Yahoo Movies Fact check: False claim that NASA filmed cities on the moon
The claim: NASA filmed cities on the moon
Some social media users are claiming NASA filmed cities on the moon decades ago.
"NASA video shows cities on the moon! NASA kept it secret for 53-years," reads an Aug. 14 Facebook post.
The post features an image of a moon-like object with a network of lights on the surface, reminiscent of a city. An inset image also shows an apparent city with what appears to be a view of Earth in the sky.
The post contains a link to an article from Newstalk, a website. But neither the post nor the article include the purported NASA video footage. The article features an additional image of a moon-like object with what appears to be red lights on the surface.
The post garnered more than 14,000 interactions in four days.
But this is nonsense.
NASA did not film cities on the moon, according to a NASA spokesperson. NASA photos and videos of the moon do not show cities. And the city shown in the inset is Cape Town, South Africa.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment.
Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks
NASA says no cities on moon
NASA spokesperson Daniel Huot told USA TODAY in an email that the agency never filmed cities on the moon and that "there are not any cities on Earth’s moon."
Huot also said NASA did not capture the image of the moon-like objects with the red lights or the other image with the city-like network of lights shown in the social media post and linked article.
Though the lights in the purported NASA lunar images take up an appreciable portion of the moon-like objects' surfaces, they do not appear in any NASA pictures or videos of the moon reviewed by USA TODAY.
The picture in the inset of the social media post shows Cape Town, South Africa.
A very similar image can be found on the South African Consulate General's website as well as multiple desktop wallpaper sites. However, these versions show the moon in the sky, rather than Earth.
The part of Cape Town shown in the photo can also be observed on Google Earth.
Fact check: Image shows bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres, not city on the Moon
Our rating: False
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that NASA filmed cities on the moon. A NASA spokesperson said the agency did not film cities on the moon and that there are no cities on the moon. NASA photos and videos reviewed by USA TODAY did not show cities on the moon. While USA TODAY did not establish the origins of two of the images associated with the post, one photo of a purported lunar city is of Cape Town, South Africa.
Our fact-check sources:
Daniel Huot, Aug. 17, Email exchange with USA TODAY
Flickr, accessed Aug. 17, Moon
NASA, accessed Aug. 17, Earth's Moon
Wallpapersden, accessed Aug. 17, south africa, cape town, metropolis (2560x1440) Resolution Wallpaper
South African Consulate General Mumbai, India, accessed Aug. 17, About South Africa
Google Earth, accessed Aug. 17, Cape Town, South Africa
NASA, Feb. 24, 2020, Apollo 13 Views of the Moon in 4K
NASA, Jan. 2, 2020, Moon Phase and Libration, 2020
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.
Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: False claim that NASA filmed cities on the Moon
