What makes you think it was not?
The laser reflector installed by the astronauts. The fact that powerful telescopes can spot the lunar landers on the surface. The fact that you can see the tracks from the moon buggies still there. The fact that my father knew astronaut John Young and that he wouldn’t lie about such a thing.
There must’ve been hundreds of amateur astronomers with telescopes that could watch the spacecraft moving towards the moon. I think they would’ve spoken up if they couldn’t see it.