Neil Armstrong plants the US flag on the Moon, or it..?
And the answer is… maybe both!
I took this photo, one of my favorites because it looks so real, at the 30th anniversary celebration of the moon landing at the US Space & Rocket Center located here in Huntsville.
Today is the 45th anniversary of the moon landing. It is really hard to believe. It’s actually harder to believe that it has been 15 years since I took the photo above at the 30th anniversary. I am one of those just barely old enough to remember my dad sitting me down in front of the TV set, both for the rocket launch and the moon landing, and told to watch because it was important.
The story never told is that while I was out taking photos a day or two before, I had an encounter with a gentlemen whom I am now convinced was Neil Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong was notorious about maintaining his privacy, and so I wouldn’t have even recognized him at that point. He did not, however, attend the celebration. Or did he? After considering the encounter and other factors, I decided that Neil Armstrong and some of his buddies have perpetrated a ruse, and it is him in the photo above… playing himself as he plants the flag on the gravel backlot at the Space Center!
It’s also hard to imagine that only 15 years ago there were few if any digital cameras. The photo was taken with a brand new 35mm film camera, processed at a commercial lab, and the photo subsequently scanned with a standard copy scanner.
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©1999, 2014 – Jim Casey
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