Artemis II lunar mission draws flood of conspiracy theories

A young boy wearing an astronaut costume cheers next to a woman waving a flag as they watch a live broadcast of the return of the Artemis II crew members to Earth at the San Diego Air and Space Museum during a watch party for the crew's splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, in San Diego on Friday
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Washington –
From false claims that a historic lunar fly-by was staged in a movie studio to unfounded narratives that footage of the crew was AI-generated, the Artemis II mission has been clouded by a blizzard of misinformation.The falsehoods — circulating across tech platforms including X, TikTok and Facebook — have also added fresh fuel to a long-standing conspiracy theory that NASA's 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing was faked.Hashtags such as "fake space" and "fake NASA" have gained traction online since NASA's lunar fly-by sent astronauts farther from Earth than any human before.

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