NASA conspiracy theories: these are the most outlandish hoaxes regarding the U.S. space agency

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, is one of the most globally recognizable facets of the US government. Established in 1958, NASA has been at the forefront of space exploration and has orchestrated some of the greatest achievements in human history.

Or has it? There has always been a bubbling undercurrent of suspicion surrounding the agency, particularly related to some of its most memorable successes. In fact, Space.com has been able to publish a non-exhaustive list of 25 of the wildest conspiracy theories about NASA.

The first, and surely most famous, of the list centers around the Apollo moon landings from 1969 and 1972. Conspiracy theorists have often questioned those achievements, claiming that the US was simply desperate to win the space race with the Soviet Union and fabricated the landing to avoid losing face.

Doubters have points to supposed inconsistencies in the sky, the stars, the flags, the footprints and the lunar modules themselves. However all of those conspiracies theories have been roundly debunked.

Another fairly prominent conspiracy is the ‘flat earth’ claim, which argues that the earth is not actually a sphere orbiting around the sun. Instead, they argue that there is a global conspiracy to hide the fact that the Earth is simply one large plain.

NASA has produced huge swathes of evidence proving that the earth is round, including a live video of the Earth from the ISS which shows the planet’s actual revolutions. If the flat earth theory were true, NASA would have to be in on the conspiracy.

Is there a secret, deadly planet? This theory actually has multiple versions, with some calling it ‘Planet Nine’ and others insisting on the existence of the mythical ‘Nibiru’.

Planet Nine is a theoretical planet at the outer edge of our solar system that some believe could one day pose a threat to the Earth. This idea was actually featured in a New York Post article from 2016, alongside a video claiming that the unknown planet could start hurling asteroids and comets in the direction of the Earth.

The myth of Niburu is a bit more difficult to explain and a lot more ‘sci-fi’. It’s based on the 1976 book “The Twelfth Planet,” by Zecharia Sitchin, who claims that ancient texts prove the existence e of a planet beyond Neptune that orbits the sun every 3,600 years. Niburu has also been invoked in a handful of doomsday predictions. So far, none of them have come true.

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