because we don't want to be seen watch this right here the uh things that occurred on and about the moon we

will use uh and then there is Buzz Aldrin licking his lips again does this mean that the moon landing didn't happen of course not but it does show that there is stress around this that there is unusual body language that we're seeing and I think that that's what people are keying in on and that's what people are focusing on they're seeing that there is something that makes them feel unsettled when they watch this number of films and and slides which most of you have already seen and with the intent of of pointing out some of

the things that we observed on the the spot which may not be obvious to to those of you who are who are uh looking at them here from the surf surface of Earth now up to this point Neil Armstrong hasn't been licking his lips as much as Buzz Aldrin does like I said he does it a lot neil Armstrong does it less let's go back and see what what he's talking about and why he's licking his lips at this time those of you who are who are uh looking at them here from the surf surface

of Earth whether or not that he's just not a comfortable public speaker this does seem to be continuing to stress him out there does seem to be stress here and I understand they've been in quarantine for like 21 days they just got back from an incredibly complicated space mission so there are reasons that they might feel stressed outside of the idea of deception and lying but like I said I'm trying to be as neutral as I can and I'm trying to point out everything that I see that could be related to that so let's keep

watching let's see what else comes up yep the flight as you know started promptly and I think that was characteristic of Now another thing you're going to see here is you're going to see a slight smirk come across his face the question is why now he's saying that the flight was prompt maybe there's a joke in that maybe there's something funny about that or maybe that's a play on that idea but you do see a smirk right here which we do sometimes actually associate once again with deceptiveness watch this right here yep the flight as

you know started promptly you see that smile right there now it could have been once again something about the idea of it being prompt that there may be some humor in that maybe that's something that I'm not fully understanding because I don't know the context of that part of it well enough but that's a very clear smirk right here and I think that was characteristic of of all the events of the flight the Saturn gave us one magnificent ride both into Earth orbit and on a trajectory to the moon our our memory of that actually

differs little now this was very interesting and I'm going to break this down bit by bit let's let's go back here because I want you to watch some important things okay so first you saw him raise his eyebrows now we do that for two things one times sometimes we do it when we're shocked and sometimes we do it so that people will pay attention to our face like if you're in a crowd you see somebody and you raise your eyebrows so that they'll see you if you're talking to somebody and you raise your eyebrows sometimes

you do it for emphasis but the goal is to bring attention to your face when you do that great to the moon our our memory now I want you to pay close attention to his lips right there he's compressing his lips this specifically identifies stress or concern now he's not quite withdrawing his lips sometimes people do that when there's something they don't want to say but right here this looks like there's significant stress and concern as he's specifically talking about this let's go watch this whole sequence again because to me it's so interesting trajectory to

the moon our our memory of that actually differs little from the reports that you have all heard from the from those previous Saturn 5 flight what we're seeing right now is different than what else we've seen up to this point because right now we're seeing stress and concern we're seeing him slow down in the way he's speaking he's stuttering a little bit he's not as clear as he has been up to this point so it's interesting that as he's talking about their memory of events that brings up stress and anxiety and concern that being said

it doesn't mean that there isn't stress and anxiety concern actually going through the memory of doing that going to the moon landing on the moon all of that is probably very anxietyprovoking there probably is a lot of stress associated with that so that doesn't mean that he's not having actual memories of it right now but something is causing him to feel stress and concern as he's talking about that their memories differ very little than what's been reported from the reports that you have all heard from the from those previous Saturn 5 flights and and those

the previous flights served us well in preparation for this flight in in the boost as well as the the subsequent phases i'll we would like to to Now you saw him lean back again so after he said that after he got through all of the stress and concern of saying that then he leaned backward once again that's a way to gain emotional distance from the person we're speaking to whether it's because it feels too intense or we're trying to disengage in some way he just scooted back he leaned forward again but he felt the need

to move backward that's what made would make him feel more comfortable at that time so what we're seeing right now actually is a lot of stress and anxiety about this specific sequence of what he's talking about right now in in the boost as well as the the subsequent phases i'll I'll we would like to to skip directly to see it looked like he was going to say something he pursed his lips together he withdrew his mouth a little bit leaned back and then reathered his thoughts what it was that he was going to say doesn't

mean it was anything profound doesn't mean he's trying to hide anything but his way of interacting right now there's a lot going on under the surface right now the subsequent phases I'll we would like to to skip directly to so now they're going through different aspects of the flight we're going to be skipping around some and after this we're going to look at some of the Q&A close range it had a decided three-dimensional uh effect and was undoubtedly one of the most impressive now one thing you're seeing right now is you're seeing Buzz Aldrin playing

with a pen you're going to be seeing this throughout but this is a way once again to help manage feeling stressed or concerned so when we're fidgeting like that think about there's a goal in everything that we do body language wise and that is to calm ourselves down you can also see right here Neil Armstrong has his fingers crossed he's a little bit closed off as well sites of the flight as we as we left the moon after a successful TEI this is the view that we observed uh I think that uh we were uh

sorry to see the moon go but we were certainly see glad to see that earth return uh we used the the Now if you look Michael Collins is very fidgety through this now he's somebody that tends to be very stable so it's interesting that after they looked at these pictures he looked back at Neil Armstrong and then he's seeming to disengage he's looking forward again not looking at the pictures anymore but he really is very fidgety throughout all this does that mean that there's any fakery going on no but it means that there's a lot

of emotions going on during this as I said before it's possible that the emotions are very intense because having gone through something intense like going to space could make you could it could all come back as they're talking about this and maybe it makes them feel fidgety and uncomfortable but you might also interpret that as deception that's what's so challenging about this is that I can tell you what we're observing but I can't necessarily tell you their motivation for it now I know a lot of people are going to interpret his discomfort as that he's

lying and maybe that's possible let's keep going and see see what else we observe sorry to see the moon go but we were certainly see glad to see the earth return u we used took a large number of of photographs of the earth on the way out and back and uh had our wristwatches set on distant time uh the interesting uh use can be made of that uh if you were looking at this picture and uh and you looked at your watch and your watch said uh 7:00 in the evening then you'd know that uh

Houston is about 7 o'clock from the evening and it's about Now this is very interesting and I'm not even sure what to make of this but we're seeing something here watch Michael Collins react to when he's talking about that it's 7 o'clock in the evening when it's when it's Houston when it's 7 o'clock in the evening just watch Michael Collins head said 7 o'clock in the evening then you'd know that Houston is about 7:00 from the evening and it's about now what's hard to tell it's hard to see if Michael Collins is actually looking at

Neil Armstrong right here i mean it appears that he is but watch his eyes as best as you can i know the quality of this footage isn't stellar but it looks like he's looking past him or above him i'm not trying to add to conspiracies here but this part right here is so strange to me watch his eyes and then watch his movement that Houston is about 7:00 from the evening and it's about an hour away from sunset so it would once again it doesn't look like he's looking at Neil Armstrong i mean it kind

of looks like he's looking near Armstrong but it looks like he's almost looking above him or past him o'clock from the evening and it's about and I know that Houston is about 7 o'clock from the evening and it's about an hour away from sunset so uh so just to be clear body language wise I can interpret most things i don't know what to make of that other than he's making some kind of movement that looks voluntary and why he's doing that is anybody's guess if anybody else has an interpretation of that I would love to

hear it below i'm a little bit perplexed by that i don't have a good explanation for what we were seeing now we're going to jump ahead to the question and answer phase ask if I may when you were carrying out that incredible moon walk did you find that the surface was equally firm anywhere or were there harder and softer spots that you could detect and secondly when you looked up at the sky could you actually see the stars and the solar corona in spite of the glare in in rather flat regions uh the the uh

footprint would penetrate perhaps a half an inch or sometimes only a quarter of an inch and gave a very firm response in other regions near the edges of these craters uh we could find that so right now as Buzz Aldrin is talking about this he's answering it in a very clear and firm way we're not seeing any fidgetgininess we're not seeing him licking his lips we're not seeing anything else like that so so far so good for him find that the foot would would sink down maybe two three possibly four inch now if you'll notice

his eyebrows right there now this is something that we associate with surprise so as he's saying that the feet would go down however many inches he looks surprised by that watch this right here uh we could find that the foot would would sink down maybe two three possibly 4 in and in in the slope of course the uh very so as he's putting his hands out as he's talking about how how deep the feet would sink as he's moving his hands with that we often times associate that with something being very tightly connected with how

he feels so this is a situation where he is speaking clearly he doesn't seem to be trying to hide anything right now but he is also once again you might have caught the lip licking once again edges of footprint would might go on up to six or seven inches and uh compacting this material would would tend to uh produce a slight sideways motion as it was compacted on the material underneath it so uh we feel that uh you you cannot always tell just by looking at the terrain what the exact resistance will be as your

foot sinks into a So as you can see as his hands are moving along with what he's talking about this does seem to be actually connected with what he is feeling right now a point of firm contact so one must be quite cautious in in moving around in this rough terrain you can see Michael Collins and Neil Neil Armstrong also both fidgeting with pins the whole time while he's talking about this or at least from when we can see them which is interesting because these are military guys these are very disciplined guys so rather than

being able to just sit there there's so many feelings going through them they're having to do things to calm themselves down once again that might be explained by the fact that they had been in quarantine before this so there could be reasons for that but we are observing a lot of fidgety anxiety we were never able to see stars from the lunar surface or on the daylight side of the moon by eye without looking through the optics uh I don't recall during the period of time that we were photographing the sonar pearl what what stars

we could see i don't remember seeing any neil you were uh a little bit concerned you said about stubbing your toe uh at the point of landing because the surface was obscured by dust so another thing that was interesting is that Michael Collins was saying "I don't remember seeing any." And he responded to Neil Armstrong rather than to the reporter rather than saying that out loud he sort of said it quietly said it looking at Neil doesn't mean that it's anything suspicious per se but it is a little bit unusual and the these guys maybe

they aren't great at doing these kinds of press conferences this may just not be their thing so the awkwardness that comes through it doesn't necessarily mean that it's because they're doing something deceptive but there are certainly reasons why people feel like that they are being deceptive during this i do see why this confuses people what what scars we could see i don't remember seeing any neil you were uh a little bit See he looks to them almost like he's looking for approval that's oftenimes what we do when we look to other people when we're talking

about something we wait to see their reaction and then we base how we're going to do and what we're going to do moving forward based on their reaction so it's interesting that he's looking to them or maybe he's just commiserating with them because they all did something together but it is interesting that he's looking at them rather than directly at the reporter as he's saying this i I believe that what this country set out to do was something that was going to be done sooner or later whether we set a specific goal there's the lip

licking again i want you to keep an eye on that as he talks going to be done sooner or later whether we set a specific goal or not i believe that uh from the early space flights we demonstrated a potential to carry out this type of a mission and again it was a question of time until this would be accomplished i think the now one thing that's interesting it looks like based on where his eyes are gazing it looks like the person he's speaking to is not directly in front of him so he's looking at

him rather than facing him and when we do that it's less intense so if I'm talking to somebody in an interview you would expect that we're going to be facing each other directly just like if you're speaking to somebody out in an audience you're going to point your head that direction interestingly it seems that he's moving his eyes the direction of that person and he's not facing them directly which helps create some distance between them and there could be reasons for that we're going to get into but just watch this right here carry out this

type of a mission and again it was a question of time until this would be accomplished i think the the relative ease with which we were able to carry out our mission which of course came after a very efficient and a logical sequence of flights i think that this demonstrated that uh we were certainly on the right track when we took this commitment to to go to the moon now the phrasing there is very odd listen to this again at least I think it's odd you may disagree but just listen to this part again i

think that this demonstrated that uh we were certainly on the right track when we took this commitment to to go to the moon i think that uh we were on the right track when we took this commitment to go to the moon it's just an interesting way to state that and then he licks his lips afterwards which once again denotes stress and anxiety what this means is that many other problems perhaps can be solved in the same way by taking a commitment to solve them in a long time fashion now another thing you're going to

notice is the position of his chin now often times when we leave our neck open it's because we are allowing ourselves to be vulnerable we're feeling comfortable so if we leave our neck open that shows that we're feeling vulnerable and that we're allowing ourselves to be open honest and whatnot and when we're feeling defensive sometimes we tuck our chins in right now his chin is a bit tucked in his has really been the whole time but it's interesting that he takes what I would consider a somewhat defensive posture throughout this i think that we were

timely and accepting this mission of going to the moon it might be timely at this point to think in many other areas of other missions that could be accomplished so obviously as you see Buzz Aldrin looks at Neil Armstrong Neil Armstrong looks at Michael Collins obviously they're all laughing because none of them particularly want to answer these questions and that may be part of what's so important about how to interpret this is that maybe none of them are very comfortable up there and it may not be because they're being deceptive it could just be that

none of them are particularly interested in answering questions in front of a bunch of press everybody looking at me well to me there are near and farm aspects to it in the near term I think it's a a a technical triumph for this country to have uh said what it was going to do a number of years ago then by golly do it just like we said we were going to do it uh not just perhaps purely technical but also uh so I talked about that defensive posture now it could have been that he was

hiccuping or that something came up in his throat but watch this if that's if that's not what was happening because it's hard to hear that that's a very defensive posture he just took uh not just perhaps purely technical but also uh a triumph for uh the nation's overall determination will economy uh attention to detail and thousand one other factors that went into it that's shortterm i think long but then again he's tucking his chin again as he's saying but that's short term and one other factors that went into it that's shortterm I think long term

we find for the first time that that man has the the flexibility or the option of either walking this planet or some other planet be it the moon or Mars or I don't know where and I'm poorly equipped to evaluate where that may lead us to so now let's see if their behavior was the same or different before they went on the mission that one here have to be able to put a foot underneath where you happen to be and of course uh the time period from when your foot leaves the surface till when it

comes back down again is going to be longer uh than it is in in a Now as you can see right here Buzz Aldrin once again is playing with a pin so that didn't change now if you believe that they didn't actually go in this mission you would probably say well they were anxious during the pre-flight press conference as well maybe that's the case but just so just to point out that behavior is the same that same level of closed offness the same kind of fidgeting with his pen that doesn't look any different pace walking

pace or a a trotting pace sort of on on the earth and of course this gives the uh rotational disturbances more time to uh have an effect uh in doing some of the training in these uh zerog airplane which has been flying at the 160G for this phase of it uh it looks as though it uh a fairly rapid uh uh pace uh I wouldn't I'd hesitate to call it a run uh is so you're seeing a lot of lip licking lots of us lots of anxiety and stress so it could just be that Buzz

Aldrin really does not like to talk in front of the cameras because he seems very uncomfortable here much as he does during the post-flight press conference as well it's quite easy to perform and it looks like uh uh we shouldn't have too much difficulty in moving at something like uh 6 8 10 m an hour but this is one of the uh tasks that we'll be attempting to evaluate very early in the EVA have one down here in the car uh for Neil Armstrong uh by the nature of your assignment if you carry it out

successfully you're destined to become a historical personage of some consequence and I'm wondering if in that light you you have decided upon something suitably historical and memorable to say when you perform this symbolic act of uh stepping down on the moon for the first time no I haven't so you saw him rub his nose now this is a way to pacify ourselves now it could just be that he feels stressed about the idea of being such a big part of history but there was some pacifying required after that question was asked act of uh stepping

down on the moon for the first time no I haven't i hope he doesn't say hope everybody slips we went back here and you see his body moving back and forth that's something that we also saw at the post-flight press conference where his body is shifting back and forth so when he gets uncomfortable he moves he's not somebody who can sit still very easily after something that feels intense to him i hope he doesn't say hope everybody slips one back here fine particles but we do hope and expect to see some rock fragments uh and

I have no idea what size they might be but we would anticipate that we'll have uh be able to bring So what we're seeing right here while somewhat less stress does mimic very much what they did afterwards so we are seeing a consistency with body language here samples back up to and including the size of a golf ball there may be larger rocks in the vicinity but we wouldn't expect to bring back samples large samples all right let's go ahead and stop here hopefully this is helping you better understand some of the behavior and body

language that we saw now as I said before I am not a moonlanding skeptic and I remain in the same position that being said I do acknowledge that there was a lot of pacifying behavior that we saw we saw what some people might associate with lying or deception we saw people having to calm themselves down a lot now there are multiple explanations for this potentially they could be that they are uncomfortable because of being in front of all of these people it could be that they're uncomfortable because they just went on a space trip because

they were in quarantine for 21 days there's a variety of reasons why they could be stressed but we do see distinct patterns of certain questions particularly as it relates to memories of going into space we do see more signs of pacification and more more of a need to calm themselves down at those times so I can actually see why people are skeptical and suspicious of this press conference or of both of these press conferences because their behavior does suggest a lot of stress and anxiety and you would think for people that are astronauts that they

would manage it a little bit differently but ultimately this was also a a time period where people were not on TV a lot where an event like this was one of the biggest events in human history so it could just be that there was a tremendous amount of pressure and they didn't know how to act on TV that they didn't feel comfortable with it it's also possible that there was lying and deception going on that is possible i'm not convinced that the lying and deception that may have gone on was specifically related to the idea

that they didn't go on some sort of space mission that they didn't walk on the moon but I do understand why some people find their body language confusing or off now there are some things that I didn't see cuz I looked in the comments because I was curious what people believed they were observing i saw people saying they appeared sad they appeared to be shame we didn't see any of the typical signs of sadness or shame we saw a lot of anxiety lots of nervousness lots of stress but no sadness no shame nothing like any

of those kinds of behaviors so as far as that goes I think that people may project ideas that they felt shame or sadness here but we really didn't see any body language that was consistent with that what we saw was three guys that all appeared to be very stressed and didn't really want to be doing what they were doing if you have any additional thoughts about this or if there's other things you want me to analyze that we can add to this analysis I'm more than happy to do so if people are interested in this

I'll analyze whatever you want doesn't matter to me i just want to make content that you find interesting so if you have any thoughts please let me know last thing before I get finished up is I do want to remind you to like and subscribe if you want to see more content just like this all right thanks for watching