Truth about NASA's 'missing' moon tapes revealed after 57 years

The Daily Mail UK ^ | February 10, 2026 | Chris Melore

[Twotone]

Tapes containing the original, high-quality transmission of the Apollo 11 moon landing were wiped after being quietly shelved in an unmarked storage area by NASA.

While other recordings of the historic 1969 mission survived, the revelation that at least some moon landing video disappeared has fueled wild conspiracies that NASA has been covering up what astronauts saw or even that the whole mission was faked.

Now, the truth about these 'erased' tapes has been revealed by Tim Dodd, better known as the 'Everyday Astronaut' on YouTube, who said the lost footage was only a set of backup magnetic tapes containing the raw transmission from space.

Dodd explained that the backup tapes were considered by NASA to be less critical since all the essential data, video, and radio signals were successfully transmitted to Houston and broadcast live on TV.

The backup copies of Apollo 11's historic mission were mistakenly taped over when NASA reused older magnetic tapes due to a shortage of those specific film reels in the 1970s and 1980s.

Speaking on the Danny Jones Podcast, Dodd said no one at the time anticipated future technology would be able to upscale or enhance the resolution (upres) of the raw footage for better quality, which is now possible today.

However, NASA still possesses thousands of hours of data proving the first moon landing really took place, including lower-quality versions of telemetry data, audio, and video from Houston's recordings.

Dodd added that the space agency also still has shockingly clear 70 millimeter film from the cameras the Apollo astronauts used on the moon, a grade of film that is still used in IMAX movies 57 years later.

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TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: 911truthers; apollo11; apollo8; flatearthers; missingtapes; moonlanding; moontapes; nasa

[central_va]

I think the D-Day landings were fake. Normandy Shmomandy.

[GingisK]

You would think they would have an archivist on site to ensure no data is ever lost.

Apollo went unfunded. NASA doesn't put personnel on unfunded projects. Most archival work is done by volunteers. I know one man who did quite a lot of work saving Apollo records; but, it was very difficult for him to gain traction. A lot of material gets warehoused without any sort of catalogue.

[GingisK]

That is so true!

[central_va]

You are putting us on. No one is this stupid.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

Only as a toddler.

You could have asked more or provided more for an accelerated discussion.

[central_va]

Can we speak to your attending physician?

[GingisK]

Viewed from the moon, there is not sky since there is no appreciable atmosphere. Space is black, way way down the illumination scale of the the sunlit surface. Way outside the 7-stop exposure latitude of film.

We did land men on the moon. Evidence to the contrary is promulgated by idiots.

[farmguy]

“... buttercup”?

Isn’t that kinda snarky?

[Paperpusher]

Space X will land on the moon in a few years, they need to document one of the landing sites. Several man made objects have landed on the moon in the last 50 years. The Soviet Lunokhod rovers, and more recent missions like China’s Chang’e series, which includes landers and rovers, as well as NASA’s Artemis program vehicles. Who can forget Japan’s
SLIM lunar lander that tipped over on touchdown, but still captured imagery of the moon.

[WinstonSmith1984]

Yeah... kind of. I’ll work on my empathy. I am probably holding onto some residual resentment at being lied to about foundational elements of our country. Thanks for pointing it out.

[central_va]

I would suggest you work on your sanity.

[Bulwyf]

You were flying the 15s? I was an impatient youth and gave up chance to join the 16 squadrons in the late 90s. I would of figured out pretty quick that the 15s were better and asked to transfer, but instead wound up in the Canadian infantry lol.

Earth is crushed oval, that’s what they teach surveyors. Dad was one. Most people don’t remember building 7. There’s still people that think the towers were brought down by planes too. Some and I mean most people can’t have their world views challenged to that extent.

[doorgunner69]

“No one is this stupid.”

Not a good bet....
Mental issues OTOH

[HereInTheHeartland]

It’s scary there are dummies who think the moon landings were faked.
So foolish in many ways .
The thousands of people who would have covered it up.
The Russians watched every move we made.
Crazy stuff

[central_va]

Are you a lunar landing denier too?

[Twotone]

There are videos that make it look like it was shot on a Hollywood set. I’ve seen them myself. I have friends who’ve gone full conspiracy nutter & no longer believe we went to the moon. Oh well...what can you do? We have so many “conspiracies” that now seem to be true. It’s hard to believe anything from our gov’t anymore.

[GingisK]

Here is a tidbit of information from the Apollo/Skylab days: All down-link data, including voice & video, was recorded at the tracking stations on 1-inch video tape as analog data. Those tapes were post-processed at JPL and Marshall in order to recover the voice, video, and digital data components. (Of course, these signals were used in real time in Mission Control.) There are very few operational 1" video tape machines left on this planet.

I worked for Sperry Rand at Marshall during the Skylab mission. My job related to recovering data from the digital sub-masters that were made from the analog masters. A UNIVAC 1108 was used to post-process the analog masters into digital sub-masters.

[central_va]

Wow are you even contemplating the moon missions were fake?

[central_va]

The kook factor is getting pretty bad here on good old Free Republic.

[WinstonSmith1984]

Yeah it’s a lot for folks... me included... OBTW I only got a few flights in the Eagle... it is amazing how much power it maintains at high altitude. Most fighters start to struggle in the high 30’s... the Eagle felt like it was just getting started.